GRISK. Here's to decide it, then: take this! (Stabs RASCALLO.) For living now, for I'm as dead as mutton. (They each draw a chair, and fall into it.) RASC. (looking at his wound.) My wound is mortal. CONS. So is mine. Mine too. GRISK. In me she has bored a hole quite through and through. RASC. But see where comes the kill'd and wounded King. CONS. Why, there he lies. (Pointing to SIR JEMMY.) RASC. 'Tis Jem the coachman. CONS. Pooh! nonsense! no such thing: O, most fatal blunder! Enter RUMFUSKIN, wounded, led on by SENTENTIOSUS, Lord High Chancellor. RUM. Gently, my good Lord Chancellor, for, oh! We feel our life is just upon the Here will we die. go. We die! (Aside.) O, curse his we's! (To him.) Your Kingship will die solus if RUM. Thou know'st when we say "we, you please. we mean but I. SENT. Oh, ho! if that's the case, why then we'll die. RUM. My good Lord Chancellor, ere we die, take note, Thou must oblige us. SENT. RUM. How, sire? Brush our coat. SENT. Ha! brush thy coat! No, tyrant, be it known, A Lord High Chancellor would not brush his own. (A threatening gesture by the King.) Think not, my sovereign, I'm too bold in stating That task were fitter for a lord in waiting. RUM. We're dying, so thy boldness we excuse, Else would we make your lordship black our shoes. See where the regicidal rebels lie. Remove yon corpse, for on our throne we'll die. Pity our fate, ye traitors; 'tis a hard one! ALL, except SENT. We beg your Majesty's most gracious pardon. RUM. (TO SENT.) Now, ere we die, my lord, return our conscience: Thou art the keeper on't. SENT. What, I? Psha! nonsense! RUM. Thou'rt keeper of our conscience, fire and fury! SENT. 'Tis the Archbishop, sire, of Canterbury. RUM. We think thou 'rt wrong: but, prythee, send about it; And tell his Grace we cannot die without it. We die—we cannot wait-so send it after. FLOG. 'Tis well I'm dead, or I should die of laughter. FLOG. 'Tis true you kill'd me, sire; but that's no rule. (TO SENT.) My lord, what does the Act of Parliament say? RUM. Law still is law.-Now let's to business.-Oh! We'll settle the succession ere we go. Thou shalt be king, my lord; and thus we close all Life's weighty matters. (Dies.) SENT. Now hear my proposal: No more of dying-all offences smother Live for the present, and forgive each other. RUM. A noble motion. (To FLOG.) Hence, unwieldy drone, And let thy monarch reassume his throne. All live again! Lord Chancellor, this way hand 'em. (SENTENTIOSUS presents each to the King, till he comes to CONSCIENZO, who refuses.) CONS. I'd rather die. SENT. De gustibus non est disputandum. RUM. Live, I command. Slave! die against my pleasure, And of an unmade grave I'll take thy measure. (Aside.) But I CONS. Since 'tis thy royal pleasure, sire, I'll live. They both shall board and lodge with us for life. Sir Jemmy, for the favours in thy heart meant, We make thee-Minister for our Home Department. CONS. Henceforth let mortals, for each other's use meant, Not cut each other's throats for mere amusement. MORAL. GRISKINDA comes forward. THE END. 357 THE SAILOR. COME, Jack, my hearty, bear a hand! No skulking!— turn up. The ladies and gentlemen look on you as "a lion," and would have a peep. Come, and come in all your tarry glory. Shove a fresh quid into your cheek, and give your love-locks another twist. Let's have all genuine, even to the hitched-up trowsers, the professional hat, with its pendent streamers, the long-quartered pumps, and the deep-sea roll, then the grog-glorious grog!-shall be so too. We must have a regular blue-water lad-a Portsmouth or Wapping boy; no long-shorer, no cod-catcher will do. Out on tailor-tars and masquerade sailors! be-belted, be-daggered, and be-pistolled; we 'll none o' them. Nor do we intend to dilate on the perilous adventures of those who navigate that endless sea, the Paddington canal. Corn-barges and coal-barges, lighters, hoys, oyster-boats, and wherries, we have nothing to do with you or yours; with those amphibious animals, dressed as sailors, complexioned like colliers, that direct the monsters which smoke along our shores, and convey seafaring cockneys to Greenwich and the Nore, we shall not stop to converse. We must impress for our purposes a blade who has been round the world, and on all sides of it; one who has been "done brown" under the meridian, and afterwards frozen grey at the Pole; who has been tattooed in Otaheite, and spitted for roasting in New Zealand. The lad must have floored Patagonians by dozens; have existed for three months on a rat's hind-quarter, three leather shoes, and a satin slipper; been the only survivor in nineteen shipwrecks; and once, when his vessel foundered at sea, made a voyage from the latitude of the Cape to the Azores on a hen-coop, catching dolphins and boobies by the way for his support. He must have seen every sight for which the ocean is remarkable, and, above all, the "Flying Dutchman." He must love his ship as his mother, and the sea as his home, regarding the land as a place merely for fresh water and wives. Fear must be unknown to him whenever danger comes in bodily substance; but he may be allowed to dread ghosts, goblins, and mermaids, which latter if he has heard sing and held conversation with, the better. He may shun the old hulk on board which the captain killed the cabin-boy, and the crew killed the captain, without his courage being doubted; he may assert having seen hundreds of spirits dancing on the waves where great battles have been fought, and his veracity be unimpugned. He must fear no man but the land-shark, dread nothing substantial save the "cat" and the bilboes. We shall expect him to be able to spin a decent yarn; we do not want him to be learned; we require to know about "Nelson and the Nile," the old Victory, and the fighting Temeraire, as he saw them. It is to be hoped he will be one who has aided often in laying the Frenchman's flag flat on his deck, as well as easing the Don of his dollars-when the said Don had them. Such an one, and especially if he acts like a sailor ashore, gets rid of the earnings of twelve months in six hours; sports a hackney-coach round town, more with a fiddler on the roof; sets up a dozen glasses of grog, and throws at them with another. If he does all these, and a few other things, which we may allude to presently, he will do, and let him sit to us for his picture. We will commence our portrait with the hero on his native element. Were we to give the sea-life of a sailor in its unvarnished state, we fear it would be robbed of many of the charms, and much of the romance, usually appended to it by sober fireside landsmen; but we are patriots, and have the good of the state at heart,-when not sea-sick: coleur de rose will not be totally omitted in our picture. It is a glorious day; the sun shines gaily, the breeze from the nor-west blows fair; the "blue-peter" has been flying since daybreak, and now the fore-topsail is loosed; about noon, a gun is fired, and shortly after the boatswain's whistle summons the gangway men, for the captain is alongside. The chief mounts to the quarter-deck, and the anchor is soon a-peak, and the vessel's nose put seawards. The land sinks beneath the horizon, and the ship is at sea. We will suppose this to be the opening of our hero's career. He is perhaps some simple country lad, who sees salt water for the first time, who calls the shrouds ladders, and the dog-vane being mentioned, expects to hear a bark. For the first few days the wind is fair, the weather fine; but the lad does not escape that nautical horror-sea-sickness. How fervently does he wish himself again at his cottage-door, or driving his geese or his pigs along some shady lane, or frightening the thievish crows from the new-sown corn, or anywhere but in his present situation. He cannot eat, and scarcely stand; and so unmanned is he by his illness, that he would readily give all his worldly possessions to any one who would be charitable enough to throw him overboard. His sickness, however, has a termination, and with returning strength he becomes more reconciled to his condition. He has at first a good deal of raillery to bear; he is laughed at for his unprofessional language, quizzed for his ignorance of sheets and tackles, davits and marlingspikes. His messmates are good-natured, and he soon becomes more learned. In a month he is able to chew, smoke, and drink rum. As his voyage progresses, he masters the compass, is taught to steer, and reef, and heave the log. He is soon competent to whip a rope and lay a splice, furl a top-gallant-sail, and heave the lead; and it is ten to one that, at the end of a long life, he has added nothing more to his professional knowledge. His voyage is marked by the usual alternation of storms and calms, dangers and escapes. He visits many strange lands, and perhaps brings away from them a monkey or a parrot, a few shells, and correct information of the prices of liquors, and where the best and cheapest tobacco is to be obtained. At the termination of his voyage, if one of long duration, he goes on shore, in all, save strength, an able seaman. Should it happen that his craft is a merchant-man, he has most likely been apprenticed for seven years, and for this period, should she escape shipwreck, and he feel no inclination to run away, he sails in her wherever the winds may waft, or currents drift. At the end of each voyage he mostly visits his native hamlet, struts in all the pride of ducks and a blue jacket, plights his faith to some village maid, and delights the gaping country folk with the wonders of the distant seas. He tells them of fish that fly higher than the church-steeple, and further than the distance to the wood on the hill; but the farmer's dames shake their heads incredulously. He then relates how their anchor was fouled in the wheels of Pharaoh's chariot when in the Red Sea, and this finds a readier belief, for they have all read of Pharaoh's chariot. They blush to hear him tell of men who dispense with breeches, and shudder to learn there are people who dine off brothers, and sup on sons. He tells them how a shark on one occasion gulped their stream anchor, and how when they hauled him up, they found half a whale-boat, one cask of tallow, three men, and a girl in his stomach. But his visit and his tales are over, and "again he goes to sea." His next voyage terminates his apprenticeship, and he is his own master. A pretty good foundation for an education has been laid by the various characters with whom he has sailed, but it is now that his genuine and unrestrained rollicks commence; hitherto a master's eye has retained him within a certain boundary. In all probability he now makes a voyage as "man." At his return he has what he deems an inexhaustible amount of money to receive. He does not, as formerly, visit his country friends; they are unthought of, and in all probability never again seen. In a great number of cases his sole care is to get rid of his cash. A crimp and public-house keeper takes him under his protection, absorbing cash as a sponge does water; ladies of an unholy sisterhood, and sailors who never went to sea, aid him with all fervour in his praiseworthy resolve; and short work they make of it between them. The sharks and vampires must all be "treated to the play." Of course they go in a coach, and the crazy vehicle groans beneath the weight of a dozen; to pass one single public-house on their line without pulling up would be deemed lubberly in the extreme. Jack himself is aloft, to give orders, and perhaps handle the tiller-ropes. Before their journey is half done he becomes so frolicsome that he insists on treating the admiring spectators to a hornpipe on the roof, and he only gets quiet when the roof gives way, and he descends into the solid mass of limbs and bodies under it, where he sticks like a wedge in a plank. The theatre is now in sight, and they bring up at the gallery door, and after another "drop" they mount to the shilling Olympus. To expect the tar to sit quietly down here would be unreasonable in audience and manager. He shouts, laughs, roars, and swears, halloos to any brother blue-jacket he chances to spy out, and gives vent to his feelings according to the nature of the drama. He has a keen relish for humour, and laughs prodigiously; should he witness a tragedy-for instance, Othello, his excitement soon boils over: it is in vain his companions assure him it is all "a sham;" he roars to the "blackamoor" to keep his dirty hands off that sweet girl, and pipes to the rescue. It is difficult to restrain him from rushing down and mixing in the scene; he swears to revenge the lady's death, and is very liberal in his promises of broken heads and shivered limbs. Between the pieces he makes the tour of the gal |