may leave the reserve if he pleases, at the end of
any five years. His retainer stops while he is
actually receiving pay afloat; but if discharged
before five years, he is to be paid it, whilst liable
for recal to the service. Should he be kept
five years afloat, he must enter again as volunteer,
before again receiving the retainer.

Touching pensions, a sum is to be set aside,
annually, beyond and above the six pounds, to
provide one for each volunteer. In no case
will such pensions be less than twelve pounds.
The volunteer becomes entitled to it, if he enters
before thirty, in twenty years, and if he enters
above thirty, in fifteen. To earn a pension he
must remain a volunteer continuously; but
when called out for actual service, his time will
count double. Volunteers who have been ten
years in the reserve, or three years in the navy,
become entitled to all the benefits of Greenwich
Hospital.

Such is a—necessarily—condensed description
of the plans by which our Admiralty propose to
raise a reserve absolutely necessary to our navy;
but which, when secured, will do away with the
manning difficulty and extinguish the very
memory of impressment. It remains to be seen
how it will work; and on this point the
obscurity of the subject makes it hazardous to give
a decided opinion. Terms so liberal have never
before been offered to our seamen. All the
coasting trade, Baltic, Mediterranean, and North
American trade may now secure a sum
annually, taking in the extra pay during training,
and the prospect of pension, of something like
nine pounds a year, not to mention the chances
of the coast-guard and of Greenwich Hospital.
It is only proposed in return for this, that they
should submit during a period when they must
necessarily be ashore (with extra pay for that)
to such a drill as is now voluntarily submitted
to gratis by thousands of well-employed people
in the rifle corps, and that they should be liable
to serve in the best seamen's positions in the
navy in case of a contingency which can only
mean a war, and which, in any case, would stop
all mercantile traffic afloat, till our squadrons
were ready to protect merchant ships.

Can it be that the navy is so unpopular as to
blind the eyes of the best seamen of Great
Britain to the advantages offered them by a plan like
this?

We trust not. One obstacle to the formation
of a regular system of manning hitherto, has
been the ingrained Bohemianism of Jack, with
which we won't quarrel much, as it is an
element in his value, but which has made it a
very difficult job to lay hold of him and organise
him. But he is now becoming a more
domesticated creature. He is seen at sailors' homes.
He has a shrewd eye to the main chance. He
has sometimes been known to prefer coffee to
grog, even though his failings in the latter
department are never to be wholly eradicated.
The Registration System, the Coast Volunteer
System, the naval improvements making life more
comfortable in a man-of-war, all these are signs
of an era which means to try and annex him, in
a friendly way, and not at all in a canting way,
to its general civilisation. Let him join it, like
a good man and a good fellow. The shipping
masters are longing for him.

            HALF THE YEAR ROUND.*

     * See page 181 of the first volume.

                         JULY.

GRATEFUL and lovely, through the leafy glade,
When day is at its sultriest, heaviest heat,
When birds scarce twitter in the noontide shade,
And the slow herds seek out some cool retreat,
Comes the rich mother of the harvest sheaves,
Bearing her first-fruits on her ample breast;
Speared barley, wheat, and grapes in tinted leaves,
To lay them on God's altar, ripe and blest—
Thank-offering to the Bountiful, who gives
The fertile sunshine and the softening rain,
The Father, Lord, of everything that lives,
Without whose blessing men would sow in vain.
    Look up, O Mother! holy are thy tears,
    And sweet thy hymn of praise in heavenly ears.

                         AUGUST.

"The Earth and all its fulness are the Lord's;
Men but the stewards of his bounteous trust!"
Glows on thy purple robe in living words,
Though greed would tread them out in sordid dust:
Enough to garner in the rich man's store,
Enough to give the reaper ample hire,
Enough to feed the meek and patient poor,
Enough for every Christian heart's desire.
God stints not. On the russet sea,
Ripe waving in the rich and gracious sun,
On gorgeous heathland, and on fertile lea,
Nature breathes gratefully, "His will be done!"
    "His will be done!" let thankful men reply,
    "All praise and glory to the Lord most high!"

                     SEPTEMBER.

The fields are ripe, the golden garners teem,
The patient hind rejoices on his way;
From upland furrow and by lowland stream
The reapers gather all the livelong day.
Hoarding the master's wealth with faithful hand,
Through noontide hours unwearied toil they on,
A smart and rough, yet honest-hearted band,
Hoping no quiet till Life's task is done;
When the Last Gleaner, Death, of every grain,
Strewn in the trenches where Time is no more,
Shall bind his sheaves and bear them back again,
To the great Sower whence they came before—
    To bloom in fields eternal, where no care
    Shall vex their long-sought rest with life's despair.

                             OCTOBER.

Royally vestured, o'er the solemn wolds,
When nature rests, the great ingathering done,
Sweeping in robes of heather-purple folds,
Diademed with fire-red rays of setting sun,
October hastens, swift on Summer's track,
To touch her rose-flushed cheeks with hue embrowned,
To gird her robes for Winter's coming wrack,
Whose earliest victims wither on the ground.
Then veils he her in frosted mist and white,
And, quick of mood, begins a wanton chase,
Spurns all the fallen glories out of sight,
With frolic, north-blown song, and revelling face;
    Then shakes the branches, showers down the leaves,
    While for each dying flower some dryad grieves.