Smollet published _Roderick Random_ in 1748, _Peregrine Pickle_ in 1751. Not only novels, but ballad operas, in imitation of Gay, began to be written in which sailors were the heroes, and their life at sea or loves on shore the subject. In 1745 appeared _The Sailor’s Opera, or a Trip to Jamaica_, written by some anonymous imitator of the _Beggar’s Opera_, while in 1763 _Tommy and Sally, or the Sailor’s Return to his Sweetheart_, was acted at Covent Garden. George Alexander Stevens wrote two: _The French Flogged, or the British Sailors in America_, 1761, and _The Trip to Portsmouth_, 1773. The second contains several good songs. During the same period also professional poets of higher pretensions began to make the navy their theme. The reign of George I. furnished little for the muse to celebrate. That of George II. begins with an immense blowing of literary trumpets about the navy. George II.’s speech to Parliament on January 27, 1728, contained a passage inviting the two Houses to consider a scheme ‘for the increase and encouragement of our seamen in general; that they may be invited rather than compelled to enter into the service of their country, as often as occasion shall require it.’ With that object the King recommended an addition to the funds for the support of Greenwich Hospital. Edward Young seized the opportunity to publish _Ocean: an Ode occasioned by his Majesty’s royal encouragement of the Sea Service_. He followed this up by writing in 1729 _Imperium Pelagi, a Naval Lyric_, which ends up by an admonition to the ‘grovelling sons of verse’ not ‘to tarnish Britain’s Naval bloom’ by inferior strains on the same subject. Next came in 1733 his _Sea-Piece_ containing (i) _The British Sailor’s Exultation_, (ii) _His Prayer before action_, and last of all in 1734 _The Foreign Address; or the best Argument for Peace_. All are bad poetry, but they do illustrate the influence which the strength of our navy exercised upon the maintenance of peace during a period in which it gained no public triumphs. Young wrote from the point of view of the King’s ministers: another poet, James Thomson, set forth the case of the opposition. His _Britannia_, written in 1727, but not published till 1729, was, says Johnson, ‘a kind of poetical invective against the Ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in resenting the depredations of the Spaniards.’ It recited, as Glover was to do with more effect twelve years later, the sufferings of Hosier’s fleet during their forced inactivity, recalled the memory of the Spanish Armada, and pictured the indignation with which Blake and other ‘immortal spirits’ must behold ‘their feeble sons Shrink from that empire o’er the conquered seas For which their wisdom planned, their councils glowed, And their veins bled through many a toiling age.’