Trafalgar, was considered at an end. The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honor; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and "old men from their chimney corner" to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas; and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence. There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening his body, that in the course of nature he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honors, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid that of the hero in the hour of victory; and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England—a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and to act after them. LOCHIEL'S WARNING. BY THOMAS CAMPBELL. [THOMAS CAMPBELL: A Scotch poet and author; born July 27, 1777, in Glasgow, where he attended the university, and made great local fame by his translations of Greek poetry and drama. During his travels on the Continent (1800-1811) he was an eyewitness of the battle of Hohenlinden. He settled in England; edited the New Monthly Magazine (1820-1830); was lord rector of Glasgow University (1827-1829); died at Boulogne, June 15, 1844, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Campbell's chief poems are: "The Pleasures of Hope" (1799), "Gertrude of Wyoming," "The Exile of Erin," "Ye Mariners of England," "Lochiel's Warning," "Hohenlinden," "O'Connor's Child," "The Battle of the Baltic," "The Soldier's Dream,” “Lord Ullin's Daughter."] Seer Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the North? But down let him stoop, from his havoc on high! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, False wizard, avaunt! I have marshaled my clan, Their swords are a thousand,—their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws! When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan arraySeer Lochiel Lochiel! beware of the day! For dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight; 'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors, Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah! no; for a darker departure is near; The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier; -- His death bell is tolling; O mercy, dispel Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale! So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! Look proudly to heaven from the deathbed of fame! THE TRIAL OF EUGENE ARAM. BY BULWER-LYTTON. [EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON-BULWER, later LORD LYTTON, English novelist, playwright, and poet, was born in Norfolk in 1803. He graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge; became a member of Parliament for many years, colonial secretary 1858-1859; was editor of the New Monthly Magazine 1831-1833; elected lord rector of Glasgow University 1856; died January 18, 1873. His novels include (among many others): "Pelham," "Paul Clifford," "Eugene Aram," "The Last Days of Pompeii," "Rienzi," "Ernest Maltravers,” “ Alice, or the Mysteries," ‚” “Zanoni," "The Caxtons, " My Novel," "Kenelm Chillingly," and "The Coming Race"; his plays, the permanent favorites "Richelieu," ") "Money," and "The Lady of Lyons"; his poems, the satirical "New Timon," and translations of Schiller's ballads. A THOUGHT Comes over us, sometimes, in our career of pleasure, or the troubled exultation of our ambitious pursuits: a thought comes over us, like a cloud, that around us and about us Death-Shame - Crime - Despair, are busy at their work. I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, where the inmates walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heard music, and made merry: while around and within the land, were deep caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends |