But, hush! there is another hymn commencing--
not to be the last by many.'
* * * * *
We had landed, and laughed, and scrambled, eaten and drunk, seen all
the sights of Lundy, and heard all the traditions. Are they not
written in Mr. Bamfield's Ilfracombe Guide? Why has not some one
already written a fire-and-brimstone romance about them? 'Moresco
Castle; or, the Pirate Knight of the Atlantic Wave.' What a title!
Or again--'The Seal Fiend; or, the Nemesis of the Scuttled West
Indiaman.'--If I had paper and lubricite enough, and that delightful
carelessness of any moral or purpose, except that of fine writing and
money-making, which possesses some modern scribblers--I could tales
unfold--But neither pirate legends, nor tales of cheated insurance
offices, nor wrecks and murders, will make us understand Lundy--what
it is 'considered in its idea,' as the new argot is. It may be
defined as a lighthouse-bearing island. The whole three miles of
granite table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human beings, are mere
accidents and appendages--the pedestal and the ornaments of that
great white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye blinks all
night long over the night-mists of the Atlantic.
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