Only those who have viewed the white cliffs of Albion sink beneath the circumambient waters, only those who have left Old England on the lee in their out-bound vessel, can fancy the unspeakable emotion, or depict the melancholy feelings with which we first bid our island adieu. We are islanders; all our ideas are severed like our land from other nations; we glory in our insulated position; we glory in our insulated manners; and there breathes not son nor daughter--or if they breathe they deserve not the name of Briton--who does not acutely feel the first severing from home. It is the feeling of the child weaned from the maternal breast--the lover parted from his love--the dying man trembling as he is launched on the sea of futurity; the firm land is gone--the known exchanged for the unknown, or at least dimly shadowed future; above angry skies--beneath unfathomed depths--around faithless waves--and behind the land of our love fast receding, perhaps never to be seen again, or seen when the fire of youth has smouldered low--the energy of youth has been exchanged for the caution of age--and dull reality has shown how vain the dreams of childhood! Looking on the receding shore we feel all our friends are there, and all going away--there all our hopes, our home, our affections. The vessel bears away our mortal frame; the immortal soul lingers behind, nothing can bear it away, nor the heart that is left behind, however far the foot may roam. How full are our feelings, as we ask with the poet,-- "Who shall fill our vacant places? Who shall sing our songs to-night?" Such were the feelings of Ellen Ravensworth as the packet which bore them left the quiet harbour of Newhaven, and in one minute plunged into the restless, rolling billows of our channel. Having had to wait for the tide, it was already growing dusk when they weighed anchor; the last embers of dying day tipped the crested waves with an uncertain glimmer, and the crescent moon hung in the only clear break of the sky over the west, from which quarter rather a brisk breeze hurried the yeasty waves past: it was, however, a mild, soft wind, and remarkably warm for the season; so Ellen prevailed on her father to allow her to remain on deck, and catch the last glimpse of her native island. Wrapt in a warm Scotch plaid, in a half-reclining attitude, she leant over the vessel's side, and watched her plough her way with full swelling sails towards France. Beside her stood her father, talking to the captain, a bluff, kindhearted sailor, who had voyaged over the round world, and was busily engaged in detailing some of his adventures, or, as sailors would say, spinning a long yarn. But Ellen heeded not their conversation; her heart was far away, as from time to time she lifted her blue eyes, moist with tears, on the lessening shores and giant chalk cliffs that loomed ghost-like and mysteriously through the gloaming.