killed and 222 wounded! Some few have lost the number of their mess here! But the Fougueux-what of her? The last double broadside of the Téméraire, as we have said, finished the business. Gaily and airily came the Fougueur upon her, when a sulphureous tornado of cannon-balls sweep her decks-main and middle. A horrible crash is heard, and she is nowhere-or rather she is yawing and veering blindly. She rocks and reels; all her top-hamper falls on to the deck; her lofty spars are low; her sails so many rent and feathery flakes; she runs foul of the Téméraire's fore-rigging; while an officer (Lieut. Kennedy, if this writer mistakes not), with some twenty or thirty men, leap by gangway and portholes upon her deck, and-first startled by the fell and horrible slaughter consequent upon that trenchant broadside, the captain being among the killed -the rest of the crew are driven below, and made fast. Her colours are down; and now, with a sublime tranquility, a coolness of unexampled frigidity, this handful proceed to lash the battered line-of- battle ship to the flukes and stock of the Téméraire's spare anchor-and lo! the majestic ship, with a prize on either side of her, heaving, panting, and taking breath, as it were, leaves the rest to fight out their own battles. The Redoubtable is hers, and the Fougueux is hers, and the cheers of her crew rend the heavy air-to be hushed in another moment by a stillness deeper than death; for an irremediable calamity has happened a nation will be put into grief and mourning. Nelson has received his death-wound; and, through the shuddering, awful pause that falls upon the fleet, the sinister news seems to run with withering, heart-sickening effect. But Trafalgar has been fought. The victory is ours-and in that very hour the soul of the hero passes away. The fight is over. The flags of the fleet are half-mast high, but there is only a stern and sullen gloom in every ship, for just now there is no time to indulge in the "luxury of woe.' The men, stained with blood and powder, clear away the decks, get the ship in sailing order to claw off shore; for a dreadful gale is coming on, and such of the Spanish fleet as can get clear have taken care to do so; and the British men-of-war, in their crippled condition, as also their prizes to care for, have a hard time of it. The gale increases, the sea runs high, the prizes are unmanageable. The Téméraire cuts away the Redoubtable, which goes down by the head. She lets the Fougueux clear, and she, drifting helplessly shoreward, founders and is wrecked with all on board-discouraging enough after so sharp a struggle. A long lapse now ensues in the story of the Téméraire. She is sent to dock to be repaired. Her crew is paid off, and Jack is at Gosport and the " Point," "scattering" his prize money and pay, after his wild, reckless fashion; but her officers and her men have had the honourable medal of Trafalgar given them on the 21st October, of the same year, and her gaping wounds are being slowly healed. One day, however, she is out again on blue water, though perhaps she may not have the trim and rakish look of yore. She has bruised elbows and broken knees, like many another veteran, and her joints are a trifle stiff, but she is wanted, and responds to the call. She has a new commander nowCaptain Chamberlain-and a fresh crew, or mostly so, though very likely a few old gunners and quartermasters, with a sprinkling of topmen, are on board to keep alive the stirring tradition of the "Fighting Téméraire ;" and, after cruizing in the Channel and Mediterranean waters, we find her definitely on the coast of Spain, for the war with France still continues--under other conditions, however. This is what we have found extracted from an old chronicle: 66 Early in March, 1810, about a week before the arrival of General Graham, Cadiz was visited by a frightful storm, the recollection of which, from its awful consequences, is still a subject of painful reflection. The hurricane, on this melancholy occasion, came from the west. It commenced at daybreak on the 6th, but did not attain to its greatest fury until the evening of that day; and, when night fell, the dismal sounds of signals of distress were heard in every quarter of the bay. At daybreak on the 7th, no less than 190 vessels, of all sizes and nations, were on shore. The Téméraire, a three-decker, was discovered to be dragging her anchors. Shortly afterwards, this noble vessel was, to the astonishment and dismay of the admiral, seen completely adrift. Captain Chamberlain and several of his officers had but just reached the ship, at the peril of their lives, having been engaged during that horrid night in saving the crews of those unfortunate vessels which were foundering on every side. Drenched, and almost expiring with fatigue from their generous exertions, the captain and officers were obliged to be hauled on board in slings, two of their boats having been stove in their attempt to board. The sight of the beautiful and powerful Téméraire drifting on a lee-shore, and that shore lined by a shouting, ferocious enemy, roused all their energies; and, after a quarter of an hour's agonizing anxiety, Admiral Purvis had the inexpressible delight of seeing the Téméraire, under the skilful Chamberlain and his experienced masters, running under his stern, with a mere shred of sail to give her steerage way, and in another minute drop her best bower in new and secure moorings. Sad as was the scene of desolation on every side, the bold and skilful seamanship exhibited on this critical occasion by Captain Chamberlain and his fine crew excited such admiration throughout the fleet, that when he telegraphed ALL RIGHT-9 FATHOMS!' the Téméraire was honoured with three cheers from between 2,000 and 3,000 glad voices from the British squadron." Last scene of this eventful history comes on apace. Somewhere in the year 183—, and towards the sunset of an autumnal day, a strange and sombre object, vast of bulk, with a leviathanic roll about it, like that of some helpless sea-monster, bound and towed along, might have been seen coming up the reaches of the river. The sun casts fiery rays, of purple and ruddy gold mingled, up through the arch of heaven. These rays again pierce, by fitful dartings between the stunted masts, shortened yards, and the slackened rigging. The grand battle-ship looks like a ghostly hulk. The "Fighting Téméraire" has the aspect of a convict hive. Her heroic front has become felonious and furtive, and the man who can look on her without being moved by her decadence may have a "tegument," but no heart. A sight more inexpressibly mournful even than that of bearing a dead warrior to his grave does she make, for there is the solemn march and the choral Miserere rising in fitful moanings and wailings around his catapalque. But here is the grand old ship in her pauper dockyard drab, her adamantine lips closed for ever, while a penurious rust dishonours those embattled sides, which once made navies pale before them. The corruscating sun-rays which once made her glorious on the waters seem to avoid touching her. Opaquely she stands in that wondrous crucible of lurid red and purple reflected in the rippling, Lethean waters. Stern, silent, like a dishonoured, degraded thing-the dishonour and the disgrace being the work of others' hand, or the result of others' neglect. She goes on with a sullen look of gloom, urged by the waspish "tug" that is taking the "Fighting Téméraire to her last berth to be broken up. And this is the end of her glory, her renown, her splendour, her victories -this! They do no more to a mud-flat, a coal barge, a shattered old "hoy," than this. They do no less! So let it be. Those triple ports shall speak no more-her imperial strength is dead. The great heart of her is broken and still. Only it is well to think of the honour, the respect we pay to these shattered mementoes which ought to have been set in gold as a jewel, and preserved to the last fragment as a gem! Look, look for hours upon that surpassing picture of her in the Vernon Gallery, painted by Turner in a moment of inspiration. Let the words of Ruskin's noble requiem still ring in our ears as we bid her adieu, as we say farewell for ever:-"Never more shall sunset lay golden robe on her, nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. Perhaps when the low gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveller may ask idly why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood, and even the sailor's child may not answer, nor know, that the night dew lies deep in the war-rents of the wood of the old Téméraire." GOD BLESS YOU! BY ELIZA COOK. GIVE me Affection's mood, when tender truth Shows the Great Sculptor's name upon our clay; Solemn is that last parting, when the eye Few, simple words!-amid the blurs and blots Which Memory kneels upon as hallow'd earth. That he may live, His daily toil for daily fee. No! Let us work! We only ask With mill, or bank No envy of a lord's estate. If we can earn sufficient store To satisfy our daily need; And can retain, For age and pain, A fraction, we are rich indeed. No dread of toil have we, or ours; We know our worth, and weigh our powers; The more we work, the more we win ; Success to Trade! Success to Spade! And to the Corn that's coming in! And joy to him, who o'er his task His independence as a man. Who only asks for humblest wealth, By chimney nook, Or stroll at setting of the sun. For fair reward, erect and free: The best of men These are the men we mean to be! Illustrated Literature. BY EWING RITCHIE. MANY definitions have been attempted of the age in which we live. Some tell you it is one given up wholly to mammon worship-that it is one reckless of principle, and earnest only in its admiration of success; some tell you that it is an age of progress; others that we are not what we were-that the old faith in God and man has died out, and that the sad day of England's decline and fall has already arrived. In Sir Lytton Bulwer's" Money," Graves says, “ I have seen already eighteen crises, six annihilations of agriculture and commerce, four overthrows of the Church, and three last final and irremediable destructions of the constitution." Well, there are many who talk in this way, and there are many more who hold with Tennyson that, "we sweep into a younger day," and on both sides of the question undoubtedly much may be said. Be this as it may, all will agree with me in the assertion that this is an age of literature; one fact alone establishes this. In 1830 the circulation of London weekly newspapers for the working classes was 75,000 per week; in 1860 the weekly circulation was 730,000. One other thing is clear. This is pre-eminently the age of illustrated literature; in 1830 it scarcely existed. Only the rich, who could afford to buy costly engravings, were indulged with illustrations, and such woodcuts as did appear in a cheap form were of the most wretched character; now illustrated periodicals circulate by millions through the land, and the illustrations they contain are often most exquisite, whether we look at design or execution. I have known many publications the proprietors of which have paid twenty or thirty guineas for a mere drawing, and then besides they have paid nearly as much for the engraving on wood; no wonder illustrated literature is in demand. Wood-engraving is brought to such perfection that it almost rivals steel in clearness and delicacy; and, if properly printed, in a certain brightness and freshness of effect leaves steel far behind. The wonder to my mind is, where all the box-wood comes from. Our own country has long been exhausted; our supplies reach us from Turkey. If Turkey fails us, what will our wood-engravers do? The uses of illustrated literature are many. In the oldest and rudest stages of the art, the truest engraving had a certain value as a medium for the communication of knowledge. Children and people who cannot read get many ideas from pictures. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," and if by means of the graver it may be reproduced, it affords joy to millions. How can we understand history, or geography, or manners and customs, or times past or present, or new discoveries, without illustrations? Not merely by their aid do we make knowledge attractive, but in many cases without their aid we can convey no knowledge to others whatever. High is our calling friends" was the beginning of one of Wordsworth's sonnets to Haydon. Barry Cornwall sang that before the painter lay 66 "Life in all its sunny aspects- Campbell speaks of painting as of— "Nature's guardian muse, Whose hand her perished grace redeems; The mirror of creation seems." |