The Express.
London, England, 1858-01-04 00:00:00

THE LEVIATHAN.

When shall we launch our Leviathan ? Front
day to day, and from week to week, we live in an atmosphere
of abortive attempte and false alarms on this most interesting
subject. The event, we roust hope, will mean ble r. %screed y's
poatively last appearance, a thing often announced, and as
anion pet off, but which actually did take plane at last, when
everybody had given over the idea of its possibility. In the
case of oar present procrastinating friend, crowds have been
collected and have gone away disappointed ; gallevits, with
admission at the small charge of one penny, have been ran
up and crowded, and have tumbled down, breaking the
average number of lege and noses; rams have been placed sad
hove duly burst with edifying regularity ; chain tackle, enough
to hold the Spanish Armada, has given way, and even Trotman's
sachem have once come home, and still the great Le.
viathma stretches her hugs length placidly, but most °bed-
mangy, " many • rood" along the watanide of the Mill-
wall shipyard. The rams were all ready on Saturday last,
and &betide was propitious, but then the derricks were la an
iacomplete state, and the " packing " had not been all sewn
end impend, and so the great event had again to be put off
until this morning, when—. if '• everything should be
may, and nothing should burst or break, or happen to have
been overlooked in the preparations—another grand push was
to be made, sad the waster ship to be brought an indefinite
amber of lea, or whip inches, newer to that " native
element" to whisk she at paean exhibits so unnatural
• repugnance. That she will be fairly floated nobody seems
to aspect for some tins, the great delay in new packing the
nuns after each forward push, rendering her progress of a
slowness suited to the majesty of so distinguished a personage.
The public having been first eager and impatient, then
angry and disappointed, and at lost sullen and despairing
about the great event, have now become positively jocose and
speculative over it; and it is even hoped that ultimately the
shareholders themselves may be brolght to join in the gemeral
hilarity, and, like the proprietors of the Thames Tunnel, to
crack jokes on the lugubrious prospects of their undertaking.
Cruel punsters aver that the brigade of rams will never be
complete until the celebrated Derby specimen be brought
to beer ea the great ship; visitors of classical turn talk of
the Omsk lislends ea the probable date of her launch, while
cern who more affect the vernacular, hint at St. Tibb's eve
es the possible period of flotation. The representatives of the
pada press icily rush down the Blackwell line at editorial
behest, with note-books large enough to hold columns of
dmoriptive particulars, but after waiting an incalculable
amber of hour., acquire nothing but catarrhs, blue noses,
and a eeriderable quantity of the alluvial soil of the river,
wide& adheres to their boots and nether integuments, in their
sager smash after the latest intelligence, They see great
bs of timber lying everywhere about, but their only
lea crone ID be to break the shins of too eager visitors ; they
peered wonder before the mysterious hydraulic rams, but
the later only fizz sad buret before their astonished eyes ;
dry gage on a high wooden tower of many stages, that looks
like en illumination in a vellum copy of " Froimart's
Chronicle . " and when the great engineer himself mounts
thereon, sad telegraphs with white flags and red, and when
rarkeres• aides fly about like so many "Swift Camilla
sew* o'er the plain," they mentally exclaim " Now's
the time," when, alma, another check illustrates the ea-
eselarty of all human expectation'. Bat "Time sad the
hew saes out the longest day," and time and the how will,
it is to be hoped, ultimately launch the Leviathan; and the
delay will only serve the more absolutely to prove the mad.
sees of the principle upon which she is built, and the masterly
completeness of its execution, Fur what ship but herself would
have stood the strain to which she has submitted for the last
mouth without the deflection of a hair's breath % It was
enough to have " Hogged" the strongest ship in her Ma-
jesty's navy, and yet the Leviathan, with her 17,000 tons of
deadweight, has stood through Ball erect on her two pigmy
perches, with her keel as straight as a line.