CHAPTER XI.
THE PURSUIT OF POETRY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
The feeling of insecurity concerning one's possessions in theNeversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honestmen, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford,a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early madethe acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, how unerringly a manpitches upon a spirit, any way akin to his own, even in the mostmiscellaneous mob.
Lemsford was a poet; so thoroughly inspired with the divine afflatus,that not even all the tar and tumult of a man-of-war could drive it outof him.
As may readily be imagined, the business of writing verse is a verydifferent thing on the gun-deck of a frigate, from what the gentle andsequestered Wordsworth found it at placid Rydal Mount in Westmoreland.In a frigate, you cannot sit down and meander off your sonnets, whenthe full heart prompts; but only, when more important duties permit:such as bracing round the yards, or reefing top-sails fore and aft.Nevertheless, every fragment of time at his command was religiouslydevoted by Lemsford to the Nine. At the most unseasonable hours, youwould behold him, seated apart, in some corner among the guns--ashot-box before him, pen in hand, and eyes "_in a fine frenzy rolling_."
"What's that 'ere born nat'ral about?"--"He's got a fit, hain't he?"were exclamations often made by the less learned of his shipmates. Somedeemed him a conjurer; others a lunatic; and the knowing ones said,that he must be a crazy Methodist. But well knowing by experience thetruth of the saying, that _poetry is its own exceeding great reward_,Lemsford wrote on; dashing off whole epics, sonnets, ballads, andacrostics, with a facility which, under the circumstances, amazed me.Often he read over his effusions to me; and well worth the hearing theywere. He had wit, imagination, feeling, and humour in abundance; andout of the very ridicule with which some persons regarded him, he maderare metrical sport, which we two together enjoyed by ourselves; orshared with certain select friends.
Still, the taunts and jeers so often levelled at my friend the poet,would now and then rouse him into rage; and at such times the haughtyscorn he would hurl on his foes, was proof positive of his possessionof that one attribute, irritability, almost universally ascribed to thevotaries of Parnassus and the Nine.
My noble captain, Jack Chase, rather patronised Lemsford, and he wouldstoutly take his part against scores of adversaries. Frequently,inviting him up aloft into his top, he would beg him to recite some ofhis verses; to which he would pay the most heedful attention, likeMaecenas listening to Virgil, with a book of Aeneid in his hand. Takingthe liberty of a well-wisher, he would sometimes gently criticise thepiece, suggesting a few immaterial alterations. And upon my word, nobleJack, with his native-born good sense, taste, and humanity, was not illqualified to play the true part of a _Quarterly Review_;--which is, togive quarter at last, however severe the critique.
Now Lemsford's great care, anxiety, and endless source of tribulationwas the preservation of his manuscripts. He had a little box, about thesize of a small dressing-case, and secured with a lock, in which hekept his papers and stationery. This box, of course, he could not keepin his bag or hammock, for, in either case, he would only be able toget at it once in the twenty-four hours. It was necessary to have itaccessible at all times. So when not using it, he was obliged to hideit out of sight, where he could. And of all places in the world, a shipof war, above her _hold_, least abounds in secret nooks. Almost everyinch is occupied; almost every inch is in plain sight; and almost everyinch is continually being visited and explored. Added to all this, wasthe deadly hostility of the whole tribe ofship-underlings--master-at-arms, ship's corporals, and boatswain'smates,--both to the poet and his casket. They hated his box, as if ithad been Pandora's, crammed to the very lid with hurricanes and gales.They hunted out his hiding-places like pointers, and gave him no peacenight or day.
Still, the long twenty-four-pounders on the main-deck offered somepromise of a hiding-place to the box; and, accordingly, it was oftentucked away behind the carriages, among the side tackles; its blackcolour blending with the ebon hue of the guns.
But Quoin, one of the quarter-gunners, had eyes like a ferret. Quoinwas a little old man-of-war's man, hardly five feet high, with acomplexion like a gun-shot wound after it is healed. He wasindefatigable in attending to his duties; which consisted in takingcare of one division of the guns, embracing ten of the aforesaidtwenty-four-pounders. Ranged up against the ship's side at regularintervals, they resembled not a little a stud of sable chargers intheir stall. Among this iron stud little Quoin was continually runningin and out, currying them down, now and then, with an old rag, orkeeping the flies off with a brush. To Quoin, the honour and dignity ofthe United States of America seemed indissolubly linked with thekeeping his guns unspotted and glossy. He himself was black as achimney-sweep with continually tending them, and rubbing them down withblack paint. He would sometimes get outside of the port-holes and peerinto their muzzles, as a monkey into a bottle. Or, like a dentist, heseemed intent upon examining their teeth. Quite as often, he would bebrushing out their touch-holes with a little wisp of oakum, like aChinese barber in Canton, cleaning a patient's ear.
Such was his solicitude, that it was a thousand pities he was not ableto dwarf himself still more, so as to creep in at the touch-hole, andexamining the whole interior of the tube, emerge at last from themuzzle. Quoin swore by his guns, and slept by their side. Woe betidethe man whom he found leaning against them, or in any way soiling them.He seemed seized with the crazy fancy, that his darlingtwenty-four-pounders were fragile, and might break, like glass retorts.
Now, from this Quoin's vigilance, how could my poor friend the poethope to escape with his box? Twenty times a week it was pounced upon,with a "here's that d----d pillbox again!" and a loud threat, to pitchit overboard the next time, without a moment's warning, or benefit ofclergy. Like many poets, Lemsford was nervous, and upon these occasionshe trembled like a leaf. Once, with an inconsolable countenance, hecame to me, saying that his casket was nowhere to be found; he hadsought for it in his hiding-place, and it was not there.
I asked him where he had hidden it?
"Among the guns," he replied.
"Then depend upon it, Lemsford, that Quoin has been the death of it."
Straight to Quoin went the poet. But Quoin knew nothing about it. Forten mortal days the poet was not to be comforted; dividing his leisuretime between cursing Quoin and lamenting his loss. The world is undone,he must have thought: no such calamity has befallen it since theDeluge;--my verses are perished.
But though Quoin, as it afterward turned out, had indeed found the box,it so happened that he had not destroyed it; which no doubt ledLemsford to infer that a superintending Providence had interposed topreserve to posterity his invaluable casket. It was found at last,lying exposed near the galley.
Lemsford was not the only literary man on board the Neversink. Therewere three or four persons who kept journals of the cruise. One ofthese journalists embellished his work--which was written in a largeblank account-book--with various coloured illustrations of the harboursand bays at which the frigate had touched; and also, with small crayonsketches of comical incidents on board the frigate itself. He wouldfrequently read passages of his book to an admiring circle of the morerefined sailors, between the guns. They pronounced the wholeperformance a miracle of art. As the author declared to them that itwas all to be printed and published so soon as the vessel reached home,they vied with each other in procuring interesting items, to beincorporated into additional chapters. But it having been rumouredabroad that this journal was to be ominously entitled "_The Cruise ofthe Neversink, or a Paixhan shot into Naval Abuses;_" and it havingalso reached the ears of the Ward-room that the work containedreflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity of the officers, thevolume was seized by the master-at-arms, armed with a warrant from theCaptain. A few days after, a large nail was driven straight through thetwo covers, and clinched on the other side, and, thus everlastinglyseale
d, the book was committed to the deep. The ground taken by theauthorities on this occasion was, perhaps, that the book was obnoxiousto a certain clause in the Articles of War, forbidding any person inthe Navy to bring any other person in the Navy into contempt, which thesuppressed volume undoubtedly did.
White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Page 12
