hostile fleet presumed to contest the dominion of the sea. It may seem
mournful, that he did not survive to enjoy the thanks and honours with
which a grateful country would have rejoiced to recompense this crowning
triumph. But he had reached the pinnacle of fame; and his death in the
hour of victory has tended far more than a few years of peaceful life,
to keep alive his memory in the hearts of a people which loved, and a
navy which adored him. In the eloquent words of the distinguished author
from whom this sketch is compiled, “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. He
has left us 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.”
A few words, before we conclude, on those points which appear to us to
have constituted the peculiar excellence of Nelson’s character, the real
source of his greatness. We cannot attribute it solely to personal
courage, or professional skill: fearless as he was, the navy contained
thousands of hearts as fearless as his own; skilful as he was, there may
have been other officers not less skilful than himself. But to courage,
talent, and a thorough knowledge of nautical affairs, he joined a degree
of political and moral courage, and disinterestedness rarely equalled.
To do his duty seems always to have been his first object: not to do all
that was required, but all that could be done. With this view he never
hesitated to run the risk of professional censure when the emergency
seemed to demand it. Many instances are on record in which he acted
contrary to orders: some, when he knew that strict obedience would have
been mischievous, in circumstances which the framers of the orders could
not have foreseen: others where he disobeyed the commands of a superior
on the spot, because he knew them to be illegal, or prejudicial to the
interests of his country. The most remarkable of these is his conduct in
the West Indies, because he had then no established reputation to
support him. But Nelson was well aware that this is a course which no
officer can be justified in pursuing, except under the full and clear
conviction, not only that his own views are just, but that the occasion
is of sufficient importance to justify such a deviation from the rules
of service; and that, even when the transgression is justified by the
event, it yet involves a most serious degree of responsibility. “Well,”
he said, after the battle of Copenhagen, “I have fought contrary to
orders, and I shall perhaps be hanged. Never mind, let them.” The
feeling which prompted these words, though uttered half in jest, can
hardly be mistaken. Another of the most admirable qualities of his
character is the extraordinary power which he possessed of attaching all
who served under him. His sailors adored him; and many touching
anecdotes might be told of their affection. “Our Nel,” they used to say,
“is as brave as a lion, and as gentle as a lamb.” To his officers he was
equally kind and considerate. Happy was the midshipman who in Nelson’s
younger days could obtain a berth in his ship. He himself attended to
their instruction, and was diligent in so training them, as to become
ornaments to the service by their gentlemanly feeling and deportment, as
well as by their professional skill. Humane as brave, it was ever his
object to avoid needless bloodshed: and though the virulence of national
enmity led him into the most bitter expressions of hatred to the French,
he was ever eager to rescue a drowning, or afford hospitality and
protection to a beaten enemy. “May humanity after victory be the
predominant feature in the British fleet,” was part of the prayer which
he composed on the morning of Trafalgar. There is indeed one stain on
his humanity, one stain on his good faith;—the deliverance of the
Neapolitan revolutionists to the vengeance of a cowardly and cruel
court. Of this we have already spoken; and far from excusing, we do not
even wish to palliate it. It was the result of his fatal attachment to
Lady Hamilton: and it is the duty of the biographer to point out that
the one great blot on his domestic, led to the one great blot upon his
public character. He has added another to the list of great men, who,
proof against other temptations, have yielded to female influence; and
we may add (for it is a valuable lesson) that in so doing he not only
blemished his fame, but ruined his happiness.
Towards his country, however, Nelson was faultless; and its gratitude
has been worthily shown by heaping honours on his memory. His brother
was made an earl, and an estate was purchased for the family, and a
pension granted to support the title. His remains were brought to
England, and interred with the utmost pomp of funeral ceremony in the
cemetery of St. Paul’s. His ship, the Victory, is still preserved at
Portsmouth, and will long continue to be a chief object of interest to
the visitors of that mighty arsenal.
[Illustration: Nelson’s Pillar, at Yarmouth.]
[Illustration]
CUVIER.
George Leopold Christian Frederic Dagobert Cuvier was born August 23,
1769, at Montbeliard, a small town in Alsace, which then formed part of
the territory of the Duke of Wurtemburg. His father was a retired
officer, living upon his pension, who had formerly held a commission in
a Swiss regiment in the service of France. He had the inestimable
advantage of possessing a very sensible mother who even in infancy
attended with sedulous care to the formation of his character, and the
development of his mind. He gave early indications that nature had
endowed him with her choicest intellectual gifts. A memory of
extraordinary strength, joined to industry, and to the power of fixing
his attention steadily upon whatever he was engaged in, enabled him to
master all the ordinary studies of youth with facility; and by the time
he was fourteen years of age he had acquired a fair knowledge of the
ancient, and of several modern languages, and had made considerable
progress in the mathematics, besides having stored his mind by a wide
range of historical reading. He very early gave proofs of a talent for
drawing, which in after-life proved of material service in his
researches into natural history. When he was twelve years old he read
the works of Buffon with avidity, and he no doubt received from the
writings of that accomplished and elegant historian of nature an early
bias towards the study of zoology. While he was at school he instituted
a little academy of sciences among his companions, of which he was
elected the president: his sleeping-room was their hall of meeting, and
the bottom of his bed the president’s chair. They read extracts from
books of history, travels, and natural philosophy, which they discussed;
and the debate was usually followed by an opinion on the merits of the
question, pronounced from the chair.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
CUVIER.
_From an original Drawing in the possession of
the Baroness Cuvier, at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
In 1783 the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg visited Montbeliard; and became
acquainted with the unusual attainments of young Cuvier, who had then
reached the fourteenth year of his age. Struck by the early promise of
future eminence, he offered to take him under his own protection. The
proposal was readily accepted, and the future philosopher went to
Stutgard to prosecute his studies in the university of that place. He
continued there four years, and did not fail to turn to good account the
excellent opportunities which were afforded to him, of laying the
foundation of that extensive acquaintance with every great department of
human knowledge, for which he was in after-life so eminently
distinguished. The universality of his genius was as remarkable as the
depth and accuracy of his learning in that particular field of science,
with which his name is more especially associated. He not only gained
the highest academical prizes, but was decorated by the Duke with an
order; a distinction which was only conferred upon five or six out of
the four hundred students at the university.
He had now arrived at an age when it was necessary for him to choose a
profession, and his inclination led him to seek employment in one of the
public offices in the country of his patron. This he would probably have
obtained; but, happily for science, the circumstances of his parents
made it impossible for him to linger in expectation, and he changed his
views. In July, 1788, being then in his nineteenth year, he accepted the
office of tutor in a Protestant family in Normandy, having been himself
brought up in that faith.
The family lived in a very retired situation near the sea; and Cuvier
was not so constantly engaged with his pupils as to prevent him from
cultivating those branches of science, for which he had imbibed a
decided taste while listening to the lectures of Abel, the professor of
natural history at Stutgard. He devoted himself especially to the study
of the Mollusca, for which his vicinity to the sea afforded him good
opportunities; and continued his researches uninterruptedly for six
years in this retirement. The reign of terror at Paris, which spared
neither virtue nor talent, drove M. Tessier, a member of the Academy of
Sciences, to seek refuge in Normandy. He became acquainted with the
young naturalist, and soon learned to appreciate his talents; and he
introduced him to the correspondence of several of the more eminent men
of science in Paris, among whom were Lametheric, Olivier, and Lacepède.
The impression which Cuvier made upon his correspondents was so great,
that when tranquillity was restored, they invited him to come to the
capital. He accepted the invitation, and in the spring of 1795 removed
to Paris. He was soon afterwards appointed Professor of Natural History
in the central school of the Pantheon.
Being very desirous of obtaining some official connexion with the Museum
of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, with the view of gaining
free access to the valuable collections there deposited, he solicited
the aid of his scientific friends, and by their exertions, particularly
those of De Jussieu, Geoffroy, and Lacepède, he was nominated assistant
to Mertrud, the professor of comparative anatomy, a chair which had been
recently instituted. Here he had free scope to indulge his passion for
that branch of science, and by his indefatigable exertions he speedily
brought together a very copious supply of illustrations for his
lectures. He never ceased to make the museum a primary object of his
care, and at last formed the most perfect and the most splendid
collection of comparative anatomy which exists in the world. The
excellence of his lectures, in which the interest of the subject was
heightened by his eloquence and easy delivery, attracted a crowd of
auditors; and while he thus excited and extended a taste for a
department of science previously but little cultivated, those who
listened to him spread the fame of the young professor.
At the establishment of the Institute in 1796 he was chosen one of the
original members; and the papers which he read before that body, giving
an account of his researches and discoveries in comparative anatomy,
enriched their memoirs, and procured for him a high and widely extended
reputation at an early period of life. In 1800 he was appointed
Secretary to the Institute. In the same year Bonaparte was appointed
President. Cuvier thus, by virtue of his office, was brought into
immediate and frequent communication with that extraordinary man; an
event which had a material influence upon his future destiny, and opened
to him new and wide fields of usefulness and distinction. Such were the
powers of his mind, and so great was the versatility of his genius, that
in whatever situation he was placed his superiority was soon
acknowledged by his associates.
In the year 1802 the attention of the First Consul was directed to the
subject of public instruction, and six inspectors-general were
commissioned to organize lyceums or colleges in thirty towns of France.
Cuvier was one of them, and he left Paris to execute the duties which
had been assigned to him in the provinces. From this period his
attention was always particularly directed to the subject of education;
and his labours in that cause have had the most important influence upon
every institution for public instruction in France, from the University
of Paris down to the most humble village school. At the foundation of
the Imperial University in 1808, Cuvier was named a member of its
council for life. When Italy was annexed to the French empire, he was
charged at three different times with missions to that country, for the
purpose of re-organizing the old academies and colleges, and of
establishing new ones: and in the last of those missions in 1813,
although a Protestant, he was sent to form the University at Rome. In
1811 he went into Belgium and Holland to perform the same duties; and
the reports which he drew up on that occasion, which were afterwards
printed, possess great interest, especially in those parts where he
speaks of the schools in Holland for the lower classes. He felt how
important it is to the welfare of a nation, that good education should
be within reach even of the poor: and there is no country in Europe
where that subject is attended to with more enlightened views than in
Holland, where excellent primary schools have been in operation for
nearly half a century. When the great measure for the general
introduction of schools for the lower orders throughout France, was
brought forward in 1821, the duty of drawing up the plan upon which they
were to be established was confided to Cuvier; and his enlightened
benevolence and practical good sense are equally conspicuous in the
system which on his recommendation was adopted. It has proved admirably
adapted to the ends in view. The direction of the Protestant schools was
more particularly intrusted to him, and he introduced into all those
which had previously existed many important improvements.
In February, 1815, the university was remodelled by the Bourbon
government, and Cuvier was appointed a member of the Royal Council of
Public Instruction. Shortly afterwards came the events of the Hundred
Days, and among them the restoration of the Imperial University. Cuvier
was re-appointed to his seat in the Council, for they felt that they
could not do there without him. In four months another revolution took
place in the university, as in other public establishments; and as it
was found that the system of the Royal University could not be resumed,
a commission was appointed to execute the functions of the Grand Master,
the Chancellor, and the Treasurer. In this commission the duties which
had belonged to the Chancellor were assigned to Cuvier. In this station
he was eminently useful in maintaining the rights of the university
under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty. He was twice President of
the Commission, and each time for a year; but on account of his being a
Protestant he could not retain that place permanently. But the Bishop,
who, as a member of the commission, had discharged the duties which
belonged to the Grand Master of the University, was appointed minister
for ecclesiastical affairs; and Cuvier was nominated as his successor,
so far as concerned the Protestant faculty of theology, and continued to
act in this capacity for the rest of his life. As a member of the
Council of State, and attached to the department of the Minister of the
Interior, he had the direction of all matters relating to Protestant,
and other religious congregations, not Catholic.
During his mission to Rome in 1813 he was appointed by Napoleon a member
of the Council of State; and on the restoration of the Bourbons his
political opinions formed no obstacle to his continuing in that place.
Although he was left undisturbed in his situation at the university, he
was removed from the Council of State during the Hundred Days; but
resumed his seat when the fate of his former patron and master was
sealed. It is to be regretted that a mind so powerful as that of Cuvier
should not have felt the paramount importance of having settled opinions
on the great principles of government; and the facility with which he
made himself acceptable to the despotic Emperor, the weak and bigoted
Bourbons, and the liberal government of Louis Philippe, showed a want of
fixed public principle which casts a shade upon the memory of this great
man.
As a member of the Council of State he took a distinguished lead, which
indeed he never failed to do wherever he was placed, and he was
eminently useful by his extraordinary talent for the despatch of
business. He was a patient listener, and was never forward with his
opinion; he allowed the useless talkers to have their course, and, while
he appeared indifferent to what was going on, he was often drawing up a
resolution, which his colleagues usually adopted without farther
discussion, after he had given a short and luminous exposition of his
views. For thirteen years previous to his death he was chairman of the
Committee of the Council of State, to which the affairs of the interior
belong; and the quantity of business which passed through his hands was
wonderful. It was accomplished by his great skill in making those useful
with whom he acted; by his talent in keeping his colleagues to the point
in their discussions; and by his prodigious readiness of memory, which
enabled him to go back at once to former decisions where the principle
of the question under deliberation had been already settled. His reading
in history had been very extensive, and his attention was ever alive to
what was passing around him, as well in other countries as in France; so
that he brought to bear on the matter in debate, not speculative
opinions merely, but maxims drawn from the experience of past and
present times. In the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was a member for
several years, he took an active part, and often originated measures.
His manner as a speaker was very impressive, and the rich stores of his
mind, and his ready and natural eloquence commanded attention. At the
end of 1831 he was created a peer; and during the short time he sat in
the Upper Chamber, he took a prominent part in its business, and drew up
some important reports of committees to which he belonged.
But his reputation as a statesman was confined to France: his
achievements in science have spread his fame over the civilized world.
We can in this place do little more than mention the titles of the most
important of Cuvier’s works; even to name all would carry us beyond our
limits. His earliest production was a memoir read before the Natural
History Society of Paris, in 1795, and published in the Décade
Philosophique. In this paper he objects to the divisions of certain of
the lower animals adopted by Linnæus, and proposes a more scientific
classification of the mollusca, crustacea, worms, insects, and other
invertebrate animals. His attention had been long directed to that
branch of natural history, and his subsequent researches in the same
department, most of which have been communicated to the world through
the medium of the ‘Annales du Museum,’ have thrown great light on that
obscure and curious part of the creation. Three years afterwards, he
published his Elementary View of the Natural History of Animals, which
contains an outline of the lectures he delivered at the Pantheon. In
this work he displayed the vast extent of his acquaintance with the
works of his predecessors, and, at the same time, the originality of his
own mind, by introducing a new arrangement of the animal kingdom,
founded on more exact investigation and comparison of the varieties
which exist in anatomical structure. With the assistance of his friends,
Dumeril and Duvernay, he published, in 1802, his ‘Leçons d’Anatomie
Comparée,’ in two volumes, octavo, afterwards extended to five. These
are singularly lucid and exact, and form the most complete work on the
subject which has yet appeared.
The next important publication we have to notice, is one in which he
embodied the results of his extensive researches in a very interesting
field of inquiry, concerning the remains of extinct species of animals
which are found enveloped in solid rocks, or buried in the beds of
gravel that cover the surface of the earth. We are disposed to think his
‘Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles’ the most important of his works,
the most illustrious and imperishable monument of his fame. The quarries
in the neighbourhood of Paris abound in fossil bones; and he had great
facilities for collecting the valuable specimens which were almost daily
discovered in the ordinary working of the quarry. When he went to Italy,
he had an opportunity of seeing animal remains of the same sort procured
by the naturalists of that country from their native soil, and preserved
in their museums. His attention became now specially attracted to the
subject; and having accumulated materials from all parts of the world,
he announced the important truths at which he had arrived in the work
above-mentioned, in four quarto volumes, in the year 1812. A new
edition, enlarged to five volumes, appeared in 1817, and in 1824 it was
extended to seven volumes, illustrated by two hundred engravings. No one
who was not profoundly skilled in comparative anatomy could have entered
upon the inquiry with any prospect of success; and Cuvier not only
possessed that qualification, but was singularly constituted by nature
for the task. His powerful memory was particularly susceptible of
retaining impressions conveyed to it by the eye: he saw at a glance the
most minute variations of form, and what he saw he not only never
forgot, but he had the power of representing upon paper with the utmost
accuracy and despatch. It is very seldom that the entire skeleton of an
animal is found in a fossil state: in most instances the bones have been
separated and scattered before they were entombed, and a tusk, a jaw, or
a single joint of the back-bone is very often all that is met with, and
frequently too in a mutilated state. But an instructed mind like that of
Cuvier was able to re-construct the whole animal from the inspection of
one fragment. He had discovered by his previous researches such a
connexion between the several bones, that a particular curvature, or a
small protuberance on a jaw, or a tooth, was sufficient to indicate a
particular species of animal, and to prove that the fragment could not
have belonged to any other. The ‘Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles’
have made us acquainted with more than seventy species of animals before
unknown.
The preliminary discourse in the first volume is a masterly exposition
of the revolutions which the crust of the earth has undergone:
revolutions to which the animal creation has been equally subject. It is
written with great clearness and elegance, and is so much calculated to
interest general readers as well as men of science, that it has been
translated into most of the European languages. The English translation,
by Professor Jameson, published under the title of ‘Essay on the Theory
of the Earth,’ has gone through several editions.