NELSON, THE EFFECTS OF HIS DEATH.

HORATIO, Lord Nelson, was perhaps the most famous of English seamen; he was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, in 1758, and died at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He was slain at the very moment of victory, and the effects of his death are thus forcibly described by Southey.1

"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, until 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 that 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 the school-boys a holiday, have drawn the 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 3 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 the 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, that, in the course of nature, Lord Nelson might have attained 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 Life of Nelson," by ROBERT SOUTHEY.

1. SOUTHEY, see biographical sketch, Fifth Book, p. 86. 2. POSTHUMOUS, something coming after death.

3. TRAFALGAR, the battle was fought on October 21, 1805, about seven miles east of Cape Trafalgar, south of Spain, between the French and Spaniards on one side, and the English on the other. The latter were completely successful; twenty-four of the enemy's ships were taken and destroyed, and the French navy was nearly annihilated. Nelson's last signal to his men in this famous engagement was indeed warmly responded to by them: England expects every man to do his duty.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE POET

THOMSON.

JAMES THOMSON was born at Ednam, in Roxburgh, in 1700, and died at Kew in 1748.

His love of Nature and poetry induced him to prefer poverty and freedom to the steady work of a profession, for which he felt himself unsuited. But his talents soon raised him from obscurity he gained many friends, and the Prince of Wales granted him a pension of £100 a year.

Thomson's chief works are "The Seasons," "Liberty," "The Castle of Indolence," and several tragedies. Of all these, “The Seasons" is undoubtedly his best production; the style is redundant and wanting in simplicity, but it is rich in imagery, faithful in description, pure and healthy in sentiment. It was said of him by Lord Lyttelton that his works contained

"No line which, dying, he could wish to blot."

HYMN TO THE SEASONS.

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness, and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year.
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,

And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms,
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime. Thou bid'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! A simple train;
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But, wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee: marks not the mighty Hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres:
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming thence,
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! Join every living soul;
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, Whose Spirit in your freshness breathes;

Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rocks the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say, from Whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune; ye trembling rills;

And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid1 maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound His stupendous praise; Whose greater voice,
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him; Whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and Whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams;
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write, with every beam, His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world,
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn !
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound! The broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And His unsuffering kingdom yet will come !
Ye woodlands all, awake! a boundless song
Burst from the grove! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela,3 charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,