6

Biographical Introduction

system of excessive flogging. Southey being called before the master "reluctantly apologised," and was privately expelled. A copy of the paper survives in the British Museum, and shows that there was nothing in the expulsion discreditable to him. Yet the incident caused him to be refused admission to Christ Church. His father dying about this time, his uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, chaplain at Lisbon, befriended him, and he was entered as a student at Balliol College, Oxford.

Southey entered Balliol a "stoic and republican," denouncing "pedantry, prejudice and aristocracy," and disposed to substitute "fancy, nature and Jean Jacques Rousseau." He was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the two, with another friend, Robert Lovell, began to dream of an ideal life on the banks of the Susquehanna. “I was then," he wrote in later life, "inexperienced, headstrong, and as full of errors as of youth and hope and ardour." In November 1795, Southey married Edith Fricker. Coleridge was already married to one of her sisters, and Lovell soon became engaged to another. Miss Tyler, disapproving of both the matrimony and the pantisocracy, refused to see her nephew again, and he was thrown upon the good offices of his uncle, who invited him to stay with him at Lisbon.

Returning to London with a mind enriched by his travels, he studied first law and then medicine as an alternative to the Church, but quickly wearied of

both; and his religious views prevented him from taking holy orders, which had at first been intended. "I have not," he wrote, "the gift of making shoes, nor the happy art of mending them. Education has unfitted me for trade, and I must, perforce, enter the muster roll of authors." Cottle, the Bristol publisher, paid him fifty guineas for his first published poem, Joan of Arc. The rest of his life is the story of his writings. In 1803 he settled at Greta Hall, near Keswick, in Cumberland, and pursued a career of unrivalled versatility as an author for about forty years. Coleridge and his family lived there, and Wordsworth was at Grasmere, a few miles distant. Southey produced over one hundred volumes of various sizes, and over one hundred papers for the Quarterly Review.

His

In 1813 he succeeded Pye as poet-laureate, and in 1820 received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. In 1835 a pension of £300 a year was conferred upon him by the Government, and he was offered a baronetcy, which he declined. first wife died in 1837, and two years later he married Caroline Bowles, the poetess. His powers gradually declined, and for three years prior to his death he was in a state of mental darkness. He passed away on the 21st of March 1843.

Southey's Life of Nelson originated in an article in the Quarterly Review, which was enlarged at the request of the publisher. It is one of the best biographies

8

Biographical Introduction

in the language. The author's own feeling about it was described on the 1st of February 1813, when he wrote: The materials are in themselves so full of

character, so picturesque and so sublime, that it cannot fail of being a good book."

HANNAFORD BENNETT

The Life of Nelson

CHAPTER I

Nelson's Birth and Boyhood-He is entered on board the Raisonnable -Goes to the West Indies in a Merchant Ship-His Dislike to the Royal Navy-Serves in the Triumph-Sails in Captain Phipps' voyage of discovery to the North Pole-Adventures in the Polar Regions-Passes his Examination for a Lieutenancy-Proceeds to the East Indies in the Seahorse-Returns in ill-health-Consequent Despondency-Reaction of Feeling-Serves as Acting-Lieutenant in the Worcester, and is made Lieutenant into the Lowestoffe, Com. mander into the Badger Brig, and Post into the HinchinbrookExpedition against the Spanish Main-Its Failure-Injury to Nelson's Health-He is appointed to the Janus, but obliged to resign the Command-Returns to England-Is sent to the North Seas in the Albemarle-His services during the American WarNarrowly escapes Matrimony-Is presented at Court.

HORATIO, Son of Edmund and Catherine Nelson, was born September 29, 1758, in the parsonage house of Burnham Thorpe, a village in the county of Norfolk, of which his father was rector. The maiden name of his mother 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 out of eleven children. Her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of the navy, visited the widower upon this event, and promised to take care of one of the boys. Three years afterwards, when Horatio was only twelve years of age, being at home during the Christmas holidays, he read in the county newspaper that his uncle was appointed to the Raisonnable, of sixty-four guns. "Do, William," said he to a brother who was a year and a half older than himself,

9

"write to my father, and tell him that I should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice." Mr Nelson was then at Bath, whither he had gone for the recovery of his health; his circumstances were straitened, and he had no prospect of ever seeing them bettered; he knew that it was the wish of providing for himself by which Horatio was chiefly actuated, and did not oppose his resolution; he understood also the boy's character, and had always said, that in whatever station he might be placed, he would climb, if possible, to the very top of the tree. Accordingly, Captain Suckling was written to. "What," said he in his answer, "has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he above all the rest should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action, a cannon-ball may knock off his head, and provide for him at once."

It is manifest from these words that Horatio was not the boy whom his uncle would have chosen to bring up in his own profession. He was never of a strong body, and the ague, which at that time was one of the most common diseases in England, had greatly reduced his strength; yet he had already given proofs of that resolute heart and nobleness of mind which, during his whole career of labour and of glory, so eminently distinguished him. When a mere child he strayed a-bird's-nesting from his grandmother's house in company with a cow-boy: the dinner-hour elapsed; he was absent, and could not be found; and the alarm of the family became very great, for they apprehended that he might have been carried off by gipsies. At length, after search had been made for him in various directions, he was discovered, alone, sitting composedly by the side of a brook which he could not get over. "I wonder, child," said the old lady when she saw him,