The Hastings' trial brought Francis full before the public; and we

have a letter from Burke describing one of his speeches on this

subject, which, with his usual good nature, he sent to the orator's

wife. It is dated April 20, 1787.--"My dear madam, I cannot, with all

honest appetite, or clear conscience, sit down to my breakfast, unless

I first give you an account, which will make your family breakfast as

pleasant to you, as I wish all your family meetings to be. I have the

satisfaction of telling you, that, not in my judgment only, but in

that of all who heard him, no man ever acquitted himself, on a day of

great expectation, so well as Mr Francis did yesterday. He was clear,

precise, forcible, and eloquent, in a high degree. No intricate

business was ever better unravelled, and no iniquity ever placed so

effectually to produce its natural horror and disgust. * * * * All who

heard him were delighted, except those whose mortification ought to

give pleasure to every good mind. He was two hours and a half on his

legs, and he never lost attention for a moment."

We give a curious specimen of the daring criticism which this

applauded personage now and then ventured, even on the authorship of

Burke. In 1790, Burke had prepared his celebrated work on the French

Revolution for the press early in the year, and appears to have sent

fragments of it to several of his friends. Casual circumstances

delayed the work until October. Francis's letter was written in

February. It begins--"I am sorry you should have the trouble of

sending for the printed paper you lent me yesterday, though I own I

cannot much regret even a fault of my own, that helps to delay the

publication of that paper. [This was probably a proof sheet of the

_Reflections_.] It is the proper province, and ought to be the

privilege, of an inferior to criticise and advise. The best possible

critic of the Iliad, would be, _ipso facto_, and by virtue of that

very character, incapable of being the author of it. Standing as I do

in this relation to you, you would renounce your superiority, if you

refused to be advised by me. Remember that this is one of the most

singular, that it may be the most distinguished, and ought to be one

of the most deliberate acts of your life. Your writings have hitherto

been the delight and instruction of your own country. You now

undertake to correct and instruct another nation; and your appeal in

effect is to all Europe." After then objecting to Burke's exposure of

Price and his fellow pamphleteers, as beneath the writer and his

subject, he attacks him for his panegyric on the Queen of France. He

then sneeringly asks, "Pray, sir, how long have you felt yourself so

desperately disposed to admire the ladies of Germany?" This was an

allusion to Queen Charlotte, whom Burke's particular friends had long

regarded as one of their impediments to power. He proceeds--"The

mischief you are going to do yourself, is to my apprehension,

palpable. It is visible. It will be audible. I snuff it in the wind. I

taste it already. I feel it in every sense; and so will you

hereafter." This letter certainly wants the polish of Junius, but it

has the power of bitter thought, and it sneers with practised

piquancy. Of course, a broad line is to be drawn between a work of

study and the work of the moment--between the elaborate vigour which

prunes and purifies every straggling shoot away, and exhibits its

production for a prize-show, and the careless luxuriance which suffers

the tree to throw out its shoots under no direction, but that of the

prolific power of nature. Yet the plant is the same, and though we by

no means say, that even this letter gives demonstration, yet the

arrogant ease of the style is such, as we should have expected to find

in the familiar correspondence of Junius. His letter obviously excited

in Burke a mixture of pain and indignation.

He answered it the next day in a long and eloquent vindication which

was oddly enough inclosed in a letter from his son, scarcely less than

menacing. It begins--"My dear sir, You must conceive that your letter,

combating many old ideas of my father's, and proposing many new ones,

could not fail to set his mind at work, and to make him address the

effect of those operations to you. I must, therefore, entreat you not

to draw him aside from the many and great labours he has in hand, by

_any further written communications of this kind_, which would,

indeed, be very useful, because they are valuable, if they were

conveyed at a time when there was leisure to settle opinions." Those

are hard hits at the critic, but harder were still to come. "There is

one thing of which I must inform you. It is, that my father's opinions

are never hastily adopted, and that even those ideas which have often

appeared to me only the effect of momentary heat, or casual

impression, I have afterwards found, beyond a possibility of doubt, to

be the result of systematic meditation, perhaps of years. * * * * The

thing, I say, is a paradox, but _when we talk of things superior to

ourselves_, what is not paradox?"

He strikes harder still. "When we say, that one man is wiser than

another, we allow that the wiser man forms his opinions upon grounds

and principles which, though to him justly conclusive, cannot be

comprehended and received by _him who is less wise_. To be wise, is

only to see deeper, and further, and differently _from others_."

Yet this strong rebuke, which was followed by a long letter from Burke

himself, half indignant, half argumentative, does not seem to have

disturbed the temper of Francis, proverbially petulant as he was, if

it did not rather raise his respect for both parties. He tells Burke,

in a subsequent letter, that he has looked for his work, his

_Reflections on the Revolution_, with great impatience, and read it

with studious delight. He proceeds--"My dear Mr Burke, when I took

what is vulgarly called the liberty of opposing my thoughts and wishes

to the _publication_ of yours, on the late transactions in France, I

do assure you that I was not moved so much by a difference of opinion

on the subject, as by an apprehension of the personal uneasiness

which, one way or other, I thought you would suffer by it. I know that

virtue would be useless, if it were not active, and that it can rarely

be active without exciting the most malignant of all enmity, that in

which envy predominates, and which, having no injury to complain of,

has no ostensible motive either to resent or to forgive." (How like

Junius is all this! The likeness is still stronger as it proceeds.) "I

have not yet had it in my power to read more than one third of your

book. I must taste it deliberately. The flavour is too high--the wine

is too rich; I cannot take a draught of it." In another passage he

gives a powerful sketch of popery. In speaking of the French monarchy,

and its presumed mildness in the last century, he attributes the

cessation of its severities to the European change of manners. "We do

not pillage and massacre quite so furiously as our ancestors used to

do. Why? Because these nations are more enlightened--because the

Christian religion is, _de facto_, not in force in the world! Suspect

me not of meaning the Christian religion of the _gospel_. I mean that

which was enforced, rather than taught, by priests, by bishops, and by

cardinals; which laid waste a province, and then formed a monastery;

which, after destroying a great portion of the human species,

provided, as far as it could, for the utter extinction of future

population, by instituting numberless retreats for celibacy; which set

up an ideal being called the Church, capable of possessing property of

all sorts for the pious use of its ministers, incapable of alienating,

and whose property its usufructuaries very wisely said it should be

sacrilege to invade; that religion, in short, which was practised, or

professed, and with great zeal too, by tyrants and villains of every

denomination."

These volumes show, in a strong light, the energy with which Burke

watched over his party in the House of Commons, and the importance of

his guardianship. He seems to have been called on for his advice in

all great transactions, and to have watched over its interests during

the period of Fox's absence. In 1788 the mental illness of George III.

became decided, and the prospect of a regency with the Prince of Wales

at its head, awoke all the long excluded ambition of the Whigs. Fox

was at that period in Italy, and he was sent for by express to lead

the party in the assault on office. He immediately turned his face to

England, and arrived on the 24th of November, four days after the

meeting of Parliament, which had, however, immediately adjourned to

the fourth of the following month, for the purpose of ascertaining the

health of his majesty. On this occasion Burke addressed to Fox a long

and powerful letter, marking out the line which the parties should

take, giving his opinion with singular distinctness, and expressing

himself in the tone of one who felt his authority. He begins--"My dear

Fox, If I have not been to see you before this time, it was not owing

to my not having missed you in your absence, or my not having much

rejoiced in your return. But I know that you are indifferent to every

thing in friendship but the substance, and all proceedings of ceremony

have, for many years, been out of the question between you and me." In

allusion to the probable formation of a new ministry, he observes--"I

do not think that a great deal of time is allowed you. Perhaps it is

not for your interest that this state of things should continue long,

even supposing that the exigencies of government should suffer it to

remain on its present footing; but I speak without book. I remember a

story of Fitzpatrick in his American campaign, that he used to say to

the officers who were in the same tent, before they were up, that the

only meals they had to consider how they were to procure for that day,

were breakfast, dinner, and supper. I am worse off; for there are five

meals necessary, and I do not know at present how to feel secure of

one of them. The king, the prince, the Lords, the Commons, and the

People." He then urges a bold line of policy--the public examination

of the physicians, the acting independently of the ministers, and a

movement on the part of the prince worthy of his station; but which,

unhappily for the Whigs, was neither adopted by Fox, nor was

consistent with the courtly indolence of the future king. "Might it

not be better," says Burke boldly, "for the prince at once to assure

himself, to communicate the king's melancholy state by a message to

the Houses, and to desire their counsel and support in such an

exigency? It would put him forward with advantage in the eyes of the

people; it would teach them to look upon him with respect, as a person

possessed of the spirit of command; and it would, I am persuaded,

stifle a hundred cabals, both in parliament and elsewhere, which, if

they were cherished by his apparent remissness and indecision, would

produce to him a vexatious and disgraceful regency and reign."

Lord Thurlow seems, in some way or other, to have given offence to

every remarkable man of his day. At once crafty and insolent, he

toiled for power with an indefatigable labour, as he indulged his

sense of authority by an intolerable arrogance. Among the multitude of

distinguished men whom this legal savage irritated, was Sir William

Jones, the Orientalist. He thus writes to Burke, "I heard last night,

with surprise and affliction, that the *Therion* (the wild-beast--Thurlow)

was to continue in office. Now, I can assure you, from my own positive

knowledge, and I know him well, that though he hates our species in

general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more

virulently, than against Lord North, and the friends of the late

excellent marquis. He will, indeed, make fair promises, and enter into

engagements, because he is the most interested of mortals; but his

ferocity in opposing the Contractors' Bill, may convince you how

little he thinks himself bound by his _compacts_. He will take a

delight in obstructing all your plans, and will never say, 'Aha, I am

satisfied,' until he has overthrown you. In fact, you will not be

ministers, but tenants by copy of court-roll at the will of the lord.

If you remove him, and put the seal in commission, his natural

indolence is such, that he will give you little trouble, because he

will give himself none; but, if he continue among you, his great joy

will be, and you may rely upon my intelligence, to attack the reports

of your select committee, to support all those whom you condemn, and

to condemn all the measures which you may support. In a word, if

_Caliban_ remain in power, there will be no Prospero in this

fascinated island."

At this period, Jones was panting for an Indian judgeship, which he

obtained shortly after, and proceeded to Calcutta. It may be doubted,

whether his career would not have been happier and loftier had he

remained at home. His indefatigable diligence must have soon conquered

the difficulties of legal knowledge, and his early intercourse with

the leading men of his time, would, in the common course of things,

have raised him to distinction. He died at forty-seven, too early to

accomplish any work of solid utility, but not too early to spread his

reputation through Europe, for an extraordinary proficiency in the

languages of India. Later scholars speak lightly of this multifarious

knowledge, and nothing can be more probable, than that attainment of

_many_ languages, with any approach to their fluent use, is beyond the

power of man. But his diligence was exemplary, his memory retentive,

and his understanding accomplished by classical knowledge; with those

qualities, much might be done in any pursuit; and though modern

orientalists protest against the superficiality of his acquirements,

their variety has been admitted, and still remain unrivaled.

Jones had his fits of despondency, like less fortunate men, and

concludes his letter, by intimating a speculation, not unlike that of

Burke himself in his earlier time:--"As for me, I should either settle

as a lawyer at Philadelphia, whither I have been invited, or retire on

my small independence to Oxford; if I had not in England a very strong

attachment, and many dear friends."

One of Burke's most anxious efforts was to make his son Richard a

statesman. The efforts were unsuccessful. Richard was a good son, and

willing to second the desires of his father; but nature had decided

otherwise, and he remained honest and amiable, but without advancing a

step. Burke first sent him on a kind of semi-embassy to the

headquarters of the emigrant princes at Coblentz, and he there

carried on a semi-negotiation. But success was not to be the fate of

any thing connected with these unfortunate men, and failure was

scarcely a demerit, from its universality. The next experiment was

sending him as a species of private envoy to the Irish Roman

Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though

perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his

unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was

no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable

attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause

worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the

object was inferior to his capacity, and unworthy of his heart. His

early admiration of Fox, of Whiggism, and Reform, was the rapture of

an innamorato. He could discover no defects; he disdained all doubts

as a dishonourable scepticism, and challenged all obstacles, as

evidences of his energy, and trophies of his success. His prosecution

of Hastings, a bold piece of patriot honesty, rapidly fermented into a

splendid blunder. The culprit, who ought to have been tried at the Old

Bailey, was elevated into a national criminal; and the assembled

majesty of the legislature was summoned to settle a case in the lapse

of years, which would have been decided in a day by "twelve good men

and true," in a box in the city. It was in this ardour of spirit that

he adopted the Romish cause. No man knew more thoroughly the

measureless value of an established church, the endless, causeless,

and acrid bitterness of sectarianism, and the mixture of unlearned

doctrine and factious politics which constitute their creeds. Against

Popery in power, Italian, German, or French, in the days of Louis

Quatorze, he would have pledged himself on the ancestral altar to

perpetual hostility. But the romance of popery in Ireland struck his

fancy; he saw nothing but a figure drooping with long travel in

pursuit of privilege; a pious pilgrim, or exhausted giant. Sitting in

his closet at Beconsfield, he pictured the downcast eyes and

dishevelled hair; the limbs loaded with fetters, and the hands help up

in remediless supplication. He grew enamoured of his portraiture, and

without waiting a moment to enquire whether it in the slightest degree

resembled the reality, he volunteered the championship of Irish

popery. His son was commissioned to represent him in this disastrous

connexion. But Richard, once on the spot, was instantly and completely

undeceived. Instead of his "fair penitent," he found a brawny,

bustling Thalestris, wild as the winds, and fierce with the

intoxication of impunity. The mild temperament of the plodding

missionary was baffled, burlesqued, and thrown into fever: he laboured

with humble diligence, but laboured in vain; he talked of

conciliation, while popery talked of conquest; he proposed concession,

while faction shouted triumph; and, when he suggested the suppression

of the old and sharp acerbities of the sects, he was answered by

universal laughter.

Burke, awakened at last to the truth of things, recalled him, in a

long despatch, concluding in these words--"If you find the Roman

Catholics _irreconcilable with each other_, and that government is

resolved to side with them, or rather, to direct those who _would

betray the rest_, then, my clear opinion is, that you ought not to

wait the playing the _last card of a losing hand_. It would be

disreputable to you. But when you have given your instruction to the

_very few_ in whom you can place confidence for their _future

temperate_ and persevering proceeding, that you will then, with a

_cool_ and _steady dignity_, take your leave." So ended the attempt of

this man of genius and sensibility to guide an Irish faction in the

paths of public tranquillity. He had forgotten that clamour was their

livelihood, and grievance their stock in trade. In the simplicity of a

noble spirit, he had eloquently implored quacks to take their degrees

and follow practice, and solemnly advised travelling showmen not to

disturb the public ear by the braying of their cracked trumpets, and

he succeeded accordingly. Great as he unquestionably was, he could not

make bricks without straw; and after wondering at the perversity of

fortune, and lavishing his indignant soul on a hundred splendid

perplexities touching the nature of politicians in general, and of

Irish politicians in particular, he gave up Ireland as a problem too

profound for his analysis, and to be postponed till the discovery of

the philosopher's stone.

Richard remained in Ireland for a few months, until he saw the Romish

petition thrown out in the House of Commons by an immense majority. He

then returned to London, and with the rather forward air of an

accredited minister, applied for an interview with the ministry. He

was answered by a prompt note from Dundas, sarcastically informing him

that there was a viceroy in Ireland, whom his Majesty's government had

sent there for the purpose of transacting public business; that they

considered him a very proper person for the purpose, and that, in

consequence, they saw no positive necessity for managing Irish affairs

through any other. "If," says this quiet rebuff, "any of his Majesty's

Catholic subjects have any request or representation which they wish

to lay before his Majesty, they cannot be at a loss for the means of

doing so, in a manner _much_ more _proper_ and AUTHENTIC, than through

the channel of private conversation. Having stated this to you, I

shall forbear _making any observations on the contents_ of your

letter."

On the 2d of August, 1794, his favourite son died, and Burke received

the blow with the feelings of one, who regarded the hand of destiny as

uplifted against him. His excessive sensibility was agonized by an

event melancholy in its nature to all, but which a wise man will

regard as the will of the Great Disposer, and a religious man will

believe to be a chastisement in mercy.

Burke was both wise and religious, but his feelings habitually

bewildered him. All the images of desolation rushed across his

creative mind. He was "an uprooted tree," a stream whose course was

swallowed up by an earthquake, a wanderer in the wilderness of the

world, a man struck down by a thunderbolt! From those fearful

fantasies, however, the emergency of public affairs soon summoned him

to the exercise of his noble powers; and he gave his country and the

world, perhaps the most powerful, certainly the most superb and

imaginative, of all his works, the fiery pamphlets on the "regicide

peace."

On this unhappy occasion for the condolence of friendship, he received

many tributes; but we cannot help quoting one from the celebrated

Grattan, which, though characterized by the peculiarities of his

style, seems to us a model of tenderness and beauty.

"_August 26, 1794_.

"My Dear Sir,

"May I be permitted to sympathize where I cannot presume to

console.

"The misfortunes of your family are a public care. The late one

is to me a personal loss. I have a double right to affliction,

and to join my grief, and to express my deep and cordial concern

at that hideous stroke which has deprived me of a friend, you of

a son, and your country of a promise that would communicate to

posterity the living blessings of your genius and your virtue.

Your friends may now condole with you, that you should have now

no other prospect of immortality than that which is common to

Cicero and to Bacon; such as never can be interrupted while there

exists the beauty of order, or the love of virtue, and can fear

no death except what barbarity may impose on the globe.

"If the same strength of reason which could persuade any other

man to bear any misfortune, can administer to the proprietor a

few drops of comfort, we may hope that your condition admits of

relief. The greatest possible calamity which can be imposed on

man, we hope may be supported by the greatest human

understanding. For comfort, your friends must refer you to the

exercise of its faculties, and to the contemplation of its

gigantic proportions--_Dura solatia_--of which nothing can

deprive you while you live. And, though death should mow down

every thing about you, and plunder you of your domestic

existence, you would still be the owner of a conscious

superiority in life, and immortality after it.--I am, my dear

sir, with the highest respect and regard,

"Yours most truly,

"H. Grattan."

We must hastily conclude.

The threatened ruin of Europe awakened Burke from this reverie at the

tomb of his son. He required strong stimulants, and in the French

Revolution, and the shock of nations, he found them. He now put the

trumpet to his lips, and

"Blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe."

His appeal pierced to the heart of the nation. England had never

_succumbed_, but an indefatigable faction had played every art of

quackery to set her faculties asleep, with the appearance of having

her eyes more open than ever. Whiggism, by its tricks, was

_mesmerising_ the common sense of the country. From this adventitious

torpor Burke recalled her to her natural temperament, restored sight

to her eyes, taught her to resume the sword, and sent her forth to

commence that career of victory which was consummated in the

Tuilleries.

His advocacy of the Popish question was one of his romances. Popery

was his "Jane Shore," fainting and feeble, wandering through the

highways with those delicate limbs which had once been arrayed in silk

and velvet, and soliciting the "charity of all good Christians" to her

fallen condition. His nature was chivalric, and he at once unsheathed

his sword for so affecting a specimen of penitence and pauperism; but

he soon recovered from this hazardous compassion, and left the pilgrim

to fitter protectors. But if he had lived till our day, what would

Burke have thought of his delusion now? with what self-ridicule must

he not have looked upon the burlesque grievances and the profitable

privations? what an instructive lesson must not his powerful scorn of

charlatanry have given to us, on the display of the whole system of

sleight-of-hand, the popular cups and balls, the low dexterity and the

rabble plunder? or, to sum all in one word, the reduction of all the

claims, the rights, and the efforts of a party pronouncing itself

national, to the collection of an annual tribute; the whole huge and

rattling machinery of popular agitation, grinding simply for the

"rint." How would this lion of the desert, shaking the forest with his

roar, have looked on Jackoo, going round, shaking the penny box! Woe

be to Jackoo if he had come within reach of his talons!

The volumes, of which we have given an account altogether too brief

and too rapid for their importance, deserve to be studied, as

containing some of the richest transcripts of the richest mind of

England. Letters from various eminent persons diversify them, but the

staple is Burke. If their style seldom rises to the elated ardour and

buoyant strength of his speeches and pamphlets, they exhibit all his

wisdom; they display the entire depth of that current which public

difficulties and obstructions swelled into a cataract. We have the

image of Burke reposing, but still we have all the proportion, all the

dignity, and all the colossal grandeur of the form, ruling senates,

and marshaling the mind of nations for the greatest of their fields.

Various notes illustrate the volumes, and the edition does every

credit to Lord Fitzwilliam and General Bourke.

MY COLLEGE FRIENDS.

NO. II.

JOHN BROWN.

A heavy snow-storm, which confined Chesterton and myself pretty much

to the walls of the college for the next few days, prevented us from

paying our friend Brown a visit in his new quarters so soon after his

installation as we intended. When we did succeed in wading there upon

the commencement of a thaw, we found him rather sulky. The sweets of

retirement had become somewhat doubtful; the Grange was certainly not

the place one would have deliberately chosen to be snowed up in; and

so far John was unfortunate in his first week of commencing hermit.

We found him in full possession of his easy chair, with Bruin extended

on the only piece of carpeting in the room, which did duty as a

hearth-rug. There was a volume of Sophocles open upon the table, with

a watch on one side of it; the Quarterly Review had not at that time

taken upon itself to enlighten undergraduates as to their real state

of mind, and the secrets of successful reading, or there would

doubtless have been the miniature of some fair girl on the other.

(What the effect of such "companions to the classics" may be in

general, I perhaps am no judge. I detest "fair girls," in the first

place; but I have not yet forgotten, if the reader has, that a pair of

_dark_ eyes were the ruin of three months' reading in my own case.)

However, there was no pictured face, except the watch-face, to cheer

the studies of John Brown; and, perhaps, for that reason, our friend

had evidently been asleep. How very glad he was to see us, was

betrayed immediately by the copious abuse which he showered on us for

not having come before.

"Why, what an unreasonable fellow you are!" said Chesterton; "If you

wanted to see us, why on earth could'nt you come up to college? We can

manage to keep the cold out there, quite as well as in your old castle

here, I fancy; and as neither of us are web-footed any more than

yourself, I don't really see why we are to do all the dabbling about

this precious weather."

"Oh! I forgot; you have not seen the little note of remembrance which

our darling dons were kind enough to send me before they broke up for

the vacation?"

"No--what do you mean?"

"Oh! I'll find it for you in a moment." And he produced a letter

sealed with the college arms, which ran as follows:--

"---- _Coll. Common Room_,

_Dec_. --, 18--.

"The principal and fellows regret to be under the unpleasant

necessity of intimating to Mr Brown, that, although they do not

feel called upon to notice his having fixed his residence in the

immediate neighbourhood of Oxford--a step, which, under the

circumstances, they cannot look upon as otherwise than

ill-judged--he must consider himself strictly prohibited from

appearing within the college walls at any time during the ensuing

vacation."

"Now there's a civil card by way of P.P.C. Don't you call that a

spiteful concoction? Silver and Hodgett's last--and worthy of them. So

now, unless you want me to be rusticated for a term or two, you need

not be over-civil in your invitations. But I'll tell you what you

shall do: Hawthorne shall send over that box of Silvas he had just

opened, (if they are good, you shall order some more,) and I'll keep

that Westphalia you talked about here, if you like, Chesterton; and

then you may come here to breakfast, lunch, or supper, if you

please--but mind, I won't give you dinners; I'm not going to have Mrs

Nutt put upon--or myself either."

We agreed to the terms with some modifications, and proceeded with

some interest to inspect John's domestic arrangements. They were

comfortable, though in some points peculiar. A sort of stand in one

corner, covered with red baise, which supported a plaster bust of our

most gracious majesty, and gave an air of mock grandeur to the

apartment, proved, upon nearer inspection, to be nothing more or less

than a barrel of Hall and Tawney's ale, an old-fashioned cabinet,

once gay with lacquered gold and colours, which the industrious

rubbings of Mrs Nutt and her hand-maid were fast effacing--the

depository perhaps of carefully penned love-missives, and broidered

gloves, jewels, and perfumes, and suchlike shreds and patches of

feminine taste or trickery, in other times--now served as a

resting-place for the heterogeneous treasures of a bachelor's private

cupboard. Cigars and captain's biscuits, open letters and unpaid bills,

packs of cards and lecture note-books; odd gloves, odd pence, and odd

things of all kinds--these filled the drawers: while, from the lower

recesses, our friend, in course of time, produced a decanter of port

and a Stilton. There was an old-fashioned sofa, one of that

stiff-backed, hard-hearted generation, which no man thinks of sitting

down upon twice, and three or four of those comfortable high-backed

arm-chairs, in which, when once fairly seated, in pleasant company,

one never wishes to get up again; a round oak table occupied the space

opposite the fire, and another in one corner held the few books which

formed John Brown's studies at the present. One window looked into the

wet meadows by which the house was nearly surrounded, and the other

commanded a view of the square inclosure before mentioned as now

forming the farm-yard--in former days the inner court of the mansion.

"Why, Brown, old fellow, you're quite a lively look-out here," said

Chesterton, who had for some minutes been contemplating, apparently

with much interest, the goings on below. "I wish they kept pigs and

chickens in the college quadrangle. I declare, for the last three

days, in this horrid snow, I've watched for hours out of my window,

(that fellow Hawthorne has taken to reading, and sports oak against me

till luncheon time,) and I hav'n't seen a moving creature. I began to

fancy myself up in the Great St Bernard among the monks; and when that

brute of yours came up and howled at my door the other day, I almost

expected to find him carrying a frozen child on his back, and got out

the cherry brandy to be ready for the worst--didn't I, Hawthorne?"

"I found you one day with Bruin shivering before the fire, and the

cherry brandy on the table, certainly."

"Well, that's the explanation of it, I assure you. But you must have

found it precious dull shut up here by yourself, Brown?"

"Why, yes--rather--sometimes--in spite of the pigs and poultry. Their

proceedings are rather monotonous. I feed that brood of chickens,

which have taken upon themselves to come into the world this unnatural

weather, with bread-crumbs out of my window twice a-day. Ah! I see the

old hen has only four to-day; one is gone since yesterday, and one the

day before; there's consumption in the family, that's plain; and they

have always wet feet; I want Mrs Nutt to make them worsted socks, and

to let me put Burgundy pitch-plasters on their throats, but she

won't."

"But come," said Chesterton, "suppose you give us some lunch, Brown;

'_prome reconditum Caecubum_'--(I'm getting desperately classical;)

that is, being freely translated--lift up that red baise drapery of

yours, and let's taste the tap."

The tap was tasted, and approved of; so was the Stilton: and then we

sat over the fire for an hour, and smoked some of the Silvas: then we

paid a visit to Mrs Nutt in her _penetralia_, and astonished her with

our acquaintance with dairy matters; hazarded a criticism or two upon

the pigs, which were well received, and were not so fortunate in our

attempts to cultivate an intimacy with the incorruptible Boxer; and

then set off on our return to Oxford, persuading Brown to start with

us, as the afternoon was fine, in order to freshen his faculties by a

stroll in the High Street.

Shorn, indeed, of all the glories of a full term, in which it had so

lately shone, and looking doubly cold, cheerless, and deserted, in all

the sloppy dirtiness of half-melted snow, was that never-equalled, and

never-to-be-forgotten street! which the stranger gazes on with

somewhat of an envious admiration, the freshman with an awful kind of

delight--which the departing bachelor of arts quits with a

half-concealed regret, and which the occasionally-returning master

re-enters with feelings which are perhaps a mixture of all these; a

stranger's admiration, an emancipated school-boy's delight, and a

regret, either mellowed by passing years into a tender recollection,

or blunted into indifference by altered habits, or embittered by

severed ties and disappointed hopes. We strolled once up and down its

long sweep, but there was nothing to invite a longer promenade.

Cigar-dealers stood at their shop-doors, or leaned over their

counters, with their hands in their breeches-pockets, smoking their

own genuine Havannahs in desperate independence: here a livery-stable

keeper, with a couple of questionable friends, rattled a tandem over

the stones, as if such things never were let out at two guineas a-day:

then a fishmonger, whose wide front, but a week before, teemed with

such quantity and quality, as spoke audibly to every passer-by of

bursary dinners and passing suppers, was now soliciting a customer to

take his choice of three lank cod-fish, ticketed at so much per lb.

Billiard-rooms were silent, save where a solitary marker practised

impossible strokes: print-shops exhibited a dull uniformity of stale

engravings; and the innumerable horde of mongrel puppies of all

varieties, that, particularly towards the end of term, are dragged

about three or four in a string, and recommended as real Blenheims,

genuine King Charles's, or "one of old Webb's black and tan, real good

uns for rats"--had disappeared from public life, to come out again,

possibly, as Oxford sausages.

In this kind of way the three first weeks of the vacation passed over

without any very notable occurences. We were quiet enough in

college--there is no fun in two men kicking up a row for the amusement

of each other; even in the eye of the law three are required to

constitute a riot; so, on the strength of our good characters, albeit

somewhat recent of acquisition, we dined two or three times with the

fellows who were still in residence, and who, to do them justice, sank

a point or so from the usual stiffness of the common room, and made

our evenings agreeable enough. We certainly flattered ourselves, that

if they found us in turbot and champagne, we contributed at least our

share to the more intellectual part of the entertainment; we kept

within due bounds, of course, and never overstepped that respect which

young men are usually the more willing to pay to age and station the

less rigidly it is exacted; but we made the old oak pannels ring with

such hearty laughter as they seldom heard; and the pictures of

founders and benefactors might have longed to come down from their

frames to welcome even the shadow of those good old times when sound

learning and hearty good fellowship were not, as now, hereditary

enemies in Oxford. If my graver companions, from the calm dignity of

collegiate office, deign to look back upon the evenings thus spent

with two undergraduates in a Christmas vacation, when, unbending from

the formal and conventional dulness of term and its duties, they

interchanged with us anecdote and jest, and mingled with the sparkling

imaginations of youth the reminiscences of riper years--I am sure they

will have no cause to regret their share in those not ungraceful

saturnalia, even though they may remember that the hour at which we

separated was not always what we used to call "canonical."

We paid our friend almost daily visits in his banishment. The history

of the expedition was generally the same; a walk out, a lunch, a cigar

or two, a chat with farmer Nutt or his wife, a review of the last

litter of pigs, or an enquiry as to the increasing muster-roll of

lambs. We did not make much progress in farming matters. Chesterton

was the most enterprising, and succeeded in ploughing a furrow in that

kind of line which heralds call wavy, and would, as he declared, have

made a very fair hand of thrashing, if he could but have hit the sheaf

oftener, and his own head not quite so often. The most important

events that took place during this time at the Grange, were the

installation of a successor to the barrel in the corner, and the

catching of an enormous rat, who had escaped poison and traps to be

snapped up in broad daylight, in an unguarded moment by Bruin. Still

John Brown declared that on the whole he got on very well; we all read

moderately; the examination was too near to be trifled with, and an

occasional gallop with the harriers made our only really idle days.

We had not, since our first visit, heard John recur at all to the

subject of the Dean; and to say the truth, we began to hope for his

sake, that he had given up a game which, however much longer it might

be contested, had evidently begun to be a losing one on his part. But

we were mistaken. We found him one morning in high spirits, and

evidently in possession of some joke which he was anxious to impart.

"Shut the door and sit down," said he, before we were fairly within

his premises. "I have a letter to show you."

"From the Dean?" (There was something in his manner, which made us

sure that personage was concerned in some way.)

"No; but from his good mamma--from dear old Mrs Hodgett; you didn't

know we were correspondents? Why, I wrote to her, you see, to ask

where she lived now that she had resigned business, as I would not on

any account have given up so valuable an acquaintance; and I begged

her, at the same time, to order me a dozen pair of stockings from

Mogg. (I assure you they were capital articles I had from him at

first, and he's a very honest fellow; if you've sent that sparkling

Moselle here to-day that you promised, Master Harry, we'll drink

Mogg's very good health.) Well, I wrote to her, and here is her

answer. You see Hodgett has been poisoning the old lady's mind."

I cannot give all John Brown's comments upon worthy Mrs Hodgett's

epistle, without doing him great injustice in the recital; but here

the contents are verbatim.

"Dear Sir,--Your favour of last week came safe to hand, and was

very glad to find you was well, as it leaves us at present.

Concerning your calling here next journey, am sorry to say shall

be from home at that time. Sir, I should have been very glad to

see you, but my son says you are not of an undeniable character,

which, in a widow woman's establishment, must be first

consideration. That was what I said to Mr Spriggins. Betsy, my

daughter, as you know, is to be married to him next month. I

don't think he is quite so steady as some, in regard that he must

have his cigar and his tilberry on Sundays--John Mogg never did;

but we can't all be Moggs in this world, or there wouldn't be no

_great failures_.

"S. Hodgett, in declining business, returns thanks for all past

favours, and remain, Dear Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"J. Spriggins,

(late S. Hodgett.)

"P.S.--I am afraid college is a sad place for such young men as

is not steady. Mrs Hicks, our great butcher's lady, told me that,

when her son, who was a remarkable good lad, came home from

Cambridge college after being there only two months, they found a

short pipe in his best coat pocket, and he called his father

'governor,' which, as Mrs H. said, he never was, and he wouldn't

wear his nightcap."

"Well," said Chesterton, when we had read this original document two

or three times over, "it doesn't seem quite usual for a man to sign

his own testimonials, especially when, as in Mr Spriggins's case, they

are not the most flattering. Do you suppose he really wrote this, or

signed it by mistake, or what is it?

"Neither one nor the other. Don't you see, the old lady, in declining

the linen-drapery, merges her own identity in that of her successor?

There's no such firm as 'Hodgett' now, it's 'Spriggins,' and she

thinks it necessary to sign accordingly. Here's the card enclosed."

"Well, there's one thing very certain, that Mrs Hodgett declines doing

business with you in future, John."

"Yes; and I'm rather annoyed at it. I meant to have got Mogg to come

down and see me at Oxford, and should have asked the Dean to meet him.

I don't see how he could have refused; any way, I think I could have

paid him in full for his late good offices. Well, I am not quite sure

now, when I've taken my degree, that I sha'n't go and see the old lady

again, and win her heart by paying a wedding-visit to the Spriggins's.

I'll take you with me, if you like, Hawthorne, and introduce you as

Lord some-body-or-other, an intimate friend of the dean's--or stay,

Chesterton will make the best lord of the two. Look with what supreme

disgust he is eyeing poor Mrs Nutt's best wine-glasses. Come now, I

think that vine-leaf pattern is quite Horatian; and if you turn up

your nose at that, Master Harry, you shall have your wine out of a

tea-cup next time you come here. Draw the cork of that Moselle, and

then I have something else to tell you. Do either of you men care

about shooting, or can you shoot?"

"Why, I flatter myself I can," said Chesterton. "I'll bet you I'll hit

two eggs right and left, nine tines out of ten, as often as you like

to throw them up."

"I don't call that shooting; and you had better not let Mrs Nutt hear

you talk of breaking eggs right and left in any such extravagant

manner. But what I was going to say is this, that some friend of old

Nutt's has some ground near here for which he has the deputation, and

I have been offered a day's shooting there, for myself and any friend

I like to bring. Now, I don't shoot--though I remember the days when I

was a dead pot-shot at a blackbird; but if either of you are

sportsmen, or fancy you are, which amounts to much the same thing,

why, you can have a day at this place if you like, and I will go with

you on condition you don't carry your guns cocked. Mind, I can't

promise what sort of sport you will have, as it is too near Oxford not

to be pretty well poached over; but you can try."

Shooting over a man's ground without leave (especially if in the face

of a "notice" to the contrary) is decidedly the best sport, but

unfortunately one of those stolen delights which only schoolboys and

poachers can with any sort of conscience enjoy. Shooting with leave

comes next, but is immeasurably inferior in point of piquancy.

Shooting in one's own preserves at birds which have been reared and

turned out, and cost you on the average about five guineas per brace,

is decidedly the most fashionable, and consequently--the dullest. A

day's shooting of any kind about Oxford, was a rare privilege,

confined chiefly to those who were fortunate enough to be fellows of

St ----, or to have an acquaintance among the surrounding squirearchy.

True, that there were some enterprising spirits, who would gallop out

some three or four miles to a corner of Lord A----'s preserves, give

their horses in charge to a trusty follower, and after firing half a

dozen shots, bag their two or three brace of pheasants, remount and

dash off to Oxford, before the keepers, whom the sound of guns in

their very sanctuary was sure to draw to the spot, could have any

chance of coming up with them. But such exploits were deservedly

rather reprobated than otherwise, even when judged by the

under-graduate scale of morality; and even in the parties concerned,

were the offspring rather of a Robin-Hood-like lawlessness than a

genuine spirit of poaching.

We of course were delighted with the proposition which would have had

quite sufficient attraction for us at any time; but coming in the

dulness of vacation, it was an offer to be jumped at. "What game is

there in this place?" said Chesterton. "Is there any cover shooting?"

"Oh, I can't tell you any thing about the place! It's about a mile

off, but I never saw it. There's a good deal of ground to go over, I

believe."

"What shall we do for dogs?"

"Mrs Nutt will lend you Boxer, I daresay; and Bruin is a capital hand

at putting up water-rats."

"Stuff! I can borrow some dogs, though. And now, what day shall it

be?"

The day was fixed, the dogs procured, the occupant of the property was

to send a man to meet us and show us the ground, and it was settled

that we were to come to breakfast at the farm at half-past seven

precisely, and make a long day of it. Much to his disgust, we roused

the deputy porter from his bed at seven on a raw foggy morning; and

with a lad leading the dogs, and carrying guns and ammunition, we made

our way to Farmer Nutt's. We were proceeding up-stairs, as usual, to

Brown's apartment, when we heard our friend's voice hailing us from

the "house," as the large hall was called which the farmer and his

wife used as a kind of superior kitchen. There we found him snugly

seated by a glorious fire, superintending his hostess in the slicing

and broiling of a piece of ham such as Oxfordshire and Berkshire

farm-houses may well pride themselves upon; while a large pile of

crisp brown toast was basking in front of the hearth, supported on a

round brass footman. It was a sight which might have given a man an

appetite at any time, but, after a two-mile walk on a cold winter's

morning, it was like a glimpse of paradise.

"Here," said Brown--"here's breakfast, old fellows. Come and make your

bows to Mrs Nutt, who is the very pattern of breakfast makers, and fit

to concoct tea for the Emperor of China. Ah! if ever I marry, Mrs

Nutt, it shall be somebody who is just like you."

Mrs Nutt laughed merrily, and welcomed us with many curtsies, and

hopes that we should find things comfortable; and when the worthy

farmer, after a brief apology, sat down with us, and the strong black

tea and rich cream were duly amalgamated, what a breakfast we did

make! There was not much conversation; but such a hissing and

frizzling of ham upon the gridiron, such a crumping of toast and

rattling of knives, forks, cups and saucers, surely five people seldom

made. We were hungry enough; and our hospitable entertainers were so

pressing in their attentions, that we caught ourselves eating

plum-cake with broiled ham, honey with fresh-laid eggs, and taking

gulps of strong tea and sips of raspberry-brandy alternately. We bore

up against it all, however, wonderfully; the prospect of a long day's

walk put headache and indigestion out of the question, and we were

beginning to think of moving when certain ominous preparations on the

part of our hostess attracted our attention. A hot slice of toast

having been saturated with brandy, she proceeded, to our undisguised

amazement, to pour upon it the richest and thickest cream her dairy

could produce, and to cover this again with sundry wavy lines of

treacle. This was the _bonne bouche_ with which, in her part of the

world, Devonshire I think she said, a breakfast to be perfect must

always conclude. Start not, delicate reader, until you have had an

opportunity of trying this remarkable compound; but take my word for

it, it only wants a French name to make it a first-rate sweetmeat. We

too regarded it at first with fear and trembling; tasted it out of

courtesy to the fair compoundress, and finally, like Oliver Twist,

asked for more.

"Now these gentlemen know what a breakfast is, Mr Nutt," said John;

"but I am afraid we can't introduce your good wife's receipt into

college; our cows give nothing but skim-milk. Well, now we had better

be off, if you mean to have any shooting."

Off we set accordingly, and had to trudge a mile or so before we got

into our preserves. There were some not unpromising covers; the lad

who was to be our guide professed some vague reminiscences of having

seen pheasants there "a bit ago;" and there was no question as to a

hare having been started so lately as yesterday morning. We began our

day, therefore, with somewhat sanguine expectations, which, however,

every subsequent half-hour's progress gradually dispelled. We tumbled

out of one deep ditch into another, scrambled perseveringly through

brambles and brushwood, saw places where pheasants _ought_ to have

been, and places where they had been, but never saw a bird except a

jack-snipe in the distance. The only sport we had was in the untiring

energy of the lad already mentioned, who, long after the dogs had

given it up as a bad job, continued to beat every bush as diligently

as at first starting, and kept up a form of hortatory interjections

addressed to the invisible game, with a hopeful perseverance which was

really enviable. One satisfaction we had; towards the close of the day

we started _the_ hare from a bush which had certainly been tried at

least twice before; she fell victim to a platoon fire of four barrels;

the second, I believe, brought her down, but we were anxious to have

all the shots we could get. And, in truth, there was some credit in

killing her, for Mr Nutt, to whom we presented her, declared that she

was so tough, he wondered how the shots ever got through her skin.

It takes something more serious than a bad day's sport to damp

youthful spirits; and upon our return we found the good farmer's wife

much more annoyed at our failure than ourselves. "Why, the chap as has

the deputation told my master he had killed ten brace of pheasants

there this season!" He killed the last he could find before he sent

us there, no doubt. Nothing dispirited, we sat down to a leg of

mutton, which Brown had so far departed from his household economy as

to order for us at six, and enjoyed our evening as thoroughly as if we

had been a triple impersonation of Colonel Hawker in point of

successful sportmanship. Nor was it until after the second bottle of

port that we began to accuse each other of being sleepy.

"Well," said I at last, "it is about time for us to be off; it wants

but three minutes of half-past eleven, and we shall have sharp work of

it now to get into college by twelve. What sort of a night is it?"

The shutters of the sitting-room were closed, and I stepped into the

bed-room adjoining in order to look out. The window opened into the

court-yard; the moon was shining pretty brightly in spite of the fog,

and I was just turning round to remark that we should have a dry walk

home, when I saw two figures steal quietly across the yard, apparently

from the gateway, and disappear in one of the outhouses. It was too

late for any of the men about the farm to be out, in all probability;

I was certain neither of the two figures was Farmer Nutt himself, so I

quietly closed the door between the sitting and bed rooms, in order

that no light might be seen, and watched the spot where I had lost

sight of them. In a few seconds, I distinctly saw a third man come

over the yard-gates, (which were secured inside at night,) and after

apparently reconnoitring for a moment or two, move in the same

direction as the others. I returned at once to the room where I had

left Brown and Chesterton, closing the bed-room door hastily and

noiselessly, and motioning them to be silent.

"I say, Hawthorne, what's up?" said Harry Chesterton, pausing, with a

parting cigar half-lighted.

I confess I was somewhat flurried, and my account of what I had seen

was not the most distinct.

"Oh!" said Chesterton, "it's some of the girl's sweethearts, I dare

say; let's go down and have 'em out, Brown--shall we?"

Brown shook his head.

"Put out the lights," said I.

We did so, and then opened the shutters of the sitting-room window. We

had hardly done so when the bright flash of a lantern was visible from

the opposite side of the yard. For a few minutes we could see nothing

else, and were obliged to hide carefully behind the shutters to avoid

being noticed from below.

"Is that old Nutt?" said I.

Brown thought not. He never knew him carry a lantern.

At that moment the light disappeared, and in a few seconds we heard a

loud knocking at the back-door.

"That must be the farmer come home," said I.

"No," said Brown, looking carefully into the yard, where we could now

plainly distinguish at least three persons, and overhear voices in a

low tone--"No; old Nutt's brown greatcoat would cover all three of

those fellows."

"What stall we do," said Chesterton, seizing his double-barrel, which

stood in the corner. "Shall we open the window and threaten to fire?"

"With an empty gun?" said Brown: "no, no, that won't do. Not but what

they would run away fast enough, perhaps; but I think, if they really

are come to attack the house, we ought not to let them off so easily.

What say you, Hawthorne?"

"Certainly not; but they can hardly be housebreakers, or they would

not keep knocking at the door," said I, as the sounds were repeated

more loudly than before.

"I don't know that; every body about here is perfectly aware that old

Nutt is gone to Woodstock fair; and they might give a pretty good

guess, even supposing they did not watch him, that he would not be

home till late; and if Mrs Nutt or any of the servants are fools

enough to open the door, it's an easier way of getting in than

breaking it open. However, there's no time to be lost; here's a box of

lucifers; come into this dark passage, you two, and get a candle

lighted, while I go and try to get up Mrs Nutt. I can find my way in

the dark."

"By Jove, Brown," said Chesterton and myself in the same breath, "you

sha'n't go about the house by yourself--we'll come with you."

"And break your necks down some of the old staircases; or, at all

events, make row enough to let your friends below know that there's

somebody moving in this part of the house. No, just keep quiet where

you are--there's good fellows--and take care not to show the light."

And taking off his shoes, Brown proceeded along the old passages,

which seemed to creak more than usual out of very spitefulness, into

the unknown regions where lay the unconscious Mrs Nutt.

Having got a light, after the usual number of scrapings with the

lucifers, we were awaiting his return with some impatience, when a

third and more violent series of knocks at the door were followed by

the sound of a female voice. Concealing the light, we crept to the

window of the sitting-room, whence we could now distinguish only one

figure standing by the door, with whom Mrs Nutt appeared to be holding

a communication from a window above.

"Who's there? What do you want?"

"It's me with a note from Master Nutt, missus. I don't think he's

a-coming home to-night."

"Where did you bring it from? Where is he?"

"He were at the Bear at Woodstock when I saw him."

"Well, wait a bit till I get a light, and I'll come down."

In another minute we were joined by Brown; so quietly did he step,

that in our absorbing interest in the conversation in the yard, we

were both somewhat startled at his sudden appearance.

"Well, Brown," said Chesterton, "now what shall we do? I'll put a load

in this, however," and he proceeded to the passage, where there was

less risk of the light betraying us, in order to do so.

"Now," said Brown, "if we can but get that fellow once into the house,

we'll have him at all events. We had better all come down-stairs

quietly. If we can only persuade Mrs Nutt to come with us to speak to

him while we open the door, depend upon it we shall trap him; but

she's in a terrible way, poor soul! she wants me to let her call out

murder, and I am afraid now she'll spoil it all. But she has the

servant with her, who seems rather a plucky girl, and I hope she can

manage her. Now, come on quickly, Chesterton, and hide the light when

you get into the long passage, because there are no shutters to the

windows. The women will meet us at the bottom of the stairs."

My gun had been left in the kitchen; I seized the poker, and we all

proceeded cautiously along the passage, and down-stairs. Poor Mrs

Nutt, as pale as death, and scarcely able to stand, was waiting for

us, with the servant girl. But it was with the greatest difficulty we

could get her to listen to any such proposition as opening the door;

she was much more inclined to side with Chesterton, who wanted to

present the gun at the fellow from the window, and fire if he made any

attempt either to effect an entrance, or to run away.

At last, however, by the persuasion of the servant, who really was a

heroine in her way, we got her into the passage at the end of which

the door in question was situated; but as nothing could induce her to

speak to the fellow outside, beyond a very faint "Who's there?" the

girl took up the dialogue, and enquired the man's name.

"Tom Smith; I've got a note for the missus, and something to say to

her besides. Let's in--there's a good wench; I've been a-knocking here

this half hour already."

It had been agreed that I was to open the door, and shut and bolt it,

if possible, the instant the speaker had entered. Brown and Chesterton

stood just inside a small pantry, ready to secure their man as soon as

he was fairly inside, and the women were to make their escape out of

harm's way, as soon as their services as a decoy could be dispensed

with.

It was a moment of breathless expectation while I withdrew the bolts.

Hardly had I done so, when the door flew violently open, and with a

silent but determined rush three men entered. I shut the door

instinctively, but it was evident that our plan was defeated, and we

had now only to fight it out. There was a scream from the women, whose

curiosity had not allowed them to retreat beyond the foot of the

staircase--a rush forward on the part of Brown and Chesterton--an oath

or two from the intruders at finding themselves so unexpectedly

confronted--and then, for a moment or two, an ominous pause on both

sides. It was broken by Chesterton, who clubbed his gun, and brought

the first man to the ground. Nearly at the same time I grappled with

the last who had entered, whilst a heavy crow-bar, in the hands of the

third, after describing an arc within an inch or two of my own head,

descended with a horrible dull sound (I hear it now) upon that of poor

Chesterton, who fell heavily, whilst in the act of springing forwards,

across his prostrate antagonist. Again the murderous weapon was

uplifted--I vainly endeavoured to fling my opponent and myself against

the striker--I heard a scream, and saw the poor servant girl rush

forward with a sort of desperate instinct, armed with no other weapon

than the candlestick--when a report, that sounded like a volley, shook

the whole passage--a bright flash threw out the whole scene vividly

for a moment--the robber with his back to me with his weapon poised,

and the blackened face of the other glaring savagely into my own--then

followed total darkness--the ringing of the iron-bar upon the

bricks--a stifled groan--and then a silence more horrible than all.

"Get a light!" said Brown at last; "get a light for heaven's sake, Mrs

Nutt, or somebody. Hawthorne, are you hurt?"

"No, no," said I; "it was you that fired, John?"

"Yes," said he; "we can do nothing now till we have a light."

The whole affair, from the unbolting the door to the firing the shot,

had not occupied nearly a minute; nor was it much longer before the

trembling women succeeded in relighting the candle from the embers of

the kitchen hearth; but they were moments into which one crowded

almost years of thought; and I remember now with astonishment how

every miserable consequence of poor Chesterton's probably fate came

vividly and irresistibly before my imagination during those few

hurried breathings of suspense--how his father could be told of

it--how desolate would be now the home of which he was the hope and

idol, (I knew his family)--how the college would mourn for him; nay,

even such wretched particulars as how we were to move him to

Oxford--whether he would be buried there--whether he would have a

monument in the chapel--and a thousand such trivial fancies, were

running through my mind with a distressing minuteness which those only

who have known such moments can understand.

At last the light came. In my eagerness to ascertain the state of poor

Chesterton, I quite forgot the villain with whom I had been

struggling. We had mutually relaxed our hold upon hearing the shot;

and he now took the opportunity of our whole attention being directed

elsewhere, to open the door and effect his escape. We had too much of

other business in our hands to think of following him.

The second man lay close to my feet. I stepped over him, and raised

Chesterton's head upon my arm; the eyes were half open, but I could

detect no sign of life. I told Brown I feared it was all over.

"I know it is," said he; "he is shot through the heart. I aimed there.

But what could I do?"

I turned round, and it was with somewhat of an angry feeling that I

saw Brown examining the breast of the man who had last fallen, utterly

indifferent, as it seemed, to the dreadful fate of our poor friend.

"For heaven's sake," said I, "let that villain alone, and help me to

move poor Harry: I believe he is gone."

"Ay, poor Harry!" said Brown somewhat vacantly: "I wish that blow had

fallen on me! And was that shot too late after all? Your gun hung

fire, Hawthorne--it did indeed. Poor Harry!"

I was so absorbed in anxiety for Chesterton that Brown's strange

manner made no great impression on me at the time. The first man, who

had been merely stunned by the blow from the but-end of the gun, was

now beginning to revive, and I begged Brown to get something to secure

him with.

"I don't think, sir," said Mrs Nutt who had recovered her terror

sufficiently to offer her assistance, and whose coarse red hands,

having removed Chesterton's neck-kerchief, and loosened his

shirt-collar, now showed in strong contrast with his fair skin, but

had nevertheless all a woman's sensibility about them--"I don't think

but what the poor young gentleman has life in him--I am sure I can

feel his heart beat."

"Oh yes, oh yes, Mrs Nutt--he cannot be dead--send for a surgeon!

Hawthorne, why don't you send for a surgeon?"

"There's none nigher than Oxford," said Mrs Nutt.

"I'll go for un," said the girl. "I ben't afear'd;" and she turned

pale and shook like a leaf; but the spirit was willing, and she

persisted she was ready to go. However it turned out that there was a

labourer's cottage about a quarter of a mile off, and she was finally

dispatched there for assistance.

Few people know the ready humanity which exists among the lower

orders: the man must have run all the way to Oxford, for he returned

in little more than half an hour, before the surgeon could dress and

mount his horse.

However, Chesterton was evidently still living; and when the surgeon

did arrive he gave some hopes of his recovery. The weight of the blow

had been in some degree broken by the gun which poor Harry had raised

in his hand, and this only could have saved the skull from fracture.

Of course we had soon plenty of volunteers who were ready to be useful

in any way; and when at last the police had made their appearance, and

removed both the living and the dead, and Chesterton had been laid in

Brown's room, and the surgeon, having applied the usual remedies, had

composedly accepted Mrs Nutt's offer to make up a bed for him, and

betaken himself thereto, as if such events were to him matters of

everyday occurrence--I suppose they were--it struck me, for the first

time, that there was a remarkable contrast between Brown's hurried

manner and disturbed countenance now, compared with his perfect

coolness and self-possession while the danger seemed most imminent,

which even Chesterton's dangerous state did not sufficiently account

for.

"How lucky it was, Brown," said I, "my gun had a load of duck-shot in

it! Don't you remember I was going to have fired it off? And that you

should have laid your hand upon it in the kitchen! I looked for it as

we came by, but could not see it."

"I'll tell you what, Hawthorne: I almost wish I had not seen it: I

should not have had a man's life to answer for."

"Why, Brown," said I with some surprise, "surely you can have no

scruple about that poor wretch's death? Why, he has all but murdered

poor Harry--if, indeed, he ever gets over it."

"Very true, very true," replied Brown, looking at the bed where

Chesterton was lying in utter unconsciousness; "he seems to sleep very

quietly now. I don't think he knew any one just now when he opened his

eyes: did you see the blow, Hawthorne?"

"Yes," said I; "the lock of the gun is broken, and I fancy that saved

him; but he would have had little chance from a second: that shot came

just in time."

"I covered the man from the moment he first raised the bar: your head

was in a line with him, or I should have fired sooner. I hardly

thought you would have escaped some part of the charge as it was.

Well, if poor Harry lives, perhaps it is well as it is, if not"--

"You have but spared the hangman some trouble," said I. "Come, man,

don't give way to this morbid feeling. I don't say but what it does

you credit, Brown, to regret the necessity for taking a man's life,

even to save your friend's; but, depend upon it, your conduct to-night

is justifiable before a far higher inquest than the coroner's. Do you

think if I had been in your place I should have hesitated one instant?

No! nor have been half as scrupulous afterwards, I fear."

"You have not blood upon your hand," said Brown gloomily. "And

remember, if we had taken poor Chesterton's advice, and frightened

them off at first, all this might have been spared; it was my folly in

determining to take upon myself the office of thief-taker--cursed

folly it was!"

The impression which the events of the last hour had left upon my own

mind was any thing but a pleasant one; but I was obliged to assume an

indifference which I did not feel, and use a lighter tone than I

should willingly have done in speaking of the death of a

fellow-creature, however unavoidable, in order to keep up Brown's

spirits, and prevent him from dwelling upon his share in the

catastrophe with that morbid degree of sensitiveness, of the effects

of which I began to be really apprehensive. He wanted me to lie down

and try to sleep, saying that he would watch with Chesterton; but this

I was in no mood to agree to, even had I not been unwilling to leave

him to his present reflections; so we drew a small table close to the

fire in the sitting-room, leaving the door open that we might hear any

movement of the patient, and waited for daybreak with feelings to

which perhaps we had been too little accustomed. They were doubtless

wholesome for us in after life; but at the time those hours of

watching were painful indeed. It was a night which, then and since, I

wished could be blotted from my page of life, and be as if it had

never been. I have grown older and sadder, if not wiser, since, and

feel now that there are recollections in which I then took delight

which I could far more safely part with.

The danger in Chesterton's case, though at one time imminent, was soon

over; and a few days' quiet at the farm enabled him to be removed to

college. Reading was, of course, forbidden him for some time; and

before term began, he had left Oxford with his father, to keep

perfectly quiet for a few months in the country. The gratitude which

he and all his family expressed to Brown as having been undoubtedly

the means of saving his life, was naturally unbounded; and it did more

than all else to reconcile him to the idea which haunted him, as he

declared, day and night, of having that man's blood upon his head. I

knew that Chesterton had warmly pressed him to come home with him; but

as his name was down for the approaching examination, for which he was

quite sufficiently prepared, it was not without astonishment that I

heard him one morning, just before Chesterton's departure, announce

his intention of going down with him and his father.

"I think," said he, "the constant sight of poor Harry will do me good

just now; I am not given to romancing, Hawthorne, as you know; but

waking or sleeping, when I am by myself, I see that man standing with

the crow-bar uplifted just as he was when I shot him; and I think, if

I can but manage to get Harry Chesterton's figure between him and me,

as it was that night, and feel that pulling the trigger perhaps saved

his life, why then the picture will be something less horrible that it

is now."

"Well," said I, "John, I think you do right; but I can tell you this,

that the same sort of _tableau_ is very often before my eyes; and the

horror that I feel is what I did then--seeing Chesterton's brains

knocked out, as I thought, and struggling in vain to get near him;

sooner than feel that again in reality--the thought of it is bad

enough--I'd shoot that villain ten times running, if I only had the

chance."

"You never _had_ the chance, Hawthorne; pray God you never _may_."

Such was nearly my last interview, for some years, with my friend John

Brown; for I had taken my degree and left college before he came up

again to pass his examination. He was subpoenaed, with myself, as a

witness on the trial of the man whom we had secured, which took place

at the next assizes; but I was informed by the prisoner's attorney of

his intention to plead guilty, the case against him being such a

strong one; Brown was thus enabled without much risk to remain in the

country with Chesterton, and we were both spared being placed in the

painful position of important witnesses in a trial of life and death.

The man's confession was full, and apparently honest; and it was a

satisfaction to find that the wretch who had fallen was a man of

well-known desperate character, and probably, as the prisoner

asserted, the concocter of the whole business: while all were

murderers in intention. Had they succeeded in effecting their object

by plundering the house, Farmer Nutt, whose habits of staying somewhat

late from home on fair nights were well known to all the

neighbourhood, was to have been waylaid on the towing-path which led

to his house, and as, although a quiet man, there was a good deal of

resolute spirit about him, and he would have had a heavy purse with

him, the proceeds of stock sold at the fair, with which he would not

easily have parted, there was no question but that he would have found

a grave in the canal. Of Brown's lodging in the house the party were

well aware; but they had laid their plans so warily for effecting an

entrance without noise, and easily overpowering the women, that they

hoped either altogether to avoid disturbing his quarter of the house,

or making it evident to him that resistance was useless. Of course,

our appearance was wholly unexpected; they had watched for some time,

but we had been so quiet for the last hour (being in truth more than

half asleep) that they had no suspicion of there being any one

stirring in Brown's rooms.

I saw the unfortunate prisoner several times, and found him open and

communicative on every subject but one. Any information with regard to

his accomplice who had escaped, he always steadily refused; nor did a

single unguarded word ever drop from him in conversation with any one

by which the slightest clue could be obtained as to his identity. Even

the police inspector, the most plausible and unscrupulous of his

class, a perfect Machiavel among the Peelers, who could make a

prisoner believe he was his only friend while he was doing his best to

put the halter round his neck, even his practised policy was

unsuccessful here. There was little doubt, however, that it was some

person familiar with the premises, from the circumstance that poor

Boxer, whose silence on the night of the attack we had all been

surprised at, and who was not of a mood to be easily inveigled by

strangers, even with the usual attractions of poisoned meat, &c., had

disappeared, and was never heard of from that time forth. Suspicion of

course fell upon several; but the matter remains to this day, I

believe, a mystery. The prisoner, as I have said, pleaded guilty, and

received sentence of death; under the circumstances of the crime, and

its nearly fatal result, no other could be expected; nor did the judge

who tried him hold out the slightest hope of mercy. But his full

confession, with regard to himself and the man who had fallen, with

honourable silence as to their more fortunate companion, his youth,

(he was but a year older than myself,) and his whole bearing since his

imprisonment, had impressed myself and others deeply in his favour; a

memorial of the case was drawn up representing that justice might well

be satisfied with the violent death of one criminal already, and after

being signed by all parties of any influence in the neighbourhood, was

forwarded for presentation to the crown. But the judge declared that

he could not, consistently with his duty, back our application, and,

to our extreme disappointment, an answer was returned that the law in

this case must take its course. A private and personal interest was at

work, however, which for once proved more powerful than judges or home

secretaries. Brown had signed our memorial of course; but, dreading an

unfavourable reply, had forwarded through other channels a short but

strong remonstrance directly to the Queen. He spoke touchingly of his

own distressed state of mind at having so young in life been compelled

in defence of his friend to take the life of a fellow-creature, and

prayed her Majesty "to restore, as she only could, his peace of mind,

by giving him a life in exchange for that which he had taken away." A

letter accompanied a reprieve by return of post, addressed to John

Brown, which he preserves with a care almost superstitious; it

contains a few short lines, dictated by a royal spirit and a woman's

heart, and signed "VICTORIA." Victoria! mercy and humanity, the

victory was indeed yours!

Of John Brown I have little to add. Like others with whom I was at one

time so long and intimately allied, I have seen nothing of him now for

years. The Dean was relieved as if from an incubus when he left

college, though I believe there was a cessation of all open hostility

after his return from Chesterton's. At least the only authenticated

mention of any allusion to old grievances on my friend's part is, that

when he paid Mr Hodgett the usual fees which fall to the Dean's share,

upon taking his B.A., he asked him "whether he allowed discount for

ready money?"

HAWTHORNE.

NELSON'S DESPATCHES AND LETTERS.[15]

The common idea of a sailor--whether with a commodore's broad pendant,

a lieutenant's wooden leg, or a foremast-man's pigtail--was, at one

time, a wild, thoughtless, rollicking man, with very broad shoulders

and a very red face, who talked incessantly about shivering his

timbers, and thought no more of eating a score or two of Frenchmen

than if they had been sprats. Such was the effect of the veracious

chronicles of our countryman Tobias, and the lifelike descriptions of

old Trunnion, and Tom Bowling, and the rest. The jack-tar, as

represented by him--with the addition, perhaps, of a few softening

features, but still the man of blood and 'ounds, breathing fire and

smoke, and with a constant inclination to luff helms and steer a point

or two to windward--has retained possession of the stage to the

present time; and Mr T. P. Cooke still shuffles, and rolls, and

dances, and fights--the beau-ideal and impersonation of the instrument

with which Britannia rules the waves. And that the canvass waves of

the Surrey are admirably ruled by such instruments, we have no

intention of disputing; nor would it be possible to place visibly

before the public the peculiar qualifications that constitute a

first-rate sailor, any more than those which form a first-rate lawyer.

The freaks of a young templar have as much to do with the triumphs of

Lord Eldon, as the dash and vivacity of any fictitious middy have to

do with the First of June. Sailors are made of sterner stuff; and of

all classes of men, have their highest faculties called earliest into

use, and kept most constantly in exercise. Let no man, therefore,

think of the navy as a last resource for the stupidest of his sons. He

will chew salt-junk, and walk with an easy negligence acquired from a

course of practice in the Bay of Biscay; and in due time arrive at his

double epaulettes, and be a blockhead to the end of the chapter. But

all this stupidity, we humbly conceive, might have found as fitting an

arena in Westminster Hall, or even in Westminster Abbey--with

reverence be it spoken--as on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war; for we

maintain it is of less consequence for a man to be a great pleader or

an eloquent divine, (where the utmost extent of evil resulting from

the absence of eloquence and acuteness is a law-suit lost or a

congregation lulled to sleep,) than that he should be active,

energetic, skilful, in one of the "leviathans afloat on the brine."

Science, zeal, courage, and self-reliance, are very pretty qualities

to find in the fool of the family--and without these, no man can ever

be a sailor. But what opportunity is there in the navy for the display

of the wonderful abilities of the fool of the family's antipode, the

genius? Nothing will do for the surpassing brightness of some Highland

star but law or politics; so Donald has Latin and Greek shovelled into

him out of the dignified hat of some prebendary or bishop, goes to

Oxford, talks on all manner of subjects as if his tongue had

discovered the perpetual motion, goes to the bar, where the said

motion is the only one he is called upon to make, forces himself into

high society, wriggles his way into Parliament--the true Trophonius's

cave of aspiring orators--and becomes a silent Demosthenes, as he has

long been a lawless Coke; an ends at last in a paroxysm of wonder that

his creditors are hard-hearted and his country ungrateful, so that,

instead of being promoted to a seat at the Admiralty, he is removed to

one in the Fleet--which brings him very nearly to the same position he

would have been placed in, if a true estimate had been formed of his

powers at first. Oh fathers! if Tom is a donkey, keep him at home or

make him an attorney--it is amazing how a few years in "the office"

will brighten him--but don't trust the lives of men, and the honour of

the flag, to any but the best and wisest of your sons. Such a school

for moral training has never been devised as one of the floating

colleges that carry guns. The youngest midshipman acquires habits of

command, the oldest captain practises the ennobling virtue of

obedience; and these, we take it, form the alpha and omega of man's

useful existence. Power gives self-respect, responsibility gives

caution, and subjection gives humility. With all these united, as they

are in every rank in the service, the character has little room left

for improvement; tenderness and generosity, in addition, make a man a

Collingwood or Pellew--genius and heroism make him a Nelson.

But not through flowery paths do genius and heroism tread on their

path to fame. What a length of weary way, with what antres vast and

deserts idle, and pathless wildernesses bestrown, lay between the

Raisonable of 1770 and the Victory of 1805! and yet through them all,

the traveller's eye was unalterably fixed on the great light that his

soul saw filling the whole sky with its radiance, and which he knew

the whole time was reflected from the Baltic, and the Nile, and

Trafalgar. The letters of Nelson just given to the public by the

industry of Sir Harris Nicolas, will hereafter be the manual of the

sailor, as the sister service has found a guide in the _Despatches of

the Duke of Wellington_. All that was to be expected from the

well-known talent of the editor, united to an enthusiasm for his hero,

which has carried him triumphantly through the extraordinary labour of

investigating and ascertaining every fact in the slightest degree

bearing upon his subject, is to be found in this volume, in which,

from the beginning to the end, by a continued series of letters,

Nelson is made his own historian; and we sincerely believe, divesting

ourselves as far as possible of all prejudice and partiality, that no

character ever came purer from the ordeal of unreserved

communication--where not a thought is concealed or an expression

studied--than the true friend, the good son, the affectionate brother,

Horatio Nelson. The correspondence in this volume only extends from

1777 to 1794, and no blot has yet occurred to mar the brightness of a

character where there is so much to like, that the reader finds it

difficult to dwell on the heroic parts of it which he is only called

upon to admire. When the volume ends, he is only thirty-six years old,

and is captain of the Agamemnon; but his path is clearly traced

out--his name is in men's mouths and his character established. And,

looking over the whole correspondence, nothing, perhaps, is so

striking as the early development of his peculiar qualities, and the

firm unswerving line he struck into from the beginning and continued

in to the last. A self-reliance, amounting in weaker and less

equally-balanced natures to doggedness and conceit--a clear perception

of the circumstances of a case almost resembling intuition--a

patriotism verging on the romantic, and a sense of duty never for a

moment yielding to the "whips and scorns that patient merit of the

unworthy takes," are displayed in every incident of his life, from the

time that he left the quiet parsonage-house at Burnham Thorpe, till he

finished his glorious career.

At twelve years of age, he joined his uncle in the Raisonable

sixty-four, and served in her as midshipman for five months; and few

people would have been able to discover the future hero in the feeble

boy he must have been at that time. Still less, perhaps, would they

have expected the future Bronte, a few months later, in the person of

a little fellow, no longer a midshipman in the Royal Navy, but a

working "youngster" on board a West India ship, as he informs us in

his "Sketch of my Life," belonging to the house of Hibbert, Purrier,

and Horton, from which he returned to the Triumph at Chatham, a good

practical seaman, but with a horror of the Royal Navy, and a firm

belief in a saying then constant with the seamen, "Aft the most

honour, forward the better man." The next situation we find him in,

will probably shock the delicate feelings of tender mammas, who expect

their sons to be admirals without any apprenticeship; for he is rated

on the books of the Triumph as "_captain's servant_" for one year, two

months, and two days. We may in some measure relieve their minds, by

assuring them, that he did not wear livery, and was never called upon

to brush the captain's coat. But the horrid man submitted even to

lower degradation, in order to get experience in his profession, which

our Reginald Augustus could never have thought of; for he tells us,

that "when the expedition towards the North Pole was fitted out,

although no boys were allowed to go in the ships--as of no use--yet

nothing could prevent my using every interest to go with Captain

Lutwidge in the Carcass, and as I fancied I was to fill a man's place.

I begged I might be his cockswain; which, finding my ardent desire for

going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with."

And Cockswain Nelson "exerted himself, (when the boats were fitted out

to quit the two ships blocked up in the ice,) to have the command of a

four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given him, with twelve men;

and he prided himself in fancying he could navigate her better than

any other boat in the ship."

And we will back the cockswain to any amount, though he was then only

fifteen, and probably did not weigh more than five stone.

But the vulgarity of the fellow will be the death of us, and our Laura

Matilda will never listen without disgust to the "Death of Nelson"

again; for he tells us, that on the return of the Polar expedition, he

was placed in the Racehorse of twenty guns, with Captain Farmer, and

watched in the foretop!!! And it is probable, during all these

mutations, that he very seldom tasted venison, and drank very little

champagne. But even in the absence of those usual luxuries of the

cockpit, he made himself a thorough seaman; and when serving in the

Worcester sixty-four, with Captain Mark Robinson, he says, with

characteristic, because fully justified pride, "although my age might

have been a sufficient cause for not entrusting me with the charge of

a watch, yet Captain Robinson used to says, he felt as easy when I was

upon deck as any officer in the ship."

And this brings us to 1777, the date of his commission, and the

commencement of his correspondence. After the simple statement of his

course of life, we shall hardly be called upon to observe, that Nelson

was no great scholar, as we perceive that his school education was

finished when he was twelve years old. And we owe hearty thanks to Sir

Harris Nicolas for having restored the letters to their original

language, uncicerorian as it may be; for he informs us, that some of

those which had been formerly published in the different biographies

of the hero, were so improved and beautified that it was difficult to

recognise them. By proper clipping and pruning, altering some

sentences and exchanging others, an ingenious editor might

transmogriphy these simple epistles into the philippics of Junius; and

therefore we derive complete satisfaction from the conviction, that,

in this compilation, every sentence is exactly as it was written. With

one other observation, (which we make for the sake of the Laura

Matildas who are horrified at the "cockswain,") we shall proceed to

give such extracts from the letters as we consider the most

characteristic; and "that 'ere observation," as was said by Mr Liston,

"is this here," that Nelson was of what is usually called a very good

family--being nearly connected with the Walpoles, Earls of Orford, and

the Turners of Warham, in Norfolk. But for further information on this

point, we refer them to an abstract of the pedigree prefixed to the

letters. In the year 1777, and several following years, Nelson's

principal correspondents were his brother, the Rev. William Nelson,

who succeeded as second Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Hilborough,

and was created Earl Nelson--Captain William Locker, then in command

of the Lowestoffe, of whom very interesting memoirs have been

published by his son Edward Hawke Locker, Esq., late a commissioner of

Greenwich Hospital--the Rev. Edmund Nelson (his father)--besides the

secretary to the Admiralty, and the official personages to whom his

despatches were addressed.

To show the affectionate nature of the man, we shall quote his first

letter to Captain Locker, who was one of his dearest friends. The

address of the letter is wanting, but it would appear to have been

written during Captain Locker's temporary absence from his ship, in

consequence of ill health:--

"Lowestoffe, at Sea,

_August 12, 1777_.

"My most worthy Friend--I am exceedingly obliged to you for the

good opinion you entertain of me, and will do my utmost that you

may have no occasion to change it. I hope God Almighty will be

pleased to spare your life for your own sake and that of your

family; but should any thing happen to you (which I sincerely

pray God may not) you may be assured that nothing shall be

wanting on my part for the taking care of your effects, and

delivering safe to Mrs Locker such of them as may be thought

proper not to be disposed of. You mentioned the word consolation

in your letter--I shall have a very great one, when I think I

have served faithfully the best of friends, and the most amiable

of women. All the services I can render to your family, you may

be assured shall be done; and shall never end but with my life;

and may God Almighty, of his great goodness, keep, bless, and

preserve you and your family, is the most fervent prayer of your

faithful servant,

"Horatio Nelson."

In 1781 he was appointed commander of the Albemarle, of twenty-eight

guns, and in the following year had a narrow escape from a strong

French force in Boston Bay. The sailing qualities of the Albemarle

beat the line-of-battle ships, and he immediately brought to for a

frigate that formed part of the chasing squadron, but his courtesy was

declined, and the frigate bore away. He dwells, in several of his

letters, on his good fortune in getting off; but, in the following one

to his father, he omits all mention of his challenge to the pursuer:--

"Albemarle, Isle of Bic,

River St Lawrence

_October 19, 1782_.

"My dear Father--I wrote to Mr Suckling when I was at

Newfoundland, but I have not had an opportunity of writing to you

till this time. I expected to have sailed for England on the

first of November, but our destination is now altered, for we

sail with a fleet for New York to-morrow; and from there I think

it very likely we shall go to the _grand theatre_ of actions--the

West Indies; but, in our line of life, we are sure of no one

thing. When I reach New York you shall hear what becomes of me;

but, while I have health, it is indifferent to me (were it not

for the pleasure of seeing you and my brothers and sisters) where

I go. Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly

enjoyed till I saw _fair_ Canada. The change it has wrought I am

convinced is truly wonderful. I most sincerely wish, my dear

father, I could compliment you the same way; but I hope Bath has

done you a great deal of good this summer. I have not had much

success in the prize way, but it is all in good time, and I do

not know I ought to complain; for, though I took several, but had

not the good fortune to get one safe into port, yet, on the other

side, I escaped from five French men-of-war in a wonderful

manner.... Farewell, my dearest father, and assure yourself I

always am, and ever shall be, your dutiful son,

"Horatio Nelson."

In the following month he writes to his friend Locker--"I am a

candidate with Lord Hood for a line-of-battle ship; he has honoured me

highly by a letter, for wishing to go off this station to a station of

service, and has promised me his friendship. Prince William is with

him." And Sir Harris Nicolas adds in a note--"H. R. H. Prince William

Henry, third son of King George III, afterwards Duke of Clarence,

Admiral of the Fleet, (Lord High Admiral?) and King William IV." The

Prince honoured Nelson with his warmest friendship, and many letters

in this collection were addressed to his Royal Highness.

The following description of Nelson by the prince is extremely

interesting:--

"I was then a midshipman on board the Barfleur, lying in the

Narrows off Staten Island, and had the watch on deck, when

Captain Nelson of the Albemarle came in his barge alongside, who

appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever beheld; and his

dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full laced uniform;

his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail of an

extraordinary length, the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat

added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an

appearance which particularly attracted my notice, for I had

never seen any thing like it before, nor could I imagine who he

was or what he came about. My doubts were, however, removed when

Lord Hood introduced me to him. There was something irresistibly

pleasing in his address and conversation, and an enthusiasm, when

speaking on professional subjects, that showed he was no common

being. Nelson, after this, went with us to the West Indies, and

served under Lord Hood's flag during his indefatigable cruize off

Cape Francois. Throughout the whole of the American war the

height of Nelson's ambition was to command a line-of-battle ship;

as for prize-money, it never entered his thoughts; he had always

in view the character of his maternal uncle. I found him warmly

attached to my father, and singularly humane; he had the honour

of the king's service and the independence of the British navy

particularly at heart; and his mind glowed with this idea as much

when he was simply captain of the Albemarle, and had obtained

none of the honours of his country, as when he was afterwards

decorated with so much well-earned distinction."

Nelson's opinion of the prince, as a seaman, was scarcely less high;

and it says not a little, in favour of both parties, that their

friendship appears to have been founded on mutual respect. In July,

1783, the Albemarle was paid off; and Nelson having finished the war,

as he expresses it in a letter to his friend Mr Ross, without a

fortune, but without a speck on his character, remained nine months on

half-pay. But as he determined to make use of his spare time in

mastering the French--a feat which he afterwards accomplished without

a grammar--he resolved to go to France with his friend Captain James

Macnamara for that purpose. There are some very Nelsonian sentences in

his correspondence while in the land of the Mounseers. His contempt

for epaulettes--which were not introduced into the English navy till

1795--is very amusing; and he little thought, that in one of the

dandified officers he despised so much, he should find one of his most

distinguished comrades, the gallant Sir Alexander Ball:--

To William Locker, Esq.

"St Omer, _Nov. 2, 1783_.

"My dear sir--Our travels, since we left you, have been extended

to a much greater length then I apprehended; but I must do

Captain Mac the justice to say it was all my doings, and in a

great measure against his advice; but experience bought is the

best; and all mine I have paid pretty dearly for. We dined at

Canterbury the day we parted from you, and called at Captain

Sandys' house, but he was just gone out to dinner in the country,

therefore we did not see him. We slept at Dover, and next morning

at seven o'clock put to sea with a fine north-west wind, and at

half-past ten we were safe at breakfast in Monsieur Grandsire's

house at Calais. His mother kept it when Hogarth wrote his _Gate

of Calais_. Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_ is the best

description I can give of our tour. Mac advised me to go first to

St Omer, as he had experienced the difficulty of attempting to

fix in any place where there are no English; after dinner we set

off, intended for Montreuil, sixty miles from Calais; they told

us we travelled _en poste_, but I am sure we did not get on more

than four miles an hour. I was highly diverted with looking what

a curious figure the postilions in their jack-boots, and their

rats of horses, made together. Their chaises have no springs, and

the roads generally paved like London streets; therefore you will

naturally suppose we were pretty well shook together by the time

we had travelled two posts and a half, which is fifteen miles, to

Marquise. Here we were shown into an inn--they called it, I

should have called it a pig-stye: we were shown into a room with

two straw beds, and with great difficulty they mustered up clean

sheets, and gave us two pigeons for supper, upon a dirty cloth,

and wooden-handled knives. _Oh, what a transition from happy

England!_

"But we laughed at the repast, and went to bed with the

determination that nothing should ruffle our tempers. Having

slept very well, we set off at daylight for Boulogne, where we

breakfasted. This place was full of English; I suppose because

wine is so very cheap. We went on after breakfast for Montreuil,

and passed through the finest corn country that my eyes ever

beheld, diversified with fine woods, sometimes for miles

together, through noble forests. The roads mostly were planted

with trees, which made as fine an avenue as to any gentleman's

country-seat. Montreuil is thirty miles from Boulogne, situated

upon a small hill, in the middle of a fine plain, which reached

as far as the eye could carry you, except towards the sea, which

is about twelve miles from it. We put up at the same house, and

with the same jolly landlord that recommended Le Fleur to Sterne.

Here we wished much to be fixed; but neither good lodgings or

masters could be had here--for there are no middling class of

people. Sixty noblemen's families lived in the town, who owned

the vast plain round it, and the rest very poor indeed. This is

the finest country for game that ever was; partridges

twopence-halfpenny a couple, pheasants and woodcocks in

proportion; and, in short, every species of poultry. We dined,

supped, lay, and breakfasted next day, Saturday; then we

proceeded on our tour, leaving Montreuil, you will suppose, with

great regret.

"We reached Abbeville at eight o'clock; but, unluckily for us,

two Englishmen, one of whom called himself Lord Kingsland--I can

hardly suppose it to be him--and a Mr Bullock, decamped at three

o'clock that afternoon in debt to every shopkeeper in the place.

These gentlemen kept elegant houses, horses, &c. We found the

town in an uproar; and as no masters could be had at this place

that could speak a word of English, and that all masters that

could speak English grammatically attend at the places that are

frequented by the English, which is, St Omer, Lisle, Dunkirk, and

Boulogne, to the northward of Paris, and as I had no intention of

travelling to the south of France till the spring, at any rate, I

determined, with Mac's advice, to steer for St Omer, where we

arrived last Tuesday; and I own I was surprised to find, that

instead of a dirty, nasty town, which I had always heard it

represented, to find a large city, well paved, good streets, and

well lighted.

"We lodge in a pleasant French family, and have our dinners sent

from a _traiteur's_. There are two very agreeable young ladies,

daughters, who _honour_ us with their company pretty often. One

always makes our breakfast, and the other our tea, and play a

game at cards in the evening. Therefore I must learn French, if

'tis only for the pleasure of talking to them; for they do not

speak a word of English. Here are a great number of English in

this place; but we visit only two families; for, if I did, I

should never speak French. Two noble captains are here--Ball and

Shepard. You do not know, I believe, either of them. They wear

fine epaulettes, for which I think them great coxcombs. They have

not visited me; and I shall not, be assured, court their

acquaintance. You must be heartily tired of this long epistle, if

you can read it; but I have the worst pen in the world, and I

can't mend it. God bless you; and, be assured, I am your sincere

friend, and affectionate humble servant,

"Horatio Nelson."

In another letter from St Omer, he returns to the charge against Dandy

Ball and Shepard:--

"Here are two navy captains, Ball and Shepard, at this place; but

we do not visit. They are very fine gentlemen, with epaulettes.

You may suppose, I hold them a little _cheap_ for putting on any

part of a Frenchman's uniform."

And in a short time after, he seems to have made up his mind on two

very important points--politics and the French people.

To his brother William.

"... As to your having enlisted under the banners of the

Walpoles, [Whigs,] you might as well have enlisted under those of

my grandmother. They are altogether the merest set of cyphers

that ever existed--in public affairs, I mean. Mr Pitt, depend

upon it, will stand against all opposition. An honest man must

always, in the end, get the better of a _villain_. But I have

done with politics. Let who will get in, I shall be left out."

"In about a week or fortnight, I think of returning to the

Continent till autumn, when I shall bring a horse, and stay the

winter at Burnham. I return to many charming women; but _no

charming woman_ will return with me. I want to be a proficient in

the language, which is my only reason for returning. I hate their

country and their manners."

In March of this year, (1784,) he was appointed to the Boreas frigate

of twenty-eight guns; and had the honour (not very highly valued) of

carrying out Lady Hughes, the wife of the admiral on the Leeward

Island station, and a number of other people, who did not add much to

the efficiency of a man-of-war. It was on this station that he had

first an opportunity of showing the determination and fearlessness of

his character in maintaining what he thought the right--though ill

supported, as was to be expected, by the authorities at home--against

local interests, which any other man would not have ventured to

oppose. We are not about to enter into the history of Nelson's conduct

in defence of the Navigation Act, further than as the correspondence

on the subject brings out some of his peculiarities; and the result

shows, as usual, the policy of firmness, and the certainty of success

to those who are determined to obtain it.

The Americans, after the recognition of their independence, were by no

means willing to surrender some of the advantages they had enjoyed

when colonists of Great Britain. Among these was an unrestricted trade

with the West Indies. In order to retain this advantage, they stuck at

nothing in the way of oaths and declarations; and, as the American

trade was of great consequence to the islanders, their false pretences

were in all cases supported by the merchants, and even the

custom-house authorities were persuaded to encourage the frauds. A

captain of the navy, twenty-six years of age, undertook to put an end

to these operations; and, in the course of a very short time, he found

himself in as hot water as any gentleman can require.

To William Locker, Esq.

"Boreas, Baseterre Road,

_January 15, 1785_.

"The longer I am upon this station the worse I like it. Our

commander has not that opinion of his own sense that he ought to

have. He is led by the advice of the islanders to admit the

Yankees to a trade--at least, to wink at it. He does not give

himself that weight that I think an English admiral ought to do.

I, for one, am determined not to suffer the Yankees to come where

my ship is; for I am sure, if once the Americans are admitted to

any kind of intercourse with these islands, the views of the

Loyalists in settling in Nova Scotia are entirely done away. They

will first become the carriers, and next have possession of our

islands, are we ever again embroiled in a French war. The

residents of these islands are Americans by connexion and by

interest, and are inimical to Great Britain. They are as great

rebels as ever were in America, had they the power to show it.

After what I have said, you will believe I am not very popular

with the people. They have never visited me, and I have not had a

foot in any house since I have been on the station, and all for

doing my duty by being _true to the interests of Great Britain_.

A petition from the President and Council has gone to the

Governor-general and admiral, to request the admission of

Americans. I have given my answer to the admiral upon the

subject--how he will like it I know not; but I am determined to

suppress the admission of foreigners all in my power. I have told

the Customs that I will complain if they admit any foreigner to

an entry. An American arrives--sprung a leak, a mast, and what

not--makes a protest--gets admittance--sells his cargo for ready

money--goes to Martinico--buys molasses--and so round and round.

But I hate them all. The Loyalist cannot do it, consequently must

sell a little dearer."

His narrative to the admiral on the same subject is as follows:--

"_January 11 or 12, 1785_.

"Sir--I yesterday received your order of the 29th of December,

wherein you direct me, in execution of your first order, dated

the 12th of November, (which is, in fact, strictly requiring us

to put the Act of Navigation, upon which the wealth and safety of

Great Britain so much depends, in force,) to observe the

following directions, viz, to cause foreigners to anchor by his

Majesty's ship under my command, except in cases of immediate and

urgent distress, until her arrival and situation, in all

respects, shall be reported to his Majesty's governor, or his

representative, at any of the islands where I may fall in with

such foreign ships or vessels; and that if the governor, or his

representative, should give leave for admitting such vessels,

strictly charging me not to hinder them or interfere in their

subsequent proceedings.

"I ever have been, as in duty bound, always ready to co-operate

with his Majesty's governors, or their representatives, in doing

whatever has been for the benefit of Great Britain. No governor

will, I am sure, do such an illegal act as to countenance the

admission of foreigners into the ports of their islands, nor

_dare_ any officer of his Majesty's Customs enter such

foreigners, without they are in such distress that necessity

obliges them to unlade their cargoes; and then only to sell such

a part of it as will pay the costs. In distress, no individual

shall exceed me in acts of generosity; and, in judging of their

distress, no person can know better than sea officers, of which I

shall inform the governors, &c., when they acquaint me for what

reason they have countenanced the admission of foreigners.

"I beg leave to hope, that I may be properly understood, when I

venture to say, that, at a time when Great Britain is using every

endeavour to suppress illicit trade at home, it is not wished

that the ships on this station should be singular, by being the

only spectators of the illegal trade, which I know is carried on

at these islands. The governors may be imposed on by false

declarations; we, who are on the spot, cannot. General Shirley

told me and Captain Collingwood how much he approved of the

methods that were carrying on for suppressing the illegal trade

with America; that it had ever been his wish, and that he had

used every means in his power, by proclamation and otherwise, to

hinder it; but they came to him with protests, and swore through

every thing, (even, as the sea-phrase is, through a nine-inch

plank;) therefore got admittance, as he could not examine the

vessels himself; and, further, by the Thynne packet, he had

received a letter from Lord Sydney, one of his Majesty's

principal secretaries of state, saying that Administration were

determined that American ships and vessels should not have any

intercourse with our West India islands; and that he had, upon an

address from the Assembly, petitioning that he would relax the

king's proclamation for the exclusion of Americans, transmitted

it to Lord Sydney to be laid before the king. The answer to

General Shirley was, that his Majesty firmly believed and hoped

that all his orders which were received by his governors would be

strictly obeyed.

"Whilst I have the honour to command an English man-of-war, I

never shall allow myself to be subservient to the will of any

governor, nor co-operate with him in doing _illegal acts_.

Presidents of council I feel myself superior to. They shall make

proper application to me for whatever they may want to come by

water.

"If I rightly understand your order of the 29th of December, it

is founded upon an opinion of the king's attorney-general, viz.

'That it is legal for governors or their representatives to admit

foreigners into the ports of their governments, if they think

fit.' How the king's attorney-general conceives he has a right to

give an illegal opinion, which I assert the above is, he must

answer for. I know the navigation laws. I am, Sir, &c.

"Horatio Nelson."

But the troubles of the unfortunate Horatio were not over; for just at

this time arose another vexed and vexatious question, as to whether a

senior officer on half-pay--though holding a commissionership of the

navy--could be empowered by the admiral on the station to hoist a

broad pendant; and after a spirited correspondence, the point was

decided, though apparently in a very shilly-shally shabby way, in

Nelson's favour--for it is accompanied with a reprimand--the Admiralty

informing him, that he ought to have submitted his doubts to the

commander-in-chief on the station, instead of having taken on himself

"to control the exercise of the functions of his appointment"--whatever

that may mean.

Too much activity, even in a good cause, is apt to excite the enmity

of the idle drones who have got on without any activity at all, and

for some years the zeal of Nelson got him into disfavour with his

superiors in the service. And yet his whole conduct was regulated by

the strictest sense of duty, and his letters--even those in which he

shows most independence--never give the slightest occasion to suspect

that his actions arose from self-will and disobedience. On this point

he is very explicit.

He writes to the admiral--"This, sir, I hope you will transmit to my

lords commissioners, that they nor any other of my superior officers

may have the smallest idea that I shall ever dispute the orders of my

superiors."

And to the Admiralty, on the same occasion--"I must beg their

lordships' indulgence to hear reasons for my conduct, that it may

never go abroad into the world I ever had an idea to dispute the

orders of my superior officer, neither admiral, commodore, or

captain."

The plot in the mean time thickens, and his anger increases against

the audacious swindling of the Yankees, aided by the islanders; and in

his own defence he goes, according to his custom, to the

fountain-head, and lays his complaint before the secretary of state.

"My name," he says, "most probably is unknown to your lordship," (Lord

Sydney,) "but my character as a man, I trust, will bear the strictest

investigation; therefore I take the liberty of sending enclosed a

letter, though written some few years ago, which I hope will impress

your lordship with a favourable opinion of me. I stand for myself, no

great connexion to support me if inclined to fall; therefore my good

name, as a man, an officer, and an Englishman, I must be very careful

of. My greatest pride is to discharge my duty faithfully; my greatest

ambition to receive approbation for my conduct."

The chicaneries of the law were brought to bear on the captain of the

Boreas, and by means of a writ for his arrest, (on the trumped-up plea

of detention and imprisonment of some fraudulent Americans--true

ancestors of the repudiators of the present day,) he was forced to

remain on board ship for several months, but was at last released from

durance by the tardy undertaking given by government to be answerable

for his defence.

The lukewarmness of his superiors, and the villanies of law, were not

enough to fill up his time, and, in the very midst of these agitating

matters, he adds a third: he met Mrs Nisbet, and fell in love. His

letters, however, are not entirely composed of sighs and lightning;

and it gives a high idea of the lady's sense to perceive the calm, yet

real, affection she inspired. We shall only quote one of his letters

to his lady-love, to show the style of them all, and also to show his

feelings towards Prince William Henry, (King William IV.,) who was at

this time under his command as captain of the Pegasus.

"Off Antigua, _December 12, 1786_.

"Our young prince is a gallant man; he is indeed volatile, but

always with great good-nature. There were two balls during his

stay, and some of the old ladies were mortified that H. R. H.

would not dance with them; but he says he is determined to enjoy

the privilege of all other men, that of asking any lady he

pleases.

"_Wednesday._--We arrived here this morning at daylight. His

Royal Highness dined with me, and, of course, the governor. I can

tell you a piece of news, which is, that the prince is fully

determined, and has made me promise him, that he shall be at our

wedding; and he says he will give you to me. His Royal Highness

has not yet been in a private house to visit, and is determined

never to do it except in this instance. You know I will ever

strive to bear such a character as may render it no discredit to

any man to take notice of me. There is no action in my whole life

but what is honourable; and I am the more happy at this time on

that account; for I would, if possible, or in my power, have no

man near the prince who can have the smallest impeachment as to

character; for as an individual, I love him, as a prince, I

honour and revere him. My telling you this history is as to

myself; my thoughts on all subjects are open to you. We shall

certainly go to Barbadoes from this island, and when I shall see

you is not possible for me to guess, so much for marrying a

sailor. We are often separated, but I trust our affections are

not by any means on that account diminished. Our country has the

first demand for our services; and private convenience or

happiness must ever give way to the public good. Give my love to

Josiah. Heaven bless and return you safe to your most

affectionate

"Horatio Nelson."

The attachment here professed for the prince seems to have been caused

not less by the loyalty of Nelson's nature than by the real good

qualities of the sailor king. It is probable he tried to form himself

(professionally) on the model of his young commodore, and a better

original it was impossible for him to study. A certain young

lieutenant, of the name of Schomberg, conceiving that he was

injuriously treated in an order of the day, issued by his Royal

Highness on board the Pegasus, applied to Nelson for a court-martial

to enquire into the charge alleged against him. Nelson granted the

court-martial, and placed the complainant in arrest till a sufficient

number could be collected for his trial, and expressed his opinion of

such frivolous applications in the following general order:--

"By Horatio Nelson, Esquire, Captain of his Majesty's ship Boreas.

"For the better maintaining discipline and good government in the

king's squadron under my command.

"I think it necessary to inform the officers, that if any one of

them shall presume to write to the commander of the squadron

(unless there shall be ships enough present to bring them to

immediate trial) for a court-martial to investigate their

conduct, on a frivolous pretence, thereby depriving his majesty

of their services by obliging the commander of the squadron to

confine them, that I shall and do consider such conduct as a

direct breach of the 14th and part of the 19th articles of war,

and shall order them to be tried for the same.

"Given under my hand, &c.

"Horatio Nelson."

This probably had the desired effect, and the business was afterwards

adjusted without having recourse to a court-martial, though not

without bringing upon Nelson a rap over the knuckles on his return to

England. In order to obtain the proper court, he had directed the

prince to take his ship to the Jamaica station on his way to Halifax

in Nova Scotia, and the following paragraph contains their lordships'

decision:--

"My lords are not satisfied with the reasons you have given for

altering the destination of the Pegasus, and for sending the

Rattler sloop to Jamaica; and that, for having taken upon you to

send the latter away from the station to which their lordships

had appointed her, you will be answerable for the consequence, if

the crown should be put to any needless expense upon that

account."

We must close this account of the frivolous court-martial with an

admirable letter from Nelson to the prince.

"Portsmouth _27th July, 1787_.

"If to be truly great is to be truly good, (as we are taught to

believe,) it never was stronger verified than in your Royal

Highness in the instance of Mr Schomberg. You have supported your

character, yet, at the same time, by an amiable condescension,

have saved an officer from appearing before a court-martial,

which ever must hurt him. Resentment, I know, your Royal highness

never had, or, I am sure, ever will bear any one. It is a passion

incompatible with the character of a man of honour. Schomberg was

too hasty, certainly, in writing his letter, but now you are

parted, pardon me, my prince, when I presume to recommend that

Schomberg may stand in your royal favour as if he had never

sailed with you; and that, at some future day, you will serve

him. There only wants this to place your character in the highest

point of view. None of us are without failings. Schomberg's was

being rather too hasty; but that, put in competition with his

being a good officer, will not, I am bold to say, be taken in the

scale against him."

There is one characteristic circumstance in this collection, namely,

the number of letters written by Nelson in recommendation of all who

have behaved well under his command. He was desirous of acting to

others as, he boasts in one of his letters with pride and exultation,

he had been treated by Lord Howe. "You ask, by what interest did I get

a ship? I answer, having served with credit, was my recommendation to

Lord Howe, first lord of the admiralty."

The following is an application on behalf of a certain boatswain

called Joseph King, which we quote on account of the extraordinary

politeness,--owing, perhaps, to his study at St Omer--with which

Nelson designates his _protege_.

To Philip Stephens, Esq., Admiralty.

"Boreas, _21st Sept. 1787_.

"On the 20th, Charles Green, late acting boatswain, was entered

as boatswain of his majesty's ship under my command, agreeable to

a warrant dated at the Navy Pay-office, the 13th instant. I am,

therefore, requested by Joseph King, to write to their lordships,

to request they will be pleased to appoint him to some other

ship, as he hopes he has done nothing deserving of being

superseded; and I beg leave to recommend him as a most excellent

_gentleman_.--I am, &c.

"Horatio Nelson."