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The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities — David Hume — John Shaqi

The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities

David Hume · en

I'd rather wear the shaggy coat,
                That hangs upon the heedless heifer,
            Than what I've seen at door-posts float,
                As a "Gent's Fashionable Zephyr."

            Then, fickle Fashion, fare thee well,
                To follow thee I'll not endeavour;
            The fabled frog should warn the swell,
                My motto is—"highlows for ever."

[Illustration:

  SUPERIOR CRAFT—IN DOCK AND OUT OF DOCK.
]


               NOTE ON THE NAVAL FORCES OF GREAT BRITAIN.
                          BY A FRENCH ADMIRAL.

This note is avowedly designed as a companion to the pamphlet of the
Prince de Joinville, which was intended to show how easily England might
be taken by the French; but omitted to say how the matter might have
been taken by the English. The note is written with the same exactitude
as to facts, the same knowledge of the subject, and the same spirit of
candour by which all recent French works on England have been
distinguished. We give an abridgement of the note, which, in its
original state, is extremely full, and at the same time particularly
empty.

"In looking at the state of the English marine, I turned my attention to
the _depôts_ for marine stores, which of course comprise the whole of
the naval resources of perfidious Albion. To judge of the British marine
from the state of the marine stores, nothing can be more contemptible
than the former, because nothing can be more insignificant than the
latter. I asked one of the marine-store dealers how he would provision a
man-of-war with beef for a long voyage, and he had nothing to show me
but a quantity of beef bones, which he valued at five pounds for
twopence. The English sailors, it is well known, cannot fight unless
they are maddened with grog; and I looked over the marine-store dealer's
establishment for the exciting liquid. I looked in vain; for he had only
an enormous quantity of empty bottles, some of which he told me he had
that day been purchasing. I must do the English the justice to say that
they provide well for the dressing of the wounds of their sailors, for
the marine stores include vast heaps of linen rags, some of which I
observed were brought from persons casually coming into the _depôt_ to
dispose of them.