SUCCESS or THE SONG. 141 



No one could have done its geograpliy or have 

 painted the features of its inhabitants in fewer words 

 or stronger colours. We use the word stronger 

 rather than brighter, remembering that Dibdin 

 drew his heroes redolent of tar, of rum, and tobacco. 

 He had the knack of seizing upon broad national 

 characteristics, and, like a true artist, of bringing 

 them prominently into the foreground by means of 

 such simple accessories as seemed to give them force 

 and effect. 



In the Willey whipper-in Dibdin found the same 

 unsophisticated bit of primitive nature cropping up 

 which he so successfully brought out in his portraits 

 of salt-water heroes ; he found the same spirit dif- 

 ferently manifested ; for had Moody served in the 

 cock-pit, the gun-room, on deck, or at the windlass, 

 he would have been a *' Ben Backstay '^ or a " Poor 

 Jack" — from that singleness of aim and daring 

 which actuated him. How clearly Dibdin set forth 

 this sentiment in that stanza of the song of " Poor 

 Jack,^' in which the sailor, commenting upon the 

 sermon of the chaplain, draws this conclusion : — 



" D'ye mind me, a sailor should be, every inch, 

 All as one as a piece of a ship ; 

 And, with her, brave the world without off'ring to flinch, 

 From the moment the anchor's a-trip. 



