the materials within I could not analyse, but my nose convinced me that
no part of them came from Smith's, in Bond-street.

Amphitrite followed, on a similar carriage, drawn by six white men,
whose costume was like the others. This goddess was personified by an
athletic, ugly man, marked with the small-pox, dressed as a female, with
a woman's night-cap on his head, ornamented with sprigs of sea-weed; she
had a harpoon in her hand, on which was fixed an albicore; and in her
lap lay one of the boys of the ship, dressed as a baby, with long
clothes and a cap: he held in his hand a marlinspike, which was
suspended round his neck with a rope-yarn--this was to assist him in
cutting his teeth, as the children on shore use a coral. His nurse
attended him with a bucket full of burgoo, or hasty pudding, with which
she occasionally fed him out of the cook's iron ladle. Two or three
stout men were habited as sea nymphs, to attend on the goddess: they
carried a looking-glass, some currycombs, a birch-broom, and a pot of
red paint, by way of rouge.

As soon as the procession appeared, on the forecastle, the captain,
attended by his steward, bearing a tray with a bottle of wine and some
glasses, came out of his cabin, and the cars of the marine deities were
drawn up on the quarter-deck. Neptune lowered his trident, and
presented the dolphin to the captain, as Amphitrite did her albicore, in
token of submission and homage to the representative of the King of
Great Britain.

"I have come," said the god, "to welcome you into my dominions, and to
present my wife and child." The captain bowed. "Allow me to ask after
my brother and liege sovereign, the good old King George."

"He is not so well," said the captain, "as I and all his subjects could
wish."

"More's the pity," replied Neptune; "and how is the Prince of Wales?"

"The Prince is well," said the captain, "and now governs as regent in
the name of his royal father."

"And how does he get on with his wife?" said the inquisitive god.

"Bad enough," said the captain; "they agree together like a whale and a
thrasher."

"Ah! I thought so," said the god of the sea. "His royal highness
should take a leaf out of my book: never allow it to be doubtful who is
commanding officer."

"And pray what might your majesty's specific be, to cure a bad wife?"
said the captain.

"Three feet of the cross-jack brace every morning before breakfast, for
a quarter of an hour, and half