With them I take delight in weal, And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to them I owe, My cheeks have often been bedew'd With tears of thoughtful gratitude. My thoughts are with the Dead, with them I live in long-past years, My hopes are with the Dead, anon Yet leaving here a name, I trust, The Death of Nelson. It had been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing on the Redoubtable, supposing that she had struck, because her guns were silent; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps from him, turning round, saw three men raising him up. They have done for me at last, Hardy,' said he. 'I hope not,' cried Hardy. 'Yes,' he replied; 'my back-bone is shot through.' Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately; then, that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these badges of honour from the enemy, England perhaps would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying men, over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon examination, that the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He himself being certain, from the sensation in his back and the gush of blood he felt momently within his breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to whom he might be useful; 'for,' said he, 'you can do nothing for me.' All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and frequently to give him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event of the action, which now began to declare itself. As often as a ship struck, the crew of the Victory hurraed; and at every hurra a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes and marked the countenance of the dying hero. But he became impatient to see Hardy; and as that officer, though often sent for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared that some fatal cause prevented him, and repeatedly cried : 'Will n no one bring Hardy to me? He must be killed; he is surely dead!' An hour and ten minutes elapsed from the time when Nelson received his wound before Hardy could come to him. They shook hands in silence, Hardy in vain struggling to suppress the feelings of that most painful and yet sublimest moment. 'Well, Hardy,' said Nelson, 'how goes the day with us?' 'Very well,' replied Hardy; 'ten ships have struck, but five of the van have tacked, and show an intention to bear down upon the Victory. I have called two or three of our fresh ships round, and have no doubt of giving them a drubbing.' 'I hope,' said Nelson, none of our ships have struck?' Hardy answered, 'There was no fear of that.' Then, and not till then, Nelson spoke of himself. 'I am a dead man, Hardy,' said he; 'I am going fast: it will be all over with me soon. Come nearer to me. Let my dear Lady Hamilton have my hair, and all other things belonging to me.' Hardy observed that he hoped Mr Beatty could yet hold out some prospect of life. 'Oh no,' he replied; it is impossible. My back is shot through. Beatty will tell you so.' Hardy then once more shook hands with him, and with a heart almost bursting, hastened upon deck. 6 By this time all feeling below the breast was gone; and Nelson, having made the surgeon ascertain this, said to him: 'You know I am gone. I know it. I feel something rising in my breast,' putting his hand on his left side, which tells me so.' And upon Beatty's inquiring whether his pain was very great, he replied, 'So great that he wished he was dead. Yet,' said he in a lower voice, 'one would like to live a little longer too!' And after a few minutes, in the same undertone, he added: "What would become of poor Lady Hamilton if she knew my situation?' Next to his country she occupied his thoughts. Captain Hardy, some fifty minutes after he had left the cockpit, returned, and, again taking the hand of his dying friend and commander, congratulated him on having gained a complete victory. How many of the enemy were taken he did not know, as it was impossible to perceive them distinctly; but fourteen or fifteen at least. 'That's well,' cried Nelson; but I bargained for twenty.' And then, in a stronger voice, he said: 'Anchor, Hardy; anchor.' Hardy upon this hinted that Admiral Collingwood would take upon himself the direction of affairs. 'Not while I live, Hardy,' said the dying Nelson, ineffectually endeavouring to raise himself from the bed: 'do you anchor.' His previous orders for preparing to anchor had shown how clearly he foresaw the necessity of this. Presently, calling Hardy back, he said to him, in a low voice, Don't throw me overboard;' and he desired that he might be buried by his parents, unless it should please the king to order otherwise. Then reverting to private feelings: 'Take care of my dear Lady Hamil ton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy,' said he. Hardy knelt down and kissed his cheek; and Nelson said, 'Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty!' Hardy stood over him in silence for a moment or two, then knelt again and kissed his forehead. 'Who is that?' said Nelson; and being informed, he replied, 'God bless you, Hardy.' And Hardy then left him-for ever. Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and said, 'I wish I had not left the deck; for I shall soon be gone.' Death was, indeed, rapidly approaching. He said to the chaplain, Doctor, I have not been a great sinner;' and after a short pause, 'Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country.' His articulation now became difficult; but he was distinctly heard to say, 'Thank God, I have done my duty!' These words he repeatedly pronounced; and they were the last words which he uttered. He expired at thirty minutes after four-three hours and a quarter after he had received his wound.' The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never till then known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero-the greatest of our own and of all former times- -was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end. The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him : the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards were all which they could now bestow upon him whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church-bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and ‘old men from the chimney-corner' to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas; and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence. There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening his body, that in the course of nature he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honours, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr ; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory; and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England-a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and to act after them. (From the Life of Nelson.) Wesley's Old Age and Death. 'Leisure and I,' said Wesley, 'have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me.' This resolution was made in the prime of life, and never was resolution more punctually observed. Lord, let me not live to be useless!' was the prayer which he uttered after seeing one whom he had long known as an active and useful magistrate reduced by age to be a picture of human nature in disgrace, feeble in body and mind, slow of speech and understanding.' He was favoured with a constitution vigorous beyond that of ordinary men, and with an activity of spirit which is even rarer than his singular felicity of health and strength. Ten thousand cares of various kinds, he said, were no more weight or burden to his mind than ten thousand hairs were to his head. But in truth his only cares were those of superintending the work of his ambition, which continually prospered under his hands. Real cares he had none; no anxieties, no sorrows, no griefs which touched him to the quick. His manner of life was the most favourable that could have been devised for longevity. He rose early, and lay down at night with nothing to keep him waking, or trouble him in sleep. His mind was always in a pleasurable and wholesome state of activity; he was temperate in his diet, and lived in perpetual locomotion; and frequent change of air is perhaps, of all things, that which most conduces to joyous health and long life. . . . I Upon his eighty-sixth birthday, he says, 'I now find grow old. My sight is decayed, so that I cannot read a small print, unless in a strong light. My strength is decayed; so that I walk much slower than I did some years since. My memory of names, whether of persons or places, is decayed, till I stop a little to recollect them. What I should be afraid of is, if I took thought for the morrow, that my body should weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness, by the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness, by the increase of bodily infirmities. But thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God!' His strength now diminished so much that he found it difficult to preach more than twice a day; and for many weeks he abstained from his five o'clock morning sermons, because a slow and settled fever parched his mouth. Finding himself a little better, he resumed the practice, and hoped to hold on a little longer; but at the beginning of the year 1790 he writes: 'I am now an old man, decayed from head to foot. My eyes are dim; my right hand shakes much; my mouth is hot and dry every morning; I have a lingering fever almost every day; my motion is weak and slow. However, blessed be God! I do not slack my labours I can preach and write still.' In the middle of the same year he closed his cash accountbook with the following words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible: 'For upwards of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly: I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction that I save all I can, and give all I can; that is, all I have.' . . . On the 1st of February 1791 he wrote his last letter to America. It shows how anxious he was that his followers should consider themselves as one united body. 'See,' said he, 'that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe. Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue.' He expressed, also, a sense that his hour was almost come. 'Those that desire to write,' said he, 'or say anything to me, have no time to lose; for Time has shaken me by the hand, and Death is not far behind:' words which his father had used in one of the last letters that he addressed to his sons at Oxford. On the 17th of that month he took cold after preaching at Lambeth. For some days he struggled against an increasing fever, and continued to preach till the Wednesday following, when he delivered his last sermon. From that time he became daily weaker and more lethargic, and on the 2nd of March he died in peace; being in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry. During his illness he said: 'Let me be buried in nothing but what is woollen; and let my corpse be carried in my coffin into the chapel.' Some years before, he had prepared a vault for himself, and for those itinerant preachers who might die in London. In his will he directed that six poor men should have twenty shillings each for carrying his body to the grave; for I particularly desire,' said he, 'there may be no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp except the tears of them that loved me, and are following me to Abraham's bosom. I solemnly adjure my executors, in the name of God, punctually to observe this.' At the desire of many of his friends, his body was carried into the chapel the day preceding the interment, and there lay in a kind of state becoming the person, dressed in his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band; the old clerical cap on his head, a Bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The face was placid, and the expression which death had fixed upon his venerable features was that of a serene and heavenly smile. The crowds who flocked to see him were so great that it was thought prudent, for fear of accidents, to accelerate the funeral, and perform it between five and six in the morning. The intelligence, however, could not be kept entirely secret, and several hundred persons attended at that unusual hour. Mr Richardson, who performed the service, had been one of his preachers almost thirty years. When he came to that part of the service, 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother,' his voice changed, and he substituted the word father; and the feeling with which he did this was such that the congregation, who were shedding silent tears, burst at once into loud weeping. (From the Life of John Wesley.) The second Mrs Southey (Caroline Anne Bowles ; 1786-1854), who was the daughter of a retired officer, submitted to Southey a pathetic story in verse, Ellen Fitzarthur, and the laureate encouraged her to publish it. It was followed by The Widow's Tale, with other poems (1822); Solitary Hours, in prose and verse (1826); and by her most popular work, Chapters on Churchyards (1829), prose tales and sketches republished from Blackwood's Magazine. So early as 1823 Southey had asked Caroline Bowles to co-operate in writing a poem on Robin Hood, never completed, and her contributions to the scheme were published after Southey's death, with other fragments. In 1823 also she produced Tales of the Factories in verse, on the hardships of factory hands; her longest poem was The Birthday (1836). The marriage in 1839 amazed the friends of both. Southey was already sinking into mental and physical decay, and in 1843 his death left her a widow for the last nine years of her life. The following is her poem on The Pauper's Death-bed. Stranger! however great, With lowly reverence bow; There's one in that poor shedOne by that paltry bed— Greater than thou. Beneath that beggar's roof, Lo! Death doth keep his state; Enter-no crowds attendEnter-no guards defend This palace-gate. That pavement damp and cold No smiling courtiers tread; No mingling voices sound- O change-O wondrous change !— O change-stupendous change! Southey's Life and Correspondence (6 vols. 1849-50), by his younger son, the Rev. Cuthbert Southey (1819-89), contains a delightful fragment of autobiography. A Selection from the letters was edited by his son-in-law, Mr Warter (4 vols. 1856), who also issued Southey's Commonplace Book (4 vols. 1849-51); his Correspondence with Caroline Bowles was edited by Professor Dowden (1881). See too the latter's Southey (Men of Letters,' 1880); Dennis's Southey (Boston, 1887); Southey's Journal of a Tour in the Netherlands, with introduction by Dr Robertson Nicoll (1902); and Sir Leslie Stephen's delightful essay on 'Southey's Letters' in Studies of a Biographer (vol. iv. 1902). Samuel Taylor Coleridge,* poet, critic, and philosopher, was born at Ottery At first he was forlorn and unhappy, ill-fed and homesick, but as time went on there were mitigations. His schoolfellow, Thomas Fanshawe Middleton, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, noticed and protected him from the first, and after he had taken rank as 'a Grecian 'he made friends with and held his own among seniors and contemporaries. Chief among those who looked up to him as elder and superior was Charles Lamb. He believed-or, perhaps, chose to think-that he owed his faculty as a writer and poet to the severities of his fierce though painstaking master, James Boyer, who forced him to use his brains and control his fancies, and who once, he said, flogged him justly when he had been reading Voltaire and 'sported infidel.' It was doubtless to the austere discipline of the Blue-coat School that Coleridge owed the command over his extraordinary talents, which neither genius nor temperament could 'utterly abolish or destroy.' When he was seventeen, on one of the monthly 'leave-days' he swam the New River in his clothes, and was punished for his folly by a sharp attack of rheumatic fever. He never completely regained his health, and it is probable that the rheumatic gout, or what not, which attacked him at Keswick, encouraging and confirming, if it did not awaken, the indulgence in opium, may be traced to this fateful escapade. He was in the sick ward-'seas of pain waving through each limb' (see sonnet to Pain)—for several months, and after his recovery his next step was to fall, or rush, into a first love with a schoolfellow's sister named Mary Evans. She was a blue-eyed maiden, quick-tempered and quick-witted, 'nobly planned' to love and be loved; but, alas! she was not for Coleridge, and, to his loss and sorrow, married and passed out of his life. But whilst he was at school, and for long afterwards, she was a 'phantom of delight,' an influence and an inspiration. Coleridge was entered as a sizar on the books of Jesus College, Cambridge, 5th February 1791, but did not go into residence till the following October. He received from the Hospital a donation of £40, an annual exhibition of £40, a 'Rustat' scholarship for the sons of clergymen of about £25 per annum, and an irregular allowance from his brothers. With prudence this was a bare sufficiency, but from ignorance or indifference he at once plunged into debt. At first, thanks to the presence and example of Middleton, he worked hard, and in July 1792 was Browne medallist (see The Poetical Works, 1893, pp. 476– 477). In the winter of 1792 he was 'among the select' for the Craven scholarship, but missed success. The long vacation of 1793 was spent at Ottery, and towards the close of the Michaelmas term he went up to London, spent his last guinea, and enlisted (2nd December 1793) in the 15th or King's Regiment of Light Dragoons. Debts to his college tutor and to Cambridge tradesmen prompted this counsel of despair. He had wasted his time, his talents, and his brothers' money, and he shrank from the disclosure which was at hand. The 'gests and exploits' of Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke (his nom de guerre), which Cottle and Gillman retail, are more or less mythical. A less agreeable but a more probable version of the story is to be found in Charles Lloyd's novel Edmund Oliver, which was published in 1798. Coleridge was an indifferent dragoon, and soon betrayed his own secret. His brother, Captain James Coleridge, discovered that 'Sam' was quartered at Reading, wrote to him a letter of forgiveness, and after some time and trouble bought him out. His discharge is dated 10th April 1794, and on the following day he went up to Cambridge. The authorities were lenient, and he escaped with a nominal punishment. At the end of the summer term he started for a walking tour in North Wales, taking Oxford on his way. Then it was that he first met Robert Southey, of Balliol College, and, inspired by his sympathy and companionship, talked out a scheme for turning socialist and emigrating with a chosen band to America. Coleridge, who was great at * Copyright 1903 by J. B. Lippincott Company to an extract entitled "From 'The Ancient Mariner,'" page 63. coining words, thought communism or socialism might be rechristened Pantisocracy. Early in August, when the tour was over, he rejoined Southey at Bristol, where he met and engaged himself to his future wife, Sarah Fricker. She was the eldest of five sisters, of whom the second, Mary, was already married to a young Quaker poet named Robert Lovell, and the third, Edith, was betrothed to Southey. Byron maintained that Sarah and Edith were 'milliners of Bath,' and, when brought to book, gave his authority for the statement (Letters and Journals, 1901, vol. vi. p. 113). They certainly went out to work in the houses of friends, and it is possible that they had been taught their trade. They were, how ever, of decent stock and parentage, and had been born and brought up to better things. In September Coleridge returned, somewhat reluctantly, to Cambridge, and kept one more term; but he passed the time in writing letters to Southey and in preaching pantisocracy. In December he quitted the university without taking a degree. His first work, The Fall of Robespierre, an Historic Drama, of which Southey wrote the second and third acts, was published at Cambridge in September 1794. The first act contains the well-known lines, 'Tell me on what holy ground May domestic peace be found.' the autumn they quarrelled and dissolved partnership. Southey had been the first to realise that pantisocracy was impracticable, and, to his friend's dismay and indignation, determined to pass the winter with his uncle at Lisbon. The result was that Coleridge, relying on the offer of a new friend and patron, Joseph Cottle, a Bristol bookseller, married (4th October 1793) and settled with his wife in a 'myrtle-bound' cottage at Clevedon. Here, for a brief while, 'domestic peace' was SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. From a Drawing (aged 24) by Robert Hancock in the National Portrait Gallery. For a few weeks he lingered in London, writing sonnets for the Morning Chronicle, and 'sitting late, drinking late' with Charles Lamb at the 'Cat and Salutation' in Newgate Street; but early in February, at Southey's instance or insistence, removed to Bristol. For some months the friends lodged together and endeavoured to make a living by lecturing on politics, history, and theology (for specimens of Coleridge's political lectures, see Conciones ad Populum, printed in pamphlet form at Bristol, November 1795, and republished in Essays on His Own Times, 1850, vol. i. pp. 1-55); but in found, but want of books, friends, and, perhaps, the necessaries of life in less than three months led to a'domestication' with his motherin-law at Bristol. The spring of 1796 was taken up with the publication of the Watchman, a periodical which professed to be the organ of the Whig Club and other patriotic societies. The first number appeared on Ist March, and the tenth and last on 13th May 1796 (for Coleridge's articles, see the Essays, &c., 1850, vol. i. pp. 99-178). Meanwhile a volume of Poems on Various Subjects (first edition) was issued by Cottle, 16th April, 1796. The summer was consumed in devising abortive plans for making a living at Derby and elsewhere. He was away from home 'prospecting' when his eldest son -named, but not christened, David Hartleywas born, 19th September; and two days later he returned, bringing with him as inmate and pupil Charles Lloyd, a bank clerk who preferred poetry to keeping his father's ledgers. On 31st December 1796 the Ode to the Departing Year appeared in the Cambridge Intelligencer; and on 1st January 1797 Coleridge, with his wife and baby, took up their quarters in a cottage at Nether Stowey, a market-village at the foot of the Quantock Hills. He moved for two reasons: in the first place, he wished to be within reach of his friend Thomas Poole, a tanner of good means and of good education, whose 'mansion' and tan-yard were in the village; and secondly, because he proposed to |