'What an effect,' he says, 'might a design like this, happily planned and executed, produce! How magnificent, how instructive it might be made! How entertaining to trace down from the earliest records of our history the gradual increase of our navy! to remark the different stages of its growth from a few simple canoes, in its infancy, to the stupendous magnitude of a hundred first-rate men-of-war, miracles of the mechanic arts, proudly bearing Britain's thunder! the bulwarks of England! the glory of Englishmen, and the terror and admiration of the world! How flattering to the imagination to anticipate the pleasure of walking round such an edifice, and surveying the different subjects depicted on its walls! Battles under all varied circumstances of day, night, moonlight, storm, and calm!--the effects of fire, water, wind and smoke mingled in terrific confusion. In the midst, British Valour triumphantly bearing down all opposition, accompanied by Humanity, equally daring and ready to succour the vanquished foe! Discoveries, in which we see delineated the strange figures and still stranger costume of nations till then unknown, and where the face of Nature herself is exhibited under a new and surprising aspect. Then to turn and behold the statues and portraits of the enterprising commanders and leaders in the expeditions recorded, and compare their different countenances: here a Drake and an Anson! there a Blake, a Hawke, a Boscawen, and a Cook!' To me these enthusiastic sentences have something of the ring of a sea-song of Dibdin's; and it is pleasant to think that the idea has been carried out in the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital.