There was in Tom Dibdin’s days a certain ‘Ad Libitum Club,’ where the
intellect was as much exercised as the more sensual appetites were
liberally gratified by supper and punch. At these jovial meetings, some
one happening to name an individual in course of conversation, would be
met by a cry of ‘Skull!’ which implied that the member was to consider
the individual dead, if he were not so already; at all events, he was
to furnish on the instant that individual’s rhymed epitaph. Tom Dibdin
once chanced to refer to Isaac Read, the scholar and antiquary. The cry
of ‘Skull’ was immediately raised, and Tom as instantaneously replied
to it as follows:--
Reader! by these four lines take heed,
And mend your life, for _my_ sake!
For you must die, like Isaac Read,
Though you _read_ till your _eyes ache_.
On another occasion Tom, without thinking of the consequences, made
some allusion to the materials for writing his own life. He was, in
one breath, pronounced to be dead, and with the cry of ‘Skull!’ he was
challenged to recite his own epitaph. It was furnished in the lively
style that follows:--
Longing, while living, for laurel and bays,
Under this willow a poor poet _lays_.
With little to censure and less to praise,
He wrote twelve dozen and threescore plays,
He finished his ‘Life’ and went his ways.
While on the subject of epitaphs we may as well give a sample of Tom’s
father in this department of literature. The following, penned in all
seriousness, is to be found in Lee churchyard, near Blackheath, the
tribute of Charley to Parsons, the comic actor:--
Here Parsons lies! Oft on life’s busy stage,
With nature, reader, hast thou seen him vie.
He science knew; knew manners, knew the age,
Respected knew to live--lamented, die.
Thomas Frognall Dibdin, son of ‘Tom Bowling,’ seems to have been early
influenced by a desire to show that the Dibdin power of rhyming was in
him as well as in his cousins. In 1797 Booker published his ‘Poems.’
Two years after this mild flirtation of the reverend cousin with the
Muses, Tom Dibdin made an adaptation from ‘Kotzebue,’ and brought it
out with songs, as ‘Of Age To-morrow.’ Our then young grandmothers were
soon singing Miss de Camp’s song, ‘Oh no, my Love, no!’ and juvenile
actors were all longing to come out in Bannister’s part of Frederick,
Baron Willmhurst. Miss de Camp had come from the sawdust of the Surrey
Circus, to charm the town; and when she was Mrs. Charles Kemble she
became the mother of Fanny Kemble.
They are all gone, these Dibdins, of whom Charles of Southampton was
the one whose fame will be the most lasting. Like all men, he is to
be judged by his best. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link;
a boiler is only as thick as its thinnest part; but a poet is to be
measured by his best--the best teachings of the best of his poetry. By
this standard the oldest of the Dibdins will rank foremost among those
bards and minstrels who have swept the harp and raised the voice to
quicken human trust in God, to fan into flame the slumbering but never
dead fire of patriotism, and to inculcate loyalty to the powers that
be. Dibdin taught perseverance in well-doing with the fervour of a St.
Paul, and if he allowed a little too much of the bowl, he was earnest
in upholding, when serious, courage and honesty in man, and undying
fidelity to woman.
When the youngest of the vocal, musical, and dramatic Dibdins died,
in 1841, some one was found to fling, as it were, a stanza or two of
sympathy on his tomb. From some lines, called ‘Poor Tom,’ dated from
Vienna and printed in the ‘Bath Journal,’ we take the last eight to
close our article:--
Poor Tom! As late I wander’d by the Rhine,
I saw its banks in Winter’s mantle clad,
Gaunt, grim, and naked stood each shiv’ring vine--
It was a sight to make the soul feel sad.
‘How many a heart,’ I said, ‘is now made warm
By the bright produce of the joyous tree,
Here left by man to struggle with the storm!’
I sigh’d, Tom; went my way; and thought of thee!
_HORATIO NELSON AND EMMA HAMILTON._
On Michaelmas-day in the year 1758, the wife of the rector of Burnham
Thorpe was delivered of a sickly boy. At that moment Anson was in
command of the Channel fleet, and there were old men then in England
who had seen Prince Rupert. Exactly a quarter of a century had elapsed
since Admiral Byng had surrendered life. Russell, who beat Tourville
at La Hogue, had been asleep in the grave for more than thirty years.
Churchill, and Dilkes, the terror of Frenchmen and Spaniards in his
day, had been at rest for just half a century. These were great men;
but in 1758 a greater than all was born in the quiet rectory of
Burnham Thorpe. That feeble boy, accepted and tolerated rather than
welcomed and cherished, grew up in the possession of all the virtues
of the above heroes and with but few of their failings: he had the
dashing spirit of Rupert without his imprudence: he possessed the
wisdom and valour of Byng without his cold-heartedness: he was as
persevering as Anson and in no wise so foolish--as rapid as Russell,
but not so rapacious: he was even more enterprising and successful
than Dilkes; and, as with the gallant brother of Marlborough, his
services claimed high honours long before he obtained them. This puny
fragile child, born to achieve such greatness--this almost neglected
son of a Norfolk parson, and, by his mother, grandson of a Westminster
prebendary--designed, as it were, by nature to be a student, ‘sicklied
o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ and to cultivate learned leisure
in trim gardens--this feeble instrument was born with a great mission:
let the splendour of its fulfilment make us forgetful of his very few
errors!
Yes: when he first saw the light there were old men in England who had
seen Prince Rupert beneath the beeches at Windsor. It was but the other
day that Nelson’s sister died. Thus is he connected with two periods
when the people were at issue with sovereigns: his figure stands
half-way between the time, when Roundheads were assailing cavaliers and
royalty; and the present period, when democracy, more despotic than
any aristocracy, is again howling at palace gates and the hearths of
nobles. In his own days the same struggle was going on; but the scene
of the struggle was not now within our boundary of home. He was the
great champion of royalty, and never had crowned king so unconquerable
a champion as he. There was not a democrat abroad who did not hate
his name as much as he feared it. For the French democrats his own
hatred was in equal measure intense; and, if it be suggested that his
contempt was not less intense for French aristocrats, we answer that
he lived at a period when the vices, the selfishness, and the tyranny
of that aristocracy justified the insurrection, which annihilated one
bad system to give temporary life to a worse. He did not despise the
dissolute men and the more dissolute women of Naples less than he
despised the French; but, in supporting the one and destroying the
other, he was the great antagonist of anarchy, and the great promoter
of order at home. Loyalty _here_ flourished by the blood of his
victories. The veriest would-be rebel in England was proud of the pale
warrior whose feeble arm upheld a world of thrones; a defeat at Aboukir
might have made him a Republican. But we are hurried from Nelson’s
cradle to his glories and his grave. Let us sketch his wondrous career
in a more orderly spirit.
She who bore the perils of his birth did not survive to be glad at
his greatness. At nine, Nelson was motherless--at twelve he quitted
school--and some of his playfellows were yet launching their paper
galleons on Norfolk ponds when Nelson had gained respect and reputation
for his name. A trip of a few brief months’ duration with his maternal
uncle, Captain Suckling, just introduced him to naval life without
affording him instruction. The latter he derived under Captain John
Rathborn, a naval officer, engaged for the time in the West India
trade, under whom Nelson acquired a thorough acquaintance with
practical seamanship, and was ever ready to acknowledge his obligation.
The writer of this acknowledges his pride, too, in telling his son
that his mother is the granddaughter of Nelson’s tutor. Horatio began
his real service in the royal navy by entering the _Triumph_, rated
as ‘captain’s servant.’ In a year or so he became midshipman, the
duties of which office he efficiently performed during four or five
years on board the same vessel, and in the _Carcass_, the _Seahorse_,
and the _Dolphin_. During this period, he saw active service in every
climate, from the North Pole to Bagdad and Bussorah. We next find him
as lieutenant on board the _Worcester_ and the _Lowestoft_. While on
board the last-mentioned vessel he made his first prize, gallantly
boarding and capturing an American privateer, from an attempt at
which the first lieutenant had retired unsuccessful; and this was
accomplished when he was only nineteen years of age! So fond was he
of this branch of his profession that he changed to the schooner
_Lucy_, with a sort of roving commission, of which the American traders
soon became tremblingly conscious. He subsequently served in the
_Bristol_ (the flag-ship of Sir Peter Parker), in the three degrees of
lieutenancy; and, in 1778, ere he was yet twenty, the boy was captain
of the _Badger_ brig, and with men eager to obey him. But his just
ambition was not yet satisfied; and when in his twenty-first year
he had the delight of finding himself posted, and in command of the
_Hinchinbrook_, his whole course of daring and dangerous service in
the Gulf of Mexico plainly manifested that he was ever keeping in view
that ‘top of the tree,’ whose leafy honours first invited him from his
father’s rectory. The service alluded to seriously affected his own
health and cost the lives of one hundred and ninety out of his crew
of two hundred men. On his return home he rested at Bath for a year.
He had no long leisure to be ill, for the following year saw him in
the old French _Albemarle_, carrying terror along the Spanish main.
In 1782, he was employed in convoy service; and, having occasionally
some idle time on shore at Quebec, the young commander got into
mischief--that is, he fell most imprudently into love. His friends
carried him by violence on board: the sea air cured his passion; and
his lucky joining with Hood’s fleet and his subsequent busy time in the
West Indies effectually kept his thoughts from any lady then on land.
It was at this period that he became known to the Duke of Clarence. The
royal sailor thought him the merest boy of a captain that had ever been
seen, and could not but laugh at the gigantic and endless queue that
hung down his back and seemed to be pulling all the lank unpowdered
hair off his head after it. But this plain-looking and youthful
commander was then remarkable for being as well acquainted with all
naval matters as the oldest and most experienced captain in the fleet.
The piping time of peace put him for a season on half-pay. A portion of
1783, and of the year following it, was passed in France. With idleness
came evil; and, having nothing better to do, Nelson fell desperately in
love with the dowerless daughter of an English clergyman, who, there is
some reason to believe, was little affected by the magic he could offer
her of half-pay and love in a cottage. The sea again stood his friend.
In 1784, the _Boreas_ carried him to the Leeward Islands, where, at
great risk of purse and person, he was actively engaged in supporting
those Navigation Laws which our modern Whigs have so ruthlessly
abolished.
In this matter (says Dr. Pettigrew) he was also opposed by
Major-General Sir T. Shirly, the governor of the Leeward Islands,
who took in dudgeon the advice of Nelson, and assured him that
old generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young
gentlemen. Upon which Nelson, with much promptitude and ingenuity,
replied--‘Sir, I am as old as the Prime Minister of England, and
think myself as capable of commanding one of his Majesty’s ships
as that Minister is of governing the State.’
He was engaged in putting down the illicit traffic sought to be carried
on by the Americans (whom successful rebellion had made foreigners) in
the West Indies, and also in dragging into light the frauds practised
by some English officials of no inconsiderable dignity in the islands.
He succeeded in all he undertook, but got small thanks and no profit
for any service which, in this respect, he rendered to his country.
He was much on shore, too; and it is a fact that his foot no sooner
touched the land than his good genius left him. He fell in love with a
widow; and, what is much worse, married her. In the island of Nevis he
became acquainted with Mrs. Nisbet, the widow of a surgeon who had died
insane a year and a half after their marriage, leaving her with one
son, Josiah, who subsequently owed so much to Nelson and thanked him so
little for it. At this time the captain of the _Boreas_ was a man at
whom Fame held her finger; he never drank wine save to the healths of
his sovereign, the royal family, and his admiral, and these were always
bumper toasts to him. He was reserved, grave, and silent; and it was
only occasional flashes that gave evidence of the brilliancy within.
The narrow-minded people of Nevis could not make him out; and Mrs.
Nisbet was set at him, as she was expected to make something of him,
because ‘she had been in the habit of attending to such odd sort of
people.’ Unfortunately she made a husband of him. She, perhaps, thought
it a condescension to marry a man who was of ‘puny constitution--who
was reduced to a skeleton--and who put his hopes of recovery in
asses’ milk and doctors.’ However this may be, she never looked upon
him as a hero, nor was she worthy of being a hero’s wife. She would
have been exemplary as the spouse of a village apothecary: she was
highly virtuous, very respectable, and exceedingly ill-tempered. The
ill-assorted pair were united in 1786: they reached England in 1787, in
which year Nelson was kept for months on board his ship at Sheerness,
merely taking in slops and lodging pressed seamen. And then ensued the
quietest six years of his life: they were passed at Burnham Thorpe, and
they were got through with tolerably good success. As a quiet country
couple, there was nothing to disturb their stagnant felicity. Nelson
busied himself in gardening, getting birds’ nests, and fretting for
employment.
It came in 1793; when in place of capturing birds’ nests, Nelson, in
the _Agamemnon_, was with the fleet at the capture of Toulon, its
forts, and its navy. But other things came in 1793, too. Nelson was
sent to Naples with despatches for our Minister, Sir William Hamilton.
He was much on shore, and mischief came of it, of course. Sir William
told his wife, the too famous, too erring, and yet much sinned-against
Lady Hamilton, that a little man was coming to dine with him who was
infirm and ill-looking, but who had in him the stuff of a hero, and
who was undoubtedly destined to be _the_ man for the difficulties
coming. If Emma Hamilton loved a virtue it was that of courage and
ability in man: she loved heroes, and her ardent feelings were soon
interested in Nelson.
From this period we must speak more generally of Nelson’s great deeds
that we may have fuller space to treat of matters less known, and in
the revealing of which lie the chief merit and the chief recommendation
of Dr. Pettigrew’s excellent volumes. Lord Howe appointed him (over
five senior captains) to blockade Genoa. In 1794 he was active against
the French in Corsica, and his men so entered into his own spirit that,
as he said himself, they minded shot no more than peas. But for him,
Bastia would not have been taken, nor perhaps Calvi, where he received
the injury to his right eye which ultimately deprived it of sight.
His labour was incessant and his health most wretched; but he was too
busy to be invalided. ‘The plan I pursue (said he) is never to employ
a doctor;’ and, consequently, though he was ill, he kept himself from
the peril of growing worse. In 1795 he had his first ‘_brush_’ with the
French _fleet_. He thus modestly calls a battle, in which he laid the
_Agamemnon_ between the _Ça Ira_ and the _Censeur_ and forced both to
yield. The former was large enough to put the _Agamemnon_ in her hold.
He was now fully in that vein of conquest which never left him when a
French vessel was before him as an antagonist. He now dared to disobey
orders when he judged that circumstances authorised him, and he was no
bad judge. He had by this time been engaged one hundred times--he was
literally the hero of a hundred fights. His ship when docked, in order
to be refitted, had neither mast, yard, sail, or rigging, that did not
need repair in consequence of the shot she had received: her hull had
long been secured by cables sewed around her. Nelson exhibited such
discretion in disobeying orders, and success so invariably followed
action that resulted from judgment of his own, that at length his
admirals ceased to give him any close orders at all. Sir John Jervis
left him to act as he thought best: the result was that, in two years,
Nelson captured fifty French vessels; and the navy itself, under
Jervis and his pale captain, became perfectly invincible. Up to 1797
victory followed victory: there was abundance of honour and salt-beef;
but neither prize-money nor even notice in the ‘Gazette.’ He consoled
himself by saying that he would one day have a ‘Gazette’ of his own and
all to himself. He had well-nigh deserved it for the crowning fight
at St. Vincent: he was in the thickest of the struggle where the odds
against us were twenty-seven to fifteen. It made Jervis an earl and
Nelson a knight, and it opened a new era in naval strategy; for never
from that day has British captain bent upon victory paused to count his
enemy, or deferred his triumph in calculating the disparity of power
except Lord Gambier at Aix.
Honours were both lavished on, and conferred by, the frail conqueror
of the _San Josef_ and the _San Nicolas_. Corporations flung their
municipal freedoms at his feet, and gave him endless invitations to
dinner. The only thing that he ever designated as _dreadful_ was
meeting a provincial mayor and alderman! They voted him more swords
than he could ever hope to employ; but they were all outweighed by
that which he himself presented to the Corporation of Norwich--the
sword which had been surrendered to him by his gallant but vanquished
foe on board the _San Josef_. Norwich will be proud of her trophy
when no memory remains of her crapes and bombazeens or of the fair
forms that wore them. The Government, too, made him rear-admiral of
the blue. He was not an idle one: he went to sea in the _Theseus_
surrounded by men whose hearts, though turbulent, beat in unison
with the pulsations of his own: he twice bombarded Cadiz--lost his
right arm before Teneriffe--reposed awhile at Bath to recruit his
strength--received some pecuniary reward for the loss of it; and, after
publicly thanking the Almighty for all His mercies and acknowledging
the lightness of His visitations, was again entrusted to save his
country by destroying the then enemies of all mankind. With a squadron
of observation he scoured the Mediterranean, and after a search
unparalleled in its nature, and carrying despair to every heart but
his own, he came upon the French at Aboukir and made 1798 for ever
memorable in England by the well-won victory which he achieved at
the Nile. If honours poured on him after the affair at St. Vincent,
they descended now in an avalanche. His king made _him_ a peer who
among men was peerless. Parliament thanked him: the nation adored
him. Russia endowed him with coloured ribbands--the Sultana stuffed
his mouth with sugar-candy--public companies enrolled him among their
members. ‘Nelson-squares,’ and ‘streets,’ and ‘terraces,’ arose without
number; and curates were weary of christening an endless succession of
Horatios. As for Naples, which country he had saved from the very jaws
of the French, the people there when he landed nearly killed him with
kindness, and did all but devour him. The king, queen, and the entire
court, kissed his very feet. He turned with something like disgust from
all their homage, and his honest tongue confessed that he despised
those whom it was his duty to save, and that he loathed in his very
soul the entire court, if not the universal people. He designated the
men as scoundrels: the women were what the author of the old ballad of
‘Nancy Dawson’ says that well-known lady was, and they cared as little
to keep it from their neighbours; and he brushed away the imprecation
on his lips, launched against the Neapolitan ladies, to kiss the hand
of Emma Hamilton! But there _was_ a distinction, though we are not
going to show where it lay.
From the same year to that which closed the century, 1800, his presence
was all but ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, and his name was uttered
with awe and reverence all over the world. Within this period he
became rear-admiral of the red, and Naples made him Duke of Bronté,
in return for his having saved the nation from entire destruction.
Within the same period is on record that dark event connected with the
name of Carracciolo, to which we will hereafter allude: let it suffice
to say here that after sweeping the Mediterranean of the enemies of
England, and doing a world of good to those who were not worthy of
being reckoned her friends--after executing all entrusted to him to
accomplish, and rendering the name of England a tower of strength and
pride throughout the world--Nelson returned home across Europe. He did
not set out without first writing a sensible letter to the Pope, whom
he had restored to Rome, in better fashion than Oudinot lately followed
in behalf of Pio Nono. According to the prophecy of honest old Father
M’Cormick, Nelson may be said to have taken Rome with his ships--a feat
of which he reminds the Pope and remains his ‘very obedient servant.’
That his progress from Leghorn to Hamburgh was one of such triumph
as the world had never seen may be readily believed; for no human
being had ever deserved such ovation. When he landed at Yarmouth the
earth seemed to heave to salute him. Myriads of men blessed him, wept
over him, hailed him with shouts--in the warmth of their welcome they
did all but pay him divine honours. And his wife--how did she spring
forward in exultation and enduring love, impatient to meet the boat
that bore her heroic husband? Alas! Lady Nelson was quietly awaiting
his arrival at Nerot’s hotel in town, and so cold and unsatisfactory
was her greeting when the idol of the nation stepped into her presence
that the incense of London adulation must have proved savoury by
comparison.