The ground, now sacred by his reliques made
if ocean cover him, calm be the green wave on its surface! May his spirit find rest where souls are blessed, and his body be shrined in the holiest cave of the deep and silent sea!”
* A few old amateurs of music and mirth may possibly
remember Collins's Evening Brush, that rubbed off the rust
of dull care from the generation of 1790. His bill comprised
“Actors of the old school and actors of the new; tragedy
tailors, and butchers in heroics; bell-wethers in buskins,
wooden actors, petticoat caricatures, lullaby jinglers,
bogglers and blunderers, buffoons in blank-verse, &c. &c.”
The first of the three Dibdins opened a shop of merriment at
the Sans Souci, where he introduced many of his beautiful
ballads, and sang them to his own tunes. The navy of England
owe lasting obligations to this harmonious Three. It
required not the aid of poetry and music (and how
exquisitely has Shield set the one to the other!) to
stimulate our gallant seamen; but it needed much to awaken
and keep alive enthusiasm on shore, and elevate their moral
character—for landsmen “who live at home at ease/' were
wont to consider the sailor as a mere tar-barrel, a sea-
monster. How many young bosoms have been inspired by the
lyrics of the three Dibdins! What can surpass the homely
pathos of “I thought my heart would break when I sang, Yo!
heave O!”
“The Last Whistle” and “Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom
Bowling!” stirring the manly heart like the sound of a
trumpet! It is wise to infuse the amorpatriæ into popular
amusements; national songs work wonders among the million.
In Little Russia, no sooner are the postilions mounted for a
journey, than they begin to hum a patriotic air, which often
continues for hours without intermission. The soldiers sing
during a long and fatiguing march; the peasant lightens his
labour in the same manner; and in a still evening the air
vibrates with the cheerful songs of the surrounding
villages.
“'Hark! the lark at Heaven's gate sings.'”
“I was not unmindful of the merry chorister! But the lark has made a pause; and I have your promise of a song. Now is the time to fill up the one, and to fulfil the other.”
EUGENIO'S SONG.=
“Sweet is the breath of early morn
That o'er yon heath refreshing blows:
And sweet the blossom on the thorn,
The violet blue, the blushing rose.