SEQUEL.

Awful Fate of a Pirate Ship.--Gaut's Death.




CHAPTER I.


"God made the country and man made the town."

So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of the
context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a
physical application; since, as he there intimates, in "gain-devoted
cities," whither naturally flow "the dregs and feculence of every land,"
and where "foul example in most minds begets its likeness," the vices will
ever find their favorite haunts; while the virtues, on the contrary, will
always most abound in the country. So far as regards the virtues, if we are
to take them untested, this is doubtless true. And so far, also, as regards
the mere _vices_, or actual transgressions of morality, we need, perhaps,
to have no hesitation in yielding our assent to the position of the poet.
But, if he intends to include in the category those flagrant crimes which
stand first in the gradation of human offences, we must be permitted to
dissent from that part of the view; and not only dissent, but claim that
truth will generally require the very reversal of the picture, for of such
crimes we believe it will be found, on examination, that the country ever
furnishes the greatest proportion. In cities, the frequent intercourse of
men with their fellow-men, the constant interchange of the ordinary