41. CHAPTER XLI.
Nowhere does time pass more heavily than with most
man-of-war's-men on board their craft in harbor.
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, every
body knows, but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarch's
Lives—superexcellent 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,” “pud
dinging 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 anthors,
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 tyrannize 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
travelers 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 wolumes;” 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-letters.
Their favorite 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.
