THE ABOVE-BRIDGE NAVY.

AN ARTICLE INTENDED FOR THE “QUARTERLY REVIEW,” BUT FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF “PUNCH.”

I.—­Hours of the Starting of the Boats of the Iron Steam Boat Company.  London:  1841.

II.—­Notes of a Passenger on Board the Bachelor, during a Voyage from Old Swan Pier, London Bridge, to the Red House, Battersea.  CATNACH:  1840.

III.—­Rule Britannia, a Song.  London:  1694.

IV.—­Two Years before the Mast.  CUNNINGHAM.  London.

V.—­Checks issued by the London and Westminster Steam Boat Company. 
CATTARNS AND FRY.

At a time when the glory of England stands—­like a door shutting or opening either way—­entirely upon a pivot; when the hostile attitude of enemies abroad threatens not more, nor perhaps less, than the antagonistic posture of foes at home—­at such a time there is at least a yet undug and hitherto unexplored mine of satisfaction in the refreshing fact, that the Thames is fostering in his bosom an entirely new navy, calculated to bid defiance to the foe—­should he ever come—­in the very heart and lungs, the very bowels and vitals, the very liver and lungs, or, in one emphatic word, the very pluck of the metropolis.  There is not a more striking instance of the remarkable connexion between little—­very little—­causes, and great—­undeniably great—­effects, than the extraordinary origin, rise, progress, germ, development, and maturity, of the above-bridge navy, the bringing of which prominently before the public, who may owe to that navy at some future—­we hope so incalculably distant as never to have a chance of arriving—­day, the salvation of their lives, the protection of their hearths, the inviolability of their street-doors, and the security of their properties.  Sprung from a little knot of (we wish we could say “jolly young,” though truth compels us to proclaim) far from jolly, and decidedly old, “watermen,” the above-bridge navy, whose shattered and unfrequented wherries were always “in want of a fare,” may now boast of covering the bosom of the Thames with its fleet of steamers; thus, as it were, bringing the substantial piers of London Bridge within a stone’s throw—­if we may be allowed to pitch it so remarkably strong—­of the once remote regions of the Beach[3], and annihilating, as it were, the distance between sombre southwark and bloom-breathing Battersea.

    [3] Chelsea.

The establishment of this little fleet may well be a proud reflection to those shareholders who, if they have no dividend in specie, have another species of dividend in the swelling gratification with which the heart of every one must be inflated, as, on seeing one of the noble craft dart with the tide through the arches—­supposing, of course, it does not strike against them—­of Westminster Bridge, he is enabled mentally to exclaim, “There