interesting, with a body broken down by sickness, and spirits which had sunk with his strength. Long afterwards, when the name of Nelson was known as widely as that of England itself, he spoke of the feelings which he at this time endured. I felt impressed,' said he, that I should never rise in my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the difficulties I had to surmount, and the little interest I possessed. I could discover no means of reaching the object of my ambition.'" P. 24.

Upon these sentiments Mr. Southey gratuitously remarks, "That the state of mind in which these feelings began, is what the mystics mean by their season of darkness, of aridity, and of desertion. If the animal spirits of coarser enthusiasts fail, they represent it as an actual temptation; a snare of Satan. The enthusiasm of Nelson's nature had taken a different direction, but in its essence it was the same." Is then the editor of the remains of Henry Kirke White capable of confounding the dawning sentiments of religion, and the fears and anxieties of a bosom newly awakened to a sense of its unworthiness, and as yet more staggered by the threats than strengthened by the assurances of the Christian dispensation, with the pangs of youthful ambition disappointed of its sanguine hopes? Or is the sentimental poet of the mountains so dead to pity, to true taste, or even to ordinary compassion, as to indulge in a coarse and vulgar ridicule of one of the most affecting of the mental maladies of mankind, to gratify youthful levity, to catch a careless reader or two more, or to flatter the scornful security of the rational religionist?

Our readers must laugh outright while they peruse the following recipe prescribed by this foe to mysticism and enthusiasm, as the tonic by which the "glow of patriotism" is to be for ever kept alive in the bosoms of our naval commanders. He reports the young Nelson to have thus spoken of himself" After a long and gloomy reverie, in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me,and presented my king and country as my patron. Well then, I exclaimed, I will be a hero! and confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger." Long afterwards, says Mr. Southey, Nelson loved to speak of the feeling of that moment; and from that time he often said a radiant orb was suspended in his mind's eye, which urged him onward to renown;-and again he declares, that Nelson always seemed willing to believe that the sunshine which succeeded, bore with it a prophetic glory; and that the light which led him on was light from Heaven. Now we must frankly 'declare that we do not believe that Lord Nelson ever seriously intended to refer the origin of his actions to principles of mysticism, so extremely absurd, ridiculous, and enthusiastic. And we know not which most to admire, Mr. Southey's simplicity in

contrasting their rationality with the reveries he is pleased to impute to the mystics, or his deficiency of judgment in supposing that the contrast would afford matter for the edification of "the young sailor."

In truth, Mr. Southey should have recollected that there are passages, lamentable passages, in the Life of Lord Nelson, which require in a faithful historian of his younger days (particularly in one who writes for the benefit of youth) a more than ordinary caution in investigating the deficiencies of his early principles of conduct.

It is with feelings of regret that we make these observations on parts of Mr. Southey's performance. Let Lord Nelson's fame be permitted to rest upon the public records of his actions and his services! But if a sage historian will dwell upon his moral conduct, a principle above even patriotism itself, or rather the brightest and purest patriotism demands, that the authentic distinctions of right and wrong should be courageously maintained while they are charitably applied.

After this frank recognition of the distinctive characters of what was censurable and what was admirable in Lord Nelson's conduct, we join with delight in the general sentiment of gratitude impressed on the nation. by his glorious exploits, and enter upon their history with thorough English feelings.

In 1780 he was engaged on an expedition near the Isthmus of Panama, on which the combined naval and military forces endured great hardships, and where the feeble frame of Nelson received another serious blow from bad climate, or, as some suspect, from water accidentally poisoned by some boughs of the manchineel, or hippomane, a tree with the juice of which the Indians are said to poison their arrows. On his return home, and before his health was re-established, the Admiralty very inconsiderately ordered him to the North seas, apparently on purpose, as he said with some degree of acrimony, to try his constitution. He was kept there the whole winter in command of the Albemarle, originally a French ship, the building and fitting of which did not seem to meet his approbation; for after fruitlessly endeavouring to improve her by many alterations, he “insisted that her first owners the French had taught her to run away, as she was never a good sailer, except when going directly before the wind."

In 1782 he was ordered in the same ship to Quebec; and soon after joined Lord Hood, who was at that time with a detachment of Rodney's victorious fleet at Sandyhook. The following picture of his person and manners as they existed at this period is interesting

"His professional merit was already well known and Lord Hood, on introducing him to Prince William Henry, as the Duke of Clarence was then called, told the prince, if he wished to ask any questions respecting naval tactics, Captain Nelson could give him as much information as any officer in the fleet. The duke, who, to his own honour, became from that time the firm friend of Nelson, describes him as appearing the merest boy of a captain he had ever seen, dressed in a full laced uniform, and old fashioned waistcoat with long flaps, and his lank unpowdered hair tied in a stiff Hessian tail of extraordinary length; making, altogether, so remarkable a figure, that,' says the duke, I had never seen any thing like it be fore, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what he came about. But his address and conversation were irresistibly pleasing; and when he spoke on professional subjects, it was with an enthusiasm that showed he was no common being.'

"It was expected that the French would attempt some of the passages between the Bahamas: and Lord Hood, thinking of this, said to Nelson; I suppose, Sir, from the length of time you were cruising among the Bahama Keys, you must be a good pilot there.' He replied, with that constant readiness to render justice to every man, which was so conspicuous in all his conduct through life, that he was well acquainted with them himself, but that in that respect his second lieutenant was far his superior." P. 46.

At the peace of 1783 he made a short trip to France; but in the following year was appointed to the Boreas, on the peace establishment at the Leeward Islands. He was senior captain in the West Indies; and his continuance there was chiefly distinguished by his strenuous and successful opposition to the corruption and peculation of the commissariat departments of the navy, which he encountered the resistance and obloquy usually attendant upon such truly honourable exertions. It was now also (1786) that he married the lady who is his widow; at that time the relict of a Dr. Nisbet, and niece to Mr. Herbert, president of Nevis. The recollection of subsequent events makes us strongly inclined, both in justice and in feeling, to extract the following passage:→→

Yesterday,' said one of his naval friends, the day after the wedding, the navy lost one of its greatest ornaments, by Nelson's marriage. It is a national loss that such an officer should marry had it not been for this, Nelson would have become the greatest man in the service.' The man was rightly estimated: but he who delivered this opinion did not understand the effect of domestic love and duty upon a mind of the true heroic stamp. • We are often separate,' said Nelson, in a letter to Mrs. Nisbet, a few months before their marriage; but our affections are not by any means op that account diminished. Our country has the first demand for our services; and private convenience or happiness must ever give way

to the public good. Duty is the great business of a sea officer: all private considerations must give way to it, however painful. Have you not often heard,' says he, in another letter, that salt water and absence always wash away love? Now I am such a heretic as not to believe that faith: for behold, every morning I have had six pails of salt water poured upon my head, and instead of finding what seamen say to be true, it goes on so contrary to the prescription, that you may, perhaps, see me before the fixed time.' More frequently his correspondence breathed a deeper strain. To write letters to you,' says he, is the next greatest pleasure I feel to receiving them from you. What I experience when I read such as I am sure are the pure sentiments of your heart, my poor pen cannot express:→→ nor, indeed, would I give much for any pen or head which could express feelings of that kind. Absent from you, I feel nó pleasure: it Is you who are every thing to me. Without you, I care not for this world; for I have found, lately, nothing in it but vexation and trous ble. These are my present sentiments. God Almighty grant they may never change! Nor do I think they will. Indeed there is, as far as human knowledge can judge, a moral certainty that they cannot: for it must be real affection that brings us together; not interest or compulsion.' Such were the feelings, and such the sense of duty, with which Nelson became a husband." P. 68.

Nelson returned to England in 1788 under a sense of illusage. He thought, and justly in our opinion, that sufficient countenance and credit were not given him for his manly opposition to peculators in the West Indies: the following reflections which occurred to him under those feelings, throw a strong light both upon the energy and the deficiencies of his character.

"'I,'said he, 'must still buffet the waves in search of what? Alas! that they called honour is now thought of no more. My fortune, God knows, is grown worse for the service: so much for serving my Country! But the devil, ever willing to tempt the virtuous, has made me offer, if any ships should be sent to destroy his majesty of Morocco's port, to be there. I have invariably laid down, and fol lowed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer, that it is much better to serve an ungrateful country, than to give up his own fame.' Posterity will do him justice. uniform course of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last." P. 79.

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The design, however, against the Barbary states was laid aside, and Nelson, with his wife, retired to his father's house in the county of Norfolk. He took up his abode at the parsonage, and amused himself with the pursuits and sports of the country; -farming the glebe, gardening, coursing, and even, as Mr. Southey says, birds'-nesting with his wife. "Neither she, however, nor any one else, would follow him on his shooting ex

cursions; for he always carried his gun upon the full cock, as if going to board an enemy, and the moment a bird rose he let fly, without ever putting the piece to his shoulder. His having once shot a partridge was, therefore, a remarkable event in the family. It was also his great ambition at this time to possess a poney, and resolved to purchase one, he went to a fair for the purpose; having secured his prize, he rode it home, expatiating with great glee to his wife upon all its excellencies." It is interesting to contemplate the repose of the hero during four years of these simple occupations, from which he arose at the breaking out of the French war, refreshed, and well prepared for the great part which he was about to sustain.

Mr. Southey's political paradoxes are sometimes rather stale and revolting. When they take this character they are as safe from us as the partridges from Nelson's gun. We have neither strength nor leisure to follow game so wild as his. We will, therefore, leave him in supreme content with his notable position, that "the check given by England to the revolutionary impulse of French principles in the other states of Europe, (or, as Mr. Southey terms them, in the rotten governments of the continent) prevented their acquiring that strength which would have made them the rivals, rather than the prey, of France."

There is so thin a partition between Mr. Southey's poetry and his prose, that we scarcely know to which department of the brain to refer this frantic hypothesis: to save the credit of his sober senses, we will be charitable enough to give it to that which is dedicated to fiction.

Upon the breaking out of the war, Nelson was appointed to the Agamemnon of 64 guns, and sent to the Mediterranean under Lord Hood-a station well calculated to please a man, one of whose principal instructions to his midshipmen was, " to hate a Frenchman as he would the devil." Here his active powers were brought into full play. He was in one short year on public duty at Naples, (fatal Naples!) at Tunis, and at Corsica, distinguished wherever he went, and peculiarly distinguished at the sieges of Bastia and of Calvi, both of which were taken prin*cipally by his energy and skill, and, on both occasions, his services were entirely overlooked and unrewarded, his name being even omitted in the list of the wounded, although he lost an eye at the latter siege. His feelings on these occasions were vented in the following expressions:

"One hundred and ten days I have been actually engaged at sea and on shore against the enemy; three actions against ships, two -against Bastia in my ship, four boat actions, and two villages taken, and twelve sail of vessels burnt. I do not know that any one has