SAILOR S. Sailors ashore-" Grog"-Sea Songs-Greenwich HospitalThe Sea, a favourite subject of English Poetry-Courage and Intrepidity of the English Sailor-Cowper and Crabbe. "O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Survey our empire, and behold our home." Byron's Corsair. WHOEVER Wishes to acquire a knowledge of another class of Englishmen, not less interesting than the mechanics, must descend into one of those narrow by-streets near London Bridge, which lead to the Thames. The sailors, those sons of the Ocean, are like the amphibious animals, which, even when on land, always keep close to the water. One day I took it into my head to walk into one of the numerous publichouses which stand in these alleys, to see what metamorphoses those silent and serious beings undergo on land, in whose company I had, at various times, spent eight months on shipboard. How changed did I find friend Jack* from what I had seen him at sea! No longer serious, no longer quiet, no longer silent; but joyous, noisy, and singing: the room on the ground floor, into which I entered, was involved in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, * A nickname by which the sailors generally call one another. which almost hindered me, at first, from distinguishing the dramatis persona. I had not yet taken my seat, when one of them, with a gait anything but steady, and reeling like a ship in a storm, with a face the colour of mahognay, from the effect of the tobacco and liquors, offered me some of his grog; that is, brandy mixed with water without sugar,-which is the nectar of these heroes of the deep. I accepted it without hesitation, but the pewter pot, from which my generous friend had been drinking, was empty, and the poor fellow had not perceived it. It had, in fact, so completely slipped his memory, that he had already tossed off all this ambrosia, that he made a similar offer to everybody that came in. He did not on that account lose his credit with me, because I know that sailors, who are hearts of oak when they are at sea, are hearts of butter when at a tavern, and generous as Cæsar himself. The cheeks of the English sailor are not those sleek and florid cheeks which the climate naturally produces, nor are they of a tall and bulky make, like farmers of the island. Their faces are bronzed, or, to express it better with one of those enviable English epithets composed of two words braced together, they are weather-beaten. They are in general of the middle height, but large across the shoulders; their limbs clean made and sinewy, and all their movements free and unconstrained. When they are walking, you observe in them a confidence in their own strength, and the audacity of a health proof against everything. They traverse the streets with an indifference which is natural to them, as if cities were not made for them, or as if they |