Many ladies would have comforted themselves with other lovers; not so Billy's mistress, she follows him; she enters the ship under the name of Richard Car. She condescends to daub her lilly-white hands with the pitch and tar. What excessive love, and how ill rewarded! I have two things to remark here. 1. Her disregard for herself in daubing her hands. When I consider a lady in Juvenal who did the same, I am led to think she was Billy's mistress. But then Billy disregards her; this makes me think again she was his wife. Yet perhaps not; Billy had got another mistress. 2. The second observation is upon the name she assumes, Richard Carr. Commentators are much divided upon this head; why she chose that name in preference to any other. I must confess they talk rather silly on this topic; I conjecture the name was given here because it was a good rhyme to tar; this is no mean or inconsiderable reason, as the poets will all testify. But let the reader decide this at his leisure; let us now proceed:—
"An engagement came on the very next morning:
Bold she fit among the rest;
The wind aside did blow her Jacket,
And diskivered her lily-white breast."
Here was a trial for the lady: but she sustained it; she fought boldly, fought like a man. But mark the sequel; the wind blows aside her jacket; her lily-white breast is exposed to the lawless gaze of the sailors! Here was a sight! no doubt it inspired them with double valour and gained them a victory: for they certainly were victorious, though the poet judiciously passes over the inferior topic, and hastens to his main subject.
The captain gains intelligence of her heroism, or in the musical simplicity of the original, "kims for to know it:" with honest bluntness he exclaims "Vat vind has blown you to me?" The character of the sea captain is well supported: he does not say, "how came you here?" but in the characteristic language of profession, "vat vind has blown you to me?" The classical reader will be pleased also with the similarity this expression bears to a passage in the Æneid; it is in the speech of Andromache to Æneas on a like occasion of surprise:
"Sed tibi qui cursum venti, quæ fata dedere?
Aut quisquam ignarum nostris Deus appulit oris?"
It must be confessed, that the Latin is more pompous, perhaps more elegant; but what it gains in refinement, it loses in simplicity. The chief thing however to be remarked is, that the same language always suggests itself on the same occasion. But let us attend to the lady's answer:
"Kind sir: I be kim for to seek my true-love,
Vhom you press'd and sent to sea."
The pathos of this speech is inimitable. Observe with what art, or rather with what nature, it is worked up, so as to interest the feelings of the captain. First let us take a view of the speaker; a woman, and her breast diskivered: she begins with, "Kind sir," which shows the gentleness of her disposition, and that she forgave the captain though he had pressed her true-love: she proceeds, "I be kim for to seek my true-love," who could resist this affecting narration? A lady braving the dangers of the sea, and an engagement, to seek her true-love! The last line has suggested to the commentators that the captain headed the press-gang himself. This is a matter of too much consequence for me to decide. But what effect has the speech on the rugged nerves of the captain? All that could be expected or desired. He breaks out—observe the art of the poet!—no frigid preface of "he said," "he exclaimed," but, like Homer, he gives us the speech at once—
"If you be kim for to seek your true-love,
He from the ship is gone away:
And you'll find him in London streets, ma'am,
Valking vith his lady gay."
The captain's feelings are taken by storm: he makes a full discovery of the retreat of the youth, and the company in which he is to be found. Some have thought it very odd that the captain should be so well informed of Billy's retreat and company; and are of opinion that he connived at it; but the captain might from the knowledge of human nature, and especially of sailors' nature, guess where and in what company Billy would be. Let not then the honest tar be condemned. As the poet has put down none, we may suppose the lady to be too much oppressed to make any answer to a speech so cutting and afflicting. Overwhelmed with anger, jealousy, and desire of revenge, she could not speak. Admirable poet, who so well knew nature! "parvæ curæ loquuntur, ingentes silent," and is not this silence more eloquent, more expressive, nay more awful, than all the angry words that could have been uttered? it is the silence before the tempest: the awful stillness of revenge and death.