Who has not in his time gazed with wonder on those floating castles which the citizen of England from time to time sees hovering on his coast, the watchful and moving fortresses of his island home? You are a dweller in cities--you are lying, in some holiday and summer month, listlessly upon the beach--the great ocean is spread before you, illimitable--and it almost terrifies the imagination to think of men passing _out there_, in that wild waste of waters, given up to the two unthinking and gigantic powers of wind and wave, that have no more respect for man or his structures than if they were still in the liberty of chaos. That men _do_ go forth to the uttermost ends of the world seems a thing almost fabulous--incredible. You have eaten of the lotus leaf: why _should_ they go?--go from the firm and sheltering earth, to lay their lives upon the winds? But now comes in sight a sail; the extended wing floats unfluttered; the tall tapering masts are visible; it moves imperturbable, like a god upon the waters. And look at that tongue of flame drawn back with a serpent’s swiftness, and that wreath of whitest vapour that steals out from its side so soft and graceful!--is that the deadly shot that levels stoutest walls, and puts to silence the bastion and the fort? So beautiful--so strong!--it walks the waves, how fearless!--and nothing on the sea can harm it, and nothing on the shore resist. Where now are the great waters that swallowed up all enterprise, and smote the heart with despair? The sea is ours!--we live, we revel, we fight, we conquer on it. The ship casts anchor, and you rush with many others upon the shore, and you enter a skiff, which will take you off to a nearer survey of this great visitor. You approach, and mount the sides of this floating arsenal. Is this the thing you saw moving light as a bird upon the horizon? You look down as from a house-top. That yacht which bore its pennon so gallantly in the air, and which is now moored under the stern, can just lay its fluttering flag on the solid deck you are walking. Look down--you are giddy with the height; look up--and you are again level with the waters; for there rises the enormous mast, piercing the sky, laying its steady spars against the blue ether, bearing its acre-broad canvass, that makes the vast hull with all its iron stores, bound over the surface of the wave. O _Clas merdin_!--thou “sea-defended green spot,”--such, and so great, is the sacrifice thou art called to offer up upon the deep to the god of war! May it avail to keep thy homes for ever untouched by the invader! EVENINGS AT SEA.