1. 11. struck, lowered.

1. 31. the prince royal, the eldest son of the King of Denmark, "And the prince of all the land

Led them on."-CAMPBELL.

p. 194, 1. 26. below the reach of the stern chasers, so that the stern chasers could not be sufficiently depressed (see p. 95, 1. 5, and note on p. 62, 1. 33) to hit the raft. The guns at the stern are called stern chasers, because they are used by a pursued ship in what is called a stern chase, that is a chase in which the pursuing vessel is straight behind.

p. 195, 1. 15. praams, large flat open boats used in the Baltic for loading and unloading ships.

1. 26. gone by the board, broken close to the deck.

1. 31. sunk to her gunwale, sunk till the water reached the upper edge of her side.

p. 196, 1. 23. brothers. Therefore Campbell in his poem makes Nelson say to them

"Ye are brothers! ye are men!"

p. 197, 1. 27. his own most gracious Sovereign. Nelson wrote 'my most gracious sovereign,' which Southey altered into 'his own most gracious sovereign,' as the rest of the despatch is written in the third person.

p. 198, 1. 22. white flags, flags of truce flying on vessels that had struck.

p. 199, 1. 2. few of whom could be saved is negative in meaning and denies that many could be saved. "A few of whom could be saved" would have been affirmative and told us that some could be saved. There is a similar distinction in meaning between 'little' and 'a little.' See note on p. 203, 1. 10.

1. 10. mould, shape, figure. Southey's meaning seems to be that the Danes resemble the English in their personal appearance. English blood. The evidence of language shows that the Danes and the English are closely connected. Danish, like English, belongs to the Teutonic family of languages. Also, owing to the settlement of Norsemen in England in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, a large amount of Danish and other Scandinavian blood flows in the veins of modern Englishmen. Thus Tennyson in his address to the Princess of Wales says: "Saxon and Norman and Dane are we.'

Pre

1. 14. predisposed him, made him inclined beforehand. disposed is a medical term applied to a person in such a condition that he will easily catch a disease.

p. 200, 1. 35. Good Friday, the anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ.

p. 201, 1. 4. observances, acts expressive of religious feelings, such as going to church.

1. 17. gangway, the path formed of a platform of planks leading from the quarterdeck to the forecastle. In this high position the soldiers would be much exposed to the hostile fire. gangway sometimes means, as on p. 268, the entrance to ships from the top of the outside ladder.

The

1. 23. This, the entry of a hostile admiral into the city that he had been so lately attacking.

p. 202, 1. 31. had fallen, had been killed. "Fall' is used in this sense in descriptions of battles, particularly in poetry. No doubt in the ordinary literal sense of the word many of those who were only wounded had fallen.

p. 203, 1. 1. pardonable because due to patriotic feeling.

1. 5. his name.

Neilsen, the Danish equivalent of Nelson, is a common name in Denmark.

1. 10. little approved, not much approved. See note on p. 199, 1. 2.

1. 30. weighed, carefully considered.

p. 204, 1. 5. were to remain. It was arranged that they

should remain.

1. 10. might be carried to Great Britain's credit. This is banking language. When money is carried to a person's credit in a banking account, it is a debt of the bank to him and is balanced against any debts he may incur to the bank. Thus if he has £100 to his credit and incurs a debt of £50, the bank will still owe him £50. Similarly, according to the arrangement made with Denmark, for every prisoner restored to her, she would owe a prisoner to Britain. If any British prisoners were afterwards taken by the Danes, they would have to be restored, until the debt was paid off by Denmark having restored to Britain as many prisoners as she now got back from Nelson.

1. 23. Renew hostilities. 'Renew' is not an imperative. It is simply the uninflected form of the verb used to express the subject of the speaker's thoughts, and also to indicate contemptuous surprise at the idea under consideration. In Latin the same meaning is expressed by the infinitive, sometimes called the infinitive of indignation, as "Mene incepto desistere victam."

p. 205, 1. 3. he was closeted with the prince, he had a private interview with the prince.

1. 13. single shots, as opposed to whole broadsides.

1. 23. confined himself to his own veracity, allowed the statement to depend entirely upon his own credit for truthfulness, instead of calling the Prince to bear witness to the truth of what he said.

p. 206, 1. 3. throw away, waste fire without effect.

1. 8. God forbid that I should destroy is an emphatic scriptural way of saying 'I should never think of destroying.'

1. 17. the ships which were aground, the Agamemnon, Russell, and Bellona. The Agamemnon went ashore so far away that she could take no part in the action. The Russell and Bellona, however, should not be left out of account in comparing the strength of the opposed forces, as, though they were not able to take the posts assigned to them, they were within range and not entirely useless. Nelson himself, in his despatch to Sir Hyde Parker, mentions these ships as being, "though not in the situation assigned them, yet so placed as to be of great service."

CHAPTER VIII.

p. 207, 1. 13. I make no scruple in saying, I assert without any hesitation.

1. 19. take any of those laurels, get for myself any of the glory. See note on p. 93, l. 14.

p. 208, 1. 3. cut him to the heart. This phrase is generally used to express the effect of unexpected ingratitude on the part of a friend, or similar disappointments. It is common, however, to call a cold wind a cutting wind.

1. 15. breaking up of the frost. In winter the sea round Revel is frozen, so that ships cannot leave the harbour until spring time, when the ice melts.

1. 22. drew too much water to pass, required so much depth of water to sail in, that she could not pass.

p. 209, 1. 24. his allies, Denmark and Russia.

p. 210, 1. 3. was fair for Revel, was blowing in such a direction that they could easily sail to Revel.

1. 8. The manner of that death. He was killed by conspirators who wished to make him abdicate in favour of his son Alexander, and, on his refusal to do so, strangled him in his bed.

1. 11. Events is perhaps a misprint for 'event.' Compare p. 8, 1. 26.

1. 30. launches, long, rather flat-bottomed boats used to lay out anchors and go to and from the shore.

p. 211, 1. 15. in the mole. Mole' generally means a mass of stones or wood protecting a harbour against the sea, but sometimes as here means the harbour so formed.

p. 212, 1. 10. as that of any sovereign s should be as that of any sovereign' or 'as any sovereign's.'

1. 19. put to issue, bring to a decision, cause to be decided. 1. 21. down the Baltic. Compare note on p. 151, 1. 17.

1. 35. the queen's brother, brother of Charlotte, George III.'s queen.

p. 213, 1. 25. nearly allied. The Prince Royal, being the son of Caroline Matilda (see note on p. 182, 1. 27), was George III.'s nephew.

p. 214, 1. 9. working, making his way with hard labour.

1. 14. in his boat, instead of sailing in a ship round Jutland through the Cattegat and Skagerrack.

1. 18. suffered from sea-sickness. It is an extraordinary fact that the greatest of British admirals was so subject to sea-sickness that he appears to have suffered from the complaint at the beginning of every voyage. In August, 1801, he writes, "Heavy sea, sick to death-this sea-sickness I shall never get over."

1. 29. Emma did not know, etc. She was in such a state of excitement. 'Emma' was Lady Hamilton's Christian name. 1. 33. and with your letter. 'And' connects 'with your letter' with still in bed.' 6 Davison was still in bed and had Nelson's letter in his hand or by his side.

p. 215, 1. 2. Horace, son of the Rev. William Nelson, Nelson's elder brother. When his father became Earl Nelson, he became Viscount Trafalgar. As he died before his father, he never succeeded to the earldom.

1. 6. have some phlegm, am rather phlegmatic. According to the old doctrine there were four temperaments-the bilious, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, and the melancholy. Those, whose temperament was phlegmatic, were sluggish and unexcitable, and their character was supposed to be due to abundance of the watery humour called phlegm.

1. 9. I have lived too long, etc. Here he attributes his want of excitement to old age.

1. 11. ne plus ultra (Lat. no farther), the extreme point beyond which no further progress is possible.

1. 16. no Nelson. Here, as at the end of Chap. vi., 'Nelson' is used as a common term meaning a person with the character of Nelson. Compare the use of 'Daniel' in Shylock's exclamation a Daniel come to judgment."

66

p. 216, 1. 1. applied, used intransitively for 'applied himself.' Compare Rokeby, 5. xii. 29.

"The mournful youth, a space aside,

To tune Matilda's harp applied.”

1. 3. at this time. The letter was really dated February 8th, 1801, before Nelson started for the Baltic.

1. 6. being the bearer of my own letter is a humorous way of saying 'visiting you in person instead of sending you a letter.'

1. 11. make us go forth and seem, etc. This is how the sentence appears, as given by Sir N. Nicolas in the Nelson Despatches. The relative that,' as it refers to 'sex' used as a noun of multitude, may take the verb in the plural. In the next sentence Nelson first has a verb in the singular, and then another in the plural, governed by the relatives referring to 'sex' used in the same sense. 'None but the brave,' etc. This common proverb is a quotation from Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. 1. 16. the world around, all round the world.

1. 26. without, outside.

p. 217, 1. 2. From thence. See note on p. 181,

1. 4.

1. 15. rolling ground, disturbed undulating water, such as is commonly found in the open sea even when no wind is blowing. 1. 22. the Swin. See p. 5, 1. 4.

·

1. 26. Naze, derived from the Anglo-Saxon common term naes, a promontory, is here used with the definite article as a proper name meaning a well-known promontory south of Harwich. Compare the Sound,' p. 177, 1. 27, the Gut, p. 242, 1. 15. 'Ness,' another form of 'naze,' appears as a suffix in 'Dungeness,' 'Sheerness,' and the names of other promontories. Of course the Medusa did not really go over the promontory, as Southey's words imply. What she went over, as we find by referring to Nelson's letter on the subject, was the Naze Flat, i.e. the shallow water near the promontory.

p. 218, 14. essay, attempt. The now more common literary meaning of the term seems to be due to the fact that Bacon chose to call his short treatises on various subjects essays.

1. 17. put off, started from the ship.

1. 18. tide and half tide is when high tide out at sea is three hours later than it is near the shore. Such an irregularity makes navigation very difficult.

p. 219, 1. 2. offence. We should rather expect 'defence.'

1. 8. hailed the boats, called out in a loud voice to those in the boats.

1. 10. to keep your distance, not to come near.

1. 19. all the chains in France. See Southey's note on p. 218. p. 220, 1. 11. the debt of a drubbing, a return in the shape of a drubbing. As the drubbing was the debt to be paid back, ‘of a drubbing' is a genitive of definition like the city of Rome.' 'Drubbing,' which usually means a beating with a stick, is here applied colloquially to express the defeat of an enemy in battle.