de Vega, the celebrated Spanish dramatist. De Vega was one of the most fertile writers upon record his miscellaneous works fill twenty-two quarto volumes, and his dramas twenty-five volumes. He died in 1635, aged seventy-three. His fame has been eclipsed by abler Spanish writers; but De Vega gave a great impulse to the literature of his nation, and is considered the parent of the continental drama. The amiable and accomplished nobleman who recorded the life of this Spanish prodigy, died at Holland House, October 22, 1840, aged sixty-seven. Lord Holland was a generous patron of literature and art. Holland House was but another name for refined hospitality and social freedom, in which men of all shades of opinion participated. As a literary man, the noble lord left few or no memorials that will survive; but he will long be remembered as a generous-hearted English nobleman, who, with princely munificence and varied accomplishments, ever felt a strong interest in the welfare of the great mass of the people; who was an intrepid advocate of popular rights in the most difficult and trying times; and who, amidst all his courtesy and hospitality, held fast his political integrity and consistency to the last.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

The Life of Nelson, by SOUTHEY, published in two small volumes-since compressed into one— in 1813, rose into instant and universal favour, and may be considered as one of our standard popular biographies. Its merit consists in the clearness and beautiful simplicity of its style, and its lucid arrangement of facts, omitting all that is unimportant or strictly technical. The substance of this Life was originally an article in the Quarterly Review; Mr Murray, the publisher, gave Southey £100 to enlarge the essay, and publish it in a separate form with his name; and this sum he handsomely doubled. Southey afterwards published a Life of John Wesley, the celebrated founder of the Methodists, in which he evinces a minute acquaintance with the religious controversies and publications of that period, joined to the art of the biographer, in giving prominence and effect to his delineations. His sketches of field-preaching and lay-preachers present some curious and interesting pictures of human nature under strong excitement. The same author contributed a series of Lives of British Admirals to the Cabinet Cyclopædia, edited by Dr Lardner.

6

'Yes,' he replied; 'my back-bone is shot through.'
Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of
mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the
ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away,
were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should
be rove immediately: then, that he might not be seen
by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered
his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these
badges of honour from the enemy, England perhaps
would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the
news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was
crowded with wounded and dying men; over whose
bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid
upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon
perceived, upon examination, that the wound was mortal.
This, however, was concealed from all except Captain
Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He
himself being certain, from the sensation in his back, and
the gush of blood he felt momently within his breast,
surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to whom
that no human care could avail him, insisted that the
he might be useful; 'for,' said he, 'you can do nothing
for me.' All that could be done was to fan him with
paper, and frequently to give him lemonade to alleviate
his intense thirst. He was in great pain, and expressed
much anxiety for the event of the action, which now
began to declare itself. As often as a ship struck, the
crew of the Victory hurraed; and at every hurra, a
visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes, and marked
the countenance of the dying hero. But he became
impatient to see Hardy; and as that officer, though
often sent for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared
that some fatal cause prevented him, and repeatedly
cried: Will no one bring Hardy to me? he must be
elapsed from the time when Nelson received his wound,
he is surely dead!' An hour and ten minutes
before Hardy could come to him. They shook hands
in silence: Hardy in vain struggling to suppress the
feelings of that most painful and yet sublimest moment.
'Well, Hardy,' said Nelson, 'how goes the day with
us?' 'Very well,' replied Hardy; 'ten ships have
struck, but five of the van have tacked, and shew an
intention to bear down upon the Victory. I have
called two or three of our fresh ships round, and have
no doubt of giving them a drubbing.' 'I hope,' said
Nelson, none of our ships have struck?' Hardy
answered, There was no fear of that.' Then, and not
till, then, Nelson spoke of himself. I am a dead man,
Hardy,' said he; I am going fast: it will be all over
with me soon. Come nearer to me. Let my dear Lady
Hamilton have my hair, and all other things belonging
to me.' Hardy observed, that he hoped Mr Beatty
could yet hold out some prospect of life. O no,' he
replied; it is impossible. My back is shot through.
Beatty will tell you so.' Hardy then, once more, shook
hands with him, and with a heart almost bursting,
hastened upon deck.

killed;

By this time all feeling below the breast was gone; The Death of Nelson.-From Southey's Life of Nelson.' and Nelson, having made the surgeon ascertain this, said to him: 'You know I am gone. I know it. I It had been part of Nelson's prayer, that the British feel something rising in my breast,' putting his hand on fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory his left side, which tells me so.' And upon Beatty's which he expected. Setting an example himself, he inquiring whether his pain was very great, he replied, 'So twice gave orders to cease firing on the Redoubtable, great that he wished he was dead. Yet,' said he, in a supposing that she had struck, because her guns were lower voice, 'one would like to live a little longer too!' silent; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means And after a few minutes, in the same undertone, he of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which added: "What would become of poor Lady Hamilton, he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball if she knew my situation!' Next to his country she fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of occupied his thoughts. Captain Hardy, some fifty the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from minutes after he had left the cockpit, returned; and, that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the again taking the hand of his dying friend and comepaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after one, mander, congratulated him on having gained a complete just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the victory. How many of the enemy were taken he did spot which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. not know, as it was impossible to perceive them disHardy, who was a few steps from him, turning round, tinctly; but fourteen or fifteen at least. 'That's well,' saw three men raising him up. 'They have done for cried Nelson; but I bargained for twenty.' And then, me at last, Hardy,' said he. I hope not,' cried Hardy. | in a stronger voice, he said: 'Anchor, Hardy; anchor.'

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; and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but 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. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and to act after them.

Wesley's Old Age and Death.

Hardy, upon this, hinted that Admiral Collingwood would take upon himself the direction of affairs. Not while I live, Hardy,' said the dying Nelson, ineffectually endeavouring to raise himself from the bed: 'do you anchor.' His previous orders for preparing to anchor had shewn how clearly he foresaw the necessity of this. Presently, calling Hardy back, he said to him, in a low voice, Don't throw me overboard;' and he desired that he might be buried by his parents, unless it should please the king to order otherwise. Then reverting to private feelings: Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy,' said he. Hardy knelt down and kissed his cheek; and Nelson said, 'Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty!' Hardy stood over him in silence for a moment or two, then knelt again and kissed his forehead. "Who is that?' said Nelson; and being informed, he replied, 'God bless you, Hardy.' And Hardy then left him-for ever. Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and said, 'I wish I had not left the deck; for I shall soon be gone.' Death was, indeed, rapidly approaching. He said to the chaplain, Doctor, I have not been a great sinner;' and after a short pause, Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country.' His articulation now became difficult; but he was distinctly heard to say, 'Thank God, I have done my duty!' These words he repeatedly pronounced; and they were the last words which he uttered. Hea constitution vigorous beyond that of ordinary men, expired at thirty minutes after four-three hours and a quarter after he had received his wound.

The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never till then known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero-the greatest of our own and of all former times-was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end. The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church-bells, have given school-boys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and 'old men from the chimney-corner' to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas; and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.

There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening his body, that in the course of nature he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who

From Southey's Life of John Wesley.

'Leisure and I,' said Wesley, 'have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me.' This resolution was made in the prime of life, and never was resolution more punctually observed. Lord, let me not live to be useless!' was the prayer which he uttered after seeing one whom he had long known as an active and useful magistrate, reduced by age to be a picture of human nature in disgrace, feeble in body and mind, slow of speech and understanding.' He was favoured with

and with an activity of spirit which is even rarer than his singular felicity of health and strength. Ten thousand cares of various kinds, he said, were no more weight or burden to his mind, than ten thousand hairs were to his head. But in truth his only cares were those of superintending the work of his ambition, which continually prospered under his hands. Real cares he had none; no anxieties, no sorrows, no griefs which touched him to the quick. His manner of life was the most favourable that could have been devised for longevity. He rose early, and lay down at night with nothing to keep him waking, or trouble him in sleep. His mind was always in a pleasurable and wholesome state of activity; he was temperate in his diet, and lived in perpetual locomotion; and frequent change of air is perhaps, of all things, that which most conduces to joyous health and long life.

Upon his eighty-sixth birth-day, he says, 'I now find I grow old. My sight is decayed, so that I cannot read a small print, unless in a strong light. My strength is decayed; so that I walk much slower than I did some years since. My memory of names, whether of persons or places, is decayed, till I stop a little to recollect them. What I should be afraid of is, if I took thought for the morrow, that my body should weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness, by the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness, by the increase of bodily infirmities. But thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God!' His strength now diminished so much, that he found it difficult to preach more than twice a day; and for many weeks he abstained from his five o'clock morning sermons, because a slow and settled fever parched his mouth. Finding himself a little better, he resumed the practice, and hoped to hold on a little longer; but, at the beginning of the year 1790, he writes: I am now an old man, decayed from head to foot. My eyes are dim; my right hand shakes much; my mouth is hot and dry every morning; I have a lingering fever almost every day; my motion is weak and slow. However, blessed be God! I do not slack my labours: I can preach and write still.' In the middle of the same year, he closed his cash accountbook with the following words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible: 'For upwards of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly: I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction, that I save all I can, and give all I can; that is, all I have.' His strength was now quite

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66

great sources-the unexampled versatility of his powers and feelings, and the facility with which he gave way to the impulses of both. No men,' says Cowper, in speaking of persons of a versatile turn of mind, are better qualified for companions in such a world as this than men of such temperament. Every scene of life has has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is two sides, a dark and a bright one; and the mind that best of all qualified for the contemplation of either.' It would not be difficult to shew that to this readiness in reflecting all hues, whether of the shadows or the lights of our variegated existence, Lord Byron owed not only the great range of his influence as a poet, but those powers of fascination which he possessed as a man. This susceptibility, indeed, of immediate impressions, which in him was so active, lent a charm, of all others the most attractive, to his social intercourse, by giving to those who were, at the moment, present, such ascendant influence, that they alone for the time occupied all his thoughts and feelings, and brought whatever was most agreeable in his nature into play. So much did acted on by what was nearest-abound in his disposithis extreme mobility-this readiness to be strongly tion, that, even with the casual acquaintance of the hour his heart was upon his lips, and it depended wholly upon themselves whether they might not become at once the depositaries of every secret, if it might be so called, of his whole life. . .

1831. The last has little interest. The Life of Byron, by its intimate connection with recent events and living persons, was a duty of very delicate and difficult performance. This was further increased by the freedom and licentiousness of the poet's opinions and conduct, and by the versatility or mobility of his mind, which changed with every passing impulse and impression. As well,' says Moore, from the precipitance with which he gave way to every impulse, as from the passion he had for recording his own impressions, all those heterogeneous thoughts, fantasies, and desires that, in other men's minds, come like shadows, so depart," were by him fixed and embodied as they presented themselves, and at once taking a shape cognisable by public opinion, either in his actions or his words, in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable points before his judges, as no one individual ever before, of himself, presented.' Byron left ample materials for his biographer. His absence from England, and his desire to keep the minds of the English public for ever occupied about him-if not with his merits, with his faults; if not in applauding, in blaming him'-led him to maintain a regular correspondence with Moore and his publisher The same facility of change observable in the moveMr Murray. Byron also kept a journal, and re- ments of his mind was seen also in the free play of his corded memoranda of his opinions, his reading, features, as the passing thoughts within darkened or &c.; something in the style of Burns. He was a shone through them. His eyes, though of a light gray, master of prose as of verse, unsurpassed in brilliant were capable of all extremes of expression, from the sketches of life, passion, and adventure, whether most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the serious or comic, and also an acute literary critic. very sunshine of benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. But it was in the mouth and chin that Byron had written Memoirs of his own life, which the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenhe presented to Moore, who sold the manuscript ance lay. 'Many pictures have been painted of him,' to Murray the publisher for 2000 guineas. The says a fair critic of his features, 'with various success; friends of the noble poet became alarmed on but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter account of the disclosures said to have been and sculptor. In their ceaseless play they represented made in the Memoir, and offered to advance the every emotion, whether pale with anger, curled in money paid for the manuscript, in order that disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness Lady Byron and the rest of the family might and love.' His head was remarkably small-so much so have an opportunity of deciding whether the work as to be rather out of proportion with his face. The should be published or suppressed. The result forehead, though a little too narrow, was high, and was, that the manuscript was destroyed by Mr appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve Wilmot Horton and Colonel Doyle, as the re- dark-brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the it, as he said) shaved over the temples, while the glossy presentatives of Mrs Leigh, Byron's half-sister. finish to its beauty. When to this is added, that his Moore repaid the 2000 guineas to Murray, and nose, though handsomely, was rather too thickly shaped, the latter engaged him to write the Life of Byron, that his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion contributing a great mass of materials, and ulti-colourless, as good an idea perhaps as it is in the mately giving no less than £4870 for the Life (Quarterly Review, 1853). Moore was, strictly speaking, not justified in destroying the manuscript which Byron had intrusted him with as a vindication of his name and honour. He might have expunged the objectionable passages. But it is urged in his defence, that while part of the work never could have been published, all that was valuable or interesting to the public was included in the noble poet's journals and memorandum-books. Moore's Notices are written with taste and modesty, and in very pure and unaffected English. As an editor, he preserved too much of what was worthless and unimportant; as a biographer, he was too indulgent to the faults of his hero; yet who could have wished a friend to dwell on the errors of Byron ?

Character and Personal Appearance of Lord Byron.

From Moore's Notices of the Life of Lord Byron. The distinctive properties of Lord Byron's character, as well moral as literary, arose mainly from those two

power of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features. In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a good swimhis own notion of the size of hands as indicating birthmer. His hands were very white, and-according to aristocratically small. The lameness of his right foot, though an obstacle to grace, but little impeded the

activity of his movements.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

MR CAMPBELL, besides the biographies in his Specimens of the Poets, published a Life of Mrs Siddons, the distinguished actress, and a Life of Petrarch. The latter is homely and earnest, though on a romantic and fanciful subject. There is a reality about Campbell's biographies quite distinct from what might be expected to emanate from the imaginative poet, but he was too little of a student, and generally too careless and indolent to be exact.

SIR JOHN MALCOLM, T. H. LISTER, P. FRASER

TYTLER, ETC.

Mrs Maclean (L. E. L.), of James Smith (one of the authors of The Rejected Addresses), of Monk Lewis, Hayley, and many authors of less distinction. In this influx of biographies worthAmongst other additions to our standard biog- less materials are often elevated for a day, and raphy may be mentioned the Life of Lord Clive, the gratification of a prurient curiosity or idle by SIR JOHN MALCOLM (1836); and the Life of love of gossip is more aimed at than literary Lord Clarendon, by MR T. H. LISTER (1838). excellence or sound instruction. The error, howThe Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by MR PATRICK ever, is one on the right side. Better,' says FRASER TYTLER (published in one volume in the the traditional maxim of English law, that nine Edinburgh Cabinet Library, 1833), is also valuable guilty men should escape than that one innocent for its able defence of that adventurous and in- man should suffer'-and better, perhaps, that teresting personage, and for its careful digest of nine useless lives should be written than that state-papers and contemporaneous events. Free one valuable one should be neglected. The chaff access to all public documents and libraries is is easily winnowed from the wheat; and even now easily obtained, and there is no lack of in the Memoirs of comparatively insignificant desire on the part of authors to prosecute, or of persons, some precious truth, some lesson of the public to reward these researches. A Life of dear-bought experience, may be found treasured Lord William Russell, by LORD JOHN RUSSELL up for a life beyond life.' In what may be (1819), is enriched with information from the termed professional biography, facts and prinfamily papers at Woburn Abbey; and from a ciples not known to the general reader are often similarly authentic private source, LORD NUGENT conveyed. In Lives like those of Sir Samuel wrote Memoirs of Hampden (1831). The Diaries Romilly, Mr Wilberforce, Mr Francis Horner, and Journals of Evelyn and Pepys, so illustrative and Jeremy Bentham, new light is thrown on of the court and society during the seventeenth the characters of public men, and on the motives century, have already been noticed. To these we and sources of public events. Statesmen, lawyers, may add the Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, and philosophers both act and are acted upon by written by his wife, Mrs Lucy Hutchinson, and the age in which they live, and, to be useful, their first published in 1806. Colonel Hutchinson was biography should be copious. In the Life of Sir governor of Nottingham Castle during the period Humphry Davy by his brother, and of James of the Civil War. He was one of the best of the Watt by M. Arago, we have many interesting Puritans, and his devoted wife has done ample facts connected with the progress of scientific justice to his character and memory in her charm- discovery and improvement; and in the Lives of ing domestic narrative. Another work of the same Curran, Grattan, and Sir James Mackintosh (each description, published from family papers in 1822, in two volumes), by their sons, the public history is Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of the Right of the country is illustrated. Sir John Barrow's Hon. George Baillie of Ferviswood, and of Lady Lives of Howe and Anson are excellent specimens Grisell Baillie, written by their daughter, Lady of naval biography; and we have also lengthy Murray of Stanhope. These Memoirs refer to a Memoirs of Lord St Vincent, Lord Collingwood, later period than that of the Commonwealth, and Sir Thomas Munro, Sir John Moore, Sir David illustrate Scottish history. George Baillie-whose Baird, Lord Exmouth, Lord Keppel, &c. On the father had fallen a victim to the vindictive tyranny subject of biography in general, we quote with of the government of Charles II.—was a Presby-pleasure an observation by Mr Carlyle: terian and Covenanter, but neither gloomy nor morose. He held office under Queen Anne and George I., and died in 1738, aged seventy-five. His daughter, Lady Murray, who portrays the character of her parents with a skilful yet tender hand, and relates many interesting incidents of the times in which they lived, was distinguished in the society of the court of Queen Anne, and has been commemorated by Gay, as one of the friends of Pope, and as 'the sweet-tongued Murray.'

While the most careful investigation is directed towards our classic authors-Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, &c. forming each the subject of numerous Memoirs-scarcely a person of the least note has been suffered to depart without the honours of biography. The present century has amply atoned for any want of curiosity on the part of former generations, and there is some danger that this taste or passion may be carried too far. Memoirs of 'persons of quality'—of wits, dramatists, artists, and actors, appear every season. Authors have become as familiar to us as our personal associates. Shy, retired men like Charles Lamb, and studious recluses like Wordsworth, have been portrayed in all their strength and weakness. We have Lives of Shelley, of Keats, Hazlitt, Hannah More, Mrs Hemans,

'If an individual is really of consequence enough to have his life and character recorded for public remembrance, we have always been of opinion that the public ought to be made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his character. How did the world and man's life, from his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? How did co-existing circumstances modify him from without-how did he modify these from within? With what endeavours and what efficacy rule over them? with what resistance and what suffering sink under them? In one word, what and how produced was the effect of society on him? what and how produced was his effect on society? He who should answer these questions in regard to any individual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in biography. Few individuals, indeed, can deserve such a study; and many lives will be written, and, for the gratification of innocent curiosity, ought to be written, and read, and forgotten, which are not in this sense biographies.'

We have enumerated the most original biographical works of this period; but a complete list of all the Memoirs, historical and literary, that have appeared would fill pages. Two general Biographical Dictionaries have also been published: one in ten volumes quarto, published between the