the charmer." And Lady Hamilton "charmed so wisely" as to render obtuse the delicacy of his moral sense, and his feeling of social decency. Amid the bowers of Calypso, that Great Parent, whose wayward destinies he had been sent to retrieve, was for the moment forgotten; the household divinities were abandoned, among whom alone wisdom will look for happiness, and experience hope! to find it; honour, the last plank of moral safety, was consumed by the fires of unchaste love; and no Mentor was at hand to purge "his darkling vision with the euphrasy of bitter counsel, or to save the heedless man from the ruin which became inevitable when it was loved." I would gladly spare my readers this afflicting recital. But the consequences of the errors and misdeeds of public men are never confined to their personal prejudice or dishonour; they involve the interests and compromise the character of their country. The disaffected Neapolitans had, previously to this period, expelled the royal family from the capital, and forcibly compelled the aged and reluctant Marquis of Caraccioli to take the command of their military force. The united influence of the counsels of their venerable commander, and the terrors of the British navy, now induced the insurgents to return to their allegiance. This personal inviolability, was secured by the guarantee of the British officers in command. The queen was dissatisfied with this bloodless triumph over her own subjects: she exclaimed against the encouragement which treason would receive from impunity. Her thirst of blood derived its full measure of satiety from the fatal influence of Lady Hamilton. Lord Nelson annulled the treaty. In the cabin of a British man-of-war he convened a court-martial of British officers to decide on the fate of men, over whom no law gave him jurisdiction, and whom by the laws of civilized warfare he was pledged to protect. An indecent, an unprecedented, an unnatural spectacle was now presented; in that court, under the shadow of the British flag, a female presided and examined, dictated and adjudged. From the petulance of an immodest woman, dignity of rank could look for no respect, the sanctity of age could expect no reverence. Lady Hamilton was invested with full power to wreak the implacable resentments of a little mind, and to exercise the ferocious cruelty of a weak one. She sat, and sentenced, and insulted. The venerable nobleman, with his principal companions, was hanged at the yard-arm, and their corpses, encumbered with heavy shot, consigned as a prey to the voracious tenants of the deep. The mind retires with indignant impatience from these scenes of atrocious perfidy. In company with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Lord Nelson returned to England. On bis arrival, his modest and unoffending lady was unvisited, supplanted, and discarded. She who had loved him for himself; who, in his ignoble obscurity, had soothed his moments of vexation, and

cheered his hours of depression; who had hailed his early successes, and sympathized with his disappointments-must now retire from that bed which she had blessed and honoured; supplanted and scorned by the wanton worshipper of her husband's fame, wealth, and honours.-Wisely did the son of David pray that he might not be depressed by poverty, or tempted by inordinate prosperity; and unhappily, the better half of his prayer was dispersed by the idle winds. The middle station of life appears to be that which Heaven has reserved and allotted to its favourites: they are removed from the distresses and the debasing influence of indigence; and are placed below that elevation, which fills vain man with the giddy and fantastic notion that he is exempt from the rules which direct ordinary society, and the decorum which secures its members from censure and contempt. Many have been found to withstand, unabashed, the sharp rebuke of adversity; but, perhaps the annals of society do not furnish a solitary instance in which pride has not become inordinate, and principle has not been relaxed, by the adulation and the indulgence of prosperity. For such a man, the philosopher searched with a candle in noonday: he is not to be found amid the obtrusive crowds of common society-by the broad and indiscriminating glare of sunlight; of that rare mind the nice proportions and retiring peculiarities can be discovered only by the modest and searching light of philosophy. When we affirm that prosperity, the precious curse of Heaven, exercised its influence upon the mind of Lord Nelson, we only reject his claim to the highest species of human excellence. On the triumphal tour which he made about this time through England, he was every where hailed, feasted, congratulated, and worshipped. But let it be recorded to the honour of the English nobility, that many of that illustrious body directed their gates to be shut against the festive cavalcade :-their virtue was alarmed, and their pride shocked at an attempt to introduce into their domestic circle, an avowed, though titled concubine. During his voluptuous retirement, the parasites of the day, pompously recorded the punctuality with which his lordship frequented the village church. But with every deference to the nominal and ritual religion of the day, I will venture to think he would have acted with more propriety, had he remained at home. The mockery of such devotions-"the very fiend's arch mock"-mingled with the impure aspirations of his paramour, must have tended rather to scandalize the simplicity, and to shake the moral principles of an artless, admiring, and imitative people. The call of honour and his country, at length dissolved this fatal charm; Lord Nelson was summoned for the last time to unfurl and defend the flag, which for

Lady Hamilton still divided with his country the empire of his heart. While ploughing his way onwards to victory and his doom, his time was variously employed in giving plans of battle and assurances of triumph; in composing madrigal sonnets to the praise of his absent mistress, and in uttering impotent imprecations upon the wronged and widowed woman, whose blameless existence prevented the licensed elevation of her rival to the bed which she dishonoured. Even in the rude shock of conflicting "ammirals," a he often turned an anxious glance from the beckoning hand of victory, back to

"the bowers

Where Pleasure lay carelessly smiling at Fame." The death-shot which probed his heart, only proved the tenacity with which it clung to its object even in the agony of its last pulsation. The sound of triumph for a moment diffused over his rigid features a preternatural lustre, the twilight of setting mortality and dawn of an opening eternal day. But the laurel and the cypress were again regarded with equal indifference. That great spirit poured forth its last gasp in aspirating the name of his Emma, and in vainly commending her to the gratitude of his country.

Let a tear of sympathy and pity "brighten with verdure the grave" of departed merit, and obliterate the recollection of its errors. Let not, however, the author of those errors expect to descend into her tomb in peace or with honour. The sorrows and the injuries which she had heaped upon an injured and forlorn lady, recoiled upon Lady Hamilton with a tenfold measure of retribution. Of that meteor, which had culminated in splendour, and admiration, and disastrous influence, the setting was amid clouds, and darkness, and tempests. The last years of Lady Hamilton's life were embittered by neglect, imprisonment, desertion, and distress. Let us humbly hope that her late repentance may have been accepted. Light be the earth on her ashes!

But in the numerous instances of female genius and influence perverted from domestic life, their legitimate sphere, to public or masculine pursuits, however women may have become admirable, they have seldom been amiable; and in general it seems, that in abandoning their feminine avocations, they cannot "unsex" themselves, but carry with them into public business, the little jealousies, personal vanity, and causeless timidity, which, in private, men censure and delight in; but which, thus misplaced, expose the fair trespasser to derision, or tempt her to guilt.

a

the mast of some great ammiral.

SCRIBLERUS FEMINILIS.b

Milton.

b The classical orthography of this word is fœminalis. But Queen Elizabeth, in her Latin oration to the university of Cambridge, having thought pro

ART. VI.-Thesaurus Græcæ Linguæ ab H. Stephano constructus. Editio nova, auctior et emendatior. Vol. 1. Partes I-IV. Londini, in ædibus Valpianis, 1815-1818.

HENRY STEPHENS complained, in a bad epigram, that his Thesaurus, which was a great treasure to others, was none to himself; in other words, that the expenses of his Treasury had impoverished his exchequer. That illustrious, but somewhat fretful, scholar, did not possess the inestimable advantage, which modern authors and editors enjoy, of living in a subscribing age. The art of puffing was then but little understood or practised. Such a thing as a Prospectus was never heard of; there were none of those convenient vehicles of literary information, which Mr. Murray and his brethren append to the covers of their periodical publications, by which the intelligence of forthcoming works is dispersed, with incredible swiftness, over every part of the reading world. Of these advantages the publisher of the present edition of the 'Thesaurus' has availed himself with great success. Indeed, without a certain prospect of liberal support, it would have been an act of the greatest imprudence to undertake a work of such vast labour and expense. The list of subscribers to this republication (if indeed it deserves the name) amounts to nearly eleven hundred; a number almost, if not altogether, unprecedented in the annals of literature. Stephens lamented that his Thesaurus, when printed, did not sell; Mr. Valpy's is sold before it is printed: this is surely a great improvement in the condition of those, who labour in the mines of learning, and who have too frequently brought up the precious ore for the use of others, without enriching themselves. The great facility, with which subscriptions are now obtained by the publishers of expensive classical works, seems to indicate two things; an increase of national wealth, and a growing taste for ancient literature. The enormous sums of money which are annually expended, not only in projects of public utility, or of Christian benevolence, but upon the luxuries of learning, and the elegancies of art, bespeak an abundance of the means of life, greatly at variance with the picture which is commonly drawn of our national prosperity. And if we are to estimate the present state of ancient learning in this country by the gross and tangible arithmetic of the pounds, shillings, and pence, subscribed for Delphin," Regent, and Varioper to pronounce it fœminilis, as l'Avocat des Femmes, I am bound to vindicate and adopt this latter reading. Her majesty's oration commenced-Etsi fœminilis pudor, &c.

a We allude to a precious scheme of Mr. Valpy's, now in progress, of repubfishing the very worst edition of the Latin Classics. This indefatigable and zealous printer does not seem to have had the remotest idea, that the value of the original Delphin editions consisted almost entirely in their scarcity; a merit

rum Classics, we shall be led to form a very exalted notion of the erudition of the age in which we live. Eleven hundred of the nobility, gentry, and clergy, eagerly subscribing their guinea a number (and some their two guineas) for a Greek Thesaurus, and feasting upon each livraison as it comes out, compose a phalanx of philology, which may be expected to defend the interests of classical literature against all the anti-Hellenists of the day. Our readers perceive that we take it for granted, that all subscribers can and do read the books for which they subscribe. Since, however, it is within the limits of possibility, that some of the proprietors of Mr. Valpy's Thesaurus may have been hitherto prevented by sickness, or occupation, or some other cause, from contracting an intimate acquaintance with the work to which they have set their names; we shall perhaps be rendering them an acceptable service, if we institute an examination of the first four numbers of the Thesaurus, and inquire how far they will justify us in looking for a complete or, at least, a useful Greek lexicon. An investigation of this kind, we apprehend, falls more peculiarly within our jurisdiction, as literary censors, and protectors-general of the reading world. The editor, who puts forth proposals for publishing by subscription an expensive work, makes a large demand upon the confidence of his subscribers, and pledges his faith to a full and accurate performance of the conditions upon which their support is obtained.

[The reviewer proceeds to give an account of 'Greek Lexicography,' and 'of the celebrated scholar, upon the basis of whose extraordinary work the present publication is constructed'-the latter of which we select.]

Henri Etienne, whose name being latinized, according to the custom of that age, into Stephanus, has amongst English scholars degenerated into Stephens, was the son of Robert Etienne, and the grandson of Henri, one of the earliest French printers, and, by the mother's side, of Josse Bade of Asc, better known to book collectors by the name of Badius Ascensius. He was born at Paris, in the year 1528, and grew enamoured of Greek at a very early age, in consequence of seeing some boys act the Medea of Euripides. His father caused him to be instructed in Greek before he had learned Latin; a plan of teaching which Henry Stephens himself always recommended, and which ought, in our opinion, to be generally adopted. While yet a boy, his skill in calligraphy was so remarkable, that he was thought to rival the Greek writing of Angelo Vegezio, the Cretan, who gave the models for the beautiful types, which were at that time used in the King's printing-office which his own publication of course cannot possess. The Regent Classics are minute volumes, with short prefaces in bad Latin by a Mr. Carolus Coote.