way ashore, fitted to words more proper for the drawing-room and the concert hall, than Jack's rhymes to them. Such airs as "Across the Western Ocean," "The Plains of Mexico," "Yon rolling River," "Blow, Boys, Blow," and a few others?not many, I admit?harmonized by an able musician, and associated with good poetry, should scarcely fail, I think, to captivate the shore-going ear, and hold to it with scarcely less tenacity than may be witnessed in its adherence to maritime memory and sympathy. // He has added SHENANDOAH and BLOW BOYS BLOW to his list. I wonder if he read Adam's ROCKET of 1879. Lots of similarities in their expositions. More on American origin of shanties: // I think it may be taken that we owe the sailors' working song as we now possess it to the Americans. How far do these songs date back ? I doubt if the most ancient amongst them is much older than the century. It is noteworthy that the old voyagers do not hint at the sailors singing out or encouraging their efforts by choruses when at work. In the navy, of course, this sort of song was never permitted. Work proceeded to the strains of a fiddle, to the piping of the boatswain and his mates, or in earlier times yet, to the trumpet. The working song then is peculiar to the Merchant Service, but one may hunt through the old chronicles without encountering a suggestion of its existence prior ot American independence and