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reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero--the
greatest of our own and of all former times--was scarcely taken into the
account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that
the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an
end. The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated--they were
destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for
them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again
be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon
the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him; the general sorrow
was of a higher character.

The people of England grieved that the funeral ceremonies, and public
monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all that they could now bestow
upon him whom the king, the legislature and the nation would have alike
delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose
presence in every village through which he might have passed would have
awakened the church bells, have given school-boys a holiday, have drawn
children from their sports to gaze upon him, and "old men from the
chimney-corner" to look upon Nelson ere they died.

The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of
rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of
the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely
seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever
was achieved upon the seas. The destruction of this mighty fleet, by
which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly
appeared to add to our security and strength; for while Nelson was
living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves
as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.

There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening his body,
that in the course of nature he might have attained, like his father, to
a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose
work was done; nor ought he to be lamented who died so full of honours,
and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of
the martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most
splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory; and if the chariot
and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's translation, he
could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. H