Читать книгу A Book for the Hammock онлайн

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Observe again how elegant and splendid those ancients were in their sea notions. When they built a ship they embellished her with a more than oriental splendour of gold and fancy work. Read old Stowe’s description of the Prince Royal: how she was sumptuously adorned, within and without, with all manner of curious carving, painting, and rich gilding. They had great minds; when they lighted a candle it was a tall one. How nobly they brought home the body of Sir Philip Sydney, “slaine with a musket-shot in his thigh, and deceased at Arnim, beyond seas!” The sails, masts, and yards of his “barke” were black, with black ancient streamers of black silk, and the ship “was hanged all with black bayes, and scorchions thereon on pastboard (with his and his wyfes in pale, helm and crest); in the cabin where he lay was the corpse covered with a pall of black velvet, escochions thereon, his helmet, armes, sword, and gauntlette on the corpse.” In the regality of the names they gave their ships there is a fine aroma of poetry: Henri-Grace-a-Dieu, the Soverayne-of-the-Seas, the Elizabeth-Jonah, the Jesus-of-Lubeck, the Constant-Warwick! The genius of Shakespeare might be thought to have presided over these christenings if it were not for the circumstance of numberless squadrons of sweetly or royally named ships having been launched before the birth of the immortal bard; and a list of them harmonised into blank verse would have the organ-sounds delivered by his own great muse.