young men, who were sons of old and meritorious officers, always had, and always should continue to have, the first claim on his patronage. In this and all other respects, he was not more steady to his purpose than prompt in decision. Of great mental and bodily powers, he was never disconcerted by difficulties, and never deficient in means to overcome them. His vigilance was extreme. Nothing passed in the fleet without his observation; and he is described to have had an eye so quick and piercing, that it was often said he appeared to look through one. On shore he was cheerful, lively, and fond of a joke. The account of his calling up Captain Darby at Gibraltar, and detaining him at a bedroom window to listen to a pretended dream he had just awakened from, is more like a story in a novel than an incident of real life, (Tucker, vol. i. 371.) With children he was always playful, though he had none of his own. The two portraits in Mr. Tucker's volumes are good; that given by Captain Brenton is a perfect satyr-a Silenus. In his countenance was a strong expression of intelligence; in his figure, and manners, and speech, he was the picture of a true Englishman. cution, after a legal conviction, can be so called-he saved the fleet, and rescued the country from the dreadful recurrence of a second general mutiny, the first of which had recently, but imperfectly, been subdued at home. The second instance was, his conduct to the officers of the Channel fleet. Here, too, he was not only fully justified, but imperatively called upon, to put in force a rigid system of discipline, which had been unaccountably neglected. On taking the command of this fleet, he found an extraordinary laxity of duty, and disregard of all discipline;-the Captains sleeping on shore; boats constantly employed for them; the men deserting by hundreds; the Commander-in-chief very much in London; the other flag-officers, good easy men, letting things go on quietly; and all this while the fleet was supposed to be watching that of the enemy, ready to start from Brest! What a difference of conduct must the Admiral have here found, from that of the active and gallant officers he had been accustomed to command in the Mediterranean, where mutual affection and respect prevailed. But he soon brought these other officers to a sense of their duty and obedience;-by rigid and decisive measures, at first, and by subsequent indulgen- We have little to say generally on Mr. ces to all whom he found deserving of Tucker's volumes. Though he had every them. He thus succeeded in converting motive to paint the character and conduct their displeasure into regard and good will. of Lord St. Vincent, as regards the public In fact, they soon discovered that, whatever service of the State, in the brightest colors, discomfort the exigencies of the service we must do him the justice to say, that the demanded from them, their Commander-in-portrait he has drawn appears to be a faithchief was the first to make the sacrifice and ful and accurate likeness, free from flattery show the example. and exaggeration. But, throughout the The liberality of his political opinions work, the execution is far from faultless. was another fault with many; but though In point of taste, correctness of construca decided Whig in principle, his political tion, and purity of expression, it is eminently feelings and opinions were displayed only defective. His long sentences are somein Parliament, or on public occasions. On times so involved, inflated, and inverted, service he never suffered them to appear. as not easily to be intelligible. In this Throughout the whole course of his profes- latter particular we have seldom, indeed, sional career, his conduct proved him to be seen a work so obnoxious to censure. In far removed from the influence of party the use made of the Earl's Letters, there is considerations. In the multitude of appli- an utter want of literary resource. Had cations which he received for promotions, one half of the six hundred he has given from Princes of the Blood, the highest No- been omitted, and the other half dovetailed bles, and Members of Parliament, of his into the narrative, instead of being huddled own party, he invariably told them, as ap- together at the end of each chapter, it pears from his own Letters,* that deserving would have been a great improvement, and a relief to the reader. Every name almost, in these Letters, is a blank; in most cases * In one to Mrs. Montague, who had solicited the promotion of, he says, 'The officers of the Ville de Paris remain as they did when I left did before I came into office; and I have refused her; and my own nephew, commander of the to promote at the request of four Princes of the Stork sloop, who is respected as an officer of un-blood.'---These were, the Prince of Wales, and common merit and acquirements, stands as he the Dukes of Clarence, Kent, and Cumberland. out the apothecary's bills. I'll none of it, and pass on." Be not so hasty, good friend, for we know you are not in general so thoughtless. Have you never looked upon sickness in its true light, as a course of moral probation, which it is a blessed thing to pass through, albeit the journey it self be wearisome? Have you never experimentally felt the new ideas it gives onebeheld the new light it floods this world in-and found in your own breast such revealings of present and future good as more than atoned for whatever of trial it brought Life in the Sick-Room. Essays. By an Invalid. you? We know well that health and sick London: Edward Moxon, 1844. THIS is a wise and thoughtful book-the offspring of a lofty mind-and, coming to us with its pleading motto, can ness are two states so different, that there exist-naturally-but little sympathy between them; and now we are not going to bring you into the gloom of a sick chamber, but into bright light. In examining "For they breathe truth that breathe their words the work before us, we shall show you in pain," cannot fail in finding a welcome. Its tone is healthy; and the subjects with which it deals are of the highest kind. We have seldom opened a volume more pregnant in noble thought; and throughout are the traces of a disciplined spirit-a spirit raised and exalted by suffering, which finds "good in every thing" it encounters by the way to its rest. The writer is evidently a woman. Were we without the half acknowledgment that it is so, we should have surmised the fact from the tone and temper of the work. There is the characteristic fortitude of the sex under great privation and trial manifest; the silent endurance; the patient hope; the weakness where man would be strong, and the power where man would be weak; and, above all, the deep religion of the heart, and its inner devotion, which we find so difficult-and sometimes impossible-to attain to. Moreover, the style betrays the practised hand; it is simple, yet eloquent, never deficient in power, and always unaffected and chaste; its beauty is not marred by false ornament. We were constantly reminded by it of what the old Spectator quaintly termed "thinking aloud" -the highest praise that can be given to the essay form of composition. But we hear some of our own readers turning impatiently from the title of our review. "Essays; by an Invalid !'-pooh, pooh! what does the sick man or womanwhichever it be mean by chronicling his, or her, pains and griefs?-cataloguing, I suppose, the physician's visits, and copying trains of thought which the healthful are too giddy to seek after, and which perhaps they are not constituted to experience, even were their search most diligently conducted. In truth, the daily life of the mind is a thing too generally neglected. No doubt metaphysical studies are more followed now than at any previous time, and the progress we have made in them is as pleasing as it has been unexpected; but in these we have more of the mind's history than the record of its daily experiences. They rather lay before us the development of its marvellous powers, than reach and touch us by a sense of personal engagement. Thus they want individuality; and relate to the common possessions of the species, chiefly if not altogether. It is far different to know these things ourselves, to learn them from our inner thoughts, and form our philosophy less on books than on the või σɛavior. When laid aside from the busier scenes of life, we are in a manner constrained to this wise self-searching. The period of inva lidism, which unfits us for the turmoil of active existence, seems peculiarly adapted for the acquirement of this hallowing wisdom. We breathe a purer air. When worldly hope dies, a better hope is born; and in a few days or hours of sickness, we acquire experiences which the long years of previous health had failed to impart. The measure of time is not the years we live, but the feelings we have present with us during their progress. Thus, some hours are longer with us than as many days; and some days seem as though they would never end. We speak of seasons of agony, whether of mind or body. Byron says to days, and most hours of the day, have had the purpose most entire ease. their portion of pain-usually mild-now and then, for a few marked hours of a few marked "A slumbering thought is capable of years, weeks, severe and engrossing; while perhaps, And curdles a long life into one hour." some dozen evenings, and half-dozen mornPain or joy become, in their several ways, ings, are remembered as being times of althe gauges of duration the former length- The mind, meantime, though clear and active, So much for the body. ening it out into an apparently interminable has been so far affected by the bodily state as existence the latter causing even years to to lose all its gayety, and, by disuse, almost to pass away in rapid and unmarked flight. forget its sense of enjoyment. During the The experience of every one will confirm year, perhaps, there may have been two surour statement. But these antagonistic prises of light-heartedness, for four hours in principles (and not less so in their nature, June, and two hours and a half in October, than in their present effects) leave behind diate seasons, on the occurrence of some rouswith a few single flashes of joy in the intermethem, with the heart that receives them ing idea, or the revival of some ancient associaright, one abiding influence of good. Paination. Over all the rest has brooded a thick passes away, and is forgotten; good sub-heavy cloud of care, apparently causeless, but sists, and immortally survives. This is not for that the less real. This is the sum of the subject our author first handles:: "The sick-room becomes the scene of intense convictions; and among these, none, it seems to me, is more distinct than that of the permanent nature of good, and the transient nature of evil. At times I could almost believe that long sickness or other trouble is ordained to prove to us this very point-a point worth any costliness of proof. "The truth may pass across the mind of one who has suffered briefly-may occur to him when glancing back over his experience of a short sharp illness or adversity. He may say to himself that his temporary suffering brought him lasting good, in revealing to him the sympathy of his friends, and the close connexion of human happiness with things unseen; but this occasional recognition of the truth is a very different thing from the abiding and unspeakably vivid conviction of it, which arises out of a condition of protracted suffering. It may look like a paradox to say that a condition of permanent pain is that which, above all, proves to one the transient nature of pain; but this is what I do affirm, and can testify. "The apparent contradiction lies in the words 'permanent pain'-that condition being made up of a series of pains, each of which is annihilated as it departs; whereas, all real good has an existence beyond the moment, and is indeed indestructible. the pains of the year, in relation to illness. Where are the pains now? Not only gone, but annihilated. They are destroyed so utterly, that even memory can lay no hold upon them. The fact of their occurrence is all that even memory can preserve. The sensations themselves cannot be retained, nor recalled, nor revived; they are the most absolutely evanescent, the most essentially and completely destructible of all things. Sensations are unimaginable to those who are most familiar with them. Their concomitants may be remembered, and so vividly conceived of, as to excite emotions at a future time: but the sensations themselves cannot be conceived of when absent. This pain, which I feel now as I write, I have felt innumerable times before; yet, accustomed as I am to entertain and manage it, the sensation itself is new every time; and a few hours hence I shall be as unable to represent it to myself as to the healthiest person in the house. Thus are all the pains of the year annihilated. What remains? "All the good remains. "And how is this? whence this wide difference between the good and the evil? "Because the good is indissolubly connected with ideas-with the unseen realities which are indestructible. This is true, even of those pleasures of sense which of themselves would be as evanescent as bodily pains. The flowers "A day's illness may teach something of sent to me by kind neighbors have not perished this to a thoughtful mind; but the most incon- that is, the idea and pleasure of them remain, siderate can scarcely fail to learn the lesson, though every blossom was withered months when the proof is drawn over a succession of ago. The game and fruit, eaten in their seaWith me, it has now in-son, remain as comforts and luxuries, preservcluded several New Year's days; and what ed in the love that sent them. Every letter and have they taught me? what any future New Conversation abide-every new idea is mine Year's restrospect cannot possibly contradict, and must confirm; though it can scarcely Illustrate further what is already as clear as its moon and stars." months and seasons. for ever; all the knowledge, all the experience of the planets, and the changes of the moon, of the year is so much gain. Even the courses and the hay-making and harvest, are so much immortal wealth-as real a possession as all Then, in reference to the past year's ex- the pain of the year was a passing apparition. periences, our invalid proceeds :Yes; even the quick bursts of sunshine are still mine. For one instance, which will well illustrate "During the year looked back upon, all the what I mean, let us look back so far as the spring, and take one particular night of severe pain, which made all rest impossible. A short intermission, which enabled me to send my servant to rest, having ended in pain, I was unwilling to give further disturbance, and wandered, from mere misery, from my bed and my dim room, which seemed full of pain, to the next apartment, where some glimmer through the thick window-curtain showed that there ent, as "before and after" with the eyes of And so our was light abroad. Light, indeed! as I found New Year's eve, surrounded by the treasures "the richness of my wealth, as I lie, on on looking forth. The sun, resting on the edge of the departing year-the kindly year which of the sea, was hidden from me by the walls of the old priory; but a flood of rays poured terrible and grievous, while he leaves with me all has utterly destroyed for me so much that is through the windows of the ruin, and gushed the new knowledge and power, all the teachover the waters, strewing them with diamonds, ings from on high, and the love from far and and then across the green down before my windows, gilding its furrows, and then lighting near, and even the frailest-seeming blossom of up the yellow sands on the opposite shore of pleasure that, in any moment, he has cast into the harbor, while the market-garden below my lap." was glittering with dew, and busy with early bees and butterflies. Besides these bees and butterflies, nothing seemed stirring, except the earliest riser of the neighborhood, to whom the garden belongs. At the moment, she was passing down to feed the pigs, and let run her cows; and her easy pace, arms a-kimbo, and complacent survey of her early greens, presented me with a picture of ease so opposite to my own state, as to impress me ineffaceably. I was suffering too much to enjoy this picture at the moment: but how was it at the end of the year? The pains of all those hours were annihilated-as completely vanished as if they had never been; while the momentary peep behind the window-curtain made me the possessor of this radiant picture for evermore. This is an illustration of the universal fact. That brief instant of good has swallowed up long weary hours of pain. An inexperienced observer might, at the moment, have thought the conditions of my gain heavy enough; but the conditions being not only discharged, but annihilated long ago, and the treasure remaining for ever, would not my best friend congratuWe have next the subject, sympathy to late me on that sunrise? Suppose it shining the invalid, discussed. How difficult to on, now and for ever, in the souls of a hundred sympathize aright! Good-nature will not other invalids or mourners, who may have do this; it is too often as repulsive as it is marked it in the same manner, and who shall kindly-intentioned. Friendship itself here estimate its glory and its good!" at times fails; it has no plummet for the depths of hidden sorrow. But when this nearness of identification is reached, what boon on earth beside could compensate for it? The closing of the essay is very beautiful: "True and consoling as it may be, to find thus that 'trouble may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,' they have not fully learned the lessons of the sick room if they are not aware that, while the troubles of that night-season are thus sure to pass away, its product of thoughts and experiences must endure, till the stars which looked down upon the scene have dissolved in their courses. The constellations formed in the human soul, out of the chaos of pain, must have a duration, compared with which, those of the firmament are but as the sparkles shivered over the sea by the rising sun. To one still in this chaos-if he do but see the creative process advancing-it can be no reasonable matter of complaint, that his course is laid the while through such a region; and he will feel almost ashamed of even the most passing anxiety as to how he may be permitted to emerge." We trust that there are hundreds whose experiences are of a like nature; but clearly it is not every sufferer who possesses equal strength of mind. To recognize in pain a "The manifestations of sympathetic feeling chastisement whose tendency is unmixed are as various as of other feelings; but the dif good-" a mere disguise of blessings other-ferences are marked by those whom they conwise unattainable"- -a holy medium through cern with a keenness proportioned to the hunwhich the soul must pass to a higher life-ger of their heart. The rich man has even one must feel that it is sent us from a divine sometimes to assure himself of the grief of his hand. Imperfectly as we frame our ideas now, calling very often evil good, and good evil, when we acknowledge that we are at present in a state of moral discipline, we come of necessity to this happy conclusion. We look not so much on the narrow pres friends, by their silence to him, as circumstances which he cannot but feel most important. Their letters, extending over months and years, perhaps contain no mention of his trial, no reference to his condition, not a line which will show to his executors that the years over which they spread were years of illness. 6 Το Though he can account for this suppression in | "If it be asked, after all this, 'Who can corthe very love of his friends, yet it brings no sole? how is it possible to please and soothe particular consolation to him. Others, per- the sufferer?' I answer that nothing is more haps, administer praise-praise, which is the easy, nothing is more common, nothing more last thing an humbled sufferer can appropri- natural, to simple-minded people. Never creaate-praise of his patience or fortitude, which ture had more title than I to speak confidently perhaps arrives at the moment when his reso- of this, from experience which melts my heart lution has wholly given way, and tears may be day by day. Speaking the truth in love is streaming from his eyes, and exclamations of the way. One who does this cannot but be an anguish bursting from his lips. Such conso- angel of consolation. Every thing but truth lations require forbearance, however it may becomes loathed in a sick room. The restless be mingled with gratitude. Far different were can repose on nothing but this; the sharpened my emotions when one said to me, with the intellectual appetite can be satisfied with noforce like the force of an angel, 'Why should thing less substantial; the susceptible spiritual we be bent upon your being better, and make taste can be gratified with nothing less genuup a bright prospect for you? I see no bright- ine, noble and fair. Then the question arises, ness in it; and the time seems past for expect- what sort of truth? Why, that which is aping you ever to be well.' How my spirit rose propriate to the one who administers. in a moment at this recognition of the truth! each a separate gift may be appointed. Only "And again, when I was weakly dwelling let all avoid every shadow of falsehood. Let on a consideration which troubled me much for the nurse avow that the medicine is nauseous. some time, that many of my friends gave me Let the physicians declare that the treatment credit for far severer pain than I was endur-will be painful. Let sister, or brother, or friend ing, and that I thus felt myself a sort of impostor, encroaching unwarrantably on their sympathies. Oh, never mind,' was the reply; that may be more balanced hereafter. You will suffer more with time, or you will seem to yourself to suffer more; and then you will have less sympathy. We grow tired of despairing, and think less and less of such cases, whether reasonably or not; and you may have less sympathy when you need it more. Meantime, you are not answerable for what your friends feel; and it is good for them, natural and right, whether you think it accurate or not.' "These words put a new heart into me, dismissed my scruples about the over-wealth of the present hour, and strengthened my soul for future need-the hour of which has not, however, yet arrived. It is a comfortable season, if it may but last, when one's friends have ceased to hope unreasonably, and not grown tired of despairing.' tell me that I must never look to be well. When the time approaches that I am to die, let me be told that I am to die, and when. If I encroach thoughtlessly on the time or strength of those about me, let me be reminded; if selfishly, let me be remonstrated with. Thus, to speak the truth, is in the power of all. Higher service is a talent in the hands of those who have a genius for sympathy-a genius less rare, thank God, than other kinds." Of the false kinds of consolation, that which sends us back to our former lives to meditate on what we have done, and draw comfort from it, is the very vainest; and we truly agree with our author, that the function of conscience is not that of a comforter. The stern rebuker of all that we do amiss, how can it rejoice beings whose lives are so many multiplied wanderings? Oh, "Another friend, endowed both by nature chasten; but, when crowding in its images little at any time can it do other than and experience with the power I speak of, gave me strength for months, for my whole upon the heart weakened by sickness, what probation, by a brave utterance of one word-can it else do than irrevocably condemn? Yes: in answer to a hoping consoler, I told And yet men speak of the "happiness of a truth of fact, which sounded dismal, though an approving conscience!" because it was fact I spoke it in no dismal mood; and the genius at my side in a confirmatory yes,' opened to my view a whole world of aid in prospect from a soul so penetrating and so true." "I strongly doubt whether conscience was ever appointed to the function of consoler. I to my own experience, the utmost enjoyment more than doubt: I disbelieve it. According that conscience is capable of is a negative state, that of ease. The power of suffering is Yes; the fitting habitant of the sick-strong, and its natural and best condition I room is truth, simple truth; yet, in no other take to be one of simple ease; but for enjoyplace is deception, in all its hollowness, so ment and consolation, I believe we must look to often found; and false hopes are excited by other powers and susceptibilities of our nature. well-meaning friends, who with cruel mock-It is inconceivable to me that our moral sense ing promises bid the sufferer look forward to reviving health, even when it has wholly departed. The true friend is he who tells the truth. JULY, 1844. 27 can ever be gratified by any thing in our own moral state. It must be more offended by our own sins and weaknesses than by all the other sins and weaknesses in the world, in proportion as the evil is more profoundly known |