a character that I was irresistibly led on to examine it very fully
in detail. My sojourn therefore at Mr. Habbakuk Sheepshanks', of the
"Ship-Aground'; (whom I have formerly introduced to the reader) was
prolonged to an extent which sometimes surprised myself, and the various
local stories and traditions of times past, with which mine host,
especially when under the exciting influence of an extra glass of grog,
almost nightly entertained me, essentially contributed to while away
the time. The spot too was so secluded--comparatively unknown: there
is something inseparable from a temperament like mine in so deep a
retirement. To its inhabitants the world and its busy haunts are but as
a tale; yet man in all his varieties is essentially the same. Many a day
have I wandered along the sea-beaten coast--dining perhaps on a headland
stretching far into the sea--or in some secluded little bay, by the side
of a gushing spring; the ocean spread out before me--what object is so
boundlessly or beautifully inspiring? It may be mighty fine philosophy
for those who have passed through the current of life in one untroubled
and unvaried stream, and who have no perception or idea of the deeper
(if I may so express it) feelings of our nature, to call all this
romance; but those who have tasted bitterly of the ills of this world,
and who look back upon times past as doth the traveller in the desert on
viewing from afar the oasis he has left--upon their transitory existence
as a troubled dream--these can feel how deeply solitude amidst the
sublimities of Nature will heal the troubled mind. Is there not a
responsive chord in the hearts of such of my readers? Early one morning,
soon after my arrival at Landwithiel, I proceeded over land to a distant
part of the parish, to visit a ruin situated in a wild and remote spot,
which possessed some degree of historical interest. In the evening I
decided on returning by the coast in order to vary my route. The day
had been clear and sultry, and though the wind blew fresh from the
southward, yet its refreshing influence seemed exhausted by the intense