ON Friday night, the 23rd October, 1868, a Government lighter named the Devon, was making her way round the Land's End to a western port. She was strongly built, and a good sea-boat, and could well enough have weathered the hard gale which was blowing, but her officers mistook their position, and ran her, in the dark, stern on, upon " the Brissons," a double islet of rock, about a mile from the headland known as Cape Cornwall. As soon as the boats were lowered they were swept away, and the vessel herself broke to pieces in a very short space of time, drowning seventeen poor creatures, including the captain, and a woman with two children, who had gone on board as passengers. Of the few who tried to buffet through the fierce breakers towards the rock, all but one man were either dashed to death upon it, were submerged in the attempt, or were killed by the floating wreckage of the lighter. This one man, GEORGE DAVIS by name, stouter or more fortunate than his shipmates, after being beaten and bruised upon the crags by the waves, and more than once washed back from his last hope of life, was flung half- senseless and bleeding among the sharp stones of the Brissons; but he managed to crawl beyond the reach of the breakers— the only survivor of the Devon's crew.

Perched upon the rock, with the black night close and impenetrable around him, nothing to be seen but the gleam of the surf upon the savage waves ; nothing to be known of his further chances of rescue till the morning should break; his comrades swallowed up in the raging sea below. Think of him as he sat there, in the dark, cold, hungry, thirsty, and in sore pain from the lacerations made by the sharp limpets, shells, and the pointed crags; while the sea, that had wrecked the doomed vessel and murdered all hands but himself, roared and raved to windward, and swept away leeward into the gloom, where his hope lay, if any hope there was. Life is sweet, but there must have been moments in that dreadful night when the castaway envied his dead shipmates. If morning should break, and not show him the coast near at hand, he must die of thirst and cold—a ten times harder death than the quickly-ended struggle in the great waves.

But if not exactly a " sweet little cherub," something as serviceable and more practical was on the watch "for the life of poor JACK." The old Coastguard man on the headland had made out the wreck of the Devon early in the morning. The broken timbers, indeed, were drifting into the surf in the sight of the coast people; but nobody except the old boy caught sight of that " spot of something " moving on the face of the rock. Nor could he get anybody else to see it, though one after the other had a long look through the glass; yet he stuck to the fact so uncommonly hard that by-and- by messengers were sent to Sennen to bid them try and put the life-boat out to the Brissons. They don't want to be '' certain " about such things at Sennen : the chance of saving life is enough to rouse those gallant Cornish shore-birds; and very soon the life-boat was launched with ten stoat fisher hands aboard, and MATTHEW NICHOLAS for coxswain. The men pulled through four miles of frightful sea, and came near the rock. Nothing alive was to be seen! There was a corpse or two about the foot of it, and wreckage; tot the old Coast- guard man had given them the bard job for nought! They shouted, however, with tough lungs and kind hearts, every time the wind and sea lulled a little ; bat nothing showed, and the boat was under weigh again for the shore, when the poor castaway, shifting himself to get a dry place to die in, came round a crag into sight. Now, indeed, they " sang out" with a will; but he had not seen them, and could not hear for the bellowing of the breakers. Who knows what silent impulse had made him show himself just before it was too late ? for now they mean to have him before nightfall, if seamanship can do it. By-and-by some deep-chested fellow flung him friendly " Ahoy!" far and loud enough, and GEORGE DAVIS heard and saw the brave boat Says a hand on board of her, " He threw his hand up in the roost wild manner, and looked as if he had got new life in him." So he had; and he moved as if about to come off the rock at once, bat they signalled him to wait. There was no corning nigh that boiling water! To windward the waves would have swept the life-boat on the stones; to leeward there were off-lying rocks, and no holding ground.

Luckily they had the rocket apparatus, and with it Mr. MORRISON, the Coastguard officer, who then executed a veritable feat on be- half of poor DAVIS, The crew brought their boat to anchor about 180 yards to lee- ward of the Brissons; and then it was found that the stand of the rocket-tube was too high. They had to lash the apparatus fore and aft, and it was done with all a sailor's quick shiftiness. Bat even then the ap- paratus wasn't sufficiently amphibious— the trigger wouldn't go till the line was rove through a ring-bolt. This reads all easy enough; but let the attentive public observe, that practising with the rocket-line on the firm earth is one thing, and fitting it to fly from a small boat, leaping and plung- ing in the sea, arid driving every now and then bows deep in the salt water, is quite another thing. Still, the little cherub who levelled the old Coastguard man's glass so seasonably, and whispered to GEORGE DAVIS at the right moment to get up and be saved, had his celestial young eye along the rocket tube, arid when it was fired it whizzed as straight and clear as could be desired, clean over the ridge of the rock, dropping the line handy to GEORGE, and actually within two or three yards of him.

Then Mr. MOKBISON fastened the life-buoy on to the line, and signalled to the ship- wrecked man to draw it in. No need, of coarse, to tell a sailor what else to do, while he had any life at all; but the poor creature was weak and sick, and it was long before he could get the buoy home. When he did, he was too wideawake to take the water where he was sitting, and where the spars of the broken vessel were driving about. He made himself fast inside the cork-ring, and jumped off a clear corner of the rock, and then the crew began to haul him to the boat's side—to which, says the same eye-witness, he came " handsomely," with neck and shoulders clear of the water.

Bat to be towed through a farlong of heavy sea, after being wrecked and pitched among the periwinkles, and scraped off te limpet- shells, and banged against the stones, and chilled all night to the bone, is not exactly a restorative; so poor GEORGE was nearly done for when they laid hold of him. How- ever, the fine fellows stowed him away song in the stern-sheets, covered him over with their coats, and rowed like mad for Sennen Cove; and when they reached it, they warmed him outside with blankets and a rousing fire, and inside with hot tea and brandy, so that before night he was warmed right through again, and as " good a man as ever." One fact more may be mentioned, which looks as if the " little cherab" really had some sort of hand in the gallant business. The lady who gave the Sennen Life-boat to the NATIONAL INSTITUTION did it to perpetuate the memory of her husband, Mr. GEORGE DAVIS ; and GEORGE DAVIS was the name of the sailor saved in this "Bristol fashion," this "ship-shape" and glorious style. " A coincidence!" of coarse, bat so are all the sudden rewards of well- doing, and all the strange linkings between the love of man with the love of GOD.—The Daily Telegraph.