To our thinking, Charles Dibdin, celebrated as he was for his sea songs, deserves far higher praise for quite another sort of country song, of which we will give an example. His sailors are too much addicted, when storms rage and billows roll, to sling the flowing bowl; landsmen might fancy that Jack’s life consisted of thinking of Nancy afloat, hugging her ashore, drinking to her health unceasingly, and taking a turn of duty with a hornpipe sort of air, as if the galleries were clapping him enthusiastically. It is all good and picturesque in its way, but tuneful Charley is more to our liking when he gets into an English corn-field, strolls down an English lane, or sits at the door of an English cottage. He is then as natural as Moreland treating the same subjects on canvas. The fragrance of the fields comes on the wings of his song, and his English home and peasant are still more truly English than his English ships and sailors. Take, for example:-- THE LABOURER’S WELCOME HOME. The ploughman whistles o’er the furrow, The hedger joins the vacant strain, The woodman sings the woodland thorough, The shepherd’s pipe delights the plain. Where’er the anxious eye can roam, Or ear receive the jocund pleasure, Myriads of beings thronging, flock, Of Nature’s song to join the measure; Till, to keep time, the village clock Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home! The hearth swept clean, his partner smiling; Upon the dining-table smokes The frugal meal--which, time beguiling, The ale the harmless jest provokes. Ye inmates of the lofty dome, Admire his lot. His children playing, To share his smiles around him flock, And faithful Tray, since morn, that straying, Trudged with him, till the village clock Proclaim’d the lab’rer’s welcome home. The cheering faggot burnt to embers, While lares around their vigils keep, That Power that poor and rich remembers, Each thanks, and then retires to sleep. And now the lark climbs Heav’n’s high dome, Fresh from repose, toil’s kind reliever; And furnish’d with his daily stock-- His dog, his staff, his keg, his beaver-- He travels till the village clock Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home!