A midshipman—yes, reader, a midshipman—who had formerly belonged to my ship and had trembled at my frown, ranged up alongside of me, and, with a supercilious air, observed—
"I have read your book, and—there are one or two good things in it."
Hear this, admirals and captains on half-pay! hear this, port-admirals and captains afloat! I have often heard that the service was deteriorating, going to the devil, but I never became a convert to the opinion before.
Gracious Heaven! what a revengeful feeling is there in the exclamation "O that mine adversary had written a book!" To be snarled at, and bow-wowed at, in this manner, by those who find fault because their intellect is not sufficient to enable them to appreciate! Authors, take my resolution; which is, never to show your face until your work has passed through the ordeal of the Reviews—keep your room for the month after your literary labour. Reviews are like Jesuit father confessors—guiding the opinions of the multitude, who blindly follow the suggestions of those to whom they may have entrusted their literary consciences. If your work is denounced and to be released at once from your sufferings by one blow from the paw of a tiger, than to be worried piecemeal by creatures who have all the will, but not the power, to inflict the coup de grace?
The author of "Cloudesley," enumerating the qualifications necessary to a writer of fiction, observes, "When he introduces his ideal personage to the public, he enters upon his task with a preconception of the qualities that belong to this being, the principle of his actions, and its necessary concomitants, &c, &c." That such preparation ought to be made, I will not deny; but were I to attempt an adherence to these rules, the public would never be troubled with any production of mine. It would be too tedious a journey in perspective for my wayward intellect; and if I calculated stages before I ordered my horses, I should abandon the attempt, and remain quietly at home. Mine is not a journey of that methodical description; on the contrary, it is a ramble hand-in-hand with Fancy, with a light heart and a lighter baggage; for my whole wallet, when I set off, contains but one single idea—but ideas are hermaphrodite, and these creatures of the brain are most prolific. To speak more intelligibly, I never have made any arrangement of plot when I commenced a work of fiction, and often finish a chapter without having the slightest idea of what materials the ensuing one is to be constructed. At times I feel so tired that I throw down the pen in despair; but t is soon taken up again, and, like a pigmy Ant, it seems to have imbibed fresh vigour from its prostration.
I remember when the "King's Own" was finished, I was as happy as a pedestrian who had accomplished his thousand miles in a thousand hours. My voluntary slavery was over, and I was emancipated. Where was I then? I recollect; within two days' sail of the Lizard, returning home, after a six weeks' cruise to discover a rock in the Atlantic, which never existed except in the terrified or intoxicated noddle of some master of a merchant vessel.
It was about half-past five in the evening, and I was alone in my after-cabin, quite alone, as the captain of a man-of-war must be, even when in presence of his ship's company. If being sent to sea has been pronounced by the officers and men to be transportation, being the captain of the ship may truly be designated as solitary confinement.
I could not send for any one to whom I could impart the intelligence—there was no one whom I could expect to sympathise with me, or to whom I could pour out the abundance of my joy; for that the service prohibited. What could I do? Why, I could dance; so I sprang from my chair, and singing the tune, commenced a quadrille movement—Tal de ral la, tal de ral la, lity, lity, lity, liddle-um, tal de ral la, tal—
"Three bells, sir," cried the first lieutenant, who had opened my door unperceived by me, and showed evident surprise at my motions; "shall we beat to quarters?"—
"Certainly, Mr. B—," replied I, and he disappeared.
But this interruption produced only a temporary cessation: I was in the height of "Cavalier seul," when his head popped into the cabin—
"All present, and sober, sir," reported he, with a demure smile.
"Except the captain, I presume you are thinking," replied I.
"Oh! no, indeed, sir; I observed that you were very merry."
"I am, Mr. B—, but not with wine; mine is a sort of intellectual intoxication not provided for in the Articles of War."
"A what! sir?"
"Oh! something that you'll never get drunk upon, as you never look into a book—beat a retreat."
"Ay, ay, sir," replied the first lieutenant; and he disappeared.
And I also beat a retreat to my sofa; and as I threw myself upon it, mentally vowed that, for two months at the least, I never would take up a pen. But we seldom make a vow which we do not eventually break; and the reason is obvious. We vow only when hurried into excesses; we are alarmed at the dominion which has been acquired over us by our feelings, or by our habits. Checked for a time by an adherence to our resolutions, they gradually recover their former strength, until they again break forth, and we yield to their overpowering influence. A few days after I had made the resolution, I found myself, like the sailor, rewarding it by writing more indefatigably than ever.
So now, reader, you may understand that I continue to write, as Tony Lumpkin says, not to please my good-natured friends, "but because I can't bear to disappoint myself;" for that which I commenced as an amusement, and continued as a drudgery, has ended in becoming a confirmed habit.
So much for the overture. Now let us draw up the curtain, and our actors shall appear upon the stage.
Chapter II
"Boldly I venture on a naval scene,
Nor fear the critics' frown, the pedants' spleen.
Sons of the ocean, we their rules disdain.
Hark!—a shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock.
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims, shuddering, roll their eyes
In wild despair—while yet another stroke
With deep convulsion rends the solid oak,
Till like the mine in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length, asunder torn, her frame divides,
And crushing, spreads in ruin o'er the tides."
FALCONER.
It was in the dreary month of fog, misanthropy, and suicide—the month during which Heaven receives a scantier tribute of gratitude from discontented man—during which the sun rises, but shines not—gives forth an unwilling light, but glads us not with his cheerful rays—during which large tallow candles assist the merchant to calculate his gains or to philosophise over his losses—in short, it was one evening in the month of November of the year l7—, that Edward Forster, who had served many years in his Majesty's navy, was seated in a snug armchair, in a snug parlour, in a snug cottage to which he had retired upon his half-pay, in consequence of a severe wound which had, for many years, healed but to break out again each succeeding spring.
The locality of the cottage was not exactly so snug as it has been described in itself and its interior; for it was situated on a hill which terminated at a short distance in a precipitous cliff, beetling over that portion of the Atlantic which lashes the shores of Cumberland under the sub-denomination of the Irish Sea. But Forster had been all his early life a sailor, and still felt the same pleasure in listening to the moaning and whistling of the wind, as it rattled the shutters of his cottage (like some importunate who would gain admittance), as he used to experience when, lying in his hammock,