His name is Jemmy Taylor; He's gone in a whaler To Hie Greenland Sea.' " Or? " Oh! if I had her, Eh, then, if I had her, Oh ! how I could love her, Black although she be!'" // On improvisation, variability: // The sailor's trick of improvising furnishes a very varied character to his working songs. A man having exhausted all the rhymes he knows, with a good deal of pulling and hauling still remaining, will often venture upon a doggerel of his own instead of repeating what he has already said. "Words of certain songs have indeed a permanency, but I doubt if it would be possible to express the peculiar nature of the sailors' working songs, by printing the verses which are supposed to accompany the airs. Words are varied again and again; line after line is made up on the instant; the reader may reject with confidence any collection that is offered to him as samples of the poetry which Jack roars out when he heaves or drags. In truth, but a very little of the real thing would bear the light of day. // Lastly, he claims to be very familiar with shanties first hand. OK, I'll buy it. Funny thay he never prints any verses though. // I remember a lady writing to ask me to assist her in forming a collection of the sailors' working songs, and I could not help thinking that if by Jack's songs she meant the "chanties," as