seems, almost anticipated his own destiny; and, when the mind figures his skiff wrapped from sight by the thunder-storm, as it was last seen upon the purple sea, and then, as the cloud of the tempest passed away, no sign remained of where it had been (Captain Roberts watched the vessel with his glass from the top of the lighthouse of Leghorn, on its homeward track.  They were off Via Reggio, at some distance from shore, when a storm was driven over the sea.  It enveloped them and several larger vessels in darkness.  When the cloud passed onwards, Roberts looked again, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean except their little schooner, which had vanished.  From that time he could scarcely doubt the fatal truth; yet we fancied that they might have been driven towards Elba or Corsica, and so be saved.  The observation made as to the spot where the boat disappeared caused it to be found, through the exertions of Trelawny for that effect.  It had gone down in ten fathom water; it had not capsized, and, except such things as had floated from her, everything was found on board exactly as it had been placed when they sailed.  The boat itself was uninjured.  Roberts possessed himself of her, and decked her; but she proved not seaworthy, and her shattered planks now lie rotting on the shore of one of the Ionian islands, on which she was wrecked.)—­who but will regard as a prophecy the last stanza of the “Adonais”?

    ’The breath whose might I have invoked in song
    Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven,
    Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
    Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
    The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 
    I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
    Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
    The soul of Adonais, like a star,
    Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.’

Putney, May 1, 1839.