The bar! what, roads with turnpikes too? I wonder where they are! BOATMAN. Ho! brig ahoy! hard up! hard up! that lubber cannot steer! MRS. F. Yes, yes,--hard up upon a rock! I know some danger’s near! Lord, there’s a wave! it’s coming in! and roaring like a bull! BOATMAN. Nothing, Ma’am, but a little slop! go large, Bill! keep her full! MRS. F. What, keep her full! what daring work! when full, she must go down! BOATMAN. Why, Bill, it lulls! ease off a bit--it’s coming off the town! Steady your helm! we’ll clear the _Pint_! lay right for yonder pink! MRS. F. Be steady--well, I hope they can! but they’ve got a pint of drink! BOATMAN. Bill, give that sheet another haul--she’ll fetch it up this reach. MRS. F. I’m getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech! I wonder what it is, now, but----I never felt so queer! BOATMAN. Bill, mind your luff--why Bill, I say, she’s yawing--keep her near! MRS. F. Keep near! we’re going further off; the land’s behind our backs. [Illustration: STERNE’S MARIA.] BOATMAN. Be easy, Ma’am, it’s all correct, that’s only ’cause we tacks: We shall have to beat about a bit,--Bill, keep her out to sea. MRS. F. Beat who about? keep who at sea?--how black they look at me! BOATMAN. It’s veering round--I knew it would! off with her head! stand by! MRS. F. Off with her head! whose? where? what with?--an axe I seem to spy! BOATMAN. She can’t not keep her own, you see; we shall have to pull her in! MRS. F. They’ll drown me, and take all I have! my life’s not worth a pin! BOATMAN. Look out you know, be ready, Bill--just when she takes the sand! MRS. F. The sand--O Lord! to stop my mouth! how every thing is planned! BOATMAN. The handspike, Bill--quick, bear a hand! now Ma’am, just step ashore! MRS. F. What! an’t I going to be kill’d--and welter’d in my gore? Well, Heaven be praised! but I’ll not go a sailing any more! A SPENT BALL. “The flying ball.”--GRAY. A BALL is a round, but not a perpetual round, of pleasure. It spends itself at last, like that from the cannon’s mouth; or rather, like that greatest of balls, “that great globe itself,” is “dissolved with all that it inherits.” [Illustration]