The youthful volunteer rejoiced at the first, and defied the second. He was just of the stuff of which sailors should be made; and when, the day after he joined, they fell in with a French squadron, the Niton tailor exhibited such undaunted valour, such self-possession, and such joyousness of spirit, that his promotion was at once commenced, nor did it stop until he had attained the rank of admiral. He was an upright and gallant English sailor. Less actively employed than the other brave ocean chiefs of this stirring period, his name is less familiar to us; but he was never wanting when called upon, and was always rejoiced to find his services were required. The Company of Cordwainers however, it must be confessed, have more fair reason to be proud of their admiral than the tailors of estimable Hobson. The latter had not the chance, like Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the son of a shoemaker, to whom the future admiral was bound apprentice, to take Gibraltar in bold companionship with such a comrade as Rooke; and accordingly his effigy is not to be found in Westminster Abbey like that of Shovel. Not that the shoemaking admiral has much to boast of. Addison truly remarks of the figure of the latter, that “instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain, gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself on velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour.” Horace Walpole, in alluding to the tailoring and upholstering spirit of the statuary, remarks that “Bird bestowed busts and bas-reliefs on those he decorated; but Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s, and other monuments by him, made men of taste dread such honours.” I have dealt with the naval tailor here, in order that he might not be separated from his gallant brethren ashore. We will now pass to the civilians; and first, of a brace of worthies who wore their honours meekly, but whose labours deserve no less eulogy than posterity has awarded to them: I allude to the tailors and antiquarians, Stow and Speed. JOHN STOW, THE ANTIQUARIAN TAILOR. “Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times.” ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. It has been well said of John Stow, that he was, in his way, a sort of Hebrew of the Hebrews; a citizen born of a citizen; like his father, a tailor; but he was in himself a tailor, “and something more.”