and condemned to different punishments, and two of them executed as guilty of treason, both against the pope's supremacy, and the legitimacy of the monarch. Two brothers, one fifteen, the other twelve years old, were also condemned to death; and upon the entreaties of their mother, the king's attorney told her that he could spare one of them, and bade her choose-she did not choose. He was a Sicilian, named Speziale, filling at once the offices of chief justice and public accuser, and was a man endowed with such a power of dissimulation, that whenever he could not elicit any evidence at the bar, he invited the prisoners into his private chambers, shed tears for their sufferings, protested before the Almighty that he accepted that place in order to save some of them-complained of the cruelty of the Queenoffered them means of escape; and if, trusting to human sympathy, they disclosed their opinions and feelings, he answered: "You have said too much, and unhappily for both of us, the law ought to be fully executed."-Some were strangled in the subterraneous dungeons, with friars about them, to learn under pretence of confession, the name and abode of their accomplices. Many suffered sentence to be pronounced without attempting a defence, lest they should commit their relations: others refused to answer the interrogatories of the judges; and Manthone, war minister of the republic, being provoked and insulted by them, uttered only these words-" Ho capitolato."

The first man executed, two months before the establishment of the grand criminal court, and even before the arrival of the King, was Prince Francesco Caracciolo, admiral of the Neapolitan navy, who, by seventy years of active life, had kept off the torpor under which Italian patricians are apt to languish; and to the experience of his profession he added the acquirements of a man of science. He had, at first, followed the court to Sicily, and returned to Naples with the King's permission, who cautioned him not to mix in the affairs of the republic. Yet he conceived himself bound to resume the command of a flotilla of gun-boats, the only remains of the ships of war, lest the French should put into it officers of their own nation; and when the Allies attacked Naples, he attempted to drive out the British squadron from the island of Procida. A price was put upon his head, and he was carried before Nelson, who directed a court martial to proceed summarily, and " report to him what punishment the prisoner ought to suffer."* Count Thurn, who had formerly burned the Neapolitan navy, was one of those foreign adventurers intriguing for the favours of princes, and every where jealous of native merit; and although the prisoner alleged that

* Lord Nelson's first order to Commodore Count Thurn, June 29th, 1799.

Thurn was his known enemy, it was he who assembled the courtmartial of Neapolitan officers on board the flag-ship of Lord Nelson, and was appointed its president. The bearer of the sentence found the English admiral seated in his cabin, between Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and hearing that Caracciolo had been condemned to banishment and confiscation, he ordered the sentence to be revised: the punishment being then commuted to perpetual imprisonment, he desired them to revise it again. This is the statement of two naval officers, who, although then at Naples, were not ocular witnesses; the only historian by whom this transaction is related with impartiality, has made use of such cautious expressions in this place, that I can neither admit nor reject the circumstance of the revision of the two sentences. The trial began at ten o'clock in the morning, and Nelson soon after noon signed the sentence, and ordered the criminal to be hanged+; who, dreading rather the manner of his death, than the end of his life, demanded to be shot as an officer, or beheaded according to the privileges of his forefathers. The English admiral answered, "That he had no right to interfere in a judgment fairly pronounced by the officers of the country."

After these words he walked up and down, agitated and silent; and while he apparently tried to hush in his breast the presentiment of the stain inflicted on his reputation, Lady Hamilton was present at the execution. The Italian sailor who was ordered to pass the rope round the neck of the admiral, hesitated and bent forward as if desirous to kiss his hand." Let me die alone," said Caracciolo, and, while he expired, Lady Hamilton wiped her eyes. Her endowments, both physical and intellectual, had urged her to struggle from her very infancy to rise by means of those expedients to which every individual must inevitably have recourse whose ambition is infinitely above his circumstances. She had been at first a menial servant in London; next a wandering girl, lost to virtue: at last, devoid of shame, she lent the admirable beauties of her person as a model to academies of painters, until she became the concubine of a young military man; and was no sooner raised from penury, than she gave a loose to that indiscretion which afterwards brought her, through anguish, luxury, and contempt, into the grave, in the same helpless indigence in which she was born. Her lover, distressed with debt, sold her to Sir William Hamilton, a man far advanced in years, and ambassador at Naples; he was an enthusiast in the fine arts, of

"Sir William and Lady Hamilton were in the ship; but Nelson, it is affirmed, saw no one, except his own officers." Southey's Life of Nelson, an. 1799-It is affirmed in Harrison's Memoirs of Nelson, "written under Lady Hamilton's eye at Merton."-Foote's Vindication, page 72.

+ Lord Nelson's second order to Commodore Count Thurn, June 29th, 1799.

which, by the elegance of her taste, and her long intercourse with painters and sculptors, she had gathered a correct knowledge; so that, by flattering his taste, irritating his affection, threatening to part with him out of regard for his character, and affecting to be pursued by the advances of an illustrious personage, she succeeded in becoming at once the wedded wife, and the most useful assistant of the British ambassador. She ingratiated herself with the Queen, by the nature and violence of those indulgences which in the lowest and highest ranks are alike irritated by absolute want and reckless profusion; and ungoverned by the fear of public opinion, the character and morals of both were closely assimilated. The most private correspondence of the King was betrayed, and sent over to the British ministers. Not being educated with a due sense of honour, Lady Hamilton conceived herself bound to sacrifice it, not only to the policy of her husband's employers, but also to the gratification of all the passions of a scandalous court. She was believed (and perhaps not unjustly) to be an adulterous wife; for the delight of bloodshed does not tempt the weaker sex, without the utter corruption of the two best instincts of our nature, modesty and sympathy, with which women seem to be liberally endowed, in order that, by becoming tender wives and mothers, they might soften the ferocity of men. Lady Hamilton did not quit the vessel till she saw Caracciolo hanged; she sent twice to know when he was to be taken down from the fore-yard-arm; she went again in a barge at the approach of night to see him thrown into the sea; then she wrote to assure the Queen" that even the remains of her Majesty's enemy were no more to be seen." Thirteen days afterwards the King walking on the deck with Nelson, exclaimed suddenly, with a yell of horror, "Vien! Viene!"-The old man's corpse, erect breasthigh above the waves, was seen floating towards the ship; the shot which had been attached to the feet for the purpose of sinking it, not being sufficiently heavy. Two sailors, without any person having ventured either to approve or to reprimand them, picked up their admiral's corpse, and carried it to a church for interment.

Perhaps I deceive myself; but I conceive that great men in their public capacity, whatever be their virtues or vices, are more than is generally imagined under the irresistible impulse of past events unknown to themselves, and that they are equally blind to the consequences which are to follow. When the silently increasing corruption of many generations has collected itself till it is ready to burst in a torrent on the heads of posterity, every social compact is violated, and force taking the place of justice, engenders sudden convulsions. This was, in

fact, the case of Europe at the end of the eighteenth century.The spirits of men bewilder themselves more rapidly in the violent agitation between the hope and fear of change; the astonishment caused by unforeseen effects hides their causes from observation; every one feels that tranquillity can return only with justice; every one sees it according to his own opinion, interest, and passions; and every one knows that no law can be established but by force. Then follows the conflict of opposing forces: the utility of the permanent end seems to justify the iniquity of the temporary means; and while all must have recourse alike to violence, the wisest play the fool, and the most magnanimous seek in vain to escape the contagion of crime. The origin of Nelson's misfortune was the right assumed by the belligerent powers, of interfering by dictation in the domestic government of foreign states. And since this practice is now adopted as the basis of the international law of Europe, and it is about to be put in full execution, it was perhaps necessary to dwell on the consequences which twenty years ago it has produced at Naples. This interference was, before the French revolution, limited to the assisting the sovereign or the people, in their mutual differences, by diplomacy and machinations; and did not extend to the dictating or breaking of covenants between the prince and the nation. It is impossible but that his utter ignorance of the country and his prejudice in favour of the factions for which he is interested, must drive every foreign officer to the commission of acts of injustice: and he perpetrates them with so much more violence, as he acts upon a plan adopted by his own government, indifferent alike to the good or bad fortune of a country which it has no pretension to keep by the right of conquest. Captain Troubridge was astonished that the Neapolitan people had no idea of any thing but revenge, without perceiving that the lust of revenge of the Queen and her foreign courtiers was countenanced by the British forces. Other females, bred in prostitution, have influenced the character of other great men; but Lady Hamilton would never have tarnished the memory of Nelson with the blood of so many innocents uselessly shed, if, at the time he was acquainted with her, she had not been the wife of an English ambassador.

GERMAN AUTHORS.

NO. I.

KÖRNER.

He

CHARLES THEODORE KÖRNER was born at Dresden on the 23rd of September, 1791. His father was Judge of Appeals for the Electorate of Saxony, and his mother, daughter to Mr. Stock, a respectable artist of Leipsic, now deceased. He was so weak and sickly during his earlier years, that it became necessary to pay the greatest attention to the state of his health, and to avoid precipitating the progress of his education. He therefore passed the greater part of his time in the open air; either in a neighbouring garden along with boys of his own age, or, during the summermonths, in a vineyard with his parents and sister. With many branches of instruction he became acquainted later than most other youths, not being of the number of those children who flatter the vanity of their parents by the display of premature talent. gave, however, even in the years of childhood, manifest indications of tenderness of heart, combined with firmness of purpose,-of steadfast attachment to those who had gained his affections, and of a fancy easy to be excited. As his health improved, the powers of his mind began to develope themselves. It was a difficult matter to command his attention; but, when it was once fixed, he was found very quick of apprehension. He had less inclination and ability for the learning of languages, than for the study of history, political and natural, and of the mathematics. His constant antipathy to the French language became the more remarkable, in proportion as he made greater advances in other tongues both ancient and modern.

From being habituated to a variety of gymnastic exercises during his earlier years, he acquired strength and agility of body, and passed for a lively dancer, a courageous horseman, an expert swimmer, and, above all, a dextrous fencer. His eyes, ears, and hands, partook of the same happy organization, and his external senses were constantly exercised by the activity of his mind. Meanwhile his intellect was proportionably cultivated, and he made considerable advances, not only in the delineation of mathematical figures, but in landscape-painting. In the study of music, his talents were developed in a higher degree. He had already made some progress on the violin, when the guitar more strongly attracted his attention, of which instrument he ever continued to be fond. With his cittern upon his arm, he indulged in the idea of being transported back to the times of the Troubadours. He was successful in the composition of many little pieces for this instrument, as well as for the voice; and his execution was correct and animated. For poetry, however, he was destined to feel a predominant