Part 32

What shall we say of this English nation? Its customs and manners go from bad to worse. The King of England has escaped from London, apparently by kind permission of the Prince of Orange; the Queen will arrive at St. Germain in a day or two. It is quite certain that war will be declared against us soon, if indeed we are not the first to declare it. We are sending the Abbé Testu to St. Germain to help in establishing there the King and Queen of England and the Prince of Wales. Our King of France has behaved quite divinely to these Majesties of England; for to comfort and sustain, as he has done, a betrayed and abandoned king, is to act in the image of the Almighty.

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It is good news that the King of England has left this morning for Ireland, where they are anxiously awaiting him. He will be better there than here. He is travelling through Brittany like lightning, and at Brest he will find Marshall d'Estrée with transport and frigates ready. He carries large treasure, and the King has given him arms for ten thousand men; as his Majesty of England was saying good-bye, he said, laughing, that he had forgotten arms for himself, and our King gave him his own. Our heroes of romance have done nothing more gallant. What will not this brave and unfortunate King accomplish with these ever victorious weapons? He goes forth with the helmet and cuirass of Renaud, Amadis, and our most illustrious paladins, supported by unexampled generosity and magnanimity.

Old Age

So you have been struck by Madame de la Fayette's words, inspired by so much friendliness. I never let myself forget the fact that I am growing old; but I must confess that I was simply astonished at what she said, because I do not yet feel any infirmity to keep me in mind of my advancing years. I think of them, however, and find that life offers us hard conditions: here have I been led, in spite of myself, to the fatal period at which one must die--old age. I see it; old age has stolen upon me; and my only desire is to go no further. I do not want to travel along that road of infirmities, pains, the loss of memory, the disfigurements to which I look forward as an outrage; yet I hear a voice saying in my ear--"You must pass down that road, whether you like it or not, or else you must die"; and this second alternative is as repugnant to nature as the first. This is the inevitable lot of whoever advances too far along the course of life. Yet, a return to God's will, and submission to that universal law which has condemned us all to death, is enough to seat reason again on her throne, and to give us patience. Do you too have patience, my darling; don't let your love, too tender, cause you tears which your reason must condemn.

Your brother has come under the Empire of Ninon de Lenclos; I fear it will bring evil; she ruined his father. We must recommend him to God. Christian women, or at least who wish to be so, cannot see disorder like his without sorrow.

But what a dangerous person this Ninon is! She finds that your brother has the simplicity of a dove, and is like his mother; it is Madame de Grignan who has all the salt of the family, and is not so simple as to be ruled. Someone, meaning to take your part, tried to correct her notion of you, but Ninon contradicted him and said she knew you better. What a corrupt creature! Because you are beautiful and spirited she must needs add to you another quality without which, on her principles, you cannot be perfect. I have been deeply troubled by the harm she is doing to my son. But do not speak of the matter to him; Madame de la Fayette and I are doing our best to extricate him from his perilous attachment.

We have been reading for our amusement those little Provincial Letters. Heavens, what charm they have! How eagerly my son reads them! I always think of my daughter, and how worthy of her is the incomparable justice of their reasoning; but your brother says that you complain that the writer is always saying the same thing. Well, well; all the better! Is it possible that there should be a more perfect style, or a finer, more delicate or more natural raillery? Could anything be more worthy of comparison with Plato's "Dialogues"? But after the first ten letters, what earnestness, solidity, force and eloquence! What love for God and for truth, what exquisite skill in maintaining it and making it understood, characterise these eight last letters with their so different tone! I understand that you have read them only hurriedly, enjoying the more amusing passages; but that is not how one reads them at leisure.

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ROBERT SOUTHEY

The Life of Nelson

Robert Southey, man of letters and poet-laureate, was born at Bristol on August 12, 1774, and received at various schools a desultory education, which he completed by an idle year at Oxford. Here he became acquainted with Coleridge; and Southey, who had practised verse from early boyhood, and acquired a strong taste for the drama, being also an ardent republican and romanticist, was easily enlisted by the elder poet in his scheme for a model republic, or "Pantisocracy," in the wilds of America. They married two sisters, the Misses Fricker, and a third sister married Robert Lovel, also a poet. The experiment of pantisocracy was fortunately never carried out, and Southey's career for the next eight years was exceedingly fragmentary; but in 1803 there was a reunion of the three sisters at Keswick, though one of the husbands, Lovel, was dead. Here Southey entered steadily and industriously on the life of an author for livelihood; it was by no means unremunerative. Southey's output of work, both prose and verse, was very voluminous, and its quality could not but suffer. He was appointed poet-laureate in 1813; and received a government pension of £160 a year from 1807, which was increased by £300 a year in 1835. He died on March 21, 1843. In a prefatory note to that peerless model of short biographies, the "Life of Nelson," which appeared in 1813, and is considered his most important work, Southey describes it as "clear and concise enough to become a manual for the young sailor, which he may carry about with him till he has treasured up the example in his memory and in his heart."

I.--A Captain at Twenty

Horatio, son of Edmund and Catherine Nelson, was born on September 29, 1758, in the parsonage of Burnham Thorpe, a Norfolk village, where his father was rector. His mother's maiden name was Suckling; her grandmother was an elder sister of Sir Robert Walpole, and this child was named after his godfather, the first Lord Walpole. Mrs. Nelson died in 1767, leaving eight children, and her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, R.N., visited the widower, and promised to take care of one of the boys.

Three years later, when Horatio was twelve years old, he read in the newspaper that his uncle was appointed to the Raisonnable, and urged his father to let him go to sea with his Uncle Maurice.

The boy was never strong, but he had already given proofs of a resolute heart and a noble mind. Captain Suckling took an interest in him, and sent him on a first voyage in a merchant ship to the West Indies, and then, as coxswain, with the Arctic expedition of 1773, when Horatio showed his courage by attacking a Polar bear.

A voyage to the East Indies followed, and gave him the rank of midshipman. But the tropical climate reduced him almost to a skeleton; he lost for a time the use of his limbs, and was sent home as his only chance of life. He returned under great depression of spirits. In later years he related how the despair was cleared away by a glow of patriotism, in which his king and country came vividly before his mind. "Well, then," he exclaimed, "I will be a hero, and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger!"

On April 8, 1777, he passed his examination for a lieutenancy, and was appointed to the Lowestoft frigate, Captain Locker, then fitting out for Jamaica. Privateers under American colours were harassing British trade in the West Indies, and Nelson saw much active service. He was removed to the Bristol flagship, then to the command of the Badger, then to the Hinchinbrook, and before the age of twenty-one he had gained a rank which brought all the honours of the service within his reach.

An expedition was at this time projected to seize the region of Lake Nicaragua, and thus to cut the communication of the Spaniards between their northern and southern possessions; and in pursuit of this policy Nelson was sent with a small force, early in 1780, to Honduras. Here, after deeds of great gallantry, his command was almost annihilated by the deadly climate, and he himself was so reduced by dysentery that he was compelled to return to England.

His next ship was the Albemarle, twenty-eight guns, in which he was kept, to his great annoyance, in the North Sea for the whole winter of 1781-2, and was sent in the spring to Quebec. The Albemarle then served on the West Indian station until tidings came that the preliminaries of peace had been signed, and she returned to England, and was paid off in 1783.

"I have closed the war," said Nelson, in one of his letters, "without a fortune; but there is not a speck on my character. True honour, I hope, predominated in my mind far above riches." He did not apply for a ship, because he was not wealthy enough to live on board in the manner which was then customary.

But, after living for a time in lodgings in St. Omer's in France, he was appointed to the Boreas, going to the Leeward Islands, and on his arrival in the West Indies in 1784, found himself senior captain, and therefore second in command on that station.

The Americans were at this time trading with our islands, taking advantage of the register of their ships, which had been issued while they were British subjects. Nelson knew that, by the Navigation Act, no foreigners, directly or indirectly, were permitted to carry on any trade with these possessions; and also that the Americans had made themselves foreigners with regard to England.

Contrary to the orders both of the admiral and of the governor, he insisted that our ships of war were not sent abroad to make a show of, and seized four American vessels at Nevis; and when the matter was brought into court at that place he pleaded his own cause, and the ships were condemned.

While the lawsuit was proceeding, Nelson formed an attachment to a young widow, Mrs. Nisbet, niece of the President of Nevis, and was married to her on March 11, 1787. She was then in her eighteenth year, and had one child, a son, Josiah, who was three years old. They returned together to England and took up their abode at the old parsonage, where Nelson amused himself with farming and country sports, and continued a relentless campaign against the speculators and fraudulent contractors attached to the naval service in the West Indies. After many vain attempts to secure a ship, he was at last appointed, on January 30, 1793, to the Agamemnon, sixty-four guns.

II.--In the Mediterranean

The Agamemnon was ordered to the Mediterranean under Lord Hood, and Nelson was sent with despatches to Sir William Hamilton, our envoy to the court of Naples. Sir William, after his first interview with him, told Lady Hamilton that he was about to introduce a little man to her who could not boast of being very handsome, but who would one day astonish the world. Thus that acquaintance began which ended in the destruction of Nelson's domestic happiness, though it threatened no such consequences then. Here also began that acquaintance with the Neapolitan court which led to the only blot on Nelson's public character.

Having accomplished this mission, Nelson was sent to join Commodore Linzee at Tunis, and shortly afterwards to co-operate with General Paoli and the Anti-Gallican party in Corsica. At this time, 1794, Nelson was able to say, "My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be, almost invincible. They really mind shot no more than peas." And again, after capturing Bastia, "I am all astonishment when I reflect on what we have achieved! I was always of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never had any reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen." The Agamemnon was then dispatched to co-operate in the siege of Calvi with General Sir Charles Stuart, at which Nelson lost the sight of one eye; and later played a glorious part in the attack by Admiral Hotham's squadron on the French fleet. This action saved Corsica for the time.