I am told--_Dic mihi_--by Sir Lauder Dick, that the great floods is Morayshire destroyed I know not how many Scottish bridges,--and I believe it. The element was always our Arch-Enemy. Witness the Deluge, when the whole human-kind would have perished, with water on the chest, but for Noah’s chest on the water. Drowning--by some called Dying made Easy--is to my notions horrible. Conceive an unfortunate gentleman--not by any means thirsty--compelled to swill gulp after gulp of the vapid fluid, even to swelling, “as the water you know will swell a man.” If I said I would rather be hanged, it would be but the truth; although “Veritas in _Puteo_” hath given me almost a disrelish for truth itself. Excepting their imaginary Castaly, I should be glad to know what poet hath sung ever in the praise of Water? Of wine, many. “Tak _Tent_,” saith the Scottish Burns; “O, was ye at the _Sherry_?”--singeth another. The lofty Douglas, in commending Norval, thus hinteth his cellar; “His _Port_ I like.” Shakspeare discourseth eloquently of both as “Red and white,” and addeth,--“with sweet and cunning hand _laid on_;”--i.e. laid on in pipes. For Madeira, see Bowles of it; and the Muse of Pringle luxuriates in the Cape. Then is there also Mountain celebrated by Pope,--“The Shepherd loves the mountain,”--to Moslem, forbidden draught; yet which Mahomet would condescend to fetch himself, if it failed in coming to hand. Sack, too,--as dear to Oriental Sultanas as his Malmsey to Clarence,--is by Byron touched on in his Corsair; but then, through some Koran-scrupulousness perchance, they take it--in Water! Praise there hath been of water; but, as became the subject, in prose; M. hath written a volume, I am told, in its commendation, and above all of its nutritive quality; and truly to see it floating the Victory with all her armament and complement of guns, and men, one must confess there is some _support_ in it--at least as an outward application! but then taken internally, look at the wreck of the Royal George! The mention of Men-of-War, bringeth to mind, opportunely, certain marine reminiscences, pertinent to this subject, referring some years backward, when, with other uniform than my present invariable sables, I was stationed at * * *, on the coast of Sussex. Little as my present-tense habits and occupations savour of the past sea-service,--yet, reader, in the Navy List amongst the Commanders, or years by-gone in the Ship’s Books of H.M.S Hyperion, presently lying in the sequestered harbour of Newhaven, thou wilt find occurring the surname of Hood; a name associated by friends, marine and mechanic, with a contrivance, for expelling the old enemy, water, by a novel construction of Ships’ pumps. [Illustration: RUNNING SPIRITS.]