THE PURSUIT OF POETRY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
The feeling of insecurity concerning one’s possessions in the
Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest
men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford,
a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early made
the acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, how unerringly a man
pitches upon a spirit, any way akin to his own, even in the most
miscellaneous mob.
Lemsford was a poet; so thoroughly inspired with the divine afflatus,
that not even all the tar and tumult of a man-of-war could drive it out
of him.
As may readily be imagined, the business of writing verse is a very
different thing on the gun-deck of a frigate, from what the gentle and
sequestered Wordsworth found it at placid Rydal Mount in Westmoreland.
In a frigate, you cannot sit down and meander off your sonnets, when
the full heart prompts; but only, when more important duties permit:
such as bracing round the yards, or reefing top-sails fore and aft.
Nevertheless, every fragment of time at his command was religiously
devoted by Lemsford to the Nine. At the most unseasonable hours, you
would behold him, seated apart, in some corner among the guns—a
shot-box before him, pen in hand, and eyes “_in a fine frenzy
rolling_.”
“What’s that ’ere born nat’ral about?”—“He’s got a fit, hain’t he?”
were exclamations often made by the less learned of his shipmates. Some
deemed him a conjurer; others a lunatic; and the knowing ones said,
that he must be a crazy Methodist. But well knowing by experience the
truth of the saying, that _poetry is its own exceeding great reward_,
Lemsford wrote on; dashing off whole epics, sonnets, ballads, and
acrostics, with a facility which, under the circumstances, amazed me.
Often he read over his effusions to me; and well worth the hearing they
were. He had wit, imagination, feeling, and humour in abundance; and
out of the very ridicule with which some persons regarded him, he made
rare metrical sport, which we two together enjoyed by ourselves; or
shared with certain select friends.
Still, the taunts and jeers so often levelled at my friend the poet,
would now and then rouse him into rage; and at such times the haughty
scorn he would hurl on his foes, was proof positive of his possession
of that one attribute, irritability, almost universally ascribed to the
votaries of Parnassus and the Nine.
My noble captain, Jack Chase, rather patronised Lemsford, and he would
stoutly take his part against scores of adversaries. Frequently,
inviting him up aloft into his top, he would beg him to recite some of
his verses; to which he would pay the most heedful attention, like
Maecenas listening to Virgil, with a book of Aeneid in his hand. Taking
the liberty of a well-wisher, he would sometimes gently criticise the
piece, suggesting a few immaterial alterations. And upon my word, noble
Jack, with his native-born good sense, taste, and humanity, was not ill
qualified to play the true part of a _Quarterly Review_;—which is, to
give quarter at last, however severe the critique.
Now Lemsford’s great care, anxiety, and endless source of tribulation
was the preservation of his manuscripts. He had a little box, about the
size of a small dressing-case, and secured with a lock, in which he
kept his papers and stationery. This box, of course, he could not keep
in his bag or hammock, for, in either case, he would only be able to
get at it once in the twenty-four hours. It was necessary to have it
accessible at all times. So when not using it, he was obliged to hide
it out of sight, where he could. And of all places in the world, a ship
of war, above her _hold_, least abounds in secret nooks. Almost every
inch is occupied; almost every inch is in plain sight; and almost every
inch is continually being visited and explored. Added to all this, was
the deadly hostility of the whole tribe of
ship-underlings—master-at-arms, ship’s corporals, and boatswain’s
mates,—both to the poet and his casket. They hated his box, as if it
had been Pandora’s, crammed to the very lid with hurricanes and gales.
They hunted out his hiding-places like pointers, and gave him no peace
night or day.
Still, the long twenty-four-pounders on the main-deck offered some
promise of a hiding-place to the box; and, accordingly, it was often
tucked away behind the carriages, among the side tackles; its black
colour blending with the ebon hue of the guns.
But Quoin, one of the quarter-gunners, had eyes like a ferret. Quoin
was a little old man-of-war’s man, hardly five feet high, with a
complexion like a gun-shot wound after it is healed. He was
indefatigable in attending to his duties; which consisted in taking
care of one division of the guns, embracing ten of the aforesaid
twenty-four-pounders. Ranged up against the ship’s side at regular
intervals, they resembled not a little a stud of sable chargers in
their stall. Among this iron stud little Quoin was continually running
in and out, currying them down, now and then, with an old rag, or
keeping the flies off with a brush. To Quoin, the honour and dignity of
the United States of America seemed indissolubly linked with the
keeping his guns unspotted and glossy. He himself was black as a
chimney-sweep with continually tending them, and rubbing them down with
black paint. He would sometimes get outside of the port-holes and peer
into their muzzles, as a monkey into a bottle. Or, like a dentist, he
seemed intent upon examining their teeth. Quite as often, he would be
brushing out their touch-holes with a little wisp of oakum, like a
Chinese barber in Canton, cleaning a patient’s ear.
Such was his solicitude, that it was a thousand pities he was not able
to dwarf himself still more, so as to creep in at the touch-hole, and
examining the whole interior of the tube, emerge at last from the
muzzle. Quoin swore by his guns, and slept by their side. Woe betide
the man whom he found leaning against them, or in any way soiling them.
He seemed seized with the crazy fancy, that his darling
twenty-four-pounders were fragile, and might break, like glass retorts.
Now, from this Quoin’s vigilance, how could my poor friend the poet
hope to escape with his box? Twenty times a week it was pounced upon,
with a “here’s that d——d pillbox again!” and a loud threat, to pitch it
overboard the next time, without a moment’s warning, or benefit of
clergy. Like many poets, Lemsford was nervous, and upon these occasions
he trembled like a leaf. Once, with an inconsolable countenance, he
came to me, saying that his casket was nowhere to be found; he had
sought for it in his hiding-place, and it was not there.
I asked him where he had hidden it?
“Among the guns,” he replied.
“Then depend upon it, Lemsford, that Quoin has been the death of it.”
Straight to Quoin went the poet. But Quoin knew nothing about it. For
ten mortal days the poet was not to be comforted; dividing his leisure
time between cursing Quoin and lamenting his loss. The world is undone,
he must have thought: no such calamity has befallen it since the
Deluge;—my verses are perished.
But though Quoin, as it afterward turned out, had indeed found the box,
it so happened that he had not destroyed it; which no doubt led
Lemsford to infer that a superintending Providence had interposed to
preserve to posterity his invaluable casket. It was found at last,
lying exposed near the galley.
Lemsford was not the only literary man on board the Neversink. There
were three or four persons who kept journals of the cruise. One of
these journalists embellished his work—which was written in a large
blank account-book—with various coloured illustrations of the harbours
and bays at which the frigate had touched; and also, with small crayon
sketches of comical incidents on board the frigate itself. He would
frequently read passages of his book to an admiring circle of the more
refined sailors, between the guns. They pronounced the whole
performance a miracle of art. As the author declared to them that it
was all to be printed and published so soon as the vessel reached home,
they vied with each other in procuring interesting items, to be
incorporated into additional chapters. But it having been rumoured
abroad that this journal was to be ominously entitled “_The Cruise of
the Neversink, or a Paixhan shot into Naval Abuses;_” and it having
also reached the ears of the Ward-room that the work contained
reflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity of the officers, the
volume was seized by the master-at-arms, armed with a warrant from the
Captain. A few days after, a large nail was driven straight through the
two covers, and clinched on the other side, and, thus everlastingly
sealed, the book was committed to the deep. The ground taken by the
authorities on this occasion was, perhaps, that the book was obnoxious
to a certain clause in the Articles of War, forbidding any person in
the Navy to bring any other person in the Navy into contempt, which the
suppressed volume undoubtedly did.