rank which, so greatly to my honor, you have solicited for me. How noble his poverty is, compared to the wealth of his master! His acceptance even of a pension was made the object of his opponents' satire: but think of the merit and modesty of this State pensioner; and that other enormous drawer of public money, who receives 100,000l. a year, and comes to Parliament with a request for 650,000l. more! Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Collingwood; and I think, since heaven made gentlemen, there is no record of a better one than that. Of brighter deeds, I grant you, we may read performed by others; but where of a nobler, kinder, more beautiful life of duty, of a gentler, truer heart? Beyond dazzle 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 honor! 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 ear would outdo their parish bells." There are no words to tell what the heart feels in reading the simple phrases of such a hero. Here is victory and courage, but love sublimer and superior. Here is a Christian soldier spending the night before battle in watching and preparing for the succeeding day, thinking of his dearest home, and sending many blessings forth to his Sarah, "lest he should never bless her more." Who would not say Amen to his supplications? It was a benediction to his country-the prayer of that intrepid loving heart. We have spoken of a good soldier and good men of letters as specimens of English gentlemen of the age just past: may we not also many of my elder hearers, I am sure, have read, and fondly remember his delightful story-speak of a good divine, and mention Reginald Heber as one of the best of English gentlemen? The charming poet, the happy possessor of all sorts of gifts and accomplishments, birth, wit, fame, high character, competence he was the beloved parish priest in his own home of Hoderel, "counselling his people in their troubles, advising them in their difficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling often at their sick-beds at the hazard of his own life; exhorting, encouraging where there was need; where there was strife the peace-maker; where there was want the free giver." When the Indian bishopric was offered to him he refused at first; but after communing with himself (and committing his case to the quarter whither such pious men are wont to carry their doubts), he withdrew his refusal, and prepared himself for his mission and to leave his beloved parish. "Little children, love one another, and forgive one another," were the last sacred words he said to his weeping people. He parted with them, knowing, perhaps, he should see them no more. Like those other good men of whom we have just spoken, love and duty were his life's aim. Happy he, happy they who were so gloriously faithful to both! He writes to his wife those charming lines on his journey: "If thou, my love, wert by my side, my babies at my knee, How gladly would our pinnace glide o'er Gunga's mimic sea! "I miss thee at the dawning gray, when, on our deck reclined, In careless ease my limbs I lay and woo the cooler wind. "I miss thee when by Gunga's stream my twilight steps I guide; "But when of morn and eve the star beholds me on my knee, "That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, nor wild Malwah detain, "Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, across the dark blue sea: But ne'er were hearts so blithe and gay as there shall meet in thee!" Is it not Collingwood and Sarah, and Southey and Edith? His affection is part of his life. What were life without it? Without love, I can fancy no gentleman. How touching is a remark Heber makes in his "Travels through India," that on inquiring of the natives at a town, which of the governors of India stood highest in the opinion of the people, he found that, though Lord Wellesley and Warren Hastings were honored as the two greatest men who had ever ruled this part of the world, the people spoke with chief affection of Judge Cleaveland, who had died, aged twenty-nine, in 1784. The people have built a monument over him, and still hold a religious feast in his memory. So does his own country still tend with a heart's regard the memory of the gentle Heber. And Cleaveland died in 1784, and is still loved by the heathen, is he? Why, that year 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend the First Gentleman of Europe. Do you not know that he was twenty-one in that year, and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentry, and doubtless wore that lovely pink coat which we have described. I was eager to read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information. The entertainment took place on the 10th February. In the European Magazine of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it: : |