Such was the fact in regard to the hurricane of which I am speaking. Some of the light craft then upon the gulf, escaped and came into the harbor of New-York. They reported that never within the memory of man, had that sea been the scene of so fearful a tempest. It commenced with a tremendous crash from the heavens, and the gulf was almost instantly lashed into a foam of contending currents. At the instant of its commencement, apparently in the very focus of its fury, one of them saw a dark object, resembling a ship of war, rise upon the ridge of a towering wave, and then sink with a heavy roll into the trough of the sea, whence she rose no more. It was a fearful night, that which followed; the seas rushing and doubling onward, curling and foaming and breaking with awful majesty. But the United States ship HORNET was never heard of more. Her gallant officers and daring crew--full of high health and hope but an hour before--were all--all, in that dread moment--without one instant to bid adieu or breathe a prayer--hurried to their doom! But to return from this digression. Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright's articles were all redeemed, and their house comfortably warmed and supplied for the winter, as I have already intimated. And in addition to such present relief as was rendered imperatively necessary by his wounded hand, the funds contributed for his benefit enabled me to lay in, for his use and behoof, ample materials for sixty bedsteads--a stock in trade rendering him a rich man, compared with what had been his temporal condition for a long while before. His spirits in a good measure revived at even _such_ a change in his circumstances--and his wife poured forth an overwhelming torrent of Irish blessings, with thanks to "his honor," and "his worship," without number. CHAPTER XVI. THE END OF THIS EVENTFUL HISTORY. O matrimony! thou art like To Jeremiah's figs;-- The good were very good;--the bad-- Too sour to give the pigs.--_Old Saw._ "Slender, I broke your head--what matter have you against me?"--_Shakspeare._ One of the most amusing, and, indeed, one of the best pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, is that of Garrick, between comedy and tragedy. On the one side, with her mask in hand, stood the presiding divinity of comic poetry, coaxing the immortal hero of the sock and buskin with her archest smiles; while on the other stood Melpomene, rapt in solemn thought, and with eyes upraised in gloomy grandeur, pointing the actor to a loftier walk than that of her witching sister Thalia. The situation of poor Garrick is most embarrassing--and appears the more so from the powers of face at his command, as delineated by the artist, whereby he is represented as doubting to which invitation he should yield, while with one half of his face he looks the deepest tragedy, and with the other, the merriest comedy.