At a time when old English ballads are supposed to portray English history, we may point to the above as untruly reflecting naval manners in England in the last century. It is more of a caricature than a naval scene in a pantomime, and the morality is as ‘shaky’ as that in another ballad, ‘When faintly gleams the doubtful day,’ where humanity in hunting matters is illustrated by hunting the hare to the point of death, but then protecting ‘the defenceless creature’ by calling off ‘the well-taught hounds:’-- For cruelty should ne’er disgrace The well-earn’d pleasures of the chase! Again, of the fox it is said, ‘Unpitied shall the culprit die’:-- To quell his cruel, artful race, Is labour worthy of the chase; as if the quelling was not the last thought of squires who breed foxes. It was very good policy of Dibdin to teach that ‘Every bullet has its billet,’ but in ‘A sailor and an honest heart’ war’s dangers are the sailor’s chances, and his philosophy is to ask no more than ‘grog aboard and girl ashore.’ Ben Backstay and Anna piping their eyes at parting are but sickly sentimentalities. Bill Bobstay, with his purse always open and his veins to the same tune, shedding his blood for the king, is like the stagiest of stage sailors; and Jack Rattlin heaving a sigh as he sits on the ‘pendant yard,’ and dying for love, with his eyes uplifted, when he comes down from it, is not the man who could hand, reef, and steer better than any mate afloat. Indeed Dibdin’s sailors in love are generally great spooneys; in ‘The Boatswain calls’ there is a whole shipload of them. Fancy an entire crew heaving ‘fervent sighs’ as they leave looking at the girls ashore, to turn for consolation to the windlass with ‘Yo heave ho!’ But even these soft ones are to be preferred to the tipplers who declare that ‘the best sort of sounding is sounding the bowl.’ The best side of Dibdin’s philosophy is where he metrically teaches that ‘a brave British sailor should never despair,’ and pays a compliment to the bold royal tar, the Duke of Clarence, who got it made into a law that ‘each tar of his rhino should have his full share,’ and should no more be cheated of his pay, as he used to be. But there was a lack of sincerity in most of Dibdin’s sentimental sea-maxims for sailors, and for one who is cheered in dying for love there are a dozen who are encouraged to find in every port a wife:-- I’ve a spanking wife at Portsmouth Gates, A pigmy at Goree, An orange-tawny up the Straits, A black at St. Lucie; Thus, whatsomdever course I bend, I leads a jovial life; In ev’ry mess I finds a friend, In ev’ry port a wife.