Cotton, still retain their freshness.

Among the Greeks, observed Bishop Heber, the hymn which placed Harmodius
in the green and flowery island of the Blessed, was chanted by the
potter to his wheel, and enlivened the labours of the Piraean mariner.

Dr. Johnson is the only writer I recollect who has noticed something of
this nature which he observed in the Highlands. "The strokes of the
sickle were timed by the modulation of the _harvest song_, in which all
their voices were united. They accompany every action which can be done
in equal time with an _appropriate strain_, which has, they say, not
much meaning, but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. There is
an _oar song_ used by the Hebrideans."

But if these chants "have not much meaning," they will not produce the
desired effect of touching the heart, as well as giving vigour to the
arm of the labourer. The gondoliers of Venice while away their long
midnight hours on the water with the stanzas of Tasso. Fragments of
Homer are sung by the Greek sailors of the Archipelago; the severe
labour of the trackers, in China, is accompanied with a song which
encourages their exertions, and renders these simultaneous. Mr. Ellis
mentions that the sight of the lofty pagoda of Tong-chow served as a
great topic of incitement in the song of the trackers, toiling against
the stream, to their place of rest. The canoemen, on the Gold Coast, in
a very dangerous passage, "on the back of a high curling wave, paddling
with all their might, singing or rather shouting their wild song, follow
it up," says M'Leod, who was a lively witness of this happy combination
of song, of labour, and of peril, which he acknowledged was "a very
terrific process." Our sailors at Newcastle, in heaving their anchors,
have their "Heave and ho! rum-below!" but the Sicilian mariners must be
more deeply affected by their beautiful hymn to the Virgin. A society,
instituted in Holland for general good, do not consider among their
least useful projects that of having printed at a low price a collection
of _songs for sailors_.

It is extremely pleasing, as it is true, to notice the honest exultation
of an excellent ballad-writer, C. Dibdin, in his Professional Life. "I
have learnt my songs have been considered as an object of national
consequence; that they have been the solace of sailors and long
voyagers, in storms, in battle; and that they have been quoted in
mutinies, to the restoration of order and dis