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1826.} The Greenwich Pensioner. 367 
sailor puts his withered hand upon his heart, are “ all’s well,” and sea 
and earth have passed away. His body, which had been for forty years 
a bulwark to the land, now demands of it but “ two paces of the vilest 
earth ;” and if aught could spring from the tomb characteristic of its 
inmate, from the grave of the pensioner would arise the stout, 
unbending oak—it would be his fitting monument ; and the carolling of 
the birds in its branches would be his loud, his artless epitaph. a hiboas 
‘The Greenwich pensioner, wherever we meet with him, is a fine, 
aint memento of our national greatness, and our fortunate locality. 
We should look upon him as the representative of Neptune, and bend 
our spirit towards him accordingly. But that is not sufficient; we have 
individual acknowledgments to make to him for the comforts of a long 
safety. Let us but consider, as we look at his wooden supporter, that 
if it had not been for his leg, the cannon-ball might have scattered us in 
our tea-parlour—the bullet which deprived him of his orb of vision, 
might have stricken Our Village from our hand, whilst ensconced in our 
study; the cutlass which cleaved his shoulder, might haye demolished 
our china vase, or our globe of golden fish :—instead of which, hemmed 
round by such walls of stout and honest flesh, we have lived securely, 
participating in every peaceful and domestic comfort, and neither heard 
the roar of the cannon nor seen its smoke. Shakspeare has compared 
England to “ a swan’s nest” in the “ world’s pool :” let us be nautical in 
our similies, and liken her to a single lemon-kernel in a huge bowl of 
punch: who is it that has prevented the kernel from being ladled down 
the throat of despotism, from becoming but ah atom of the great, 
loathsome mass ?—our Greenwich pensioner. Who has kept our houses 
from being transformed into barracks, and our cabbage-markets into 
parades ?—again, and again, let it be answered—the Greenwich pen- 
sioner. Reader, if the next time you see the tar, you should perchance 
have with you your wife and smiling family, think that if their tender- 
ness has never been shocked by scenes of blood and terror, you owe 
such quietude to a Greenwich pensioner. Indeed, I know not if a 
triennial progress of the Greenwich establishment through the whole 
kingdom would not be attended with the most beneficial effects — fathers 
would teach their little ones to lisp thanksgivings unto God that they 
were born in England, as reminded of their happy superiority by the 
withered form of every Greenwich pensioner. y rE. 
D.W. J: 
Rift’ asi 
