A MAN-OF-WAR LIBRARY.
Nowhere does time pass more heavily than with most men-of-war’s-men on
board their craft in harbour.
One of my principal antidotes against _ennui_ in Rio, was reading.
There was a public library on board, paid for by government, and
intrusted to the custody of one of the marine corporals, a little,
dried-up man, of a somewhat literary turn. He had once been a clerk in
a post-office ashore; and, having been long accustomed to hand over
letters when called for, he was now just the man to hand over books. He
kept them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and, when seeking a
particular volume, had to capsize it like a barrel of potatoes. This
made him very cross and irritable, as most all librarians are. Who had
the selection of these books, I do not know, but some of them must have
been selected by our Chaplain, who so pranced on Coleridge’s “_High
German horse_.”
Mason Good’s Book of Nature—a very good book, to be sure, but not
precisely adapted to tarry tastes—was one of these volumes; and
Machiavel’s Art of War—which was very dry fighting; and a folio of
Tillotson’s Sermons—the best of reading for divines, indeed, but with
little relish for a main-top-man; and Locke’s Essays—incomparable
essays, everybody knows, but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarch’s
Lives—super-excellent biographies, which pit Greek against Roman in
beautiful style, but then, in a sailor’s estimation, not to be
mentioned with the _Lives of the Admirals_; and Blair’s Lectures,
University Edition—a fine treatise on rhetoric, but having nothing to
say about nautical phrases, such as “_splicing the main-brace_,”
“_passing a gammoning_,” “_puddinging the dolphin_,” and “_making a
Carrick-bend_;” besides numerous invaluable but unreadable tomes, that
might have been purchased cheap at the auction of some
college-professor’s library.
But I found ample entertainment in a few choice old authors, whom I
stumbled upon in various parts of the ship, among the inferior
officers. One was “_Morgan’s History of Algiers_,” a famous old quarto,
abounding in picturesque narratives of corsairs, captives, dungeons,
and sea-fights; and making mention of a cruel old Dey, who, toward the
latter part of his life, was so filled with remorse for his cruelties
and crimes that he could not stay in bed after four o’clock in the
morning, but had to rise in great trepidation and walk off his bad
feelings till breakfast time. And another venerable octavo, containing
a certificate from Sir Christopher Wren to its authenticity, entitled
“_Knox’s Captivity in Ceylon, 1681_”—abounding in stories about the
Devil, who was superstitiously supposed to tyrannise over that
unfortunate land: to mollify him, the priests offered up buttermilk,
red cocks, and sausages; and the Devil ran roaring about in the woods,
frightening travellers out of their wits; insomuch that the Islanders
bitterly lamented to Knox that their country was full of devils, and
consequently, there was no hope for their eventual well-being. Knox
swears that he himself heard the Devil roar, though he did not see his
horns; it was a terrible noise, he says, like the baying of a hungry
mastiff.
Then there was Walpole’s Letters—very witty, pert, and polite—and some
odd volumes of plays, each of which was a precious casket of jewels of
good things, shaming the trash nowadays passed off for dramas,
containing “The Jew of Malta,” “Old Fortunatus,” “The City Madam.”
“Volpone,” “The Alchymist,” and other glorious old dramas of the age of
Marlow and Jonson, and that literary Damon and Pythias, the
magnificent, mellow old Beaumont and Fletcher, who have sent the long
shadow of their reputation, side by side with Shakspeare’s, far down
the endless vale of posterity. And may that shadow never be less! but
as for St. Shakspeare may his never be more, lest the commentators
arise, and settling upon his sacred text like unto locusts, devour it
clean up, leaving never a dot over an I.
I diversified this reading of mine, by borrowing Moore’s “_Loves of the
Angels_” from Rose-water, who recommended it as “_de charmingest of
volumes;_” and a Negro Song-book, containing _Sittin’ on a Rail_,
_Gumbo Squash_, and _Jim along Josey_, from Broadbit, a
sheet-anchor-man. The sad taste of this old tar, in admiring such
vulgar stuff, was much denounced by Rose-water, whose own predilections
were of a more elegant nature, as evinced by his exalted opinion of the
literary merits of the “_Loves of the Angels_.”
I was by no means the only reader of books on board the Neversink.
Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did
not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such
as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were
slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of
the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must
have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have
an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet,
somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and
companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those
which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to
little, but abound in much.