Excepting their imaginary Castaly, I should be glad to know what poet hath sung ever in the praise of Water? Of wine, many. “Tak Tent,” saith the Scottish Burns; “O, was ye at the Sherry?”—singeth another. The lofty Douglas, in commending Norval, thus hinteth his cellar; “His Port I like.” Shakspeare discourseth eloquently of both as “Red and white,” and addeth,—“with sweet and cunning hand laid on;”—i.e. laid on in pipes. For Madeira, see Bowles of it; and the Muse of Pringle luxuriates in the Cape. Then is there also Mountain celebrated by Pope,—“The Shepherd loves the mountain,”—to Moslem, forbidden draught; yet which Mahomet would condescend to fetch himself, if it failed in coming to hand. Sack, too,—as dear to Oriental Sultanas as his Malmsey to Clarence,—is by Byron touched on in his Corsair; but then, through some Koran-scrupulousness perchance, they take it—in Water!
Praise there hath been of water; but, as became the subject, in prose; M. hath written a volume, I am told, in its commendation, and above all of its nutritive quality; and truly to see it floating the Victory with all her armament and complement of guns, and men, one must confess there is some support in it—at least as an outward application! but then taken internally, look at the wreck of the Royal George!
The mention of Men-of-War, bringeth to mind, opportunely, certain marine reminiscences, pertinent to this subject, referring some years backward, when, with other uniform than my present invariable sables, I was stationed at * * *, on the coast of Sussex. Little as my present-tense habits and occupations savour of the past sea-service,—yet, reader, in the Navy List amongst the Commanders, or years by-gone in the Ship’s Books of H.M.S Hyperion, presently lying in the sequestered harbour of Newhaven, thou wilt find occurring the surname of Hood; a name associated by friends, marine and mechanic, with a contrivance, for expelling the old enemy, water, by a novel construction of Ships’ pumps.
RUNNING SPIRITS.
Stanchest of my sect—the Adam’s-Ale-shunners—wert thou, old Samuel Spiller! in the muster-roll charactered an Able Seaman; but most notable for a Landsman’s aversion to unmitigated Water, hard, or soft—fresh or salt! A petty Officer wert thou in that armed band versus contraband, the Coast Blockade, by some miscalled the Preventive Service, if service it be to prevent the influx of wholesome spirits. To do the smuggler bare justice, no seaman, Nelson-bred, payeth greater reverence, or obedience to that signal sentence,—“England expects every man to do his duty!” than he. Thine, Spiller, was done to the uttermost. Spirits, legal or illegal, in tub or flask, or pewter measure, didst thou inexorably seize, and gauger-like try the depth thereof,—thy Royal Master, His Majesty, at the latter end of the seizures, faring no better than thy own begotten sea-urchin, of whom, one day remarking that—“he took after his father,” the young would-be Trinculo retorted, “Father never leaveth none to take.” There were strange rumours afloat, and ashore—Samuel! of thy unprofitable vigilance. Many an illicit Child, i.e. a small keg, hath been laid at thy door. Thou hadst a becoming respect for thy comrades, as brave men and true, who could stand fire, but the smugglers, I fear, were ranked a streak higher, as men who could stand treat. Still were thy misdeeds like much of thy own beverage—beyond proof. Even as those delinquent utterers of base notes, who swallow their own dangerous forgeries, so didst thou gulp down whatever might else have appeared against thee in evidence. There was no entrapping thee, like rat, or weasel in that Gin, from which deriving a sea-peerage, thou wert commonly known—with no offence, I trust, to the Noble Vassal of Kensington—as Lord Hollands.
It was by way of water-penance for one of these Cassio-like derelictions of Mine Ancient, that one evening—the evening succeeding the Great Sea Tempest of 1814—I gave him charge of a boat’s crew, to bring in sundry fragmental relics of some shipwreckt Argosy, that were reported to be adrift in our offing. In two hours he returned, and like Venator and Piscator, we immediately fell into dialogue,—Piscator, i.e. Spiller, “for fear of dripping the carpet,” standing aloof, a vox et preterea nihil, in a dark entry.
“Well, Spiller,”—my phraseology was not then inoculated with the quaintness it hath since imbibed from after lecture—“Well, Spiller, what have you picked up?”
“A jib-boom, I think, Sir, a capital spar; and part of a Ship’s starn. The ‘Planter of Barbadies’—famous place for rum, Sir.”
“Was there any sea—are you wet?”