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."-SOUTHEY'S Life of Nelson. Well hast thou done thy duty, gallant son; What truer fame can greet a mortal's ear So are they hailed, who better crowns have won : And read alone the record of thy worth. Man without pride, or hate, or fraud, or fear; Thine was the generous heart, though gentle, brave, Trafalgar, Nile and Baltic, be thy praise! TUPPER'S Ballads and Poems. Trafalgar is noted for the complete defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets, on the 21st October, 1805. This is considered the greatest naval victory which the British have ever gained. In it the gallant Nelson fell, on board the Victory. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.* Not a drum was heard, not a funeral-note, We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, * Killed in 1809, while repulsing the French at Corunna, We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow How the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was suddenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone- RETREAT OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN RUSSIA.* Magnificence of ruin! what has time Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime, Blood will have tenfold blood. What are they now? A name. Homeward by hundred thousands, column-deep, At the close of 1812. In this invasion the French lost nearly 500,000 men-either killed, taken prisoners, or through excessive cold and hardships. The hour of vengeance strikes. Hark to the gale! Now sinking into brambles, echo shrill, As the gust sweeps them, and those upper floods Shoot on their leafless boughs the sleet-drops chill, That on the hurrying crowds in freezing showers distil. Still on they sweep, as if their hurrying march At once is covered with a vivid veil; In mixed and fighting heaps the deep clouds reel; In sanguine light, an orb of burning steel; The snows wheel down through twilight, thick and dun; Now tremble, men of blood, the judgment has begun!-CROLY. THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. Stop-for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! There was a sound of revelry by night, Music arose, with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! The Duke of Wellington was with his officers-at a ball, in Brussels, when he heard that the French were advancing. He immediately prepared for the decisive battle, which was won June 18, 1815. Did you not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind, On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is!-it is! the cannon's op'ning roar ! Within a window'd niche of that high hall And rous'd the vengeance blood alone could quell: Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, Rous'd up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! they come, they come!" And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose! And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, In its next verdure: when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay: The midnight brought the signal sound of strife The morn, the marshalling in arms-the day, battle's magnificently stern array! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover-heap'd and pent, Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!-BYRON. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. "During the reign of George III. England had to undergo the revolt of the American colonies; to submit to defeat; to shake under the volcano of the French revolution; to grapple and fight for the life with her gigantic enemy Napoleon; to gasp and rally after that tremendous struggle; the old society, with its courtly splendour, had to pass away; generations of statesmen to rise and disappear; Pitt to follow Chatham to the tomb; the memory of Rodney and Wolfe to be succeeded by Nelson's and Wellington's glory; the old poets who unite us to Queen Anne's time had to sink into their graves; Johnson to die, and Scott and Byron to arise; Garrick to delight the world with his dazzling dramatic genius, and Kean to leap on the stage and take possession of the astonished theatre. Steam had to be invented; kings to be beheaded, deposed, restored; Napoleon to be but an episode; and George III. is to be alive through all these varied changes, to accompany his people through those revolutions of thought, government, society, and survive out of the old world into ours." After describing some of the court scenes of that time, and the eminent characters that flourished during the reign, and the spirit of the monarch that 'beat North and Fox, and even bound the stately neck of the younger Pitt,' by his indomitable determination, Mr. Thackeray sketched the king's special affection for the Princess Amelia, whose death finally overset his reason, so that from the 10th of November, 1810, he ceased to reign. "History," thus concluded the lecturer, "presents no sadder picture than that old man, blind and deprived of reason, wandering through his palace, haranguing imaginary parliaments and reviewing ghostly troops. He became utterly deaf too. All sight, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the plea |