nemy,
and whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the
audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and
gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar
sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.

It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once
objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a
stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really
no more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public
likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head
of Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now,
in fact, virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is
universal and imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions
not purely domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the
legions, but no critics. The mass is lord.

And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even
as two meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that
uninhabited region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in
one part, tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that
be his excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering
spheres. He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes
a manifest instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately
required; but he informs us that his ship was never known not to right
itself when called upon.

He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the
uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
which was applauded, and the remark "Ain't that Christian?" which was
just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude--none can say
exactly, for what reason--and must submit to be occasionally offered up
as propitiatory sacrifices.

This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom
he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still
to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that
name again from her lips, and a particular song!--he attempts it
ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.