When Nelson fell the voice of Fame
With mingled joy and pain
Lamented that no other name
So glorious could remain.
And worthily is Nelson loved;
Yet, ere a short month's dawn,
Fresh glory Britain's sons have proved,
Led on by gallant Strachan.
Pellew and Smith and Collingwood, fellows
Fine sailors yet exist;
But to name sailors good
I would take the Navy List.
Great Nelson's brothers called,
And who though for ever gone,
His spirit . . . . . . .
And such a tar is Strachan.
Then, Britons, be not out of heart,
Likewise of hopes bereft,
In twain did the sheet-anchor part,
Yet is the best "bower"[22] left.
Still Nelson's name inspires renown,
And though for ever gone,
His spirit shall in smiles look down
And point to gallant Strachan.
Great Nelson with his parting breath
Their character has drawn,
He called them brothers, and his death
They'll emulate like Strachan.
For some unaccountable reason the commonplace book of the unofficial laureate of the Navy had drifted to Birmingham. It was found by me in the same bin of literary odds and ends as the Cawdor dispatches, which obviously ought to have been in the Home Office or the Record Office. At the same time and place I lighted on the letters of Colonel Digby, the "Mr. Fairly," of Fanny Burney's Journal, to the beautiful sisters Margaret and Isabella Gunning, the first of whom he afterwards married, thereby (if the Court gossip of the day may be trusted) sorely disappointing the literary Assistant-Keeper of the Royal Robes.