Part 20 (2/2)

Some drank our Queen, and some our land, Our glorious land of freedom; Some that our tars might never stand For heroes brave to lead 'em!

That beauty in distress might find Such friends as ne'er would fail her; But the standing toast that pleased the most Was--the wind that blows, the s.h.i.+p that goes, And the la.s.s that loves the sailor!

The whole-hearted Gallophobia which prevailed at the period, but which did not preclude generous admiration for a gallant foe, finds, of course, adequate expression in most of the songs of the period. Thus an unknown author, who, it is believed, lived at the commencement rather than at the close of the eighteenth century, wrote:

Stick stout to orders, messmates, We'll plunder, burn, and sink, Then, France, have at your first-rates, For Britons never shrink: We'll rummage all we fancy, We'll bring them in by scores, And Moll and Kate and Nancy Shall roll in louis-d'ors.

It was long before this spirit died out. Twenty-two years after the battle of Waterloo, when, on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Victoria, Marshal Soult visited England and it was suggested that the Duke of Wellington should propose the health of the French army at a public dinner, he replied: ”D---- 'em. I'll have nothing to do with them but beat them.”

Inspiriting songs, such as ”When Johnny comes marching home” and ”The British Grenadiers,” which, Mr. Stone informs us, ”cannot be older than 1678, when the Grenadier Company was formed, and not later than 1714, when hand-grenades were discontinued,” abundantly testify to the fact that the British soldier has also not lacked poets to vaunt his prowess.

Many of the military songs have served as a distinct stimulus to recruiting, and possibly some of them were written with that express object in view. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his preface to Mr. Stone's collection of _War Songs_, says, ”The Royal Fusiliers are the heroes of a modern but inspiriting song, 'Fighting with the 7th Royal Fusiliers.'

It was composed in the early 'nineties, and produced such an overwhelming rush of recruits that the authorities could easily, had they so chosen, have raised several additional battalions.” The writer of the present article remembers in his childhood to have learnt the following lines from his old nurse, who was the widow of a corporal in the army employed in the recruiting service:

'Twas in the merry month of May, When bees from flower to flower do hum, And soldiers through the town march gay, And villagers flock to the sound of the drum.

Young Roger swore he'd leave his plough, His team and tillage all begun; Of country life he'd had enow, He'd leave it all and follow the drum.

The British military has perhaps been somewhat less happily inspired than the naval muse. Nevertheless the army can boast of some good poetry. ”Why, soldiers, why?” the authors.h.i.+p of which is sometimes erroneously attributed to Wolfe, is a fine song, and the following lines written by an unknown author after the crus.h.i.+ng blow inflicted on Lord Galway's force at Almanza, in 1707, display that absence of discouragement after defeat which is perhaps one of the most severe tests by which the discipline and spirit of an army can be tried:

Let no brave soldier be dismayed For losing of a battle; We have more forces coming on Will make Jack Frenchman rattle.

Abundant evidence might be adduced to show that the British soldier is amenable to poetic influences. Sir Adam Fergusson, writing to Sir Walter Scott on August 31, 1811, said that the canto of the _Lady of the Lake_ describing the stag hunt ”was the favourite among the rough sons of the fighting Third Division,” and Professor Courthope in his _History of English Poetry_ quotes the following pa.s.sage from Lockhart's _Life of Scott_:

When the _Lady of the Lake_ first reached Sir Adam Fergusson, he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery; somewhere no doubt on the lines of Torres Vedras. The men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground; while they kept that att.i.tude, the Captain, kneeling at their head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza whenever the French shot struck the bank close above them.

Finally, before leaving this subject, it may be noted that amidst the verse, sometimes pathetic and sometimes rollicking, which appealed more especially to the naval and military temperament, there occasionally cropped up a political allusion which is very indicative of the state of popular feeling at the time the songs were composed. Thus the following, from a song ent.i.tled ”A cruising we will go,” shows the unpopularity of the war waged against the United States in 1812:

Be Britain to herself but true, To France defiance hurled; Give peace, America, with you, And war with all the world.

The sixteenth-century Spaniards embodied a somewhat similar maxim of State policy as applied to England in the following distich, the principle of which was, however, flagrantly violated by that fervent Catholic, Philip II.:

Con todo el mundo guerra Y paz con Inglaterra.

[Footnote 110: Since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that Garrick's song was composed during the Seven Years' War (1756-63).]

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