But 'tis always the way on't-one scarce finds a brother Come let us be jolly; If we've troubles on sea, boys, we've pleasures on shore, HONESTY IN TATTERS. This here's what I does-I, d'ye see, forms a notion Are the winds and the billows that foment the ocean, And for fear on life's sea lest the vessel should founder, To lament and to weep, and to wail, Is a pop gun that tries to outroar a nine-pounder, All the same as a whiff in a gale. Why now I, though hard fortune has pretty near starved me, Ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend who had served me, Now there t'other day, when my messmate deceived me, Do you think in revenge, while their treachery grieved me, This here on the matter was my way of arg'ing 'Tis true they han't left me a cross; A vile wife and false friend though are gone by the bargain, For though fortune's a jilt, and has pretty near starved me, I ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend who had served me, Or caused ruined beauty a tear. The heart's all-when that's built as it should, sound and clever, We go 'fore the wind like a fly, But if rotten and crank, you may luff up forever, You'll always sail in the wind's eye: With palaver and nonsense I'm not to be paid off, A gale, a fresh breeze, or the old gemman's head off, Content, though hard fortune has pretty near starved me, I ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend who had served me, NATURE AND NANCY. Let swabs, with their wows, their palaver, and lies, Sly flattery's silk sails still be trimming, Swear their Polls be all angels dropped down from the skies I your angels don't like. I loves women. And I loves a warm heart, and a sweet honest mind, As constant as honor, as tenderness kind; I read in a song about Wenus, I thinks, All rigged out with her Cupids and Graces: And how roses and lilies, carnations and pinks, Was made paint to daub over their faces. They that loves it may take all such art for their pains - Give me the rich health, flesh and blood, and blue veins, Why, I went to the play, where they talked well at least, They were playing at soldiers, and playing at feast, And some they was playing at dying. Let 'em hang, drown, or starve, or take poison, d'ye see, What to them was but jest is right earnest to me, Let the girls then, like so many Algerine Turks, Dash away, a fine gay painted galley, With their jacks, and their pennants, and gingerbread works, All for show, and just nothing for value False colors throw out, decked by labor and art, To take of pert coxcombs the fancy; They are all for the person, I'm all for the heart- THE STANDING TOAST. (The last song written by Mr. Dibdin.) · The moon on the ocean was dimmed by a ripple, The gay jolly tars passed the word for the tipple Each drank, while he wished he could hail her; Some drank the king and his brave ships, Some- May our foes and all such rips Own English resolution! That fate might bless some Poll or Bess, But the standing toast that pleased the most Was The wind that blows, the ship that goes, Some drank our queen, and some our land, Our glorious land of freedom! Some that our tars might never stand That beauty in distress might find Such friends as ne'er would fail her: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. BY GILBERT WHITE. [GILBERT WHITE: An English naturalist; born at Selborne, July 18, 1720; died there June 20, 1793. He was educated at Oxford and obtained a fellowship there in 1744, later taking orders in the Church of England. His life was chiefly spent in Selborne, where he was rector from 1785 until his death. He wrote "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" (1789) and "The Naturalists' Calendar, with Observations in Various Branches of Natural History" (1795). His "Letters" were published in 1876.] LETTERS TO THOMAS PENNANT. THE PARISH OF SELBORNE. THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles southwest of London, in latitude fifty-one, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex-viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Hartley Mauduit, Great Ward-leham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part of the southwest consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above. the village, and is divided into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep walk, is a pleasing parklike spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the southeast and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the northeast, which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline. At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with The Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk; but seems so far from being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk is plain from the beeches which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. The cart way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very incongruous soils. To the southwest is a rank clay, that requires the labor of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the northeast, and small inclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mold, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town, while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. At each end of the village, which runs from southeast to northwest, arises a small rivulet: that at the northwest end frequently fails; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Well-head. This breaks out of some high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel: the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey; and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilfordbridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean. Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and when sunk to that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which does not lather well with soap. To the northwest, north, and east of the village, is a range of fair inclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, molders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself. This soil produces good wheat and clover. Still on to the northeast, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plow, yet kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The white soil produces the brightest hops. As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry |