I'll go the cheapest way to work: I'll knight him.- FLOG. Jem Floggem. RUM. (drawing his sword) Kneel. FLOG. Don't go to trim me. RUM. Kneel down, Jem Floggem, and arise-Sir Jemmy. RUM. Thankless beast! FLOG. I thought you 'd give me one-pound-one, at least. What good to me with titles to be cramm'd? RUM. Art not a knight? Your majesty be-spiflicated! RUM. Take this, bold traitor. (Stabs him.) Ha! I'm summon'd straight The grave, the Bow Street-Death, the magistrate. Now for the traitors. Let's peruse their scheme : It answers point for point our royal dream! We'll place Sir Jemmy's body on the throne. Rascallo will mistake it for our own. (Places the body on the throne.) Thus we 'll out-scheme our deadly-scheming foes. Hang him, he 's coming. (RUMFUSKIN goes off hastily with long strides. RASCALLO, dagger in hand, enters, and instantly follows him in the same way, saying) RASC. Hang him, there he goes! [Exit. Enter CONSCIENZO and GRISKINDA. CONS. Here, then, we are. But, ah! what deed to do! GRISK. (Coolly.) To run Rumfuskin's body through and through. CONS. I own for such vagaries I'm not made. GRISK. A captain of militia, and afraid! CONS. I shake like calf's-foot jelly. GRISK. But what I say I'll do. Give me the dagger. I'm no bragger, (Approaches the throne.) CONS. Hold up, my heart!-'tis done-Rumfuskin dies! O horror! See where ready-killed he lies! GRISK. (kneels to CONSCIENZO, and with enthusiasm.) Hail, Conscienzo King of the North Pole ! Enter RASCALLO, with a bloody dagger. RASC. Not whilst Rascallo lives, upon my soul! In hopes I'd make thee second in command; CONS. And will. RASC. He shan't, that's flat. GBISK. Here's to decide it, then; take this! (Stabs RASCALLO.) SCRUB. SCRUBINDA rushes on and stabs GRISKINDA. GRISK. And here! (Stabs SCRUBINDA.) Take that! And there! (Stabs CONSCIENZO.) RASC. (They each draw a chair, and fall into it.) RASC. (looking at his wound.) My wound is mortal. SCRUB. (doing the same.) CONS. So is mine. Mine too. GRISK. In me she has bored a hole quite through and through. RASC. But see where comes the kill'd and wounded King. CONS. Why, there he lies. (Pointing to SIR JEMMY.) RASC. 'Tis Jem the coachman. CONS. Pooh! nonsense! no such thing: O, most fatal blunder! I shouldn't wonder. I took him for the King. RASC. Enter RUMFUSKIN, wounded, led on by SENTENTIOSUS, Lord High Chancellor. RUM. Gently, my good Lord Chancellor, for, oh! We feel our life is just upon the go. Here will we die. SENT. We die! (Aside.) O, curse his we's! Brush our coat. (A threatening gesture by the King.) Think not, my sovereign, I'm too bold in stating RUM. We're dying, so thy boldness we excuse, Remove yon corpse, for on our throne we'll die. Pity our fate, ye traitors; 'tis a hard one! ALL, except SENT. We beg your Majesty's most gracious pardon. RUM. (TO SENT.) Now, ere we die, my lord, return our conscience: Thou art the keeper on't. SENT. What, I Psha! nonsense! RUM. Thou'rt keeper of our conscience, fire and fury! SENT. 'Tis the Archbishop, sire, of Canterbury. RUM. We think thou'rt wrong: but, prythee, send about it; And tell his Grace we cannot die without it. We die-we cannot wait-so send it after. FLOG. 'Tis well I'm dead, or I should die of laughter. RUN. (angrily.) You have no right to speak, because you know We killed you upwards of an hour ago. FLOG. 'Tis true you killed me, sire; but that's no rule. (To SENT.) My lord, what does the Act of Parliament say? RUM. Law still is law.-Now lets to business.-Oh! We'll settle the succession ere we go. Thou shalt be king, my lord: and thus we close all Life's weighty matters. (Dies.) SENT. Now hear my proposal: No more of dying-all offences smother Live for the present, and forgive each other. RUM. A noble motion (To FLOG.) Hence, unwieldy drone, And let thy monarch reassume his throne. All live again! Lord Chancellor, this way hand 'em. (SENTENTIOSUS presents each to the King, till he comes to CONSCIENZO, who refuses.) CONS. I'd rather die. SENT. De gustibus non est disputandum. CONS. Since 'tis thy royal pleasure, sire, I'll live. SENT. Your Majesty is much too good. (Aside.) But I Will file 'gainst each a bill in Chancery. RASC. For what is past my heart is full of sorrow. (Aside.) I'll have another poke at him to-morrow. RUM. Rascallo, take Scrubinda's lily hand You shall be bound in Hymen's saffron band; They both shall board and lodge with us for life. Sir Jemmy, for the favours in thy heart meant, We make thee-Minister for our Home Department. CONS. Henceforth let mortals, for each other's use meant, Not cut each other's throats for mere amusement. MORAL. GRISKINDA comes forward. When worth and honour radiate the heart, THE END. THE SAILOR. COME, Jack, my hearty, bear a hand! No skulking!-turn up. The ladies and gentlemen look on you as 'a lion,' and would have a peep. Come, and come in all your tarry glory. Shove a fresh quid into your cheek, and give your love-locks another twist. Let's have all genuine, even to the hitched-up trowsers, the professional hat, with its pendent streamers, the long-quartered pumps, and the deep-sea roll, then the grog-glorious grog!-shall be so too. We must have a regular blue-water lad-a Portsmouth or Wapping boy; no long-shorer, no cod-catcher will do. Out on tailor-tars and mas. querade sailors! be-belted, be-daggered, and be-pistolled; we 'll none o' them. Nor do we intend to dilate on the perilous adventures of those who navigate that endless sea, the Paddington canal. Cornbarges and coal-barges, lighters, hoys, oyster-boats, and wherries, we have nothing to do with you or yours; with those amphibious animals, dressed as sailors, complexioned like colliers, that direct the monsters which smoke along our shores, and convey seafaring cockneys to Greenwich and the Nore, we shall not stop to con verse. We must impress for our purposes a blade who has been round the world, and on all sides of it; one who has been done brown' under the meridian, and afterwards frozen grey at the Pole; who has been tattooed in Otaheite, and spitted for roasting in New Zealand. The lad must have floored Patagonians by dozens; have existed for three months on a rat's hind-quarter, three leather shoes, and a satin slipper; been the only survivor in nineteen shipwrecks; and once, when his vessel foundered at sea, made a voyage from the latitude of the Cape to the Azores on a hen-coop, catching dolphins and boobies by the way for his support. He must have seen every sight for which the ocean is remarkable, and, above all, the Flying Dutchman.' He must love his ship as his mother, and the sea as his home, regarding the land as a place merely for fresh water and wives. Fear must be unknown to him whenever danger comes in bodily substance; but he may be allowed to dread ghosts, goblins, and mermaids, which latter if he has heard sing and held conversation with, the better. He may shun the old hulk on board which the captain killed the cabin-boy, and the crew killed the captain, without his courage being doubted; he may assert having seen hundreds of spirits dancing on the waves where great battles have been fought, and his veracity be unimpugned. He must fear no man but the land-shark, dread nothing substantial save the 'cat' and the bilboes. We shall expect him to be able to spin a decent yarn; we do not want him to be learned; we require to know about 'Nelson and he Nile,' the old Victory, and the fighting Temeraire, as he saw thm. It is to be hoped he will be one who has aided often in laying the Frenchman's flag flat on his deck, as well as easing the Don of is dollars-when the said Don had them. Such an one, and more especially if he acts like a sailor ashore, gets rid of the earn ings of twelve months in six hours; sports a hackney-coach round town, with a fiddler on the roof; sets up a dozen glasses of grog, and throws at them with another. If he does all these, and a few other things, which we may allude to presently, he will do, and let him sit to us for his picture. We will commence our portrait with the hero on his native element. Were we to give the sea-life of a sailor in its unvarnished state, we fear it would be robbed of many of the charms, and much of the romance, usually appended to it by sober fireside landsmen; but we are patriots, and have the good of the state at heart,-when not sea-sick: couleur de rose will not be totally omitted in our pic ture. It is a glorious day; the sun shines gaily; the breeze from the nor-west blows fair; the blue-peter' has been flying since daybreak, and now the fore-topsail is loosed; about noon, a gun is fired, and shortly after the boatswain's whistle summons the gangway men, for the captain is alongside. The chief mounts to the quarter-deck, and the anchor is soon a-peak, and the vessel's nose put seawards. The land sinks beneath the horizon, and the ship is at sea. He We will suppose this to be the opening of our hero's career. is perhaps some simple country lad, who sees salt water for the first time, who calls the shrouds ladders, and the dog-vane being mentioned, expects to hear a bark. For the first few days the wind is fair, the weather fine; but the lad does not escape that nautical horror-sea-sickness. How fervently does he wish himself again at his cottage-door, or driving his geese or his pigs along some shady lane, or frightening the thievish crows from the new-sown corn, or anywhere but in his present situation. He cannot eat, and scarcely stand; and so unmanned is he by his illness, that he would readily give all his worldly possession to any one who would be charitable enough to throw him overboard. His sickness, however, has a termination, and with returning strength he becomes more reconciled to his condition. He has at first a good deal of raillery to bear; he is laughed-at for his unprofessional language, quizzed for his ignorance of sheets and tackles, davits and marlingspikes. His messmates are good-natured, and he soon becomes more learned. In a month he is able to chew, smoke, and drink rum. As his voyage progresses, he masters the compass, is taught to steer, and reef, and heave the log. He is soon competent to whip a rope and lay a splice, furl a top-gallant-sail, and heave the lead; and it is ten to one that, at the end of a long life, he has added nothing more to his professional knowledge. His voyage marked by the usual alternation of storms and calms, dangers and escapes. He visits many strange lands, and perhaps brings away from them a monkey or a parrot, a few shells, and correct informa tion of the prices of liquors, and where the best and cheapest tobacco is to be obtained. At the termination of his voyage, if one of long duration, he goes on shore, in all, save strength, an able seaman. Should it happe that his craft is a merchant-mar, he has most likely been appre ticed for seven years; and for this period, should she escape shp wreck, and he feel no inclination to run away, he sails in her wierever the winds may waft, or currents drift. At the end of each |