the noise be more his or the elements' and which will first leave scolding." From which it will be seen that the sailorman, off duty, was not always at pains to create a good impression. Nevertheless observers from Sir Thomas More to Leigh Hunt agree to describe him as a droll whimsical fellow, bronzed by sun and wind, ready with his fists and clever with his fingers, good-natured, kindly, tolerant, generous and helpful to the last conceivable degree, and blest with an inexhaustible supply of yarns as incredible as they are entertaining. Not less pleasing than the likenesses of tar and wappineer are the portraits, real and imaginary, of historic characters; Evelyn's delightful pictures of Lord Sandwich and Pepys, Clarendon's half-lengths of Batten and Pennington, Landor's vision of the Commonwealth Admiral and Froude's of Francis Drake. To these must be added studies of real men under fanciful nicknames and disguises; the divine Commodore Trunnion, Commodore Flip, Commodore Sir Oliver Oakplank and his crony Lieutenant Sprawl, Captain Mizzen, Captain Oakum and Captain Capperbar, Dirk Hatteraick the smuggler and Cleveland the "Pirate," Congreve's Ben Legend, Wycherley's Captain Manly, Assistant-Surgeon Morgan of the Thunder, Jack Rattlin, and last but not least Mr. Chucks the Boatswain. In this goodly company Captain Cuttle should find a place, if the canvas that contains him were not too large for such a gallery. The collection stops abruptly at 1870, because it is thought that the widely circulated, carefully treasured, well thumbed pieces of the past are appreciated more highly in a setting of their own, than when mixed with golden specimens of present currency whose glittering lustre, and clearer-cut impression, are in part at least to be attributed to their recent issue from the mint. The pieces are arranged-so far as available know ledge permits-in the order of their composition or publication. Historical sequence everywhere gives way to the unfolding pageant of English prose or the development of an individual author's style. Thus Clarendon's cameos of the Civil War are placed after Pepys and Evelyn, and Carlyle's footnote to the "Glorious First of June" precedes Blake's destruction of Spanish argosies. Resort has been had-so far as possible-to the most scholarly and definitive editions of text; and this procedure has been followed even in the case of Malory who usually suffers from a surfeit of transliteration. For the reader's convenience, the punctuation from the outset has been modernized. But in pre-Renaissance passages the author's spelling is retained; partly because by its elimination much of the charm and naïveté of the original is lost; and partly [a more practical reason] because such words as "oostis," "stieth," and "swolowis" have no exact equivalents in the modern reader's vocabulary. G. C. R.N. COLLEGE, ISLE OF WIGHT, |