A SAILORS GARLAND BY THE SAME AUTHOR SEA LIFE IN NELSON'S TIME ON THE SPANISH MAIN A SAILOR'S GARLAND TED AND EDITED JOHN MASEFIEI 1 METHUEN ft CO. 36 ESSEX STREK LONDON First Published . October Second Edition . 19$ To C 521) INTRODUCTORY is curious that m sea-going people such as the IT English should have written so little poetry, of a ibout the sea and its sailors until omipara- y recent times. It might he said that until tin- < ml of the eighteenth century our poets hardly saw the b of the tea, though they felt its terror. We have poems, such as Donne's "Storm" and "Calm/' expressing horrors and its desolation and later ; we have poems, Falconer's "Shipwreck, expressing its force and These, in their way, are excellent, hut they are not exhaustive. They rrcogniae and make significant ti.r grimmnrt aspects, and only those, of the sea, and of the life of its follower*. In this they are not singular. In loathing of the waters and of sea 1 resemble mott early English sea poetry. Nearly all the English poets, from Chau< t t< Keats, have a du! or a dread of, the sea, and a hatred of sea-life and " opinion of sailors. Chaucer," says someone, dismisses the sea with a shut! He accepts -man as a roadmate, and describes him with delicate art, but he describes him as a n who would rather break cargo than be sober, and to w),. m the ginger that is hot in the mouth is the one thing north praying fcrof all the things in the world <,.mrr. Ins follower, for a or so he seldom leaves dry land ; though page sings mrtnc.il n.mair gracefully about the Sirens. T<> tlu- viii INTRODUCTORY the sea is a wilderness haunted by magical ships plying from wonderful countries. To the Elizabethans (as Shakespeare, Markham, Webster, and Heywood) it is a place of tempest, or the scene of battle, or the haunt of pirates. To the Jacobeans (as Browne, Fletcher, Dekker, and Daborne) it is magical or tempestuous, or the haunt of pirates. To Donne, as I have said, it was desolate and horrible. To Sackville, the courtier, it was little save a place of exile, where one could have wine and hard knocks and a little quiet dice, but no ladies. To Falconer it was dangerous and deadly. None of these poets took delight in the contemplation of the sea. Shakespeare, indeed, invites to merriment upon the sands. Fletcher dreams about beautiful islands, peopled by goddesses or princesses. Heywood tells us of sea captains drinking wdne at a tavern. The others "dismiss the sea with a shudder." Nashe alone seems to have a word of praise for her. To Nashe she is the original home of "Solyman " " Herring," our dappert Piemont Huldrick Herring," the puissant red herring, the golden Hespcridcs red herring, the Meonian red herring, the red,herring of Red Herrings Hall." To Nashe she is the "glassy fieldes of Thetis," the "boil- " ing desert," full of careeringest billowes," over which go the smacks of Yarmouth "and never bruise one bubble." From Nashe alone does the sea get sympathetic treatment ; and the sympathy of Nashe is not worth a very great deal. It was not until the nineteenth century that she came to her own. Then Keats. Shelley Byron, Wqrdsworth, and a school of landscape painters taught us to regard her, as we regard her now, not as a hedge but as an outlet, not as an enemy but as a manifestation. Our sea heroes have received, on the whole, as scanty recognition as their element. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the poets who honoured our sailors were generally ballad-singers, greater in their zeal than in ivninnrrrouY ix their poetry. There are a few poems "by eminent hands nt sailors, xurh .is 1'fcle's address to Drake and H.iukins. tl; )>assage in Browne s Pastoral^ Drayton's poem t ian Voyage, and Marvt 11 s Hit these are exceptions. As a rule our great poets have left our great seamen unsung. We have < poem on the deeds of our sailors The ballad-singers have do us. and the < in t 'are excellent ballads, such as Andrew an d the ballad of :\g Porto Hello. Our true se;i epies are i prt.se I hry are to be iirtos ..fl' story of mgtj in the books of ! ke, Dam] and Hun < -s, some three appear to have taken firm hold upon the national MM tarnation. sea and the sea heroes have reim most part unsung, the fault is rather racial than personal Until the i ntury the Kn^lish - sense of the majesty and grandeur of certaii ii they eould fear and turn to use, splendour and beaut \ breaking water. As a na y have regarded their great men in "M"g the same way. They have broken thehr hearts or obeyed them or accepted them blindly, Inil they have never g! n, so that we need not look, in liooks of early ; poetry, for any rapture of percepticH sea's beauty, nor rapture of praise of a s nobler; >ur poetical strengi : i rapture n paneg\ . e;uid in eharaeteri-atiou. more etpcci.illy the characterisation .f homely types. We have had few great poems . and no ~n x INTRODUCTORY the sea heroes, but we have had unmatchable sea char- acters in our poetry and in our prose fiction. The sailor has been expressed for us with perfect art and perfect truth, though he himself may complain of the treatment he has received. The poets have not loved him. They have not been attracted by him. They have dismissed him, not with a shudder, but with a volley of his own oaths or with a scrap of his own song, as a sort of monster, a sort of sea-bear, a sort of a bawling rough Commodore Trunnion. So far as I know there are not half a dozen attractive naval characters, created and celebrated in poetry or in prose fiction, prior to the early nineteenth century. If a poet or a novelist desired a common seaman or a sea captain in his art, he followed the type of Chaucer's shipman or of Shakespeare's boat- " " swain for the one, and that of Congreve's young Ben or Smollett's Commodore, or Edmund Thompson's Captain Mizen for the other. Heywood's sea captains, at the inn, are perhaps the best we have prior to Miss Austen and Captain Marryat, though our fiction makers have always done well with pirates, as with Captain Ward and Captain Roberts. We cannot wonder that the poets have said so little that is beautiful about the sailor. There is little to say about him and that to a is ; little, perceptive person, very readily apparent. The poetic, or sea-bear sailor, who bawls and drinks and raps you out oaths and bangs upon tables with his cudgel, is always to be found. One can find him on blue water ships at the present time; and where he exists he is the best man in the vessel. He is not fitted to command, but he is excellent before the mast. He has hardly changed since Chaucer's time. One could find a dozen like Chaucer's shipman in any dock in Liverpool or New York or Sydney or San Francisco. He " no longer wears faldyng," or rough Irish frieze, but he IvrROlHTTORY xi without a knife (as he will tell you himself in a coarse proverb), and lie is tanned by the wind and the and he is a "good felawe," a good comrade, a stand- by in any sudden trouble. It is significant that Chaucer > the goodness of his felaweship direetly he has drawn " his portrait. He describes him riding "as he couthe (as that well, is, as a sailor generally rides something like a sack), and he tells us of his clothes, and knife, and tan. the man has been drlined tor u-. ( haucer points hief characteristic " And certainly he was a good fcla that >e one supremely a i hin^ in all sail. .is. rest, he is a mere ruffian with a knavish trie k of broa< wine casks in the h-.'.d \\hile that the <1 chapman sle< ; <-e conscience mess, -linary human mercy, he is careless. If he fi^hu. and li MWI !. ;i "t.'Ts in a and them | topsail dumps !>oard : .> water he sent hem boom to every land he "makes water-spaniels . as the F.li/abtthan all his I<>rd hinted to his successful pirate. Hut with he is a craftsman and a kmmledge- nows his terms of hunting and the He can reckon the tides, h the cum - a Channel and its good pilot ] of call, while he can stow a ship's hold like an artist. i s weather-beaten and toughened by the " sea. is " to undertake not He hardy and wise ; reckless, < but valiant and t >n tin whole he is tin him perfect sailor in creative wr. i. when we get and a little gentler, in Mai Ainburne, we like him rather bet x INTRODUCTORY the sea heroes, but we have had unmatchable sea char- acters in our poetry and in our prose fiction. The sailor has been expressed for us with perfect art and perfect truth, though he himself may complain of the treatment he has received. The poets have not loved him. They have not been attracted by him.