True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has His darker hints; but where's the element That chequers not its usefulness to man With casual terror? Scathes not earth sometimes Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang Or hells for their own ruin, strews them flat As riddled ashes--silent as the grave. Walks not Contagion on the Air itself? I should--old Ocean's Saturnalian days And roaring nights of revelry and sport With wreck and human woe--be loth to sing; For they are few, and all their ills weigh light Against his sacred usefulness, that bids Our pensile globe revolve in purer air. Here Morn and Eve with blushing thanks receive Their fresh'ning dews, gay fluttering breezes cool Their wings to fan the brow of fever'd climes, And here the Spring dips down her emerald urn For showers to glad the earth. Old Ocean was Infinity of ages ere we breathed Existence--and he will be beautiful When all the living world that sees him now Shall roll unconscious dust around the sun. Quelling from age to age the vital throb In human hearts, Death shall not subjugate The pulse that swells in _his_ stupendous breast, Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound In thund'ring concert with the quiring winds; But long as Man to parent Nature owns Instinctive homage, and in times beyond The power of thought to reach, bard after bard Shall sing thy glory, BEATIFIC SEA! _Metropolitan_.[3] [3] With such a poem as this, even occasionally, the _Metropolitan_ must take high ground. * * * * * THE LATE MR. ABERNETHY. Mr. Abernethy, although amiable and good-natured, with strong feelings, possessed an irritable temper, which made him very petulant and impatient at times with his patients and medical men who applied to him for his opinion and advice on cases. When one of the latter asked him once, whether he did not think that some plan which he suggested would answer, the only reply he could obtain was, "Ay, ay, put a little salt on a bird's tail, and you'll be sure to catch him." When consulted on a case by the ordinary medical attendant, he would frequently pace the room to and fro with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and _whistle_ all the time, and not say a word, but to tell the practitioner to go home and read his book. "_Read my book_" was a very frequent reply to his patients also; and he could seldom be prevailed upon to prescribe or give an opinion, if the case was one which appeared to depend upon improper dieting. A country farmer, of immense weight, came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed no small degree of addiction to animal food, Mr. Abernethy said, "Go away, sir, I won't attempt to prescribe for such a _hog_."