"Oft had Britannia sought, midst dire alarms, The Duchess of Devonshire's verses are full of feeling :- "NELSON, by valour led to deathless fame, grace and Whilst some new triumph marked each step he made; He conquered, knew it, bless'd his God, and died. On her victorious shield inscribes his name, Grateful proclaims the safety which he gave, Some lines on the same subject are attributed to Mr. Fox, but their authorship is doubtful, and they are scarcely worthy of his pen. Among the innumerable effusions, many spirited verses may be found in Mr. (afterwards Lord) Hawke's "Trafalgar, or Nelson's last Triumph;" in Mrs. Sewell's "Trafalgar," who, with womanly sympathy, ventured to allude to Nelson's domestic errors; in some anonymous verses 66 On the Death of Nelson," dated Oxford, April 1806; in an "Eulogy on Nelson," by a lady, in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1806'; and more especially in the "Monody," by the Reverend George Richards, from which a quotation has been made'. The following extract from an anonymous Poem called "Victory in Tears," dedicated to Earl Spencer, is given, not so much on account of the superior merit of the Poem, as for the allusion to Nelson's immortal signal:— "His spirit, still shall warm through every age, Shall echoing ring, in Valour's voice reveal'd, And work fresh miracles in every field. Vol. LXxvi. pt. i. p. 63. 1 Vide p. 253, ante. Propune & by Nepcane's fortite, ere be fell! Hear them re SATES — ve tracts, trembling hear! Nor has Lord NELSON's glory failed to be sung by Bards of higher poetic fame. S: WALTER SCOTT, in the Introdation to Marmion" thas alluded to the then recent deaths of NELSON and PITT :— ← What powerful call shall bid arise The mind that thought for Britain's weal, Deep graved in every British beart, Rolled, blazed, destroy'd—and was no more.” CAMPBELL, in his "Battle of the Baltic," and "Ye Mariners of England,” perhaps the most spirit-stirring Odes in our language, mentions NELSON; but with no other eulogy than what his Name carries with it :— ↑ To these Lines the Author added the following note :— "If the necessity of metrical adaptation had not absolutely required it, the author would have considered it a kind of sacrilege to make the smallest alteration in them, and he cannot avoid expressing a wish, that some means might be devised, of giving them a permanent existence, beyond the echoing admiration of the day. Such words, falling from such a man, on such an occasion, and attended by such consequences, should, with pious eagerness, be snatched from the winds, as a sybil's leaf of oracular importance, to be deposited not only in our hearts, but in our archives; to be written not only in our journals and histories, but to be graven on our medals, and emblazoned on the banners of our Country." "Of NELSON and the North, "Ye Mariners of England,❞— "The spirit of your fathers Shall start from every wave !- Where BLAKE and mighty NELSON fell, As ye sweep through the deep, BYRON notices NELSON only in "Don Juan;" and though the allusion is brief and undignified, it is full of signifi cance: "NELSON was once Britannia's God of War, This Cento of Poetic commemorations of NELSON and TRAFALGAR, Would not be complete unless there were added to them the following beautiful Stanzas which were addressed by the unfortunate Miss Landon (L.E.L., afterwards Mrs. Maclean) to Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, G.C.B., Governor of Greenwich Hospital in 1836: Silence is now upon the seas, - The battle-flag droops o'er the mast, For it hath won in wilder hours Its empire o'er the deep. Now let it wave above their home, The victors of the Baltic Sea, Upon a terrace by the Thames, I saw the Admiral stand; He who received the latest clasp Of NELSON's dying hand. Age, toil, and care had somewhat bowed His bearing proud and high; But yet resolve was on his lip, And fire was in his eye. I felt no wonder England holds Still the red cross will face the world, And former days they told. No prouder trophy hath our Isle, Her other domes-her wealth, her pride, But Greenwich hath the noblest claim- Strange as it may seem, the fame of NELSON and the Battle of Trafalgar formed the subject of several Spanish Poems', all printed in 1805 or 1806; and of which a slight notice will be read with interest. The first of these Poems is entitled "La Sombra de Nelson," ("the Shade of Nelson.") The writer, not content with menacing "proud Albion" with the loss of her power, and with her speedy degradation from the rank she holds among the Nations of the earth, appears to take an ungenerous pleasure in making her own hero, Nelson, the prophet of evil. For this purpose the poet imagines, that after the fatal Battle, in which the "fiero terror del mar," as he styles him, was killed, the lofty top of Cape Trafalgar, traditionally the tomb of Gerion, one of Spain's legendary Kings, was lighted up with streams of fire, as from some vast volcano, and that in the midst appeared Nelson, as a hideous spectre, its livid body begrimed with blood and smoke, its head disfigured with a ghastly wound, while at its feet, there lay, upon faded laurels, a broken Naval crown. With a terrific voice, of sufficient power to still the waves which dashed against the opposite shore of Tarifa, it exclaims,— "That the lamentable day decreed by Heaven to witness the downfall of England, is, at length, arrived: that the chosen instrument of this consummation is (Buonaparte) the mighty Captain who, after consolidating the throne of Clovis, wears upon his august brow a double crown, and whose trumpets have scared the Imperial Eagle of Germany." 3 Two of these Poems are bound up with the MSS. relating to Trafalgar in the Egerton MSS. 382, before referred to, together with a Latin Ode: "Hispanis Militibus Navali adversus Britannos proelio interfectis, Barnabas a Conga, Anno MCCмV." The spectre afterwards describes the union of the Combined Fleet, and the subsequent Battle; then, addressing Gibraltar, says : "Thou, whose fond hope it was to see me return victorious, and to crown me with never-fading laurels, cover thy own brows with the melancholy cypress, and, bedewing my unburied and mutilated corpse with tears, restore it to my beloved Country. Proud England must yield to the eternal law. Empires die; the splendour which they owe to Fortune, will, by Fortune be obscured. Albion's maxim must ever be-Divide and conquer; she must corrupt the Nations with gold, and laugh to scorn the faith of treaties. If for a time her fate be still deferred, let her not rouse the fury of the Spanish Lion, who, safe and fearless in his den, licks his dread claws, which are reddened with her blood." "Oh, Calpe! tu, que de esperanzas llena, Vuelve á la patria, y para siempre llore ; Ley, Anglia altiva, que en diamante duro The rocks and shores are then made to resound with cries of "vengeance! vengeance!" and the spectre makes his exit by precipitating himself into the flaming bowels of the mountain. The peroration consists of an apostrophe to Charles IV., calling upon that Monarch to take signal vengeance upon England. Another of these Poems is an Ode addressed to the Spanish seamen in the Battle of the 21st of October 1805, by Don Manuel Josef Quintana. It commences with the trite remark, that glory and power are not of easy acquirement, a proposition illustrated by the example of Rome and of Hannibal. Fortitude is next represented as the only shield which can ward off the shafts of adversity; and Spain is implored not to succumb under her misfortune, but to seek for consolation in hope. The Poet then describes Nelson as "The Briton rendered arrogant by glory and power, standing |