"So now we'll go up, up, up, And now we'll go down, down down, And now we'll go backwards and forwards, And now we'll go roun', roun', roun'."——I hope you've sufficient decernment to see, Gentle Reader, that here the discarding the d Is a fault which you must not attribute to me; Thus my Nurse cut it off when, "with counterfeit glee," She sung, as she danced me about on her knee, In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and three:— All I mean to say is, that the Muse is now free From the self-imposed trammels put on by her betters, And no longer like Filch, midst the felons and debtors At Drury Lane, dances her hornpipe in fetters. Resuming her track, At once she goes back To our hero, the Bagman—Alas! and Alack! Poor Anthony Blogg Is as sick as a dog, Spite of sundry unwonted potations of grog, By the time the Dutch packet is fairly at sea, With the sands called the Goodwin's a league on her lee.
And now, my good friends, I've a fine opportunity To obfuscate you all by sea terms with impunity, And talking of "caulking," And "quarter-deck walking," "Fore and aft," And "abaft," "Hookers," "barkeys," and "craft," (At which Mr. Poole has so wickedly laught,) Of binnacles,—bilboes,—the boom call'd the spanker, The best bower cable,—the jib,—and sheet anchor; Of lower-deck guns,—and of broadsides and chases, Of taffrails and topsails, and splicing main-braces, And "Shiver my timbers!" and other odd phrases Employed by old pilots with hard-featured faces;— Of the expletives sea-faring Gentlemen use, The allusions they make to the eyes of their crews;— How the Sailors, too, swear, How they cherish their hair, And what very long pigtails a great many wear.— But, Reader, I scorn it—the fact is, I fear, To be candid, I can't make these matters so clear As Marryat, or Cooper, or Captain Chamier, Or Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, who brought up the rear Of the "Nauticals," just at the end of the year Eighteen thirty-nine—(how Time flies!—Oh dear!)— With a well-written preface, to make it appear That his play, the "Sea-Captain," 's by no means small beer; There!—"brought up the rear"—you see there's a mistake Which none of the authors I've mentioned would make, I ought to have said, that he "sail'd in their wake."— So I'll merely observe, as the water grew rougher, The more my poor hero continued to suffer, Till the Sailors themselves cried, in pity, "Poor Buffer!"
Still rougher it grew, And still harder it blew, And the thunder kick'd up such a halliballoo, That even the Skipper began to look blue; While the crew, who were few, Look'd very queer, too, And seem'd not to know what exactly to do, And they who'd the charge of them wrote in the logs, "Wind N.E.—blows a hurricane—rains cats and dogs." In short it soon grew to a tempest as rude as That Shakspeare describes near the "still vext Bermudas,"[17] When the winds, in their sport, Drove aside from its port The King's ship, with the whole Neapolitan Court, And swamp'd it to give "the King's Son, Ferdinand," a Soft moment or two with the Lady Miranda, While her Pa met the rest, and severely rebuked 'em For unhandsomely doing him out of his Dukedom. You don't want me, however, to paint you a Storm, As so many have done, and in colours so warm; Lord Byron, for instance, in manner facetious, Mr. Ainsworth more gravely,—see also Lucretius, —A writer who gave me no trifling vexation When a youngster at school on Dean Colet's foundation.— Suffice it to say That the whole of that day, And the next, and the next, they were scudding away Quite out of their course, Propell'd by the force Of those flatulent folks known in Classical story as Aquilo, Libs, Notus, Auster, and Boreas, Driven quite at their mercy 'Twixt Guernsey and Jersey, Till at length they came bump on the rocks and the shallows, In West longitude, One, fifty-seven, near St. Maloes; There you will not be surprised That the vessel capsized, Or that Blogg, who had made, from intestine commotions, His specifical gravity less than the Ocean's, Should go floating away, Midst the surges and spray, Like a cork in a gutter, which, sworn by a shower, Runs down Holborn-hill about nine knots an hour.
You've seen, I've no doubt, at Bartholomew fair, Gentle Reader,—that is, if you've ever been there,— With their hands tied behind them, some two or three pair Of boys round a bucket set up on a chair, Skipping, and dipping Eyes, nose, chin, and lip in, Their faces and hair with the water all dripping, In an anxious attempt to catch hold of a pippin, That bobs up and down in the water whenever They touch it, as mocking the fruitless endeavour; Exactly as Poets say,—how, though, they can't tell us,— Old Nick's Nonpareils play at bob with poor Tantalus. —Stay!—I'm not clear, But I'm rather out here; 'Twas the water itself that slipp'd from him, I fear; Faith, I can't recollect—and I haven't Lempriere.— No matter,—poor Blogg went on ducking and bobbing, Sneezing out the salt water, and gulping and sobbing, Just as Clarence, in Shakspeare, describes all the qualms he Experienced while dreaming they'd drown'd him in Malmsey.
"O Lord," he thought, "what pain it was to drown!" And saw great fishes with great goggling eyes, Glaring as he was bobbing up and down, And looking as they thought him quite a prize; When as he sank, and all was growing dark, A something seized him with its jaws!—A shark?—
No such thing, Reader:—most opportunely for Blogg, 'Twas a very large, web-footed, curly-tail'd Dog!
I'm not much of a trav'ler, and really can't boast That I know a great deal of the Brittany coast, But I've often heard say That e'en to this day, The people of Granville, St. Maloes, and thereabout Are a class that society doesn't much care about; Men who gain their subsistence by contraband dealing, And a mode of abstraction strict people call "stealing;" Notwithstanding all which, they are civil of speech, Above all to a stranger who comes within reach; And they were so to Blogg, When the curly-tail'd dog At last dragg'd him out, high and dry on the beach. But we all have been told, By the proverb of old, By no means to think "all that glitters is gold;" And, in fact, some advance That most people in France Join the manners and air of a Maître de Danse, To the morals—(as Johnson of Chesterfield said)— Of an elderly Lady, in Babylon bred, Much addicted to flirting, and dressing in red.— Be this as it might, It embarrass'd Blogg quite To find those about him so very polite.
A suspicious observer perhaps might have traced The petites soins, tendered with so much good taste, To the sight of an old-fashion'd pocket-book, placed In a black leather belt well secured round his waist, And a ring set with diamonds, his finger that graced, So brilliant, no one could have guess'd they were paste. The group on the shore Consisted of four; You will wonder, perhaps, there were not a few more; But the fact is they've not, in that part of the nation, What Malthus would term a "too dense population," Indeed the sole sign there of man's habitation Was merely a single Rude hut, in a dingle That led away inland direct from the shingle, Its sides clothed with underwood, gloomy and dark, Some two hundred yards above high-water mark; And thither the party, So cordial and hearty, Viz. an old man, his wife, and two lads, made a start, he, The Bagman, proceeding, With equal good breeding, To express, in indifferent French, all he feels, The great curly-tail'd Dog keeping close to his heels.— They soon reach'd the hut, which seem'd partly in ruin, All the way bowing, chattering, shrugging, Mon-Dieu-ing, Grimacing, and what sailors call parley-vooing.