Will there ever be the same romance about the warships of the present day,--what those of the future will be like we do not care to speculate,--and the old "wooden walls" whose prowess on the high seas founded England's maritime glory? Will a Dibdin ever arise to sing a _Devastation_ or a _Glatton_? Can a _Devastation_ or a _Glatton_ ever inspire poetic thoughts and images? One would say that the singer must be endowed in no ordinary degree with the sacred fire whom such a theme as a modern ironclad turret-ship should move to lyric utterance. It has been said that all the romance of the road died out with the old coaching days; and certainly a locomotive engine, with its long black train of practical-looking cars, makes hardly so picturesque a feature in the landscape as one of the old stage-coaches with its red-coated driver, horn-blowing guard, and team of mettled greys; but a railway train is an embodiment of poetry compared with a turret-ship. But if it be true that poetry and romance must more and more cease to be associated with our navy, we must just accept the fact, for nothing is more certain than that, whatever the warships of the future _may_ be, we can never again return to the days of the old wooden ships. Several opposing difficulties have now to be met in the construction of ironclads. Invulnerability as regards the enemy's guns, protection to the men on board, speed, and the quality of being easily managed at sea,--all these points have to be carefully considered; and the difficulty is that one quality wars against another. A ship might be built which was proof against any guns that could be devised, and then might be found utterly unmanageable and unsafe at sea. A balance of qualities has therefore to be struck, and this perfect equipoise has by no means been as yet attained. Every year--we might say every month-- witnesses the birth of some new type of armour-plated war-ship, built in every case at an enormous cost. The new sea-monster looks formidable enough in all conscience; but the question that arises the instant she quits the dock is, Is she sea-worthy? And with the fate of the _Captain_ and the _Vanguard_ in our memories, the question may well arise. The story of modern war-ships has, up to this, been one of mingled success and failure. Does not the epigram on our war-ships--our "sub-marine fleet"--owe its point and sting, in a measure, to its truth?