azzle of success and blaze of genius, I fancy shining a
hundred and a hundred times higher, the sublime purity of Collingwood's
gentle glory. His heroism stirs British hearts when we recall it. His
love, and goodness, and piety make one thrill with happy emotion. As one
reads of him and his great comrade going into the victory with which their
names are immortally connected, how the old English word comes up, and
that old English feeling of what I should like to call Christian honour!
What gentlemen they were, what great hearts they had! "We can, my dear
Coll," writes Nelson to him, "have no little jealousies; we have only one
great object in view,--that of meeting the enemy, and getting a glorious
peace for our country." At Trafalgar, when the _Royal Sovereign_ was
pressing alone into the midst of the combined fleets, Lord Nelson said to
Captain Blackwood: "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship
into action! How I envy him!" The very same throb and impulse of heroic
generosity was beating in Collingwood's honest bosom. As he led into the
fight, he said: "What would Nelson give to be here!"

After the action of the 1st of June, he writes:--"We cruised for a few
days, like disappointed people looking for what they could not find,
_until the morning of little Sarah's birthday_, between eight and nine
o'clock, when the French fleet, of twenty-five sail of the line, was
discovered to windward. We chased them, and they bore down within about
five miles of us. The night was spent in watching and preparation for the
succeeding day; and many a blessing did I send forth to my Sarah, lest I
should never bless her more. At dawn, we made our approach on the enemy,
then drew up, dressed our ranks, and it was about eight when the admiral
made the signal for each ship to engage her opponent, and bring her to
close action; and then down we went under a crowd of sail, and in a manner
that would have animated the coldest heart, and struck terror into the
most intrepid enemy. The ship we were to engage was two ahead of the
French admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two ships
next to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times, before
we fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral,
that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought
the peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ears would outdo their
parish bells."

There are no words to tell what th