Vice-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to the Rev. Dr. Nelson. Victory: August 8, 1804.

My dear Brother, Mr. C. B. Yonge had joined the Victory long before your letter was wrote, and he is a very good, deserving young man, and when he has served his time, I shall take the earliest opportunity of putting him into a good vacancy; but that will not be until October, the very finish, I expect, of my remaining here, for my health has suffered much since I left England, and if the Admiralty do not allow me to get at asses' milk and rest, you will be a Lord before I intend you should. I am glad the wine was good and acceptable. I have been expecting Monsieur La Touche to give me the meeting every day for this year past, and only hope he will come out before I go hence. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Nelson, and believe me ever, your most affectionate brother,

NELSON AND BRONTE.

You must excuse a short letter. You will have seen Monsieur La Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I ran. I keep it; and, by God, if I take him, he shall Eat it!

CCXXI.

It required the indefatigable energy and the lively sense of public duty of a Nelson to withstand the anxieties and disappointments of his command from June 1803 to July 1805. During these two years (less ten days), he did not set foot out of the 'Victory.' The escape of the French fleet from Toulon was a real affliction to him, and his pursuit, with only ten sail of the line, of the combined French and Spanish squadron to the West Indies is, perhaps, the most creditable part of his matchless career. 'I am in truth half dead, but what man can do to find them out shall be done,' said he; but misled by incorrect information he steered for Tobago as the enemy were returning to Europe via Martinique.

Vice-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., to Alexander

Davison.

Victory: July 24, 1805.

My dear Davison,-As all my letters have been sent to England, I know nothing of what is passing; but I hope very, very

soon to take you by the hand. I am as miserable as you can conceive. But for General Brereton's damned information, Nelson would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in his Profession that England ever saw. Now, alas! I am nothing-perhaps shall incur censure for misfortunes which may happen, and have happened. When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my judgment, than following the opinion of others. I resisted the opinion of General Brereton's information till it would have been the height of presumption to have carried my disbelief further. I could not, in the face of Generals and Admirals, go N.W., when it was apparently clear that the enemy had gone South. But I am miserable. I now long to hear that they are arrived in some Port in the Bay; for until they are arrived somewhere, I can do nothing but fret. Then I shall proceed to England. I can say nothing, or think of anything, but the loss my Country has sustained by General Brereton's unfortunate, illtimed, false information. God bless you: and believe me ever, my dear Davison, your most faithful and affectionate friend,

NELSON AND BRONTE.

CCXXII.

On the morning of Oct. 19, 1805, the combined fleets of France and Spain left Cadiz Harbour, and the same afternoon Nelson knew that he would soon have an opportunity of encountering his enemy. This unfinished letter was found opened on his desk after the action, and was conveyed by Captain Hardy to Lady Hamilton, who wrote the following endorsement, Oh miserable and wretched Emma, oh, glorious and happy Nelson.'

Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton.

Victory: October 19, 1805.
Noon, Cadiz E.S.E. 16 leagues.

My dearest beloved Emma, the dear friend of my bosom, the signal has been made that Enemy's Combined fleet are coming out of Port. We have very little Wind, so that I have no hopes of seeing them before to-morrow. May the God of Battles crown my endeavours with success, at all events I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own life, and as my last writing before the

battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the Battle; may Heaven bless you prays your Nelson and Bronte. Oct. 20th in the morning we were close to the mouth of the Streights, but the wind had not come far enough to the westward to allow the Combined fleets to weather the shoals off Trafalgar, but they were counted as far as forty sail of Ships of War which I suppose to be thirty-four of the Line and six frigates, a group of them were seen off the Lighthouse of Cadiz this morning but it blows so very fresh, and thick weather, that I rather believe they will go into the Harbour before night. May God Almighty give us success over these fellows and enable us to get a Peace.

CCXXIII.

It was a servant in a family on Cessnoch Water who inspired
Burns with several of his best lyrics, with 'Montgomery's
Peggy,' with 'Bonny Peggy Alison' and with 'Now western
winds.'

Moreover, it was she to whom the following fine love-
letter was addressed. No one was a better student than Burns
of what one of our old dramatists has styled the red-leaved
and confused book of the heart,' and, rough as he was, his na-
ture melted at once into a most indulgent tenderness at the
slightest appeal from womanhood. The young woman in this
case would not entertain the poet's suit, but she herself con-
fessed that it cost her some heartaches to get rid of the affair.'

&

Robert Burns to Miss Ellison Begbie.

Lochlea: 1783.

I verily believe, my dear E., that the pure genuine feelings of love are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of virtue and piety. This I hope will account for the uncommon style of all my letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a hasty manner, which to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would converse with his minister. I don't know how it is, my dear, for though, except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy raptures so much talked of among lovers. I have often thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue 'tis

Whenever the thought of my E. of humanity, every principle of

something extremely akin to it. warms my heart, every feeling generosity kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. I grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathize with the miseries of the unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the Divine Disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the blessing which I hope he intends to bestow on me in bestowing you. I sincerely wish that he may bless my endeavours to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in sweetering the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and I will add worthy of a Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's person, whilst in reality his affection is centered in her pocket; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the horsemarket to choose one who is stout and firm, and as we may say of an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. I disdain their dirty puny ideas. I would be heartily out of humour with myself, if I thought I were capable of having so poor a notion of the sex, which were designed to crown the pleasures of society. Poor devils! I don't envy them their happiness who have such notions. For my part I propose quite other pleasures with my dear partner.

R. B.

CCXXIV.

There are few documents in the history of literature more pathetic, when we consider the result, than this simple letter of business.

Robert Burns to the Earl of Glencairn.

Edinburgh: 1787.

My Lord, I know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request I am going to make to you; but I have weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme if I can possibly effectuate it. I wish to get into the Excise. I am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the Commissioners; and

your lordship's patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude. My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will probably weather out the remaining seven years of it; and after the assistance which I have given and will give him, to keep the family together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two hundred pounds, and instead of seeking what is almost impossible at present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age.

These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest deliberation; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's patronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to any body else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being

Your lordship's much obliged
And deeply indebted humble servant,

R. B.

CCXXV.

The humanity of Burns is perhaps the most striking of all his great qualities. We have had lyric poets as fine, wits as brilliant, but we have scarcely had another man of imaginative genius go near to us in all the common feelings of the heart. So true a man is he, so unaffected in his laughter or his tears, so plain a creature like ourselves, that when he falls upon the thorns of life, and bleeds, we never think of regarding him as a great man, but merely as a friend distressed and lost. What simplicity, what kindly enthusiasm, what quiet humour, animated the writer of the following letter to a bookseller in Edinburgh!