Collingwood's Sword made it resemble the boat leaving the sinking ship. Yours, dear Lockhart, affectionately, WALTER SCOTT Lord Collingwood thanks the Duke of Clarence for ennobling him and tells him of Nelson's death I "QUEEN," OFF CARTHAGENA December 12, 1805 CANNOT express how great my gratitude is to your Royal Highness, for the high honour which you have done me by your letter, congratulating me on the success of His Majesty's fleet against his enemies. This instance of condescension, and mark of your Royal Highness's kindness to one of the most humble, but one of the most faithful of His Majesty's servants is deeply engraved in my heart. I shall ever consider it as a great happiness to have merited your Royal Highness's approbation, of which the sword which you have presented to me is a testimony so highly honourable to me; for which I beg your Royal Highness will accept my best thanks, and the assurance that, whenever His Majesty's service demands it, I will endeavour to use it in support of our country's honour, and to the advancement of His Majesty's glory. The loss which your Royal Highness and myself have sustained in the death of Lord Nelson can only be estimated by those who had the happiness of sharing his friendship. He had all the qualities that adorn the human heart, and a head which, by its quickness of perception and depth of penetration, qualified him for the highest offices of his profession. But why am I making these observa Nelson's last Moments tions to your Royal Highness, who knew him? Because I cannot speak of him but to do him honour. Your Royal Highness desires to know the particular circumstance of his death. I have seen Captain Hardy but for a few minutes since, and understood from him, that at the time the Victory was very closely engaged in rather a crowd of ships, and that Lord Nelson was commanding some ship that was conducted much to his satisfaction, when a musket-ball struck him on the left breast. Captain Hardy took hold of him to support him, when he smiled, and said, "Hardy, I believe they have done it at last.” He was carried below; and when the ship was disengaged from the crowd, he sent an officer to inform me that he was wounded. I asked the officer if his wound was dangerous. He hesitated; then said he hoped it was not; but I saw the fate of my friend in his eye; for his look told what his tongue could not utter. About an hour after, when the action was over, Captain Hardy brought me the melancholy account of his death. He inquired frequently how the battle went, and expressed joy when the enemy were striking; in his last moments shewing an anxiety for the glory of his country, though regardless of what related to his own person. I have the honour to be, Sir, your Royal Highness's most obedient and most humble servant. Charles Lamb loses an old friend DEAR COLEBROOKE Row, ISLINGTON EAR ROBINSON,- I called upon you this morning, and found that you were gone to visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor Norris has been lying dying for now almost a week, such is the penalty we pay for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew me or not, I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it, were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf Richard, his son, looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I hope it is all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He was my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. I seem to have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are friendships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now. He was the last link that bound me to the Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to have died the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Letters he knew nothing of, nor did his reading extend beyond the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine. Yet there was a pride of literature about him from being amongst books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of doubtful Latin which he had picked up in his office of entering students, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look with which, when he had been in vain trying to make out a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down and told me that—"in those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent spelling;" and seemed to console himself in the reflection! His jokes, for he had his jokes, are now ended, but they were old trusty perennials, staples Randal Norris that pleased after decies repetita, and were always as good as new. One song he had, which was reserved for the night of Christmas-day, which we always spent in the Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat bottoms of our foes and the possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to threats of an invasion many years blown over; and when he came to the part "We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, In spite of the devil and Brussels Gazette!" his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And what is the Brussels Gazette now? I cry while I enumerate these trifles. "How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" His poor good girls will now have to receive their afflicted mother in an inaccessible hovel in an obscure village in Herts, where they have been long struggling to make a school without effect; and poor deaf Richard - and the more helpless for being so My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers, to lay a plain statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost fear not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my poor friend, who is now insensible to any favours, - is thrown on the wide world. pray exert yourself. You cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife. — Yours ever, CHARLES LAMB Sweet Comfort Jeremy Taylor tells John Evelyn of the death of a little son DEAR July 19, 1656 EARE SIR,- I am in some little disorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, a boy that lately made us very glad; but now he rejoyces in his little orbe, while we thinke, and sigh, and long to be as safe as he is. . . . Jeremy Taylor wishes John Evelyn well September 15, 1656 your IR, -I pray God continue health and his blessings to you and your deare lady and pretty babies; for which I am daily obliged to pray, and to use all opportunities by which I can signify that I am, deare Sir, your most affectionate and endeared servant, JER. TAYLOR Jeremy Taylor comforts John Evelyn in the death of a son EARE SIR,-If dividing and sharing greifes were like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to you, you would find your streame much abated; for I account myselfe to have a great cause of sorrow, not onely in the diminution of the numbers of your joys and hopes, but in the losse of that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. I cannot tell all my owne sorrowes without adding to yours; and the causes of my real sadnesse in your loss are so just and so reasonable, that I can |