LET US BE QUITE ALONE!"]

* * * * *

THE FIGHTING "FOUDROYANT"

BEING TUGGED TO ITS LAST BERTH--IN A SHIPBREAKER'S YARD.

(_A THEME FROM TURNER TREATED IN MODERN BRITISH STYLE, WITH APOLOGIES
TO THE PATRIOTIC PAINTER OF "THE FIGHTING 'TÉMÉRAIRE.'"_)

"Mayhap you have heard, that as dear as their lives,
All true-hearted Tars love their ships and their wives."
So DIBDIN declared, and he spoke for the Tar;
He knew Jack so well, both in peace and in war!
But hang it! times change, and 'tis sad to relate,
The old Dibdinish morals seem quite out of date;
Stick close to your ship, lads, like pitch till you die?--
That sounds nonsense to-day, and I'll tell ye for why.

The good old _Foudroyant_--how memory dwells on
Those brave fighting names!--was once flag-ship to NELSON.
But NELSON, you know, died a good while ago,
And his flag-ship has gone a bit shaky, and so
JOHN BULL, who's now full of low shopkeeping cares,
And thinks more of the Stocks than of naval affairs,
Regards not "Old Memories," that "eat off their head."
Turn old cracks out to grass? No, let's sell 'em instead!

A ship's like the high-mettled racer once sung