“Whatever is, is right.” These words served to adorn the poetry of Pope; and as a consolatory axiom, to soothe the injuries inflicted upon mankind during this “pilgrimage here below,” it serves a good purpose; but, however consoling it may be to the philosopher under worldly troubles, it answers but poorly its intentions with a young subaltern, who from “the turn of a straw,” has been thrown out of his promotion; and so finds his flattering day-dreams of hope turned into painful and disappointing realities. The moral tongue may tell him—“all is for the best;” that, “whatever is, is right,” and his own lip may echo the maxim with a sigh of approbation, but he cannot in his heart believe it: reflection, “like a worm i' the bud,” feeds upon him with a more active and injurious tooth, than that of the insect which gnaws the page of the moralist. Of this I feel convinced, although I know I disobey the Fathers in so doing; but I cannot help it: nor can I help thinking, that the occurrences of the voyage I am about to describe, tended to any thing but the benefit of the three subalterns who encountered them; any more than I can help feeling satisfied, that the petty trickery of a boatman's trade produced the evils I allude to, and changed totally the chances and prospects in life of three individuals. There are so many leading causes to all evils, that it is difficult to say which may be properly fixed on as the most responsible. As the smallest pebble thrown upon the silent lake will displace, imperceptibly, every particle of its waters, so does each movement of our life influence the undisturbed mirror of futurity which lies before us. The incidents of our existence are like the fragments within the glasses of the kaleidoscope—the slightest movement changes, more or less, the whole of the succeeding pictures. Thus were the flattering views of three individuals changed by the ordinary turn of a boatman's roguery. Had this little circumstance never occurred, a totally different course of events must necessarily have followed:—but after all, perhaps, we may say, would it have been better?