IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
(Enter mariners.)
Boatswain. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle. … Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi' the main course. … Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses. Off to sea again; lay her off.
That will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.
If a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say, "Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposing stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let them jeff for takes and be quick about it," I should recognize a mistake or two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a printer theoretically, not practically.
I have been a quartz miner in the silver regions—a pretty hard life; I know all
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