ot downward_, may seem very
fine to those who cannot see its self-involved absurdity. But the truth
is, that, to gain the true level, in some things, we _must_ cut
downward; for how can you make every sailor a commodore? or how raise
the valleys, without filling them up with the superfluous tops of the
hills?

Some discreet, but democratic, legislation in this matter is much to be
desired. And by bringing down naval officers, in these things at least,
without affecting their legitimate dignity and authority, we shall
correspondingly elevate the common sailor, without relaxing the
subordination, in which he should by all means be retained.

CHAPTER XLI.

A MAN-OF-WAR LIBRARY.

Nowhere does time pass more heavily than with most men-of-war's-men on
board their craft in harbour.

One of my principal antidotes against _ennui_ in Rio, was reading.
There was a public library on board, paid for by government, and
intrusted to the custody of one of the marine corporals, a little,
dried-up man, of a somewhat literary turn. He had once been a clerk in
a post-office ashore; and, having been long accustomed to hand over
letters when called for, he was now just the man to hand over books. He
kept them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and, when seeking a
particular volume, had to capsize it like a barrel of potatoes. This
made him very cross and irritable, as most all librarians are. Who had
the selection of these books, I do not know, but some of them must have
been selected by our Chaplain, who so pranced on Coleridge's "_High
German horse_."

Mason Good's Book of Nature--a very good book, to be sure, but not
precisely adapted to tarry tastes--was one of these volumes; and
Machiavel's Art of War--which was very dry fighting; and a folio of
Tillotson's Sermons--the best of reading for divines, indeed, but with
little relish for a main-top-man; and Locke's Essays--incomparable
essays, everybody knows, but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarch's
Lives--super-excellent biographies, which pit Greek against Roman in
beautiful style, but then, in a sailor's estimation, not to be
mentioned with the _Lives of the Admirals_; and Blair's Lectures,
University Edition--a fine treatise on rhetoric, but having nothing to
say about nautical phrases, such as "_splicing the main-brace_,"
"_passing a gammoning_," "_puddinging the dolphin_," and "_making a
Carrick-bend_;" besides numerous invaluable but unreadable tomes, that
might