Chapter VII: Part 7

“Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Johannis.
Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum
Mortalis vitæ. Genitor Bocchaccius illi,
Patria Certaldum, studium fuit alma poesis.”

A monument was also raised to him in the same church, with an inscription by Coluccio Salutati, secretary to the republic, an intimate friend of the deceased. This monument was restored, in 1503, by Tedaldo, Podestà, or justice, of Certaldo, who placed another inscription under the bust of the deceased. The republic of Florence, in 1396, voted monuments to be raised in their capital to Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch, but this resolution was not carried into effect.

By a will, which was dated the year preceding that of his death, and which is published among his Latin works, Boccaccio constituted his two nephews, the sons of his brother Jacopo, his heirs. His library he left to his confessor, Father Martin of Signa, an Augustin friar, whom he also appointed his executor, directing, that after the father’s death it should revert to the convent of Santo Spirito at Florence, for the use of students. A fire which broke out in the convent, in the year 1471, destroyed this valuable collection, which had cost the proprietor so many years of labour and care, and in which he had expended the greater part of his patrimony. Boccaccio having, in his book _De Genealogia Deorum_, quoted several ancient authors whose works have not reached us, it is supposed that some of these must have been included in the catastrophe that befel his library. He has been accused, however, of quoting fictitious authors in this treatise.

Boccaccio’s private character was stained by licentiousness. Besides his Fiammetta, he had several mistresses whom he mentions in his Ameto. A natural daughter, whose name was Violante, he lost while she was an infant, and he mourns over her in his eclogues under the name of Olympia. He had also an illegitimate son who survived him, but who is not mentioned in his testament.

In the latter years of his life, Boccaccio was poor, though not in absolute want, and his friend Petrarch, who died little more than one year before him, left him by his will fifty golden florins, “to buy him a winter pelisse to protect him from cold while in his study at night,” adding, that if he did no more for Boccaccio, it was not through want of inclination but want of means. Boccaccio, on his part, had given Petrarch several works copied by his own hand, among others, a Latin translation of Homer, Dante, and some works of St. Augustine.

His modest dwelling at Certaldo, in which he died, still remains. The Princes of the House of Medici protected it by affixing their armorial ensigns on the outside, with an inscription. A Florentine lady, of the name of Medici Lenzoni, purchased it in 1822, in order to preserve it from dilapidation as a relic of departed genius. The appearance of the house is exactly similar to the sketch given by Manni a century since, in his life of Boccaccio. It is built of brick, according to the fashion of the fourteenth century, with a square turret on one side of it commanding a fine view of the surrounding hills; one of which is still called by the country people, “the hill of Boccaccio,” from a tradition that this was his favourite place of resort for meditation and study in the summer heats. The grove which crowned its summit was cut down not long ago. A curious circumstance is said by Professor Rosellini to have happened some years before the purchase of the house by the Signora Lenzoni. An old woman, who tenanted the premises, was busy weaving in a small room next to the sitting apartment, when the repeated shaking of her loom brought down part of the wall, and laid open a small recess hollowed in the thickness of it, from which a large bundle of written papers tumbled down. The old woman, through ignorance or superstition, or both, thought it a pious duty to consign the whole of the MSS. to the flames. Probably many interesting autographs of Boccaccio have thus been lost.

Much has been said about Boccaccio’s tomb being “torn up and desecrated by bigots;” and Lord Byron has made this the subject of his eloquent invective. The story seems, however, to have originated in mistake. Rosellini has given an authentic account of the whole transaction. It appears that many years since, after a law had been passed by the Grand Duke Leopold in 1783, forbidding the burial of the dead under church pavements, the tomb of Boccaccio, which lay in the centre of the church of St. James and St. Michael at Certaldo, covered by a stone bearing his family escutcheon, his effigy, and the four lines above quoted, was opened. Nothing was found, except a skull, and a tin tube containing several written parchments, which the persons present could not understand. What became of these is not known, perhaps they were destroyed like the MSS. found by the old woman. The tombstone was purchased by some one on the spot, and having since been broken, one fragment alone remains, which the Signora Lenzoni has recovered and placed inside Boccaccio’s house. All this is asserted in a notarial document drawn up at Certaldo in 1825, and certified by ocular witnesses then surviving, who were present at the opening of the vault. But, besides this gravestone, there was a monument placed high on one of the side-walls of the church, consisting of Boccaccio’s bust, which is a good likeness, holding with both his arms against his breast a book, on which is written ‘Decameron,’ and under the bust are the two inscriptions by Salutati and Tedaldo, such as Manni transcribed them. To this monument, and not to the tomb, Byron’s reproach partly applies, for it was of late years removed by some fanatics from its place, and thrown in a corner at the end of the church. But the authorities interfered and caused it to be restored in a more conspicuous position, facing the pulpit, where it is now to be seen.

Boccaccio wrote both in Latin and in Italian, in prose and in verse. His Latin works are now mostly forgotten, although the author evidently thought more of them than of his Italian novels. Petrarch fell into the same mistake with regard to his own productions in both languages. The language of the country, especially in prose composition, was then esteemed below the dignity of learned men, and suited only to works of recreation and amusement. Boccaccio wrote a book on mythology (De Genealogia Deorum, lib. xv.) which he dedicated to Hugo, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, at whose request he had composed it. He acknowledges that he had derived much information on the subject from Pietro Perugino, librarian to King Robert of Naples, an assiduous inquirer after ancient and especially Greek lore, and who had availed himself in his researches of his intimacy with the Monk Barlaam, a learned Greek emigrant, residing in Calabria. Boccaccio’s other Latin works are ‘De montium, sylvarum, lacuum, fluviorum, stagnorum, et marium nominibus, liber,’ a sort of gazetteer. ‘De casibus virorum et fæminarum illustrium, libri ix.’ where he eloquently relates, in the last book, the tragic catastrophe of the unfortunate Templars who were executed at Paris in 1310–14; at which his father was present. ‘De claris mulieribus opus,’—and lastly, sixteen ‘Eclogæ,’ amounting to about three thousand lines, which have been published with those of Petrarch and others at Florence in 1504. Boccaccio left a key to the real personages of these eclogues in a long letter written to the already-mentioned father Martin of Signa. Both he and Petrarch allude in these poems to the vices and corruptions of the Papal Court.

Of Boccaccio’s Italian works, the Decameron is that by which his memory has been immortalized. This book consists of a series of tales, one hundred in number, ten of which are told on each afternoon for ten successive days, by a society of seven young women and three young men, who having fled from the dangers of the plague which afflicted Florence in 1348, assembled at a villa a short distance from the town. The stories turn chiefly on amorous intrigues and devices, disappointments and enjoyments, very broadly narrated; and can by no means be recommended for indiscriminate perusal. They are admirably told, and are full of wit and humour; but the pleasantry is for the most part of a nature which modern manners cannot tolerate. There are, however, better things than mere loose tales in the Decameron: several of the stories are unexceptionable; some highly pathetic. They have furnished many subjects for poetry, and especially for the drama; as, for instance, the tale of Ginevra, the ninth of the second day, and the affecting story of Griselda, the last of all. With regard to the merit of the invention, it is true that some of Boccaccio’s tales are taken from the ‘Cento Novelle Antiche,’ one of the oldest books in the Italian language. But the greater number are original: and many refer to persons and events well known in Italy, especially in Tuscany at that time, as is demonstrated by Manni. The skill with which this multitude of tales is arranged and brought forward, constitutes one of the chief merits of the work. It has been remarked that out of a hundred introductions with which he prefaces them, no two are alike. His narrative is clear; free from metaphors and repetition; avoiding superfluity as well as monotony, and engaging without tiring the attention. His descriptions, though minute, are graceful and lively. Generally humorous, not to say broad, he can, at pleasure, be pathetic; at pleasure, grave and dignified.

Here our praise of this celebrated work must stop. Of its indecencies we have already spoken. The narrative, though clothed in decent words, frequently runs in such a strain as no company of women above the lowest grade of shame would now listen to, much less indulge in. Bad as this is, a still deeper stain is to be found in the utter absence of all moral principle, and callousness to all good feeling. Long planned seduction, breach of hospitality, betrayal of friendship, all these are painted as fortunate and spirited adventures, and as desirable objects of attainment. Unlucky husbands are sneered at; jealousy of honour is censured as stupidity or tyranny. Some of the female characters are even worse than the male; and the world of the Decameron is one which no man of common decency or honour could bear to live in. Boccaccio saw the mischief he had done, and was sorry when it was too late. In a letter to Mainardo de’ Cavalcanti, Marshal of Sicily, he entreated him not to suffer the females of his family to read the Decameron; because, “although education and honour would keep them above temptation, yet their minds could not but be tainted by such obscene stories.”

He is fond of introducing monks and friars engaged in licentious pursuits, and exposed to ludicrous and humiliating adventures. He also at times speaks of the rites of the church in a profane or sarcastic manner. From this it has been inferred that he was a sceptic or heretic. The conclusion is erroneous. Like other wits of that ignorant, superstitious, and debauched age, Boccaccio sneered, reviled, and yet feared: and while he ridiculed the ministers and usages of the church, he was employed in collecting relics, and ended his loose tales with invocations of heaven and the saints. Besides, the secular clergy themselves bore no love towards the monks and mendicant friars: they were jealous of the former, and they hated and despised the latter. From Dante down to Leo X. the dignitaries of the church spoke of friars in terms nearly as opprobrious as Boccaccio himself. Leo made public jest of them. Bembo, the secretary of Leo, and a cardinal himself, and Berni, the secretary to several cardinals, give no more quarter to them than is given in the Decameron. No wonder then that laymen should take similar liberties, and that a friar should be regarded, as Ugo Foscolo observes, as a sort of scape-goat for the sins of the whole clergy. These considerations may explain how the Decameron went through several editions, both at Venice and Florence, without attracting the censures of the Court of Rome. The earliest editions bear the dates of 1471–2, but these became extremely scarce, since the fanatic Savanarola had a heap of them burnt in the public square of Florence in 1497. Of the Valdarfer edition of 1471, only one copy is known to exist. This has long been an object of interest to book collectors; and was purchased, at the Roxburgh sale, by the Marquis of Blandford, for the enormous sum of £2260. After the reformation in Germany, a more watchful censorship was established, and the Decameron was placed in the list of proscribed books. An expurgated edition however was allowed to appear, under the _imprimatur_ of Pope Gregory XIII. in 1573, in which many passages marked by the Inquisition were expunged, and laymen were made to take the places of the clergy in the more indecorous adventures. The MS. from which this and most of the subsequent editions are taken, was written by Mannelli, the godson, and friend of Boccaccio, in 1384, nine years after the author’s death. It is now in the Laurentian library at Florence. Mannelli has copied scrupulously what he calls “the text,” whether an autograph of Boccaccio, or an earlier copy, even to its errors and omissions, noting from time to time in the margin “sic textus,” or “deficiebat,” or “superfluum.” It may therefore be presumed that the author had not put the last finish to his work.

Boccaccio began the Decameron soon after the plague of 1348, and seems to have circulated the days, or parts, among his friends as he completed them. He was a long time in completing the work, which he seems to have laid aside, and resumed at leisure; and it is believed that he was eight years employed upon it, and that he wrote the latter tales about 1356. From that time he seems to have taken no more notice of it. He never sent it to Petrarch, to whom he was in the habit of transmitting all his other compositions; and it was only by accident, many years after, that the poet saw a copy of it. This he mentions in one of his letters to Boccaccio, and says that he “supposes it to be one of his juvenile productions.” Petrarch praised only the description of the plague, and the story of Griselda. This he translated into Latin.

Boccaccio’s other Italian prose works are ‘Il Filocopo,’ a prose romance, written at the request of his Fiammetta. It is a dull composition, far inferior to the Decameron in style, and displaying an anomalous mixture of Christian and Pagan images and sentiments. ‘L’Amorosa Fiammetta’ is also a prose romance, in which the lady relates her passion and grief for the absence of Pamfilo, by which name the author is supposed to have designated himself. ‘Il Corbaccio,’ or the ‘Labyrinth of Love,’ in which he relates his adventures with a certain widow, the same probably as he has introduced in the seventh tale of the eighth day of the Decameron. ‘Ameto,’ a drama of mixed prose and verse. ‘Origine, vita, e costumi di Dante Alighieri,’ the life of Dante already mentioned. Several letters remain, but the bulk of his correspondence is lost. A life of Petrarch by Boccaccio, written originally in Latin, has been recently discovered, and published in 1828 by Domenico Rossetti, of Trieste.

Boccaccio wrote a quantity of Italian verse, of which he himself thought little, after seeing those of Petrarch; and posterity has confirmed his judgment. His Teseide, a heroic poem, in ottava rima, may be excepted. This metre, generally adopted by the Italian epic and romantic poets, he has the merit of having invented. Though imperfect, and little attractive as an epic poem, the Teseide is not destitute of minor beauties. Chaucer is indebted to it for his Knight’s Tale, remodelled by Dryden under the name of Palamon and Arcite.

An edition of Boccaccio’s Italian prose works was printed at Naples, with the date of Florence, in 1723–4, in 6 vols. 8vo.; but a better edition has been lately published at Florence, corrected after the best approved MSS. in 13 vols. 8vo. 1827–32.

The editions of the Decameron are almost innumerable. The best and most recent ones are those of Poggiali, 1789–90, in 5 vols. 8vo.; that of Ferrario, Milan, 1803; that of Colombo, Parma, 1812; all with copious notes and comments; a small one by Molini, Florence, 1820; and the one by Pickering, London, to which the late Ugo Foscolo prefixed an elaborate and interesting historical dissertation. Domenico Maria Manni wrote a ‘History of the Decameron,’ Florence, 1742, in which he has collected a store of curious information concerning that work and its author.

The principal biographers of Boccaccio are Filippo Villani, who may be considered as a contemporary of our author; Giannozzo Mannetti, Francesco Sansovino, Giuseppe Betussi, Count Mazzuchelli, and lastly, the Count G. Battista Baldelli, who published a new life of Boccaccio in 1806 at Florence.

]

CLAUDE.

Claude Gelée, commonly called Claude Lorraine, was born in 1600, at the village of Chamagne in Lorraine, of very indigent parents. He was apprenticed to a pastry-cook; but at the end of his term of service, whether from disgust at his employment, desire of change, or perhaps influenced by the love of art, he engaged himself as a domestic to some young painters who were going to Italy. On arriving at Rome he was employed as a colour-grinder by Agostino Tassi, an artist then in high repute whose landscapes are spirited and free, and particularly distinguished by the taste displayed in the architectural accompaniments. Tassi first induced him to try his abilities in painting. His earliest essays were implicit imitations of his master’s manner, and evinced no symptom of original genius; perhaps even in his matured style some indications of Tassi’s influence may be traced. He continued, as opportunity occurred, to exercise his pencil, obtaining little notice and still less reward. By degrees however he succeeded sufficiently to venture on giving up his menial employment; and having acquired from Tassi a tolerable expertness in the mechanical part of his profession, he appears from thenceforth to have given little attention to the works of other painters, relying on his own discernment and diligent observation of nature. Many years elapsed, however, before the talents of Claude reached their full maturity, whence his biographers have inferred that he owed his excellence rather to industry than genius: as if such excellence were within the reach of mere application.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

CLAUDE.

_From the original
in the Musée Royale, Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

He drew with indefatigable diligence, both from antique sculpture and from the living model, but to little purpose; and he was so conscious of his incapacity, that he used to observe, “I sell the landscapes, and throw the figures into the bargain:” and sometimes he employed Filippo Lauri and Courtois to insert them. But his figures, however faulty in themselves, are always well adapted to promote the harmony of the whole composition; being judiciously placed, and shaded, illuminated, sharpened out, or rendered indistinct, with nearly as much skill as is shown in the other parts of the picture. And not unfrequently, however feebly drawn, they partake of that classical and poetic air, which Claude, beyond every other landscape painter, has diffused over his works.

It is said, and the circumstances of his early life render it probable, that he was very deficient in general acquirements. Assuredly he had no opportunities of becoming a profound scholar, nor in relation to his art was it necessary that he should; why should he have sought through the medium of books that imagery which lay before him in reality? Rome, and its environs, the banks of the Tiber, and the broad Campagna, supplied his imagination with the best food, and his pencil with inexhaustible materials. He was accustomed to spend whole days in the open air, not only studying Nature in her permanent aspects, but making memorandums of every accidental and fleeting effect which presented itself to his observation. Sandrart, who sometimes accompanied Claude in his excursions, relates that he was accustomed to discourse on the visible phenomena of nature with the intelligence of a philosopher; not only noting effects, but explaining their causes with precision and correctness, whether produced by reflection or refraction of light, by dew, vapour, or other agencies of the atmosphere. Broad as is his style, he entered minutely into detail, and made drawings of trees, shrubs, and herbage, marking all their peculiarities of shape, growth, and foliage. By this practice he was enabled to represent those objects with undeviating accuracy, and to express, by a few decided touches, their general character.

Amidst the splendour of his general effects, the distinguishing qualities of objects are never neglected; fidelity is never merged in manner; and hence it is, that the longer we look at his pictures, the more vivid is the illusion, the more strongly is the reality of the represented scene impressed upon us. Combining with his fine imagination the results of observation thus long and intensely exercised, he accomplished in his works that union of poetic feeling with accurate representation of nature, which forms the highest excellence of art, and in which, as a landscape painter, he stands unrivalled.

Claude found in Rome and its neighbourhood the materials of his scenery, but the combination of them was his own: he selected and copied portions, but he seldom or never painted individual views from nature. His favourite effects are those of sunrise and sunset, the periods at which nature puts on her most gorgeous colouring. Beauty and magnificence are the characteristics of his compositions: he seldom aims at sublimity, but he never sinks into dulness. Above all he never brings mean or offensive objects into prominent view, as is so often the case in the Dutch pictures. His fore-grounds are usually occupied by trees of large size and noble character, and temples and palaces, or with ruins august in their decay. Groves and towers, broad lakes, and the continuous lines of arched aqueducts enrich the middle space; or a boundless expanse of Arcadian scenery sweeps away into the blue mountainous horizon. In his admirable pictures of seaports, he carries us back into antiquity; there is nothing in the style of the buildings, the shape of the vessels, or the character of any of the accompaniments which, by suggesting homely associations, injures the general grandeur of the effect. The gilded galleys, the lofty quays, and the buildings which they support, all belong to other times, and all have the stamp of opulence, magnificence, and power.

As Claude’s subjects are almost uniformly those of morning or evening, it might naturally be supposed that his works possess an air of sameness. To remove such an impression, it is only necessary to look at his pictures side by side. We then perceive that he scarcely ever repeats himself. The pictures of St. Ursula and the Queen of Sheba, in the National Gallery, are striking instances of that endless variety which he could communicate to similar subjects. In each of these pictures there is a procession of females issuing from a palace, and an embarkation. The extremities of the canvas are occupied by buildings, the middle space being assigned to the sea and shipping, over which the sun is ascending. After the first glance, there is no resemblance in these pictures. The objects introduced in each are essentially different in character; in that of the Queen of Sheba they are much fewer in number; the masses are more broad and unbroken, and the picture has altogether more grandeur and simplicity than its companion. Its atmosphere too is different: it is less clear and golden, and there is a swell on the waves, as if they were subsiding from the agitation of a recent storm. The picture of St. Ursula is characterized by beauty. Summer appears to be in its meridian, and the whole picture seems gladdened by the freshening influence of morning. The vapoury haze which is just dispersing, the long cool shadows thrown by the buildings and shipping, the glancing of the sun-beams on the water, and the admirable perspective, all exhibit the highest perfection of art. It was thus that Claude, although he painted only the most beautiful appearances of nature, diversified his effects by the finest discrimination. Sea-ports such as these were among his most favourite subjects; and there are none in which he more excelled: yet perhaps it is with his pastoral subjects that we are most completely gratified. The Arcadia of the poets seems to be renewed in the pictures of Claude.

In the general character of his genius, Claude bears a strong affinity to Titian. He resembles him in power of generalization, in unaffected breadth of light and shadow, and in that unostentatious execution which is never needlessly displayed to excite wonder, and which does its exact office, and nothing more. But the similitude in colour is still more striking. The pictures of both are pervaded by the same glowing warmth; and exhibit the true brilliancy of nature, in which the hues of the brightest objects are graduated and softened by the atmosphere which surrounds them. The colours by which both produced their wonderful effects were for the most part simple earths, without any mixture of factitious compounds, the use of which has been always prevalent in the infancy, and the decline of art, administering as it does to that unformed or degenerate taste which prefers gaudiness to truth.

Claude’s success raised a host of imitators. He was accustomed, on sending home the works which he had been commissioned to paint to make a drawing of each, which he inscribed with the name of the purchaser, as a means by which the originality of his productions might be traced and authenticated. He left six volumes of these drawings at the time of his death, which he called his Libri di Verità. One containing two hundred designs is in possession of the Duke of Devonshire; these have been engraved by Earlom, and published by Boydell under the title of Liber Veritatis. Another of these books was purchased a few years since in Spain, and brought into this country; where it came into the possession of Mr. Payne Knight, and was bequeathed by him to the British Museum. Some of Claude’s pictures have been finely engraved by Woollet. There are twenty-eight etchings extant of landscapes and seaports, by Claude’s own hand, executed with the taste, spirit, and feeling which we should naturally expect.

England is rich in the pictures of Claude, some of the finest of which were imported from the Altieri Palace at Rome, and from the collection of the Duc de Bouillon at Paris. There are ten in the National Gallery: the two to which we have adverted, that of St. Ursula especially, he has perhaps never surpassed. The little picture of the Death of Procris is also singularly beautiful. The Earl of Radnor’s Evening, or Decline of the Roman Empire, is one of the most exquisite of Claude’s works. The Marquis of Bute’s collection at Luton, is also enriched by some of the finest specimens of this artist in England.

His private history is entirely devoid of incident. From the time of his arrival in Italy he never quitted it: and though claimed by the French as a French artist, he was really, in all but birth, an Italian. He lived absorbed in his art, and never married, that his devotion to it might not be interrupted by domestic cares. His disposition was mild and amiable. He died in 1682, aged eighty-two.

For more detailed information we may refer to Sandrart ‘Academia Artis Pictoriæ.’ It is extraordinary that in Felibien’s elaborate work, “sur les Vies et sur les Ouvrages des plus excellens Peintres anciens et modernes,” Claude is entirely omitted. The English reader will find the substance of the information given by Sandrart, in Bryan and Pilkington.

]

_Engraved by T. Woolnoth._

LORD NELSON.

_From an original Picture by Hoppner
in his Majesty’s Collection at S^{t.} James’s._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

NELSON.

The services of our great naval Captain need no long description. The recollection of them is still fondly cherished by his countrymen, and they have been worthily commemorated by Mr. Southey, with whose Life of Nelson few readers are unacquainted. To that most animated and interesting work, which by its late re-publication in the Family Library is placed within the reach of every one, we must refer those who desire fuller information concerning the hero of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, than is contained in this memoir.

Horatio Nelson was born at Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, September 29, 1758. His father, the rector of that parish, was burthened with a numerous family: and it is said to have been more with a view to lighten that burden than from predilection for the service, that at the age of twelve he expressed a wish to go to sea, under the care of his uncle, Captain Suckling. Of his early adventures it is unnecessary to speak in detail. In 1773 he served in Captain Phipps’s voyage of discovery in the Northern Polar seas. His next station was the East Indies; from which, at the end of eighteen months, he was compelled to return by a very severe and dangerous illness. In April, 1777, he passed his examination, and was immediately commissioned as second lieutenant of the Lowestoffe frigate, then fitting out for Jamaica.

Fortunate in conciliating the good-will and esteem of those with whom he served, he passed rapidly through the lower ranks of his profession, and was made post-captain, with the command of the Hinchinbrook, of twenty-eight guns, June 11, 1779, when not yet of age. In 1782 he was appointed to the Albemarle, twenty-eight; and in 1784 to the Boreas, twenty-eight, in which he served for three years in the West Indies, and though in time of peace, gave signal proof of his resolution and strict sense of duty, by being the first to insist on the exclusion of the Americans from direct trade with our colonies, agreeably to the terms of the Navigation Act. He had no small difficulties to contend with; for the planters and the colonial authorities were united against him, and even the Admiral on the station coincided with their views, and gave orders that the Americans should be allowed free access to the islands. Still Nelson persevered. Transmitting a respectful remonstrance to the Admiral, he seized four of the American ships, which, after due notice, refused to quit the island of Nevis; and after a long and tedious process at law, in which he incurred much anxiety and expense, he succeeded in procuring their condemnation by the Admiralty Court. Many other ships were condemned on the same ground. Neither his services in this matter, nor his efforts to expose and remedy the peculations and dishonesty of the government agents, in almost all matters connected with naval affairs in the West Indies, were duly acknowledged by the Government at home; and in moments of spleen, when suffering under inconveniences which a conscientious discharge of his duty had brought on him, he talked of quitting the service of an ungrateful country. In March, 1787, he married Mrs. Nisbet, a West-Indian lady, and in the same year returned to England. He continued unemployed till January, 1793; when, on the breaking out of the revolutionary war, he was appointed to the Agamemnon, sixty-four, and ordered to serve in the Mediterranean under the command of Lord Hood.

An ample field for action was now open to him. Lord Hood, who had known him in the West Indies, and appreciated his merits, employed him to co-operate with Paoli in delivering Corsica from its subjection to France; and most laboriously and ably did he perform the duty intrusted to him. The siege and capture of Bastia was entirely owing to his efforts; and at the siege of Calvi, during which he lost an eye, and throughout the train of successes which brought about the temporary annexation of Corsica to the British crown, his services, and those of the brave crew of the Agamemnon, were conspicuous. In 1795 Nelson was selected to co-operate with the Austrian and Sardinian troops in opposing the progress of the French in the north of Italy. The incapacity, if not dishonesty, and the bad success of those with whom he had to act, rendered this service irksome and inglorious; and his mortification was heightened when orders were sent out to withdraw the fleet from the Mediterranean, and evacuate Corsica and Elba. These reverses, however, were the prelude to a day of glory. On February 13, 1797, the British fleet, commanded by Sir John Jervis, fell in with the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. In the battle which ensued, Nelson, who had been raised to the rank of Commodore, and removed to the Captain, seventy-four, bore a most distinguished part. Apprehensive lest the enemy might be enabled to escape without fighting, he did not hesitate to disobey signals; and executed a manœuvre which brought the Captain into close action at once with four first-rates, an eighty, and two seventy-four-gun ships. Captain Trowbridge, in the Culloden, immediately came to his support, and they maintained the contest for near an hour against this immense disparity of force. One first-rate and one seventy-four dropped astern disabled; but the Culloden was also crippled, and the Captain was fired on by five ships of the line at once; when Captain Collingwood, in the Excellent, came up and engaged the huge Santissima Trinidad, of one hundred and thirty-six guns. By this time the Captain’s rigging was all shot away; and she lay unmanageable abreast of the eighty-gun ship, the S. Nicolas. Nelson seized the opportunity to board, and was himself among the first to enter the Spanish ship. She struck after a short struggle; and, sending for fresh men, he led the way from his prize to board the S. Josef, of one hundred and twelve guns, exclaiming, “Westminster Abbey or victory.” The ship immediately surrendered. Nelson received the most lively and public thanks for his services from the Admiral, who was raised to the peerage by the title of Earl St. Vincent. Nelson received the Order of the Bath; he had already been made Rear-Admiral, before tidings of the battle reached England.

During the spring, Sir Horatio Nelson commanded the inner squadron employed in the blockade of Cadiz. He was afterwards despatched on an expedition against Teneriffe, which was defeated with considerable loss to the assailants. The Admiral himself lost his right arm, and was obliged to return to England, where he languished more than four months before the cure of his wound was completed. His services were rewarded by a pension of £1,000. On this occasion he was required by official forms to present a memorial of the services in which he had been engaged; and as our brief account can convey no notion of the constant activity of his early life, we quote the abstract of this paper given by Mr. Southey. “It stated that he had been in four actions with the fleets of the enemy, and in three actions with boats employed in cutting out of harbour, in destroying vessels, and in taking three towns; he had served on shore with the army four months, and commanded the batteries at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi; he had assisted at the capture of seven sail of the line, six frigates, four corvettes, and eleven privateers; taken and destroyed near fifty sail of merchant vessels, and actually been engaged against the enemy upwards of a hundred and twenty times; in which service he had lost his right eye and right arm, and been severely wounded and bruised in his body.”

Early in 1798 Nelson went out in the Vanguard to rejoin Lord St. Vincent off Cadiz. He was immediately despatched with a squadron into the Mediterranean, to watch an armament known to be fitting out at Toulon; the destination of which excited much anxiety. It sailed May 20, attacked and took Malta, and then proceeded, as Nelson supposed, to Egypt. Strengthened by a powerful reinforcement, he made all sail for Alexandria; but there no enemy had been seen or heard of. He returned in haste along the north coast of the Mediterranean to Sicily, refreshed the fleet, and again sailed to the eastward. On nearing Alexandria the second time, August 1, he had the pleasure of seeing the object of his toilsome cruise moored in Aboukir Bay, in line of battle. It appeared afterwards that the two fleets must have crossed each other on the night of June 22.

The French fleet consisted of thirteen ships of the line and four frigates; the British of the same number of ships of the line, and one fifty-gun ship. In number of guns and men the French had a decided superiority. It was evening before the British fleet came up. The battle began at half-past six; night closed in at seven, and the struggle was continued through the darkness, a magnificent and awful spectacle to thousands who watched the engagement with eager anxiety. Victory was not long doubtful. The two first ships of the French line were dismasted in a quarter of an hour; the third, fourth, and fifth were taken by half-past eight; about ten, the L’Orient, Admiral Bruey’s flag-ship, blew up. By day-break the two rear ships, which had not been engaged, cut their cables and stood out to sea, in company with two frigates, leaving nine ships of the line in the hands of the British, who were too much crippled to engage in pursuit. Two ships of the line and two frigates were burnt or sunk. Three out of the four ships which escaped were subsequently taken; and thus, of the whole armament, only a single frigate returned to France.

This victory, the most complete and most important then known in naval warfare, raised Nelson to the summit of glory; and presents and honours were showered on him from all quarters. The gratitude of his country was expressed, inadequately in comparison with the rewards bestowed on others for less important services, by raising him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, with a pension of £2,000. The Court of Naples, to which the battle of Aboukir was as a reprieve from destruction, testified a due sense of their obligation by bestowing on him the dukedom and domain of Bronte, in Sicily. From Alexandria Nelson went to Naples, much shattered in health by the fatigue and intense anxiety which he had experienced during his long cruise, and suffering from a severe wound in the head, received in the recent battle. He was most kindly received by Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador; and here commenced that fatal intimacy with the celebrated Lady Hamilton, which ruined his domestic peace, and led to the only stains upon his public life. Her influence ruled him in all transactions in which the Neapolitan Court was interested: and as she sought in all things to gratify the Queen, to whom she was devotedly attached, the passions and follies of a court corrupt and childish beyond example, were too often allowed to warp the conduct of a British Admiral, who hitherto had sought the welfare of his country, even in preference to his own honour and prospects of advancement. His best friends saw and lamented the consequences of his weakness, and remonstrated, but to no purpose; and he himself, unable to control this passion, or to stifle the uneasy feelings to which it gave birth, appears from his private letters to have been thoroughly unhappy. Overpowering that influence must have been, when it could induce the gallant and generous Nelson to annul a treaty of surrender concluded with the Neapolitan revolutionists, under the joint authority of the Neapolitan Royalist General, and the British Captain commanding in the Bay of Naples, and to deliver up the prisoners to the vengeance of the court, on the sole plea that he would grant no terms to rebels but those of unconditional submission.

The autumn of 1798, the whole of 1799, and part of 1800, Nelson spent in the Mediterranean, employed in the recovery of Malta, in protecting Sicily, and in co-operating to expel the French from the Neapolitan continental dominions. In 1800 various causes of discontent led him to solicit leave to return to England, where he was received with the enthusiasm due to his services.

Soon afterwards, still mastered by his passion, he separated himself formally from Lady Nelson. In March, 1801, he sailed as second in command of the expedition against Copenhagen, led by Sir Hyde Parker. The dilatoriness with which it was conducted increased the difficulties of this enterprise; and might have caused it to fail, had not Nelson’s energy and talent been at hand to overcome the obstacles occasioned by this delay. The attack was intrusted to him by Sir Hyde Parker, and executed April 2, with his usual promptitude and success. After a fierce engagement, with great slaughter on both sides, the greater part of the Danish line of defence was captured or silenced. Nelson then sent a flag of truce on shore, and an armistice was concluded. He bore honourable testimony to the gallantry of his opponents. “The French,” he said, “fought bravely, but they could not have supported for one hour the fight which the Danes had supported for four.” May 5, Sir Hyde Parker was recalled, and Nelson appointed Commander-in-Chief: but no further hostilities occurred, and suffering greatly from the climate, he almost immediately returned home. For this battle he was raised to the rank of Viscount.

At this time much alarm prevailed with respect to the meditated invasion of England; and the command of the coast from Orfordness to Beachy Head was offered to him, and accepted. But he thought the alarm idle; he felt the service to be irksome; and gladly retired from it at the peace of Amiens. When war was renewed in 1803, he took the command of the Mediterranean fleet. For more than a year he kept his station off Toulon, eagerly watching for the French fleet. In January, 1805, it put to sea, and escaped the observation of his look-out ships. He made for Egypt, and failing to meet with them, returned to Malta, where he found information that they had been dispersed in a gale, and forced to put back to Toulon. Villeneuve put to sea again, March 31, formed a junction with the Spanish fleet in Cadiz, and sailed for the West Indies. Thither Nelson followed him, after considerable delay for want of information and from contrary winds; but the enemy still eluded his pursuit, and he was obliged to retrace his anxious course to Europe, without the longed-for meeting, and with no other satisfaction than that of having frustrated by his diligence their designs on our colonies. June 20, 1805, he landed at Gibraltar, that being the first time that he had set foot ashore since June 16, 1803. After cruising in search of the enemy till the middle of August, he was ordered to Portsmouth, where he learned that an indecisive action had taken place between the combined fleets returning from the West Indies, and the British under Sir Robert Calder.

He had not been many days established at home before certain news arrived that the French and Spanish fleets had entered Cadiz. Eager to gain the reward of his long watchings, and laborious pursuit, he again offered his services, which were gladly accepted. He embarked at Portsmouth, September 14, 1805, on board the Victory, to take the command of the fleet lying off Cadiz under Admiral Collingwood, his early friend and companion in the race of fame. The last battle in which Nelson was engaged was fought off Cape Trafalgar, October 21, 1805. The enemy were superior in number of ships, and still more in size and weight of metal. Nelson bore down on them in two lines; heading one himself, while Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign led the other, which first entered into action. “See,” cried Nelson, as the Royal Sovereign cut through the centre of the enemy’s line, and muzzle to muzzle engaged a three-decker; “see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action.” Collingwood on the other hand said to his Captain, “Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here.” As the Victory approached an incessant raking fire was directed against her, by which fifty of her men were killed and wounded before a single gun was returned. Nelson steered for his old opponent at Cape St. Vincent, the Santissima Trinidad, distinguished by her size, and opened his fire at four minutes after twelve, engaging the Redoutable with his starboard, the Santissima Trinidad and Bucentaur with his larboard guns.

About a quarter past one, a musket-ball, fired from the mizen-top of the Redoutable, struck him on the left shoulder, and he fell. From the first he felt the wound to be mortal. He suffered intense pain, yet still preserved the liveliest interest in the fate of the action; and the joy visible in his countenance as often as the hurrahs of the crew announced that an enemy had struck, testified how near his heart, even in the agonies of death, was the accomplishment of the great work to which his life had been devoted. He lived to know that his victory was complete and glorious, and expired tranquilly at half-past four. His last words were, “Thank God, I have done my duty.”

He had indeed done his duty, and completed his task; for thenceforth no hostile fleet presumed to contest the dominion of the sea. It may seem mournful, that he did not survive to enjoy the thanks and honours with which a grateful country would have rejoiced to recompense this crowning triumph. But he had reached the pinnacle of fame; and his death in the hour of victory has tended far more than a few years of peaceful life, to keep alive his memory in the hearts of a people which loved, and a navy which adored him. In the eloquent words of the distinguished author from whom this sketch is compiled, “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. He has left us a name and an example which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England: a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength.”

A few words, before we conclude, on those points which appear to us to have constituted the peculiar excellence of Nelson’s character, the real source of his greatness. We cannot attribute it solely to personal courage, or professional skill: fearless as he was, the navy contained thousands of hearts as fearless as his own; skilful as he was, there may have been other officers not less skilful than himself. But to courage, talent, and a thorough knowledge of nautical affairs, he joined a degree of political and moral courage, and disinterestedness rarely equalled. To do his duty seems always to have been his first object: not to do all that was required, but all that could be done. With this view he never hesitated to run the risk of professional censure when the emergency seemed to demand it. Many instances are on record in which he acted contrary to orders: some, when he knew that strict obedience would have been mischievous, in circumstances which the framers of the orders could not have foreseen: others where he disobeyed the commands of a superior on the spot, because he knew them to be illegal, or prejudicial to the interests of his country. The most remarkable of these is his conduct in the West Indies, because he had then no established reputation to support him. But Nelson was well aware that this is a course which no officer can be justified in pursuing, except under the full and clear conviction, not only that his own views are just, but that the occasion is of sufficient importance to justify such a deviation from the rules of service; and that, even when the transgression is justified by the event, it yet involves a most serious degree of responsibility. “Well,” he said, after the battle of Copenhagen, “I have fought contrary to orders, and I shall perhaps be hanged. Never mind, let them.” The feeling which prompted these words, though uttered half in jest, can hardly be mistaken. Another of the most admirable qualities of his character is the extraordinary power which he possessed of attaching all who served under him. His sailors adored him; and many touching anecdotes might be told of their affection. “Our Nel,” they used to say, “is as brave as a lion, and as gentle as a lamb.” To his officers he was equally kind and considerate. Happy was the midshipman who in Nelson’s younger days could obtain a berth in his ship. He himself attended to their instruction, and was diligent in so training them, as to become ornaments to the service by their gentlemanly feeling and deportment, as well as by their professional skill. Humane as brave, it was ever his object to avoid needless bloodshed: and though the virulence of national enmity led him into the most bitter expressions of hatred to the French, he was ever eager to rescue a drowning, or afford hospitality and protection to a beaten enemy. “May humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet,” was part of the prayer which he composed on the morning of Trafalgar. There is indeed one stain on his humanity, one stain on his good faith;—the deliverance of the Neapolitan revolutionists to the vengeance of a cowardly and cruel court. Of this we have already spoken; and far from excusing, we do not even wish to palliate it. It was the result of his fatal attachment to Lady Hamilton: and it is the duty of the biographer to point out that the one great blot on his domestic, led to the one great blot upon his public character. He has added another to the list of great men, who, proof against other temptations, have yielded to female influence; and we may add (for it is a valuable lesson) that in so doing he not only blemished his fame, but ruined his happiness.

Towards his country, however, Nelson was faultless; and its gratitude has been worthily shown by heaping honours on his memory. His brother was made an earl, and an estate was purchased for the family, and a pension granted to support the title. His remains were brought to England, and interred with the utmost pomp of funeral ceremony in the cemetery of St. Paul’s. His ship, the Victory, is still preserved at Portsmouth, and will long continue to be a chief object of interest to the visitors of that mighty arsenal.

CUVIER.

George Leopold Christian Frederic Dagobert Cuvier was born August 23, 1769, at Montbeliard, a small town in Alsace, which then formed part of the territory of the Duke of Wurtemburg. His father was a retired officer, living upon his pension, who had formerly held a commission in a Swiss regiment in the service of France. He had the inestimable advantage of possessing a very sensible mother who even in infancy attended with sedulous care to the formation of his character, and the development of his mind. He gave early indications that nature had endowed him with her choicest intellectual gifts. A memory of extraordinary strength, joined to industry, and to the power of fixing his attention steadily upon whatever he was engaged in, enabled him to master all the ordinary studies of youth with facility; and by the time he was fourteen years of age he had acquired a fair knowledge of the ancient, and of several modern languages, and had made considerable progress in the mathematics, besides having stored his mind by a wide range of historical reading. He very early gave proofs of a talent for drawing, which in after-life proved of material service in his researches into natural history. When he was twelve years old he read the works of Buffon with avidity, and he no doubt received from the writings of that accomplished and elegant historian of nature an early bias towards the study of zoology. While he was at school he instituted a little academy of sciences among his companions, of which he was elected the president: his sleeping-room was their hall of meeting, and the bottom of his bed the president’s chair. They read extracts from books of history, travels, and natural philosophy, which they discussed; and the debate was usually followed by an opinion on the merits of the question, pronounced from the chair.

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

CUVIER.