DECEMBER 19.
During these last two days nothing very extraordinary, or of sufficient importance to deserve its being handed down to the latest posterity, has occurred; except that this morning a swinging rope knocked my hat into the sea, and away it sailed upon a voyage of discovery, like poor La Perouse, to return no more, I suppose; unless, indeed,—like Polycrates, the fortunate tyrant of Samos, who threw his favourite ring into the ocean, and found it again in the stomach of the first fish that was served up at his table,—I should have the good luck (but I by no means reckon upon it) to catch a dolphin with my hat upon his head: as to a porpoise, he never could squeeze his great numskull into it; but our dolphin of last week was much about my own size, and I dare say such another would find my hat fit him to a miracle, and look very well in it.