The most famous of sea-captains, and the darling of his country. He fought the sea-half of the world’s greatest war. England has a just pride in her Wellington, whose memory she honours. Towards Nelson she looks with a tenderer recollection, and her heart moves when she thinks of his services and renown. As Captain in 1794, he conducted a siege at Calvi, and lost an eye. In 1797, crying to his men “Westminster Abbey or glorious victory,” he captured the San Jose and San Nicolas, at the battle of St. Vincent. In the same year he lost his right arm at Teneriffe, and twelve months afterwards he received a wound in his head at the glorious victory of the Nile. There was in truth very little left of the man—yet all of the hero—when, in 1805, a cruel shot at the battle of Trafalgar, killed him in the very hour of triumph to his fleet, of delivery to his country. His death was felt in England as a personal, as well as national calamity, and was mourned by the whole people as by one man. Gentle as a woman; brave as a lion; devoted to his country; fighting her battles with a passionate ardour that consumed and obliterated all personal considerations; loyal; pious;—these are some of the qualities that combined to form the character of Horatio Nelson. He was always insignificant in person; and after his slender frame had been battered about by the enemy, his appearance in the honoured uniform which, his services had won, was most singular and striking; for he looked like a skeleton clothed in cumbrous magnificence. Yet the influence of this reduced, war-beaten figure was electrical. All who came within its atmosphere partook of its own nature. The followers of Nelson could and did achieve miracles, because they had unbounded faith in the power of their chief—in his heroism, resolution, and determination at all times to win. Nelson was beloved by his sailors. He lies buried in St. Paul’s.

456. William Pitt. Statesman.

[Born at Hayes, in Kent, 1759. Died 1806. Aged 47.]

It has been well said that the life of William Pitt, the second and favourite son of the magnificent Earl of Chatham, had neither springtime nor autumn. It knew neither the fresh delights of boyhood, nor the tranquil happiness of age. His father had trained him from his very childhood, like an athlete, for the feverish arena of politics. Before he was twenty-one, he stood a gladiator armed; and from that age until his comparatively early death he knew no rest. He was twenty-four—a period at which our English youth are quitting college, and looking around them for a profession—when he became Prime Minister of England. For seventeen years, in the midst of broil and battle, of discontent at home and warfare abroad, this great man held the place which his eagle ambition had chosen for its eyrie on the rock, defying opposition by his commanding eloquence, by the fertility and grandeur of his resources, by his singular financial ability, and by his unquenchable energy. In 1801, he descended from his lofty seat in order to make way for a Minister of peace; but in 1804, all hope of peace being blasted, he was again summoned to direct the councils of the nation, and again he exercised all his varied powers for the development and consummation of the policy, which, right or wrong, he deemed essential to the safety of England, and to the tranquillity and freedom of the world. Two years after his return to office, he fell a victim to his life-long labours and to an hereditary gout, nourished by intemperate habits. It is somewhat curious that Pitt, the cherished head of the aristocratic and Tory party, had expressed himself in favour of nearly all the principles which the liberals of subsequent times have struggled, not fruitlessly, to uphold. He was friendly to Church Reform, to Financial Reform, to Parliamentary Reform, and to the removal of disabilities on account of religious belief. He died at the same age as Lord Nelson; and as to Lord Nelson, so to him, a public funeral was decreed. The sum of forty thousand pounds also was voted to pay his debts. Whatever had been the faults of Pitt, he was not avaricious. He had made no money by the State, for he had ever been the most unostentatious of men. The character of his eloquence was unlike that of his father. It was logical, dignified, equable: now rising into indignant invective, and now taking the shape of the keenest and most cutting sarcasm; but always self-possessed. It did not burst in torrent from an overflowing fount of wrath and passion like the submerging oratory of Chatham. The form of Pitt was gaunt, his countenance harsh, and his action ungraceful. He was, in many respects, one of the greatest Ministers our country has ever seen. His rapid comprehension was well described by his tutor, who said that he seemed to him to justify the doctrine of Plato, that the act of learning is reminiscence only, and not acquisition. He was the favourite of the nation: Fox of a party.

[By J. Nollekens, R.A.]

457. General Jackson. President of the United States.

[Born in South Carolina, U.S., 1767. Died at Nashville, in Tennessee, 1845. Aged 78.]

The son of an Irish emigrant. He was originally destined for the Church: but he quitted school to take part in the War of Independence. The war over, he adopted the law as a profession, and became judge in Tennessee, as well as Major-General of the Forces of the same state. In 1815, as Major-General of the United States, he gained a decisive victory over the English at New Orleans. In 1821, appointed Governor of Florida, and the next year elected member of the Senate for the state of Tennessee. Elected President of the United States in 1828 and again 1832; so that he was at the head of the American government for the space of eight years. An ardent democratic chief throughout life. His presidency was distinguished by the development of democratic tendencies, of the spirit of territorial extension, and by the marked encouragement of the slave-holding interest. He successfully opposed Congress in the matter of the United States Bank, regarding it as a monopoly in the State injurious to the general interests of the people. Jackson was a man of Roman virtues, a true patriot, and of uncompromising integrity, simple, and austere. Straightforward and blunt as a soldier.

[By Hiram Powers.]

458. Henry William Paget, Marquis of Anglesey. English Field Marshal.