reiteration of the letter R; to set it hissing with semi-vowels; to make it pant and breathe short with a hundred heavy aspirates; or clog it up with the thickest double consonants and monosyllables: with a particular table of alliteration, containing the choicest epithets, disposed into alphabetical order; so that any substantive may be readily paired with a word beginning with the same letter, which (though a mere expletive) shall seem to carry more force and sentiment in it, than any other of a more relative meaning, but more distant sound. The whole to be illustrated with examples from the modern poets. This elaborate work will be published about the middle of the winter, under the title of The Rhymer's Play-thing, or Poetaster's Horn-Book; since there is nothing necessary to form such a poet, except teaching him his letters.

T.

N° 84. THURSDAY, SEPT 4, 1755.

Think, sailors, think, though landmen are your hate,
Who likes a mere tarpaulin but his mate?

SIR,

TO MR. TOWN.

YOU obliged the world some time ago with a few reflections on the gentlemen of the army: at the present juncture, a word or two on our sea-officers would not be unseasonable. I do not mean, that you should

presume to direct them how to behave in their several stations, but rather to remark on their conduct and conversation in private life, as far as they are influenced by their maritime characters. There is a certain unfashionable dye, which their manners often take from the salt water, that tinctures their whole behaviour on shore. If you could assist in blotting out these stains, and give a new colour to their conduct, you would add grace and politeness to their ordinary conversation, and would be of as much service to our naval commanders in this point, as he was to navigation in general, who first invented the compass.

As the conversation of those fair-weather foplings, many of whem may be met with in the three regiments of guards, is usually flat and insipid, that of our seaofficers is turbulent and boisterous: and as a trip to Paris has perhaps over-refined the coxcomb in red, a voyage round the globe frequently brutalizes the seaman, who comes home so rough and unpolished, that one would imagine he had not visited any nation in the world, except the Savages, or the Hottentots. The many advantages he has received from having seen the customs and manners of so many different people, it is natural to suppose, would render his conversation very desirable, as being in itself particularly instructive and entertaining; but this roughness, which clings to the seaman's behaviour like tar to his trowsers, makes him unfit for all civil and polite society. He behaves at an assembly, as if he was upon deck; and his whole deportment manifestly betrays, that he is, according to the common phrase, quite out of his element. Nor can you collect any more from him concerning the several nations he has visited, than if he had been during the whole time confined to his cabin and he seems to know as little of them, as the

:

fine gentleman of his travels after the polite tour, when he has, for the sake of improvement, rid post through all Europe.

That our ordinary seamen, who are many of them draughted from the very lowest of the populace, should be thus uncivilized, is no wonder. The common sailor's education in Tottenham Court, or at Hockley in the Hole, has not qualified him to improve by just reflections on what he sees during his voyage; and going on board a man of war is a kind of university education, suitably adapted to the principles imbibed in the polite seminaries, which he came from. A common sailor too is full as polite as a common soldier and behaves as genteely to a Wapping landlady, as the gentleman soldier, at a suttling-house. But surely there ought to be as much difference in the behaviour of the commander and his crew, as there is in their situation: and it is beneath the dignity of the British flag to have an admiral behave as rudely as a swabber, or a commodore as foul-mouthed as a boatawain.

It may perhaps be alledged in excuse, that the being placed among such a boisterous set of people, as our common sailors, must unavoidably wear off all politeness and good manners: as it is remarkable, that all those who are employed in the care of horses, grow as mere brutes as the animals they attend; and as we may often observe those justices, whose chief business is the examination of highwaymen, house-breakers, and street-walkers, become as vulgar and foul-mouthed as a pick-pocket. As there may be some truth in this, the commander should therefore be still more on his guard to preserve the gentleman in his behaviour, and like the sea itseif, when the storm is over, grow smooth and calm. it is accounted a piece of humour on the Thames to abuse the other passengers on the water; and there are certain set terms of abuse, which

fly to and fro from one boat to another on this occasion. A wag might perhaps amuse himself with this water-language in his voyage to Vauxhall, but must be a very silly fellow indeed, to think of carrying the joke on shore with him. In the same manner some roughness may perhaps be necessary to keep the crew in order; but it is absurd for an officer to retain his harshness in polite company; and is in a manner tying his friends up to the yard-arm, and disciplining his acquaintance with the cat-of-nine tails.

But the worst part of this maritime character is a certain invincible contempt, which they often contract for all mankind, except their fellow-seamen. They look on the rest of the world as a set of fresh-water wretches, who could be of no service in a storm or an engagement; and from an unaccountable obstinacy are particularly deaf to any proposals of new improvements in navigation: though experience daily teaches them the great use of the discoveries already made, and how much room there is for more. They have no notion, how studious men can sit at home, and devise charts and instruments to direct them in their course; they despise those ingenious persons, who would assist them in their undertakings; while they consider them with the utmost contempt, as going round the world in their closets, and sailing at sea in their elbow-chairs. It is no less shameful than true, that the ventilator, one of the most beneficial inventions that ever was devised, was first offered to the service of our men of war, and rejected. It was first used in foreign ships, then by our merchantmen, and last of all among our men of war, to whose use it was first recommended. This is a strong proof of that fatal obstinacy, which our sea-commanders are too ap to contract; and as a further instance of it, I have been told of an admiral's indignation on this subject, venting itself in the following manner: "A pack of blockheads," said he,

"sit poring, and pretend to make improvements for our use. They tell you that they discover this, and discover that; but I tell you they are all fools.-For instance now, they say the world is round; every one of them says the world is round;-but I have been all round the world, and it is as flat as this table."

The unpolish'd behaviour of our sea-officers is in great measure owing to their being often sent to sea very young with little or no education, beyond what they have received at the academy of Woolwich or Portsmouth. A lad of good family, but untoward parts, or mischievous disposition, who has been flogged for a-while at the grammar-school, or snubbed by his parents and friends at home, is frequently clapped on board a ship in order to tame him, and to teach him better manners. Here perhaps he at first messes with the lowest of the seamen; and all that the young gentleman can learn from his jolly mess-mates in the course of two or three voyages, is to drink flip, sing a bawdy catch, and dance a hornpipe. These genteel accomplishments he is sure to retain, as he grows old in the service; and if he has the good fortune to rise to a command, he is as surly and brutal when advanced to the cabin, as when he was tugging before the mast.

After all it is but justice to confess, that there are many among our sea-officers, who deservedly bear the character of gentlemen and scholars; and it is easy to perceive, with how much better grace they appear in the world than the rest of their brethren, who, when laid up and taken out of service, are as mere logs as the main-mast. An officer, who has any relish for reading, will employ the many vacant hours, in which he is relieved from duty, much more to his improvement and satisfaction, than in sauntering between the decks, or muddling over a bowl of punch. I would, therefore, seriously recommend it to these young