"would foon turn her keel uppermost, or blow all her rigging to tatters, and leave her as naked as a ship with bare poles ftanding."

*

Juft as he finished this speech, long Sir **** passed by them. "Now you talk of poles," fays coufin Lovely, what do you think of that ftick of wood? could you make any ❝use of him on ship-board?" "Yes,' fays the captain, "after a hard gale, " he would make a very good jurymaft.-He's very fine though, coufin; but his coat, to me, feems as if

was hung on the yard-arm to dry." "To be fure," fays coufin Lovely, "he is not the genteeleft figure you "ever faw; but, for all that, he has "cut a figure of one fort or another, "in and about town, for thefe forty

years, and upwards, and a hiftory of

his life, by an able pen, would be "no bad bone for a book feller to

pick." Say you fo, thinks I, then why, may not my bookfeller pick a bone as well as another? he seems to have both teeth and ftomach; now to write the life of this long-shank'd hero can't furely require greater talents, than the author of the Life of the Spanish rogue poffeft; and, without vanity, mine I think are equal to that genius on which I marked down this knight of the meagre-phiz, as a proper fubject to begin my fifth volume with.

Curiofity would not fuffer either my owner or his friend, to lofe a fingle remark of the captain's; fo they followed both him and his coùfin as

near

near as they poffibly could, to hear his further annotations.

The next figure that ftruck the captain's eye, was Mifs ***, with a cap on her head about the fize of a bufhel-measure. "If that was my

wife," fays the captain, "run me "down in fifty fathom water, if I would "not bleach all my old main-fails, "to find rigging for her top-gallant"mafts." "That lady," fays his coufin Lovely," is both a very agree"able, and very fenfible woman; and * yet has that ftrange whim, of wearing her caps like nobody elfe; now "that other folks wear them no big

ger than a crown piece, that's her "ftandard; when other ladies in"crease, theirs in bulk, I don't doubt but hers will be as near the fize of

"a fugar

"a fugar-hogfhead as the milliners can "make it; but fuch whims in her "are useful to trade, because fhe pays punctually."

The next that took the captain's eye, was the charming duchefs of Ar, to whom that line of Milton's may be properly applied.

"Grace was in all her fteps," &c. &c.

The dignity and ease with which the duchefs moved, had an instantaneous effect on our artlefs captain. "Aye,

there," fays the blunt tar, guided by no other judgment than pure nature," there's a frigate moves fo, that "a man with half an eye may fee "her ballaft has been trim'd by work"men." Although bare-poles, topgallant

gallant-fails, ballaft, trimming, and drag-fails, were heathen Greek to Mrs Lovely, yet the captain applied his terms fo much to the purpose, that, in half a dozen more trips, I'll anfwer for him, he would have made a complete failor of her but, just then, Mr. Lovely and his friend joining them, the converfation became general, and we had no opportunity of hearing any more of the captain's oddities; therefore contented ourselves with obferving the remarks that other people made on the captain, which every man did, in the words that conveyed the strongest ideas to himfelf; by which means I quickly knew the trade of each witty gentleman that chofe to fhow off, by getting a fling at our honest tar.

CHAP.