Who is there that has not exulted in the scene, when the proud ship has spread her canvass to the breeze to carry forth the produce of our country to distant lands? or when returning to her own home-shores, laden with the luxuries of foreign climes, the gallant tars have “Hailed each well-known object with delight!” Ay, there they stand! the veterans of the ocean, bidding defiance to care and sorrow, full of mirth and jollity although they are moored in _tiers_. They are critics too, _deep_ critics; but they cannot fancy the steam vessel with a chimney for a mast, and fifty yards of smoke for a pendant. These are the men that Smollett pictured,--the Jack Rattlins and the Tom Pipes of former years. Ay, those were _rattling_ days and _piping_ times! There is no place upon earth, except Greenwich, in which we can now meet with them, or find the weather-roll or lee-lurch to perfection. They are all thorough-bred, and a thorough-bred seaman is one of the drollest compounds in existence; a mixture of all that is ludicrous and grave,--of undaunted courage and silly fear. I do not mean the every-day sailor, but the bold, daring, intrepid man-of-war’s man; he who in the heat of action primed his wit and his gun together, without a fear of either missing fire. The real tar has a language peculiarly his own, and his figures of speech are perfect _stopper_-knots to the understanding of a landsman. If he speaks of his ship, his eloquence surpasses the orations of a Demosthenes, and he revels in the luxuriance of metaphor. The same powers of elocution, with precisely the same terms, are applied to his wife, and it is a matter of doubt as to which engrosses the greatest portion of his affection,--to him they are both _lady-ships_. Hear him expatiate on his _little barkey_, as he calls his wooden island, though she may carry a hundred-and-fifty guns and a crew of a thousand men. “Oh! she’s the _fleetest_ of the _fleet_; sits on the water like a duck; stands under her canvass as stiff as a crutch; and turns to windward like a witch!” Of his wife he observes, “What a clean run from stem to starn! She carries her t’gall’nt sails through every breeze, and in working hank for hank never misses stays!” He will point to the bows of his ship, and swear she is as sharp as a wedge, never stops at a sea, but goes smack through all. He looks at his wife, admires her head-gear, and out-riggers, her braces and bow-lines; compares her eyes to dolphin-strikers, boasts of her fancy and fashion-pieces, and declares that she darts along with all the grace of a _bonnetta_. When he parts with his wife to go on a cruise, no tear moistens his cheek, no tremulous agitation does discredit to his manhood: there is the honest pressure of the hand, the fervent kiss, and then he claps on the topsail-halliards, or walks round at the capstan to the lively sounds of music. But when he quits his ship, the being he has rigged with his