part of the great system, the training-place of the sailor-boy, and the refuge of the worn-out veteran. And, wide though the space be which this administration of the navy fills, a communication of inconceivable rapidity and regularity is kept up by the cabs and busses of the metropolis, the telegraphs of the Admiralty, the railroads on shore, and the steamers at sea. Where is the "Ministry of Marine?" a native of the trim governments of the continent, where all departments of state are organised after the newest drill fashion, asks when he first comes to England. It is everywhere in the British dominions. This is the characteristic of British government, that a few heads, by enlisting, when occasion calls, the energies of private individuals and associations, make the nation govern itself. The Steam Navigation Company, or even the Metropolitan Parcels Delivery Company, act occasionally as Admiralty messengers, and do their duty as effectively as if they were liveried retainers constantly in waiting, and devoid of other occupation. By such simple means is it that in the control of a fleet which girdles the globe with a navy of stations, the obstacles of time and space are well nigh set at nought.

But the mechanism of our navy and the great secret of its power will be imperfectly comprehended unless we turn our attention to the inmates of a not inelegant structure in the handsome Trinity Square on Tower Hill.

The Trinity House has already been more than once mentioned in the course of these remarks. The architectural pretensions of the building are far superior to those of the Admiralty; and the corporation which transacts its business there is the right arm of the British minister of marine.

Henry VIII., it is said, established the Trinity House about the same time that he constituted the Admiralty and the Navy Office. It is not easy to say how the truth stands, for the records of the Trinity House were destroyed by fire early in the eighteenth century. But some expressions in the earliest charters of the corporation that have been preserved, and the general analogy of the history of English corporations, lead us to believe that Henry merely gave a new charter, and intrusted the discharge of important duties to a guild or incorporation of seamen which had existed long before. When there was no permanent royal navy, and even after one had been created, so long as vessels continued to be pressed in war time as well as men, the king of England had to repose much more confidence in the wealthier masters of the merchant-service than now. They were at sea what his feudal chiefs were on shore. Their guild or brotherhood of the Holy Trinity of Deptford Strand were probably tolerated at first in the assumption of a power to regulate the entry and training of apprentices, the licensing of journeymen, and the promotion to the rank of master in their craft, in the same way as learned and mechanical corporations did on shore. To a body which counted among its members the best mariners of Britain came not unnaturally to be intrusted the ballastage and pilotage of the river. By degrees its jurisdiction came to be extended to such other English ports as had not, like the Cinque Ports, privileges and charters of their own and in course of time the jurisdiction of the Trinity House became permanent in these matters, with the exception of the harbours we have named, over the whole coast of England, from a little way north of Yarmouth on the east to the frontiers of

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Scotland on the west. Elizabeth, always ready to avail herself of the costless services of her citizens, confided to this corporation the charge of English seamarks. When lighthouses were introduced, the judges pronounced them comprehended in the terms of Elizabeth's charter, although a right of chartering private lighthouses was reserved to the Crown. When the navigation laws were introduced by Cromwell and re-enacted by the government of the Restoration, the Trinity House presented itself as an already organised machinery for enforcing the regulations respecting the number of aliens admissible as mariners on board a British vessel. James II., when he ascended the throne, was well aware of the use that could be made of the Trinity House, and he gave it a new charter, and the constitution it still retains, nominating as the first master of the reconstructed corporation his invaluable Pepys.

The Corporation of the Trinity House consists of Younger and Elder Brethren. The number of Younger Brethren is unlimited: they are commanders in the merchant-service who have never served under a foreign flag; they are admitted on the nomination of the Elder Brethren, after taking the oaths prescribed by the charter. The Elder Brethren are thirty-one in number: eleven are considered noble, or in the honorary line of the brotherhood; and twenty are taken from the merchant sea-service. Vacancies at the board of Elder Brethren are filled up by their electing (by ballot) a successor; if to an honorary member from any admirals of the navy, ministers of state, and other persons of distinction; if to one of the merchant-line from among the Younger Brethren. The business of the board is in reality managed by the twenty members from the merchant-service, the honoraries rarely, if ever, interfering. The board consists of a master, four wardens, eight assistants, and eighteen Elder Brethren, simply so called. The business of the board is transacted by committees, six in number; the first and principal is called the Committee of Wardens: it consists of the Depute Master and the four wardens; it exercises a general control and takes charge more especially of the treasury and accounts. The second committee, consisting also of four members, is for the examination of masters in the navy and pilots. To ensure the competency of these examinations, the Elder Brethren are never appointed upon this committee until they have been in the corporation some time, in order that the experience they gain by being employed on surveys of the coast may qualify them for the task. The third committee, consisting of two members, is for the supervision of ballastage in the river Thames; the fourth is the committee of lighthouses; the fifth for the collection of dues; and the sixth for attending to the pensioners and inmates of the noble almshouses belonging to the corporation.

This brief recapitulation of the constitution and functions of the corporation will suffice to show that it is an institution by means of which the energies of the independent seamen which proved so available in the reign of Elizabeth have been retained in the service of the state down to the present moment. The lighting, beaconing, and buoying of the coasts, the examination and licensing of pilots, and we trust ere long to add the examination and licensing of masters and mates of merchant-vessels, are branches of maritime police, functions of the general government. By devolving them upon the incorporated

merchant-service it is not merely a trifling economy that is attained; it keeps alive in the merchant-service a consciousness of its own importance that is favourable to the general character. If the navy captain look forward to be an admiral, the merchant captain can look forward to become an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, intrusted with the supervision and control of the lightage and pilotage of a great part of the kingdom, rendering himself of importance to the public by his care for the safety of navigation and navigators. At no time has the merchant-service shown itself unsusceptible of the due sense of its responsibility. Officers who have risen high in the royal service have begun their career before the mast, not only in merchantmen of the long voyage, but in coasters. Cook was apprentice in a collier. At the time of the mutiny at the Nore, the presence of mind of an Elder Brother who proposed and executed the removing of the buoys, which marked the seaward channel, paralyzed the motions of the mutineers. When invasion from France was apprehended, the task of preparing defences, at the mouth of the river, was intrusted to the Board of the Trinity House, and skilfully executed. The merchant-service has kept pace with the awakening spirit of the age, as well as the navy. The Lower School at Greenwich supplies the merchant-service, as well as the Royal navy, with able, educated seamen. The East India trade has formed a valuable branch of the merchant-service. Many extensive ship-owners manifest a most laudable anxiety to promote the education, both professional and moral, of their apprentices, and to advance the young men from rank to rank as they prove themselves worthy. Many have done well in this respect, but none have evinced more persevering interest in their élèves, more judicious and paternal care for them, than the Gladstones of Liverpool. To show the high character attained by our mercantile marine under these auspices, it is only necessary to name the Scoresbys, the Enderbys, the Warhams, the Becrofts, and Lairds, who have competed for the palm with the Royal navy in urging onward the progress of discovery.

To a superficial observer the maritime administration of England appears a chaos-much that is of vital consequence seems to be neglected. But observations, such as have now been provoked by our visit to the Admiralty and Trinity House, show that this is a misconception. The secret of the efficiency of our marine is that it governs itself, and that all classes belonging to it can, in some way or other, attain to a voice in its management. The bureaux of the Admiralty contain many practical and experienced seamen; and it is well known that in a government like ours, in which party leaders chase each other in and out of office, the permanent secretaries in the offices are, in nine cases out of ten, the real ministers. The active members of the Trinity Board are recruited from the ranks of the merchant service. The Trinity House consults the Admiralty in cases of difficulty; the Admiralty intrusts to the Trinity Board important practical duties. The Hydrographer's Office-the statistical department of the Admiralty-forms a connecting link between the two Boards. These practically trained officials are watched and checked by unofficial pupils of the same school -members of the Royal navy, or wealthy ship-owners-whose ambition has carried them into parliament. The maritime administration and legislation of Great Britain, like all other parts of the British constitution, has rather grown than

been made what it is, and it has sprung up stately and athletic. As the nation grows, so must it be extended; as the nation improves, so must the details of its organisation be amended. But the grand outline must be adhered to, for it is the form that nature has given to us, and to tamper with, or mutilate it, is death.

Here we close our retrospect; but standing in the new Trinity House when we break off, as we stood in the Admiralty when we began, our eyes resting on the old banners, and plans of almost forgotten fights, evolutions, and the gilded names of benefactors of the corporation, our mind wanders back to the habitations of the naval rulers of England in ancient days. They have vanished: the Navy Office, in Crutched Friars, will be sought in vain. The scene of the memorable siege of poor, precise, garrulous Mr. Pepys by a bum-bailiff is no more. It was a memorable siege that; far transcending in interest even that which my uncle Toby, with the aid of the jackboots cut up into cannons by Trim, carried on in his garden. Valiantly were the outworks defended by the servitors of the Admiralty; ruthlessly persevering was the blockade into which the bum converted his repulsed assault; and then, when Pepys is stolen out at the back windows, one feels as if one would have felt if in the tale of Troy divine Eneas had carried off Helen and the Palladium before the death of Hector, and the Greeks, learning that what they sought was no longer there, had quietly beaten a

retreat.

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The Old Trinity House, in Water Lane, is not even that in which Pepys laboured it was rebuilt in 1718, after a fire which destroyed many important records. Yet is there something in the old Trinity House of the engraving which forms our tail-piece that might almost persuade us it was the veritable scene of Pepys' daily in-goings and out-comings. Between his time and the reign of the first George the architecture of London had undergone little change. And standing here in the clean, narrow, paved court, with tall brick tenements ornamented by protruding architraves of stone over door and window, and the little scroll-shaped tablets containing the narrative of the destruction of the building by fire, and its re-edification, we feel that the hero of the rent camlet cloak, which, “though it was a trifle, yet it did vex him," would not be here out of place. It is strange how this intellectual and moral pigmy has so indissolubly associated himself in our imagination with the mighty navy of Great Britain. It is as if, in inventing a naval mythology for our country, we were to shape the presiding genius after the model of some Nipcheese the purser. Yet the little man, though garrulous and vain, was of real service to the navy. He had a turn for accurate book-keeping, a love of justice, a power of estimating that greatness in others he so entirely wanted in himself, and it became with him a passion to see that justice was done to the navy. In good times and in bad times. he adhered to his purpose-when it was fashionable at court to be honest (that was at very brief intervals), and when it was unfashionable. He was a good old woman, ever watchful for the interests of this brawny son of his adoption, and succeeding in being useful to him. It is the old story of the dwarf befriending the giant of the mouse setting free the lion-of Wamba, the son of Witless, bringing rescue to Coeur-de-Lion. If this had been a Popish country, it would

have been the duty of the mariners of the royal navy to burn wax tapers before the effigies of St. Pepys.

In this want of antiquity the residences of the managers of our mercantile and our military navy resemble everything around them. London was a city in the time of Tacitus; yet the edifices of London are, with few exceptions, essentially modern. This is typical of our civil and social organisation, in which everything is the creation of the day, and yet retains the impress of an old antiquity. We are an ancient people, but we are the flesh and blood sons of our ancestors, not animated mummies, presenting caricatures of their lineaments.