SAILORS' CHAUNTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
the Spectator of April 20th, you review Miss Smith's " Music of the Waters," and you mention appreciatively the North-Country " chanty," of which you quote two verses, beginning :- " Oh, there's a wind that blows, and it's blowing from the West." This verse, together with two others, was written by Mr. William Ernest Henley, and may be found in that writer's " Book of Verses," p. 93. The refrain and the verse beginning,— " And if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring," are, as stated in that volume, old. Besides your reviewer, Mr. Andrew Lang, the author of " The Astonishing Tale of Troy Town," and Miss Smith, have all accepted Mr. Henley's lyric as a genuine eighteenth-century sailor's song.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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