adrift all Napoleon's schemes of an invasion of England, and assured to the British an undisputed maritime ascendancy. * "We have lost more than we have gained!" said George III., when the twofold intelligence reached him of the victory of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson. And this was the feeling. of the British people, with whom the "hero of the Nile" had always been an idol. They forgot his minor defects of character, and remembered only that he was a great seaman, the greatest, perhaps, the world had ever produced, the one man who brought to bear upon war at sea a genius as brilliant as that which Marlborough and Wellington displayed in military operations. Lord Malmesbury writes, "I never saw so little public joy. The illuminations seemed dim, and, as it were, half-clouded by the desire of expressing the mixture of contending feelings, every common person in the streets speaking first of their sorrow for him, and then of the victory." The day of the hero's funeral-January 9th, when through streets crowded with saddened and weeping spectators the procession passed on to St. Paul's-was a day of such general and profound grief as England has seldom known. To this feeling one of our minor singers has given expression in verse which emotion raises above his ordinary level:-t "To thy country thou cam'st back, *Correspondence of Earl of Malmesbury, iv. 319. Heaven's arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath. Thrill'd on the soul. Awe and mute anguish fell On all. Yet high the public bosom throbb'd It has been well said of Nelson that, in deed as in speech, he was intuitive and impetuous. His genius had a strong strain of originality; it rebelled against tradition and conventionalities; it spurned professional restraints as hotly as it levelled its attacks against the foe. It was a bold, daring, independent genius, which no danger could daunt and no responsibility intimidate. At the fight off Cape St. Vincent, without waiting for orders, Nelson seized the moment of victory, darted out of the line, and swooped down on the enemy like an eagle. At Copenhagen he absolutely ignored Sir Hyde Parker's signal of recall. And he was justified in doing this by his confidence in his power to do great things. All his sayings were in keeping with his fiery, romantic, invincible spirit-the spirit of one of Plutarch's heroes, or rather, perhaps, of one of the Paladins of chivalrous legend. "When in doubt, fight!” he said to young Lord Cochrane, afterwards a naval commander of no ordinary distinction. "Victory or Westminster Abbey !" "Laurel or cypress!" "England expects every man to do his duty!" His hatred of the French was like that of the Crusader of old against the Mahommedan; it was almost a religion. It lent a fierce defiant glow to his patriotism, and responded to the sympathies of a people then engaged in a war for very existence with an aggressive, tyrannical, and Napoleonic France. He had a wonderful power of inspiring affection and confidence; there was not an English sailor who would not have followed blithely wherever Nelson led. His capacity for command was unbounded; his seamanship was great; his tactical skill unequalled. The completeness of his victories is the most striking thing about them; he did something more than defeat the enemy's fleet, he destroyed it. And because of all he did and all he was, he remains to this day the one naval commander whose name and fame are enshrined in the national heart. "Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, The greatest sailor since our world began."* TENNYSON, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. ADMIRAL SIR W. SIDNEY SMITH, G.C.B. A.D. 1764-1840. WILLIAM SIDNEY SMITH, born 1764, was the son of Captain John Smith, at one time gentleman-usher to Queen Charlotte, and of his wife Mary, the daughter of Mr. Pinkney Wilkinson, rich London merchant. At an early age he was sent to Tunbridge Grammar School, then under the direction of Dr. Vicesimus Knox, the essayist, and afterwards to a boarding school at Bath; but his regular education must have been of the scantiest, as he was not twelve years of age when he was placed in the navy. His first service was on the American coast, under Lord Howe. In November, 1779, he joined the Sandwich, and, under Rodney's victorious flag, took part in the victorious action with the Spanish fleet under Don Juan de Langara. The gallantry he displayed on this occasion obtained him, at Rodney's hands, his promotion as lieutenant of the Alcide, though he was then (September, 1780) nearly three years under the regulation age. He was in the battle which RearAdmiral Graves fought with the French fleet off the mouth of the Chesapeake; and he also served in Rodney's crowning engagement with the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse on the 12th of April, 1782. A few days afterwards Lord Rodney made him commander of the Fairy sloop; and in May, 1783, he was commissioned as captain to the Alcmene, when only nineteen years of age. While on board the Alcide he wrote to his father the following letter, which is animated by the lively spirit and joyous indifference to danger characteristic of his whole career. We give it in a condensed form : "DEAR FATHER, "After having the lower deck ports barred-in these four days on account of bad weather, the water is smooth enough. to-day to get the aftermost port (where my cabin is) hauled up. I have hung up all my wet things to-day around one, and am sit down to lay the keel of a letter to you. On the night of the 16th, about two o'clock, a terrible gale of wind came on faster than we could get our sails furled; it carried away our fore and maintop-masts, part of the foretop and foreyard, killed two men, and wounded several others. The next morning we could see nothing of the fleet, the wreck beating alongside; the ship (from her ports and upper decks) making as much water as we can clear her of with four chain-pumps, the wind (as it luckily was) driving us along shore; if it had come more to the S.E. we must all have gone on shore, and of course inevitably perished. But it is all over now. . . . I have now brought you up to the present hour, and am not sorry that I have done, for she rolls so, that my ink is spilled and my wrist aches. "Thursday 7th, off Lucia.-Well, after the 20th, as above, nothing remarkable, but one continued roll even in the trades. On the 1st of December (now look at your red pocket-book), in company with the Resolution and Triton, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, which makes the third time this year-a curious way of travelling. On the 4th we met the Triton in chase of a brig, which she took (we share), loaded with fish |