his bedside he was always cheerful, animated, and even gay, talking very little of his personal affliction and showing a hearty interest in the concerns of others. When autumn came it was decided that he should take a sea voyage, partly to invigorate his constitution and partly to enable him to consult the most eminent specialists of France and England. First of all, however, he planned to visit his grandfather, Mr. Thomas Hickling, who, as has been already mentioned, was American consul at the island of St. Michael's in the Azores, where it was thought the mildness of the climate might prove beneficial. Prescott set out, on September 26th of the same year (1815), in one of the small sailing vessels which plied between Boston and the West African islands. The voyage occupied twenty-two days, during which time Prescott had a recurrence both of his rheumatic pains and of the inflammatory condition of his eye. His discomfort was enhanced by the wretchedness of his accommodations--a gloomy little cabin into which water continually trickled from the deck, and in which the somewhat fastidious youth was forced to live upon nauseous messes of rye pudding sprinkled with coarse salt. Cockroaches and other vermin swarmed about him; and it must have been with keen pleasure that he exchanged this floating prison for the charming villa in the Azores, where his grandfather had made his home in the midst of groves and gardens, blooming with a semi-tropical vegetation. Mr. Hickling, during his long residence at St. Michael's, had married a Portuguese lady for his second wife, and his family received Prescott with unstinted cordiality. The change from the bleak shores of New England to the laurels and myrtles and roses of the Azores delighted Prescott, and so appealed to his sense of beauty that he wrote home long and enthusiastic letters. But his unstinted enjoyment of this Hesperian paradise lasted for little more than two short weeks. He had landed on the 18th of October, and by November 1st he had gone back to his old imprisonment in darkness, living on a meagre diet and smarting under the blisters which were used as a counter-irritant to the rheumatic inflammation. As usual, however, his cheerfulness was unabated. He passed his time in singing, in chatting with his friends, and in walking hundreds of miles around his darkened room. He remained in this seclusion from November to February, when his health once more improved; and two months later, on the 8th of April, 1816, he took passage from St. Michael's for London. The sea voyage and its attendant discomforts had their usual effect, and during twenty-two out of the twenty-four days, to which his weary journey was prolonged, he was confined to his cabin.