The name of Mr. Ellis is a sufficient guarantee for the taste and discrimination with which the selection of letters, comprising the work, is made. They are arranged in chronological order, and are occasionally enriched and illuminated by prefatory dissertations of the editor, in which a variety of minute touches and highly characteristic traits of character, manners, and incidents, usually past over by historians, in filling up the outline of their more general picture, are vividly brought out and strikingly exhibited to the eye. BIOGRAPHY. The Life and Remains of Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D.-4to. pp. 671. Price 31. 3s. DR. Clarke was animated by a genuine enthusiasm for classical enjoyments, and antiquarian research. He was not a mere collector of rust-eaten coins, nor of mutilated statues; nor was he a mere bibliomaniac, delighted with exhibiting his possession of some worm-eaten and worthless black letter MS. In Doctor Clarke, acquired learning became immediately transmuted into the mind; it was immediately consubstantiated with its receiver. It did not remain dormant, like a dull and inert mass, unaltered and unalterable; but entered into the very core and marrow of the mind. Becoming with it a quality and adjunct of the digestive power, it was instantaneously concocted into intellectual chyle; and every particle of it absorbed, became instinct with vital life. He possessed that true and refreshing spirit of criticism, which, founded in natural and acquired taste, pours down a reviving radiance on the withering beauties of antiquity, and discloses new gracesgraces wherein its illuminating resplendencies are thrown; and which, like the skilful varnisher of some antique painting, renews and renovates in the subject its brilliancy and richness of colouring, without changing the character of its loveliness, or impairing the symmetry of its proportions. It appears that Dr. Clarke, though far from remarkable for any precocious splendour of talent, (" his progress at Tunbridge Grammar School was not very satisfactory;") discovered an early predisposition for those pursuits in which he shone in the midst of emulous presentiments of what he was destined to achieve. What philosophers call association of ideas is a strange process of the brain. It hangs by small threads and filaments, and works its way through dead and subterranean channels, until it emerges at length into perfect day. How we came by this mysterious power, we know not. Some chord is struck that, like lightning, spreads its vibrations through the whole soul, and from these "are discovered traits of mind;" imagination bodies forth illustrious forms of enterprise, daring, and animated; which, but for such connection, or some chance collision, might never have awoke from their slumber, or been drawn out in their greatness. "The most curious and interesting proof," says the Doctor's biographer," that his youthful imagination was sometimes haunted by ideas of future distinction, is communicated by his sister: In one corner of our abode,' she says, 'was a small apartment occasionally used for books and papers of every kind, and which now bore the dignified title of a study: here my brother had placed two easy chairs, where he would sit with his sister for hours and hours, building airy plans of future actions.' Look!' he would exclaim, 'look upon that shelf, where appear three generations of my ancestors. And shall my works ever stand beside them? Never will I cease until my own books shall appear with them on that shelf beneath my mother's.' To survey that land where scarcely a vestige of the city of Priam remains-that where proud Thebes lies dejected amidst the ruins of her "hundred gates," and where her sepulchres are as the dust they were vainly intended to preserve; where foxes bark amidst the ruins of Persepolis and Palmyra; or where the countries of Demosthenes, yet preserved the memorials of their beauty amidst the servile and the base, where Still in the beam Mendele's marbles glare, These were the juvenile hopes and aspirations of Dr. Clarke; and he lived to gratify them completely and usefully. We can conceive the deep gratification of his classical, refined, and imaginative mind. Such a traveller, placed on the spot which years and genius have consecrated, when he thinks on the departed glories of Greece, of the plains of Marathon, or of the battles of gods and men on the banks of the Scamander, must be wrapt in a holy and divine awfulness, and feel the inspiration of fancy at its height. To be susceptible of this, Dr. Clarke's sensibility (natural and acquired) was admirably fitted; and he felt and expressed it with energy and fervor. These harvests of advantage, however, are not to be reaped without their tares of trouble, labour, difficulty, and anxiety; and Dr. Clarke, in some of his letters, expresses his purchased experience of the mental and physical cost of travelled gratification. To travellers, therefore, the reading public is highly indebted; since by them we are conveyed to the spots of so much interest, without that cost. We obtain the advantage, without undergoing the innumerable miseries, of long and tedious voyages-the insolence of public functionaries, the roguery of innkeepers, the visitations of banditti, the rascality of custom-house officers, the indescribable desagremens of foreign cookery, and the insufferable annoyance of foreign beds. Dr. Clarke's enthusiasm is naturally kindled by the first sight of Vesuvius-that magnificent pyramidal throne of Pluto and Vulcan conjoined, zoned with garden, forest, vineyard, and orchard, ripening under southern suns, with the eternal azure of the Campanian sky for canopy, and the " deep blue waters" of the Mediterranean sparkling at its feet. its The following description of one of its eruptions witnessed by our traveller, is forcible and picturesque : July 17, 1793.-I am much refreshed by sitting in the cool air of the balcony to my breakfast-room; and amused by the enchanting prospect I have now before my eyes. All the bay of Naples, covered with light skiffs and pleasure-boats; Vesuvius and Somma receiving the gilded rays of the setting sun, which tinges all the coast of Sourento and the island of Caprea with a pale violet, inexpressibly soft and beautiful; Portici glittering in white splendour over the fatal lavas that buried Herculaneum seven times beneath their destructive floods; St. Jorio hanging on the venerable sides of the Somma, amid vineyards and groves of citron; the throng of shipping in the Mole, whose masts rise like a forest; the crowded Chiaia, the parade of carriages, like one vast procession; the busy lazzaroni of St. Lucia, and the idle herd of soldiers in the opposite barracks; the rich melody of the evening band, whose deep swelling notes seem wafted with the cool breezes from the sea; the currents of liquid lava that course cach other down the shaggy cheeks of Vesuvius, and, as the sun sinks lower, assume a brighter hue, which, while I write, increases its vivid fire: all these form such a spectacle-so interesting a prospect, and so enlivening a scene, that it baffles all description, unless one's pen possessed the power of pouring forth thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.' "July 24, 1793.-While we were at tea in the Albergo Reale, such a scene presented itself as every one agreed was beyond any thing of that kind they had ever seen before. It was caused by the moon, which suddenly rose behind the convent upon Mount Vesuvius; at first, a small bright line, silvering all the clouds, and then a full orb that threw a blaze of light across the sea, through which the vessels passed and repassed in a beautiful manner. At the same time, the lava, of a different hue, spread its warm tint upon all the objects near it, and threw a red line across the bay directly parallel to the reflection of the moon's rays. It was one of those scenes which one dwells upon with regret, because one feels the impossibility of retaining the impression it affords; it remains in the memory, but then all its outlines and its colours are so faintly touched, that the beauty of the spectacle fades away with the landscape, which, when covered by the clouds of the night, and veiled in darkness, can never be revived by the pencil, the pen, or by any recourse to the traces it has left upon the mind. 66 July 25, 1793.—My spirits very low all this day, a species of malady I have not felt a long while. In the evening, Lord Berwick went to Naples; I chose to remain at home and enjoy the solitude and serenity of the place; I had the ass saddled, and rode, through beautiful vineyards and groves of figs, towards the Fosse Grande upon the mountains. At my return, I drew some sketches of the pomegranate. The view from my window by moonlight, is beautiful beyond description; not a cloud but what proceeded from the smoke of Vesuvius, which threw a line across the mountain as far as the eye could reach, forming a grand arch over the moon; while the lava heightened the scenes by its fiery lustre; certainly, there never was an object which added so much to the beauty of a landscape as Vesuvius; the infinite variety in its tints, the different forms it assumes in different points of view, the endless changes that take place from the crater, all help to make one of the grandest spectacles in the world still more interesting. As I rode up it this evening, the whole cone of Vesuvius was tinged with the most lively purple, while Somma presented the brightest green, intermingled here and there with shades of a darker hue. Such a Tyrian splendour covered the cone, that I am sure no person would believe it to be natural, could it be faithfully represented Dr. Clarke writes thus to his mother and sister, from St. Remy, the views from which appear to have kindled all the incessant enthusia sm of the traveller. "What a parcel of mites ye all are, creeping about in the world below! Ye have no idea of the serene grandeur of the Alpine mountains, whose hoary tops drink the aerial solitude of the skies, and pour forth all the rivers of Europe. Here, on the one side, rushes the Rhine; there the Danube, roaring, tumbles headlong, a torrent all foam and fury see there the Tessin and the Reusse, at first all noise and clamour, till, as they advance into the plains, they become wedded to the Po and the Rhine, and flow peaceably into the sea. Yet do not suppose that all are agremens among these regions. What a miserable picture of human nature in the wretched inhabitants! ugly, deformed, famished, filthy, and ragged! their throats laden with immense tumors, the horrid effects of drinking snow-water.' 66 In the spirit of Goldsmith's apothegm, we may say that it is probable, that the Goitres did not appear so ugly" and "horrid” to each other as to the travelled pursuer and admirer of the Beau Ideal. Montaigne, indeed, has said, with great apparent truth, that a man is as sensible of the presence of beauty when he looks upon it, as he is of fire, when he is scorched by it. But Voltaire has attempted to deny the existence of any such thing as human beauty. "What is beauty?" says that Prince of Jesters : "If you ask a frog, he will reply, that beauty consists in having two large round eyes, goggling in a little head; a large broad throat, a yellow belly, and a brown back. If you ask the devil, he will laugh at you for your stupidity, and assure you, that beauty consists in a pair of horns, four talons, and a long tail." There is, at page 627, a highly characteristic letter of the late Lord Byron, written in 1812, in which he says, that "he" still sighs for the Egean; that Dr. Clarke "has awakened all the gipsy in him;" and that he " longs to be restless again and wandering." What an era of energy, excitability, and imaginative vagrancy, is that in which we live! Replete with a longing after immortal knowledge, which displays itself in characters otherwise the most opposite, the mildest and the fiercest,-the present age, with much virtue and many excellencies, may be said to flourish in the midst of excitements, and to breathe in an atmosphere that would have nearly suffocated former generations. It requires for its nourishment the most delicious and highly seasoned viands. The rarities of sea and land must be set before it; nor can any thing please its palled and debauched appetite, but what luxuriates and enervates, maddens and destroys. The half-infidels and half-philosophers of the day, who prove that a "little learning is a dangerous thing," devour greedily the productions that extenuate their vices, and pander to their crimes. In the search of stimulants, even corrosives are resorted to, and they excite themselves to fatal appetite, in perfect indifference to the results: as did our first parents the forbidden apple, they pluck it, eat, and die. The wise, like Dr. Clarke, pass on, and content themselves with fruits of more sober hue, of less exalted juices, and intoxicating taste. Royal Naval Biography; containing Memoirs of all the Superannuated Rear-Admirals, Retired and other Post-Captains of his Majesty's Fleet. By John Marshall, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.-Vol. 2. 8vo. pp. 500. 15s. THE great number of lives and very curious particulars presented to the public in this work, cannot fail to procure it a large circulation, especially among the extensive class of readers who take interest in the naval records of their country. Lieutenant Marshall proceeds in his assiduous labour of recording the naval heroes of the late wars. As a contemporary biographer, he possesses the rare merit of extreme accuracy in his statements, and his work may be consulted, with confidence, now and always. The style of the work is neat and clear; and the notes referring to events, in which the parties were subalterns, render the volume a complete Naval History of the last half century. This volume contains the superannuated admirals, the retired captains, and the post-captains, down to 1802. From among the post-captains, we have selected a specimen: "JOSIAH NISBET, Esq.-This officer is the only son of the late Dr. Nisbet, physician in the island of Nevis, by the accomplished Miss Woolward, niece of Mr. Herbert, the president of that colony; who afterwards married the gallant Nelson. "The subject of this memoir, when first seen by his future father-in-law, at that time captain of the Boreas frigate, and senior officer on the Leeward Islands station, was only three years old; and from that time they entertained a mutual regard for each other, until Nelson became his legal guardian and instructor. "There are three things, young gentleman,' said Nelson to one of his midshipmen, which you are constantly to bear in mind. First, You must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, You must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your King; and, Thirdly, You must hate a Frenchman as you do the Devil.' With these feelings he engaged in the war of 1793, Mr. Josiah Nisbet accompanying him as a midshipman on board the Agamemnon of 64 guns. "It would be superfluous, in this place, to recount the many services performed by our matchless hero, during the period he commanded this ship; we shall, therefore, be content with observing, that his son-in-law was present at the whole, and completed his time as a petty officer under him. In the expedition against Teneriffe, we find Mr. Nisbet accompanying Nelson as a lieutenant, on board the Theseus of 74 guns; and the affection entertained by him for his patron is strongly exemplified by his conduct on the disastrous night of July 24th, 1797. 'Perfectly aware how desperate a service the attack upon Santa Cruz was likely to prove, before Nelson left the Theseus, he called Lieutenant Nisbet, who had the watch on deck, into the cabin, that he might assist in arranging and burning his mother's letters. Perceiving that the young man was armed, he earnestly begged him to remain behind: Should we both fall, Josiah,' said he, what would become of your poor mother! The care of the Theseus falls to you: stay, therefore, and take charge of her.' Lieutenant Nisbet replied, Sir, the ship must take care of herself: I will go with you to-night, if I never go again.' ་ "In the act of stepping out of the boat, Nelson received a shot through the right elbow, and fell; Lieut. Nisbet, who was close to him, placed him at the bottom of the boat, and laid his hat over the shattered arm, lest the sight of the blood which gushed out in great abundance, should increase his faintness. He then examined the wound; and taking some silk handkerchiefs from his neck, bound them round tight above the lacerated vessels. Had it not been for this presence of mind in his son-in-law, Nelson must have perished. Lieutenant Nisbet then collected half a dozen seamen, by whose assistance he succeeded, at length, in getting the boat afloat, for it grounded with the falling tide; and, himself taking an oar, rowed off to the Theseus, under a tremendous and ill-directed fire, from the enemy's batteries. "In a private letter to Sir John Jervis, the first which he wrote with his left hand, Nelson recommended his youthful companion for advancement, in the following terms: By my last letter, you will perceive my anxiety for the promotion of my son-in-law, Josiah Nisbet. ***** If from poor Bowen's loss, you think it proper to oblige me, I rest confident you will do it. The boy is under obligations to me; but he repaid me, by bringing me from the Mole of Santa Cruz.' 'In his first letter to Lady Nelson, he says: I know it will add much to your pleasure to find, that Josiah, under God's providence, was principally instrumental in saving my life.' "Lieutenant Nisbet, according to the wish of his father-in-law, was immediately promoted, and appointed to the command of the Dolphin hospital-ship, attached to the Mediterranean fleet. On Nelson's recovery, after the loss of his arm, and return to join his former chief, he received the following letter :— EARL ST. VINCENT, TO SIR HORATIO NELSON. My dear Admiral-I do assure you, the Captain of the Dolphin has acquitted himself marvellously well in three instances: In getting his ship out, and joining us off Cadiz soon after we arrived; in conducting a convoy of transports with troops from Gibraltar to Lisbon; and lately, in pushing out to protect the stragglers of the convoy from England in very bad weather; and he also improves in manners and conversation, and is amply stored with abilities, which only want cultivation to render him a very good character.' NELSON TO HIS WIFE, FROM NAPLES. "Dec. 11, 1798.-The improvement made in Josiah by Lady Hamilton is wonderful; your obligations and mine are infinite on that score; not but Josiah's heart is as good and humane as ever was covered by a human breast. God bless him, I love him dearly with all his roughness.' |
