but his enemies could not be. It is also to be wished that, to the name of Charles the second, a verbal badge of infamy had been attached, expressive of flagitious folly, a label of ignominy to a king very far from deficient in acuteness, but who with the bloody impressions of a royal father murdered before his eyes, devoted his life to corruptive fraud, enslaving maxims and gross debauchery. content, unless the arrow of hostility was poisoned by the bitterness of gross personality: they called him CROOK-BACK, a mal-formation in which the tyrant could not be instrumental; but for which he was probably indebted to his mother's fondness of a slender waist, to a rash, impatient accoucheur, or to an hereditary scrophula. The correct taste of later times abstains from this vulgar propensity; yet in several instances nick-names are expressive, and inflict an incurable wound on a class of persons, who placed by power above law, are sometimes retained within the path of duty and decorum, by a fear of being laughed at and rendered contemptible to all posterity. The appropriate epithet bloody has I believe been generally applied to Mary, the Catholic Queen of England, and the bigotted wife of Philip, King of Spain; but it is to be lamented that no disgraceful term has been attached to her abominable father, which humouring our English taste for significant abbreviation, would describe an expeller of ecclesiastic tyranny, though himself the greatest of all tyrants, an unfeeling invader of the rights of private opinion. VOL. IV. For his successor James, I want a word strongly significant of superstitious insanity, to accompany his name through future ages. NA TATURAL ENEMIES.The compiler of this collection has been censured for applying these words to the inhabitants of France; yet after a long and cool consideration, he cannot persuade himself to think them inapplicable. To be the natural enemy of any man or society of men, is to be born under circumstances which render us inevitably, and as it were, against our will, seekers of the same exclusive advantages; to be placed in a situation where it is impossible for both parties to be powerful, prosperous, and happy. In this instance, Sallust's definition of Friendship, is strictly proper in describing the sources of 1 of that enmity which has continued unimpaired for so many ages, between England and France: idem velle atque idem nolle. So placed, the two countries bear a close resemblance to shipwrecked seamen, swimming to a short plank, or a broken spar, capable of saving one and only one. In such a position, I fear that poor human nature would not hesitate long in determining how to act. My readers will readily apply this simile to Great Britain and France; the plank on which one and only one can safely float, the life-preserving plank, is the commercial sovereignty of the sea. On this the eyes of our restless neighbours have been for ages, and under every form of government, invariably fixed, from the proud boast of universal dominion uttered in the victorious extacies of Louis le bien aimé, to the more subtle and malignant policy of the subverter of his throne. As Frenchmen, they cannot be blamed, for could this inestimable object be once added to the other advantages they possess, our colonies in the east and west, Europe and the world, would in a few years be subject to Gallic oppression. But as Britons, with English blood circulating in our veins, and descended from those warriors and heroes, who made thousands of the subjects of Charles the sixth bite the dust of Agincourt and Cressy, who literally and without figurative language, BOUND THEIR KINGS IN CHAINS, AND THEIR NOBLES IN FETTERS OF IRON: in the descendants of such men, and possessing power, wealth, population, industry, skill, and courage, we should be ideots and fools to drop the marine sceptre for a single moment from our hands, or to lose sight of the incalculable benefit it confers. If once on French decks, shouts of victory roar, The crown's a red night-cap, and Britain's no more. Under these undeniable and imperious circumstances, which no argument or chicanery can explain away, our neighbours must be content to be called our natural enemies; for such on every occasion they have proved the Antigallican spirit must on every occasion every occasion and by every means, be nourished and invigorated; an Englishman should never see a Frenchman without a feeling a feeling somewhat similar to that excited by an adder or a mad dog. The ridiculous dream of liberality and fraternization which once deluded so many of us, the dream is passed away; we ought to be convinced by the experience of five hundred years, that nothing but humiliation and defeat will make them behave with common decency, moderation, good manners, or honesty. There is a strong mixture of resiliency, overweening vanity, extravagant insolence, and selfishness, in the French character, which nothing can controul or remedy but a certain admirable English sedative, so frequently and so successfully administered many years ago by SIR EDWARD HAWKE, called a good drubbing; this never failing remedy hath also been given in very respecta ble doses in latter days, by LORD RODNEY, EARL ST. VIN ally, Alexander, emperor of Russia, should an English commander have occasion to address his men previous to an engagement, he might literally and precisely make use of the words attributed by an antient writer to the excellent Scipio. Nec genus belli, nec hostem ignoramus; cum iis pugnandum est quos terra marique priore bello vicimus; a quibus capta belli præmia habemus; et nunc non hostes, sed reliquias hostium pugnamus; homines, fame, frigore, squalore, enecti, contusi et debilitati, inter saxa rupesque. "We are neither ignorant of the species of war, nor the kind of enemy with whom we engage; our contest is with those whom in the last war we defeated by sea and land; ships, prisoners, and treasure, the reward of victory, are in our possession." CENT, VISCOUNT DUNCAN, NELSON LORD, LORD NELSON, SIR SIDNEY SMITH, SIR JOHN BORLASE WARREN, and a long train of able practitioners, the enumeration of whom would convert this book into a nautical almanack. After the exterminating victories of Lord Nelson, and the heroic though unsuccessful exertions of our magnanimous THE HERO OF THE Nile, the DESTROYER of Fleets of our ENEMIES. At a moment when Germany, Europe, and the world, are to be partitioned and parcelled out by French caprice; when the feudal system of holding territories and domains by military tenures is restored by the predominating policy of the Emperor Napoleon, at such a moment of general interest and emotion, the death of our excellent admiral, by the hand of a previously instructed assassin in the shrouds, communicated an electric shock to the heart-strings of every Englishman, and diffused a melancholy cloud over the background of his glorious victory. The gallant Nelson is no more! A life, every hour of which has been marked by honorable effort, a glorious life is terminated, a career of uninterrupted victory is closed. But as Lord Nelson lived only for his country, so may his death be productive of important advantages, if the principle and theory on which he acted be properly considered and prac tically enforced; they were plain, simple, uniform and intelligible to all capacities. To take, to burn, to sink, and destroy the ships of our enemies, was the pride and business of his life; in accomplishing this purpose he suffered nothing to interfere, every consideration of personal safety was effaced by the blaze of inextinguishable courage, death or victory was his determined purpose, the certainty of instant destruction was in his eye as dust in the balance. By this uncompromising theory which he so gloriously illus trated, he raised our English name to the highest pitch of renown; the ships he took or destroyed would form a numerous fleet; remote countries beheld him with admiration, and at hearing his name, Napoleon has been seen to bite his quivering lips, and tremble on his throne. Such are the glories of our naval pre-eminence, purchased by the blood of thousands, by the mingled tears of widows and of orphans, and if England is to support a superiority purchased at such a price, a superiority to which we evidently are indebted for independence, domestic peace, and other invaluable blessings, the system of LORD NELSON must be enforced, upheld, and improved. or No difference of numbers, no superior weight of metal number of men, must protect the squadrons or single ships of France, Holland, or Spain, from instant attack; at all hazards and under every circumstance, like that worthy and courageous Englishman, the gallant captain of the Hindostan, naval men must Now remember that it is their duty to sacrifice themselves and ships to preserve their country. We must impress deeply and in characters of blood, on the mind mind of every French and Spa- NERVOUS AFFECTIONS, nish sailor, the moment an English ship appears in the offing, that whatever his force, hard blows will be his portion, and that death or captivity will be the inevitable lot of himself or his foe. No consideration must be allowed to explain away, weaken, or evade this paramount law; if we once suffer a quarter deck to be converted into a school of logic for weighing in a trembling balance, the law of probabilities, if the great cabin is to be a betting room for deciding on the doctrine of chances, and for looking after and hedging off all possible contingencies, the question with France is decided, further expence and toil are useless, and it remains only to dispatch an envoy at once to Mal Maison or St. Cloud, to receive conditions and submit to them ;then indeed would the shade of HAWKE complain, and NELSON'S ghost walk unrevenged amongst us:sed ni fallor Di immortales nobis meliora parant. Although the frame of Lord Nelson is mouldering to dust, the conduct of Admiral Duckworth proves, that the unembodied spirit of the hero of Trafalgar still animates our bosoms. the terra incognita of hu man knowledge. In a former volume of this work, an instance is related of a French lady of quality, who, during during a long illness, either from delirium or broken sleep, was frequently heard to mutter a jargon unintelligible to all present: an additional nurse being engaged, this person immediately understood the words, and pronounced them to be certain little songs or hymns in a vitiated dialect of the French language, spoken in Britanny, of which province both the nurse and the sick lady were natives; but of this gibberish, the lady on her recovery was found to be totally ignorant, and wholly unacquainted with the words which she had so repeatedly been heard to sing or say. Of this unconscious but indelible impression of what we have seen and heard, another example has been recorded, and attested on the most respectable evidence. More than forty years ago, a gentleman of Reading, in Berkshire, discharged his footman, and having found great trouble with what are called complete servants, who are generally useful |