BARGE (bargie, Dutch), a vessel or boat of state, furnished with elegant apartments, canopies, and cushions; equipped with a band of rowers, and decorated with flags and streamers: they are generally used for processions on the water, by noblemen, officers of state, or magistrates of great cities. Of this sort, too, we may naturally suppose the famous barge or galley of Cleopatra, which, according to Shakespeare,
Like a burnish'd throne,
Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold:
Purple her sails; and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were
silver,
Which to the tune of slutes kept time, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.—
At the helm
A seeming mermaid steer'd: the silken tackles
Swell'd with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That rarely 'form'd their office.—
There are likewise other barges of a smaller kind, for the use of admirals and captains of ships of war. These are of a lighter frame, and may be easily hoisted into and out of the ships to which they occasionally belong.