, though but Barons in the state, yet
oftentimes prove more potent than their royal masters; and at such
scenes as Trafalgar--dethroning this Emperor and reinstating
that--enact on the ocean the proud part of mighty Richard Neville, the
king-making Earl of the land. And as Richard Neville entrenched himself
in his moated old man-of-war castle of Warwick, which, underground, was
traversed with vaults, hewn out of the solid rock, and intricate as the
wards of the old keys of Calais surrendered to Edward III.; even so do
these King-Commodores house themselves in their water-rimmed,
cannon-sentried frigates, oaken dug, deck under deck, as cell under
cell. And as the old Middle-Age warders of Warwick, every night at
curfew, patrolled the battlements, and dove down into the vaults to see
that all lights were extinguished, even so do the master-at-arms and
ship's corporals of a frigate perambulate all the decks of a
man-of-war, blowing out all tapers but those burning in the legalized
battle-lanterns. Yea, in these things, so potent is the authority of
these sea-wardens, that, though almost the lowest subalterns in the
ship, yet should they find the Senior Lieutenant himself sitting up
late in his state-room, reading Bowditch's Navigator, or D'Anton "_On
Gunpowder and Fire-arms_," they would infallibly blow the light out
under his very nose; nor durst that Grand-Vizier resent the indignity.

But, unwittingly, I have ennobled, by grand historical comparisons,
this prying, pettifogging, Irish-informer of a master-at-arms.

You have seen some slim, slip-shod housekeeper, at midnight ferreting
over a rambling old house in the country, startling at fancied witches
and ghosts, yet intent on seeing every door bolted, every smouldering
ember in the fireplaces smothered, every loitering domestic abed, and
every light made dark. This is the master-at-arms taking his
night-rounds in a frigate.

* * * * *

It may be thought that but little is seen of the Commodore in these
chapters, and that, since he so seldom appears on the stage, he cannot
be so august a personage, after all. But the mightiest potentates keep
the most behind the veil. You might tarry in Constantinople a month,
and never catch a glimpse of the Sultan. The grand Lama of Thibet,
according to some accounts, is never beheld by the people. But if any
one doubts the majesty of a Commodore, let him know that, according to
XLII. of the Articles of War, h