done nothing but good with God's good gifts--is not this fame worth something? 'Tis worth man's love, and God's approval--'tis worth toiling for, living for, and dying for. He has earned it fairly--he is a great and good man--peace be with him in his hour of mortal sorrow, and eternal peace hereafter in the heaven to which he surely goes. They then drank Washington Irving,--a gentle spirit, too. After working for some time more, came on deck, where we danced with infinite glee, disturbed only by the surpassing uproar of Colonel ----. * * * * * * * * * * The only of our crew whom I cotton to fairly, are the ----, and that good-natured lad, Mr. ----: though the former rather distress me by their abundant admiration, and the latter by his inveterate Yorkshire, and never opening his mouth when he sings, which, as he has a very sweet voice, is a cruel piece of selfishness, keeping half his tones, and all his words, for his own private satisfaction. _Thursday, 23d._ On soundings, and nearly off them again--a fine day;--worked at my nightcap--another, by the by, having finished one--exemplary!--Walked about, ate, drank, wrote journal--read some of it to the ----, who seemed much gratified by my doing so. I go on with Byron's life. He is loo much of an egotist. I do not like him a bit the better for knowing his prose mind;--far from thinking it redeems any of the errors of his poetical man, I think I never read any thing professing to be a person's undisguised feelings and opinions, with so much heartlessness--so little goodness in it. His views of society are like his views of human nature; or rather, by the by, reverse the sentence, to prove the fallacy in judgment; and though his satire is keen and true, yet he is nothing but satirical--never, never serious and earnest, even with himself. Oh! I have a horror of that sneering devil of Goethe's; and he seems to me to have possessed Byron utterly. A curious thought, or rather a fantastical shadow of a thought, occurred to me to-day in reading a chapter in the Corinthians about the resurrection. I mean to be buried with H----'s ring on my finger; will it be there when I rise again?--What a question for the discussers of the needle's point controversy! My father read to us, this afternoon, part of one of Webster's speeches. It was very eloquent, but yet it did not fulfil my idea of perfect oratory--inasmuch as I thought it too pictorial:--there was too much scenery and decoration about it, to use the cant of my own trade;--there was too much effect, theatrical effect in it, from which Heaven defend me, for I do loathe it _in_ its place, and fifty times worse out of it. Perhaps Webster's speaking is a good sample, in its own line, of the leaven wherewith these times are leavened. I mean only in its defects--for its merits are sterling, and therefore of all time.