shaken afterwards, if not changed; but at that time he spoke in strictest correspondence with his existing convictions. He said no more than he had often previously declared to his private friends: it was the point on which, after some amicable controversy, his lordship and Sir Alexander Ball had agreed to differ." Though the opinion itself may have lost the greatest part of its interest, and except for the historian is, as it were, superannuated; yet the grounds and causes of it, as far as they arose out of Lord Nel- | son's particular character, and may, perhaps tend to re-enliven our recollection of a hero so deeply and justly beloved, will forever possess an interest of their own. In an essay, too, which purports to be no more than a series of sketches and fragments, the reader, it is hoped, will readily excuse an occasional digression, and a more desultory style of narration than could be tolerated in a work of regular biography.

Lord Nelson was an admiral every inch of him. He looked at every thing, not merely in its possible relations to the naval service in general, but in its immediate bearings on his squadron; to his officers, his men, to the particular ships themselves, his affections were as strong and ardent as those of a lover. Hence, though his temper was constitutionally irritable and uneven, yet never was a commander so enthusiastically loved by men of all ranks, from the Captain of the fleet to the youngest ship-boy. Hence too the unexampled harmony which reigned in his fleet, year after year, under circumstances that might well have undermined the patience of the best-balanced dispositions, much more of men with the impetuous character of British sailors. Year after year, the sarne dull duties of a wearisome blockade, of doubtful policy-little if any opportunity of making prizes; and the few prizes, which accident might throw in the way, of little or no value-and when at last the occasion presented itself which would have compensated for all, then a disappointment as sudden and unexpected as it was unjust and cruel, and the cup dashed from their lips!-Add to these trials the sense of enterprises checked by feebleness and timidity elsewhere, not omitting the tiresomeness of the Mediterranean sea, sky, and climate; and the unjarring and cheerful spirit of affectionate brotherhood, which linked together the hearts of that whole squadron, will appear not less wonderful to us than admirable and affecting. When the resolution was taken of commencing hostilities against Spain, before any intelligence was sent to Lord Nelson, another admiral, with two or three ships of the line, was sent into the Mediterranean, and stationed before Cadiz, for the express purpose of intercepting the Spanish prizes. | The admiral despatched on this lucrative service gave no information to Lord Nelson of his arrival in the same sea, and five weeks elapsed before his lordship became acquainted with the circumstances. The prizes thus taken were immense. A month or two sufficed to enrich the commander and officers of this small and highly-favored squadron: while to Nelson and his fleet the sense of having done their duty, and the consciousness of the glorious services which they

had performed, were considered, it must be presumed. as an abundant remuneration for all their toes and long suffering! It was indeed an unexampled can cumstance, that a small squadron should be sect to the station which had been long occupied by a large fleet, commanded by the darling of the navy, and the glory of the British empire, to the station where the fleet had for years been wearing away in the mont barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in which the navy can be employed! and that this mor squadron should be sent independent of, and withou any communication with the commander of the feemer fleet, for the express and solitary purpose of stes ping between it and the Spanish prizes, and as se as this short and pleasant service was performed, of bringing home the unshared booty with all possibie caution and despatch. The substantial advantages of naval service were perhaps deemed of too grow a nature for men already rewarded with the grateful affections of their own countrymen, and the scaretion of the whole world! They were to be awarded. therefore, on a principle of compensation to a com mander less rich in fame, and whose laurels, though not scanty, were not yet sufficiently luxuriant to hide the golden crown, which is the appropriate ornament of victory in the bloodless war of commercial cas ture! Of all the wounds which were ever inflicted on Nelson's feelings (and there were not a few, the was the deepest! this rankled most! "I had thought” (said the gallant man, in a letter written on the first feelings of the affront)—“I fancied—but nay, it most have been a dream, an idle dream-yet, I confess t. I did fancy, that I had done my country service-and thus they use me. It was not enough to have robbed me once before of my West-India harvest-now ther have taken away the Spanish-and under what cir cumstances, and with what pointed aggravations Yet, if I know my own thoughts, it is not for myself, or on my own account chiefly, that I feel the sting and the disappointment; no! it is for my brave of cers! for my noble-minded friends and comradessuch a gallant set of fellows! such a band of bro thers! My heart swells at the thought of them !”

This strong attachment of the heroic admiral to ha fleet, faithfully repaid by an equal attachment on ther part to their admiral, had no little influence in at tuning their hearts to each other; and when he died it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another: for all were made acquaintances by the rights of a common anguish. In the fleet itself, many a private quarrel was forgotten, no more to be remembered. many, who had been alienated, became once more good friends; yea, many a one was reconciled to h very enemy, and loved, and (as it were) thanked him. for the bitterness of his grief, as if it had been an ac of consolation to himself in an intercourse of private sympathy. The tidings arrived at Naples on the day that I returned to that city from Calabria: and never can I forget the sorrow and consternation that lay on every countenance. Even to this day there are timm when I seem to see, as in a vision, separate groups and individual faces of the picture. Numbers stopped and shook hands with me, because they had seen the

s on my cheek, and conjectured, that I was an lishman; and several, as they held my hand, st, themselves, into tears. And though it may ake a smile, yet it pleased and affected me, as a of of the goodness of the human heart struggling -xercise its kindness in spite of prejudices the most tinate, and eager to carry on its love and honor the life beyond life, that it was whispered about ples, that Lord Nelson had become a good Cathobefore his death. The absurdity of the fiction is ort of measurement of the fond and affectionate eem which had ripened the pious wish of some d individual through all the gradations of possity and probability into a confident assertion beved and affirmed by hundreds. The feelings of eat Britain on this awful event, have been deibed well and worthily by a living poet, who has ppily blended the passion and wild transitions of ic song with the swell and solemnity of epic narion.

-Thou art fall'n! fall'n, in the lap

Of victory. To thy country thou cam'st back,
Thou conqueror, to triumphal Albion cam'st
A corse! I saw before thy hearse pass on
The comrades of thy perils and renown.
The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts
Fell. I beheld the pomp thick gather'd round
The trophy'd car that bore thy graced remains
Thro' arm'd ranks, and a nation gazing on.
Bright glow'd the sun, and not a cloud distain'd
Heaven's arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath.
A holy and unutterable pang

Thrill'd on the soul. Awe and mute anguish fell
On all-Yet high the public bosom throbb'd
With triumph. And if one, 'mid that vast pomp,
If but the voice of one had shouted forth
The name of Nelson: Thou hadst passed along,
Thou in thy hearse to burial past, as oft
Before the van of battle, proudly rode
Thy prow, down Britain's line, shout after shout
Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand
Had lanc'd the bolt of victory.

SOTHEBY (Saul, p. 80.)

I introduced this digression with an apology, yet ave extended so much further than I had designed, hat I must once more request my reader to excuse ne. It was to be expected (I have said) that Lord Velson would appreciate the isle of Malta from its elations to the British fleet on the Mediterranean tation. It was the fashion of the day to style Egypt he key of India, and Malta the key of Egypt. Nelon saw the hollowness of this metaphor: or if he only doubted its applicability in the former instance, be was sure that it was false in the latter. Egypt might or might not be the key of India; but Malta was certainly not the key of Egypt. It was not intended to keep constantly two distinct fleets in that sea; and the largest naval force at Malta would not supersede the necessity of a squadron off Toulon. Malta does not lie in the direct course from Toulon to Alexandria: and from the nature of the winds (taking one time with another) the comparative length of the voyage to the latter port will be found far less than a view of the map would suggest, and in truth of little practical importance. If it were the object of the French fleet to avoid Malta in its passage to Egypt, the port-admiral at Vallette would

in all probability receive his first intelligence of its course from Minorca or the squadron off Toulon, instead of communicating it, In what regards the refitting and provisioning of the fleet, either on ordinary or extraordinary occasions, Malta was as inconvenient as Minorca was advantageous, not only from its distance (which yet was sufficient to render it almost useless in cases of the most pressing necessity as after a severe action or injuries of tempest) but likewise from the extreme difficulty, if not impracti cability, of leaving the harbor of Vallette with a N. W. wind, which often lasted for weeks together. In all these points his lordship's observations were perfectly just: and it must be conceded by all persons acquainted with the situation and circumstances of Malta, that its importance, as a British possession, if not exaggerated on the whole, was unduly magnified in several important particulars. Thus Lord Minto, in a speech delivered at a county meeting and afterwards published, affirms, that supposing (what no one could consider as unlikely to take place) that the court of Naples should be compelled to act under the influence of France, and that the Barbary powers were unfriendly to us either in consequence of French intrigues or from their own caprice and insolence, there would not be a single port, harbor, bay, creek, or roadstead in the whole Mediterranean, from which our men-of-war could obtain a single ox or an hogshead of fresh water: unless Great Britain retained possession of Malta. The noble speaker seems not to have been aware, that under the circumstances supposed by him, Odessa too being closed against us by a Russian war, the island of Malta itself would be no better than a vast almshouse of 75,000 persons, exclusive of the British soldiery, all of whom must be regularly supplied with corn and salt meat from Great Britain or Ireland. The population of Malta and Goza exceeds 100,000: while the food of all kinds produced on the two islands would barely suffice for one-fourth of that number. The deficit is procured by the growth and spinning

of cotton, for which corn could not be substituted

from the nature of the soil, or were it attempted, which the cotton raised on the same fields and spun would produce but a small proportion of the quantity into thread, enables the Maltese to purchase, not to mention that the substitution of grain for cotton would leave half of the inhabitants without employ ment. As to live stock, it is quite out of the ques tion, if we except the pigs and goats, which perform the office of scavengers in the streets of Vallette and the towns on the other side of the Porto Grande

*The Maltese cotton is naturally of a deep buff, or dusky orange color, and by the laws of the island, must be spun before it can be exported. I have heard it asserted, by persons apparently well informed on the subject, that the raw material would fetch as high a price as the thread, weight for weight: the thread from its coarseness being applicable to natives themselves into a coarse nankin, which never loses its few purposes. It is manufactured likewise for the use of the color by washing, and is durable beyond any clothing I have ever known or heard of. The cotton seed is used as a food

for the cattle that are not immediately wanted for the marinto a kind of suet, congealing quickly, of an adhesive subket. it is very nutritious, but changes the fat of the anima stance.