for. He would buy all the painted parrots on an Italian's head, on purpose to break them, rather than not spend his money. He has fiddles and a dance at the Ship, with oceans of flip and grog; and gives the blind fiddler tobacco for sweetmeats, and half a crown for treading on his toe. He asks the landlady, with a sigh, after her daughter Nance, who first fired his heart with her silk stockings; and finding that she is married and in trouble, leaves five crowns for her; which the old lady appropriates as part payment for a shilling in advance. He goes to the port playhouse with Bet Monson, and a great red handkerchief full of apples, gingerbread nuts, and fresh beef; calls out for the fiddlers and Rule Britannia; pelts Tom Sikes in the pit; and compares Othello to the black ship's cook in his white night-cap. When he comes to London, he and some messmates take a hackney-coach, full of Bet Monsons and tobacco-pipes, and go through the streets smoking and lolling out of window. He has ever been cautious of venturing on horseback; and among his other sights in foreign parts, relates with unfeigned astonishment how he has seen the Turks ride,—" Only," says he, guarding against the hearer's incredulity, "they have saddleboxes to hold 'em in, fore and aft; and shovels like for stirrups." He will tell you how the Chinese drink, and the NEGURS dance, and the monkies pelt you with cocoa-nuts; and how King Domy would have built him a mud hut and made him a Peer of the Realm, if he would have stopped with him and taught him to make trowsers. He has a sister at a "School for Young Ladies," who blushes with a mixture of pleasure and shame at his appearance; and whose confusion he completes, by slipping four-pence into her hand, and saying out loud that he has "no more copper" about him. His mother and elder sisters at home doat on all he says and does, telling him however that he is a great sea-fellow, and was always wild ever since he was a hop-o'-mythumb no higher than the window-locker. He tells his mother that

she would be a Duchess in Paranaboo; at which the good old portly dame laughs and looks proud. When his sisters complain of his romping, he says that they are only sorry it is not the baker. He frightens them with a mask made after the New Zealand fashion, and is forgiven for his learning. Their mantle-piece is filled by him with shells and shark's teeth; and when he goes to sea again, there is no end of tears, and God-bless you's, and home-made gingerbread.

His Officer on shore does much of all this, only, generally speaking, in a higher taste. The moment he lands, he buys quantities of jewellery and other valuables, for all the females of his acquaintance; and is taken in for every article. He sends in a cart load of fresh meat to the ship, though he is going to town next day; and calling in at a chandler's for some candles, is persuaded to buy a dozen of green wax, with which he lights up the ship at evening; regretting that the fine moonlight hinders the effect of the colour. A man, with a bundle beneath his arm, accosts him in an under-tone; and, with a look in which respect for his knowledge is mixed with an avowed zeal for his own interest, asks if his Honour will just step under the gangway here, and inspect some real India shawls. The gallant Lieutenant says to himself, "This fellow knows what's what, by his face;" and

so he proves it by being taken in on the spot. When he brings the shawls home, he says to his sister with an air of triumph, "There, Poll, there's something for you; only cost me twelve, and is worth twenty, if it's worth a dollar." She turns pale-"Twenty what, my dear George? Why, you haven't given twelve dollars for it, I hope?" "Not I, by the Lord."-" That's lucky; because you see, my dear George, that all together is not worth more than fourteen or fifteen shillings." "Fourteen or fifteen what! Why, it's real India, en't it? Why the fellow told me so; or I'm sure I'd as soon"-(here he tries to hide his blushes with a bluster) "I'd as soon have given him twelve douses on the chaps as twelve guineas.' "Twelve GUINEAS!" exclaims the sister; and then drawling forth "Why-my-DEARGeorge," is proceeding to shew him what the articles would have cost at Condell's, when he interrupts her by requesting her to go and chuse for herself a tea-table service. He then makes his escape to some messmates at a coffee-house, and drowns his recollection of the shawls in the best wine, and a discussion on the comparative merits of the English and West Indian beauties and tables. At the theatre afterwards, where he has never been before, he takes a lady at the back of one of the boxes for a woman of quality; and when, after returning his long respectful gaze with a smile, she turns aside and puts her handkerchief to her mouth, he thinks it is in derision, till his friend undeceives him. He is introduced to the lady; and ever afterwards, at first sight of a woman of quality (without any disparagement either to those charming personages), expects her to give him a smile. He thinks the other ladies much better creatures than they are taken for; and for their parts, they tell him, that if all men were like himself, they would trust the sex again:-which, for aught we know, is the truth. He has, indeed, what he thinks a very liberal opinion of ladies in general; judging them all, in a manner, with the eye of a seaman's experience. Yet he will believe nevertheless in the "truelove" of any given damsel whom he seeks in the way of marriage, let him roam as much, or remain as long at a distance, as he pleases. It is not that he wants feeling; but that he has read of it, time out of mind, in songs; and he looks upon constancy as a sort of exploit, answering to those which he performs at sea. He is nice in his watches and linen. He makes you presents of cornelians, antique seals, cocoa-nuts set in silver, and other valuables. When he shakes

hands with you, it is like being caught in a windlass. He would not swagger about the streets in his uniform, for the world. He is generally modest in company, though liable to be irritated by what he thinks ungentlemanly behaviour. He is also liable to be rendered irritable by sickness; partly because he has been used to command others, and to be served with all possible deference and alacrity; and partly, because the idea of suffering pain, without any honour or profit to get by it, is unprofessional, and he is not accustomed to it. He treats talents unlike his own with great respect. He often perceives his own so little felt that it teaches him this feeling for that of others. Besides, he admires the quantity of information which people can get, without travelling like himself; especially when he sees how interesting

his own becomes, to them as well as to every body else. When he tells a story, particularly if full of wonders, he takes care to maintain his character for truth and simplicity, by qualifying it with all possible reservations, concessions, and anticipations of objection; such as "in case, at such times as, so to speak, as it were, at least, at any rate.' He seldom uses sea-terms but when jocosely provoked by something contrary to his habits of life; as for instance, if he is always meeting you on horseback, he asks if you never mean to walk the deck again; or if he finds you studying day after day, he says you are always overhauling your log-book. He makes more new acquaintances, and forgets his old ones less, than any other man in the busy world; for he is so compelled to make his home every where, remembers his native one as such a place of enjoyment, has all his friendly recollections so fixed upon his mind at sea, and has so much to tell and to hear when he returns, that change and separation lose with him the most heartless part of their nature. He also sees such a variety of customs and manners, that he becomes charitable in his opinions altogether; and charity, while it diffuses the affections, cannot let the old ones go. secret of human intercourse is to make allowance for each other. When the Officer is superannuated or retires, he becomes, if intelligent and enquiring, one of the most agreeable old men in the world, equally welcome to the silent for his card-playing, and to the conversational for his recollections. He is fond of astronomy and books of voyages, and is immortal with all who know him for having been round the world, or seen the Transit of Venus, or had one of his fingers carried off by a New Zealand hatchet, or a present of feathers from an Otaheitean beauty. If not elevated by his acquirements above some of his humbler tastes, he delights in a corner-cupboard holding his Cocoa-nuts and punchbowl; has his summer-house castellated and planted with wooden cannon; and sets up the figure of his old ship, the Britannia or the Lovely Nancy, for a statue in the garden; where it stares eternally with red cheeks and round black eyes, as if in astonishment at it's situation.

Half the

Chaucer, who wrote his Canterbury Tales about four hundred and thirty years ago, has among his other characters in that work a SHIPMAN, who is exactly of the same cast as the modern sailor,-the same robustness, courage, and rough drawn virtue, doing it's duty, without being very nice in helping itself to it's recreations. There is the very dirk, the complexion, the jollity, the experience, and the bad horsemanship. The plain unaffected ending of the description has the air of a sailor's own speech; while the line about the beard is exceedingly picturesque, poetical, and comprehensive. In copying it out, we shall merely alter the old spelling, where the words are still modern.

A Shipman was there, wonned far by west;
For aught I wot, he was of Dartëmouth.
He rode upon a rouncie, as he couth,*
All in a gown of falding to the knee.
A dagger hanging by a lace had he,

* He rode upon a hack-horse, as well as he could.

About his neck, under his arm adown.
The hot summer had made his hew all brown.
And certainly he was a good felaw.

Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw

From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapman slep.
Of nice conscience took he no keep.

If that he fought and had the higher hand,
By water he sent 'em home to every land.
But of his craft, to reckon well his tides,
His streames and his strandës him besides,
His harborough, his moon, and his lode manage,
There was not such from Hull unto Carthage.
Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake;

With many a tempest had his beard been shake.
He knew well all the havens, as they were,
From Gothland to the Cape de Finisterre,
And every creek in Briton and in Spain.
His barge ycleped was the Magdelain.

When about to tell his Tale, he tells his fellow-travellers that he shall chink them so merry a bell,

That it shall waken all this company:

But it shall not be of philosophy.

Nor of physick, nor of terms quaint of law;
There is but little Latin in my maw.

The story he tells is a well-known one in the Italian novels, of a monk who made love to a merchant's wife, and borrowed a hundred francs of the husband to give her. She accordingly admits his addresses during the absence of her good man on a journey. When the latter returns, he applies to the cunning monk for repayment, and is referred to the lady; who thus finds her mercenary behaviour outwitted.

TRANSLATION OF

TASSO'S CELEBRATED ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE,

Beginning,-
‚—“ O bella eta dell' oro,”

[We should not have ended our present number with this translation, had not the previous matter turned out shorter in the printing than we expected. The transition from a modern seaman to the Golden Age seems no very harmonious piece of contrast; yet we might quote precedent even for this abruptness, in the arrival of Vasco de Gama's Sailors at the Island of Love in Camoens. One of the stanzas has already appeared in this work. A translation of the whole of the Aminta by the Editor is now going through the press.]

O lovely age of Gold;

Not that the rivers rolled

With milk, or that the woods dropped honey dew;
Not that the ready ground

Produced without a wound,

Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew;

Not that a cloudless blue

For ever was in sight,

Or that the heaven which burns,

And now is cold by turns,

Looked out in glad and everlasting light;

No, nor that ev'n the insolent ships from far

Brought war to new lands, nor riches worse than war,

But solely that that vain

And breath-invented pain,

That idol of mistake, that worshipped cheat,

That Honour,-since so called

By vulgar minds appalled,

Played not the tyrant with our nature yet.

It had not come to fret

The sweet and happy fold

Of gentle human-kind;

Nor did its hard law bind

Souls nursed in freedom; but that law of gold,

That glad and golden law, all free, all fitted,

Which Nature's own hand wrote,-What pleases, is permitted.

Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher,
JOSEPH APPLEYARD, No. 19, Catharine-street, Strand.-Price 2d.

Printed by C. H. REYNELL, No. 45, Broad-street, Golden-square, London.

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