t Nelson,--so the gunner of the VICTORY called them;
and when, at his internment, his flag was about to be lowered into the
grave, the sailors who assisted at the ceremony with one accord rent it
in pieces, that each might preserve a fragment while he lived.

The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public
calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they
had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and
affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us;
and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we
loved and 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
but 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 funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards,
were all which 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 wakened the church bells, have
given schoolboys 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: and the destruction of
this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were
totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or 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 t