The French were bringing their heads to- triumphs, or would have paid for them more dearly. The life of Nelson was dear to every Englishman: no man doubted his courage, and they were anxious that he should run no unnecessary risks. Still, he was too well versed in human nature not to appreciate the value of his example. Just because he was so brave, his rushing into battle at the head of his line was of infinite service. To equal such a man was a glory few could hope for; but by striving to equal him honor was gained. He who kept upon an even line with his fiery chief would of necessity be in the front rank of honor. The head of the line, according to Nelson's original plan, was not to be his post; he took it, however, and when by his anxious friends he was asked to relinquish it, he apparently consented, but, nevertheless, took good care to press the Victory with all her sails, so as to prevent the Téméraire from having the honor of first engaging the enemy. Simple in all he did, there was no parade about Nelson; and they who described him as going into battle with a regular fighting coat, covered with stars, little understood the man. This matter of his dress, however, brings out, strangely enough, the animus of M. Thiers. Nelson was, in fact, dressed on the 21st as he was always dressed. The coat that he had on was the same which he wore when he joined his ship at Portsmouth; and, according to the custom of that time, it had worked upon it, and into the cloth, the orders to which he was entitled. This coat he put on on the morning of the day which was to be his last. He never thought of the orders on his coat, or of the mark they made him still they did make him a mark; and his friends wished that he should shun unnecessary danger, and put on some less conspicuous dress, but no one liked to speak of the matter, and the bustle of the day soon made them all forget it. A controversy followed respecting the coat he wore, and the facts appeared to be as we have related them. M. Thiers, who has read all that has been written on the matter, with no very laudable dexterity, with a sort of nisi prius skill, just says so much as to take the mind off the real fact, which was, that Nelson, by simply following his ordinary habits, became a striking object upon his own quarter-deck. But M. Thiers, as if in a Vil-parenthesis, says,-Nelson revetu d'un vieux frac qu'il portait dans les jours de bataille ; making out that he had a fighting coat, which some of the English writers had said; but then the fighting coat, as they described it, The different auspices under which the two fleets went to battle have been dwelt upon by a French writer, who has narrated the story in a much wiser and more dignified style than that adopted by M. Thiers. The well-known work, entitled Monumens des Victoires et Conquêtes des Français, remarks thus upon the directions given by the two opposing chiefs. Nelson had said, in his celebrated memorandum to his captains: "Captains are to look to their particular line as their rallying point. But in case signals can neither be seen nor perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of his enemy.' Villeneuve's circular said, Tout capitaine est à son poste, s'il est au feu. M. Thiers takes a different view; and, after saying that Bruix, who was killed at the Nile, and who was so superior to leneuve, gave the same order, observes, that if every captain had followed this simple rule, dictated as much by honor as experience, the English would have numbered fewer was a full dress coat blazing with orders, | afterward taken; but, as respected the acnot an old garment, that shrouded rather tion of the 21st, the result was the same. than discovered the chief. That this was not done by M. Thiers unintentionally is proved by his elaborate description of Admiral Magon's conduct and death. Magon, que son brillant uniforme désignait aux coups de l'ennemi, is an expression showing clearly that the idea of danger from a marked and dis-out tinguished dress was present in the mind of the historian, and that his description of Nelson was written with the design of inducing the belief that he had taken the precautions which his friends so ardently desired. In the action which now ensued, the following results plainly appeared: 1. Nelson's tactics produced precisely the effects which he expected. The long line of the enemy being divided, the English inferior force was concentrated upon two separate points, and an equality created for a time. During that time, as Nelson anticipated, the English entirely and irretrievably routed their opponents, and were ready to engage the remaining forces of the enemy when they arrived, should they ever come to try their strength. This result, spite of every art, and all sorts of ambiguous talk, M. Thiers cannot hide. But, 2. This portion of the fleet, thus cut off, (and the greater part of which were French,) did not come back. Four vessels under Admiral Dumanoir, ran away; it is idle to mince the phrase. M. Thiers endeavors, by roundabout talk, to hide this, as respects the French vessels, though he is ready enough to say the thing openly, with respect to the Spaniards. "Gravina en pouvait encore raillier huit, trois français-le Héros, l'Indomptable, l'Argonaute; cinq Espagnols-le Rayo, le San Francisco de Asis, le San Justo, le Montanez, le Leandros. Ces derniers, nous devoirs le dire, avaient sauvaient leur existence beaucoup plus que leur honneur." But here were three French vessels who were in the same dishonorable catalogue; and four, le Formidable, le Scipion, le Duquay Trouin, and le Mont Blanc, simply fled; which M. Thiers, who has the happy knack of saying plain things in a very decorative style, calls consultat la prudence plutôt que le désespoir. Shakespeare has put the same thing into somewhat different words when he says, "The better part of valor is discretion.' Here, then, were seven French ships taking to flight. But Gravina carried away eleven; so that there was a pretty equal share in the dishonor of flight, if dishonor there were,-eight Spanish, seven French. Of the French, indeed, four were 3. Of the ships of the combined fleet who fought the valor was incontestable: they were equally brave, French and Spaniards, and were not surpassed by the English. The English, indeed, had more skill, readiness, and that peculiarity which we have throughcalled hardihood, and which has in all our warfare with the French given us a decided superiority. But no part of the English fleet thought of flight; a large part of the combined fleet did flee, and by flight alone escaped destruction. M. Thiers, accounting for this victory, speaks thus of the English: 66 L'expérience, l'habilité de leurs equipages, la confiance qu'ils devaient a leurs succes, leurs assuraient toujours dans ces entreprises temeraires l'avantage sur leurs adversaires, moins agiles, moins confiants quoique ayant autant de bravoure, et souvent davantage."-Vol. vi. p. 147. We admit equal bravery in those who really did fight. But we ask, on what pretence does M. Thiers claim greater valor? Taking the whole who went into battle, a large portion, nearly one-third of the French, though superior in numbers, fled—and fled from pure fright. It would be a surprise to us-and we believe to the whole English people-if M. Thiers could furnish us with one single, well-authenticated instance, during the last war, of an English naval force taking to flight before an inferior force of the enemy. But here we have had a most remarkable instance, not of a single vessel, but a whole division, betaking themselves to their heels, and preserving, in the words of M. Thiers, their existence much more than their honor. We have now only to remark upon the language employed by M. Thiers respecting Nelson himself. In the heat of a contest, party writers-and even now, when all contest is over, men of vulgar minds-may indulge in disparaging expressions and vituperation respecting the great men of an opposing people. An English pamphleteer, during the American war, might be expected to abuse Washington; during the late war with France, Napoleon; but now, an historian-one really worthy of the name, one above all bigotry and intoleranceabove all wretched national vulgar hateought to speak of these men with the same candor, and in the same tone that he would employ toward his own countrymen. We again adduce Sir William Napier as our illustration. He judges of Massena or Ney as he would of Hill or of Crawfurd, of Napoleon as of Wellington; and thus we should have expected M. Thiers to have spoken; but of Napoleon. These few words prove the imhis observations have the stamp of actual portance of this closing scene of Nelson's life, hate; indeed, he uses the very word when and the mighty permanent benefits his counspeaking of Nelson,-Ce grand homme de mer, try received in compensation for the great juste objet de notre haine et de notre admira-loss she sustained in the death of her greatest tion. And again,-The ship Rédoutable naval chief: lowered at length her flag; Mais avant de la rendre, il a vengé sur la personne de Nelson les malheurs de la marine française. And in another instance he triumphs over his death, and says that the English had to regret the loss of three thousand men, a great number of officers, and l'illustre Nelson, plus regret table pour eux qu'une armée,-expressions which prove the terror Nelson's name spired; and thus, though not so intended, are indeed the most effective eulogium that could be pronounced upon him,-an eulogium which, however, though it honors the dead, does not redound to the credit of him who utters it. We shall close these papers, already too long, with a few sentences describing the results of the victory on the mind "Trafalgar chagrina Napoleon, et lui causas un profond deplaisir... Il voulut qu'on parlat peu de Trafalgar dans les journaux francais, et qu'on en fit mention comme d'un combat imprudent dans lequel nous avions plus souffert de la tempete que de l'ennemi... Il commencait a desesperer de la marine francaise. A partir de ce jour Nain-poleon pensa moins a la marine, et voulut que tout le monde y pensat moins aussi." In other words, Napoleon was defeated by sea. It now remained to be ascertained whether England's fortune or his was to yield in the struggle which was thenceforward to be continued on the land. That question has been decided. From the Dublin University Magazine. THE LAST DAYS OF MIRABEAU. BY F. PIERS HEALEY. In my intercourse with Frenchmen I have, met with no historic name which, after perhaps Napoleon's, exercises so general a spell on their imaginations as that of Mirabeau. There is an attractiveness about his personal characteristics, a glare, not to say a greatness, about his volcanic existence, irresistibly fascinating for his countrymen; and even cooler men, thinking over his achievements, may be disposed to find in the popular instinct but an anticipation of the judgments of posterity. No one, probably, ever did so much in so short a time against such difficulties. Born a prodigy of passion, his tempestuous youth and early manhood given up to all the debasing vices and humiliating expedients which need and profligacy naturally beget in the neglected scion of nobility, we have him in his fortieth year, on the eve of his political apparition, offering as the main result of a life to which his extraordinary activity and strange fortunes had given all the hues of romance, a reputation the worst and nearly the most unconsidered in France. There was scarcely a crime or an indignity, public or private, unattached by rumor or fame to his name; and his wife, mistress, father, mother, and nearest friends were the public vouchers, often in print, for accusations of which incest, projected parricide, swindling, breach of parole, and startling ingratitude, formed scarcely the darkest parts. Yet it was this person, "ugly and venemous,' degenerated into a poor libelous "litterateur" immersed in debt, and only remaining in France because, like another Cromwell, balked in his plan of passing to America, who, suddenly appearing before the electors of Aix and Marseilles, evoked, by an eloquence till then unheard of in France, that tumultuous spirit of revolution which so soon afterward astounded despotic Europe with the spectacle of a sovereign democracy in its midst who returning to Paris a deputy, and marshaling by exhaustless ener gies the scattered weakness of popular discontent into an organized and systematic resistance, offered at its head defiance to absolute power in its moment of menace and determination, and legalizing rebellion by a polity as new as it was commanding, finally succeeded, in a few short months, in whelming the richest, the most learned, and the most powerful clergy in the world, into the enduring weakness and poverty of Apostolic epochs; in submerging in the popular mass they contemned, the proudest, the most ancient, and the most privileged of Europe's aristocracies, and mastering into personal obsequiousness and constitutional legality, a haughty court by which he had been for years despised and hated, and which, representing the mightiest monarch of the world, stood supported by an army of 100,000 soldiers, and by almost as many bulwarks of prescription, habit, duty, association, and large social interests. The closing scene in the career of this wonderful man exhibited the traits, both striking and gigantesque, which gave so much of character to all he did. The dictator of France, the consciousness of having her attendant on his sick bed but strengthened the singular vanity-natural, however, to every Frenchman of dying with robes gracefully adjusted like the first Cæsar, and the appeal "mihi plaudite" of the second. As Talleyrand, an eye-witness, happily phrased it, he "dramatized his death," and if historians had not gone a step farther, nor stripped the "drama" of much of its interest by debasing it into a romance, we should have had fewer justifications for the recital that now meets the eye of the reader.* *Alison, usually so careful, makes as many faults as he gives lines to the incident; among other inmonths before, and translating into a quotation from stances, attributing to the death speeches pronounced Hamlet an appeal for opium conveyed in the word Dormir." It would, indeed, not be well for the Through 1778-79, and down to his enlargement, he complains of being subject to fainty fits-to frequent nephritic attacks-to inflammation of the eyes, causing frequent loss of sight-to accesses of fever-to swelling of the legs, from gouty rheumatism-to painful fits of indigestion, and to occasional vomiting of blood. His liberation, which did not take place till the end of 1780, was followed by years of the exhausting literary and forensic labors which distinguished the portion of his life preceding the meeting of the States-General. Dumont, the Genevese Jurisconsult, affirms that a person must have enjoyed his opportunity of observing Mirabeau, to comprehend how much literary labor one man can accomplish in a brief pe The health of Mirabeau had long ceased to be good. A Hercules, he had used his powers in impairing the boon of Nature, abandoning himself to every excess except drunkenness, which, as the only family vice left unappropriated, was claimed as the heritage of his witty brother. His long imprisonments in the Isle of Rhe, in the Chateau d'If, in the fortress of Joux, the keep of Vincennes, and the prison of Pentarliernearly half his early manhood given to the privations and infamy of the French jails of the eighteenth century, if relatively for time conserving the forces, permanently disorganized the mechanism of health. His recent long captivity in the "Donjon" of Vincennes was more especially mischievous. Snatched from the arms of a young, high-riod. But during this period, exercise on born and accomplished woman, who had renounced for him everything, he found himself suddenly transferred to the worst jail of the country he had so recently fled. Doomed for some time, without book, conversation, or correspondence, to feed on his own heart in the awful solitude of a dismal cell-sepulchred alive in all his marvelous activity from a world which the thoughts of an enthralling love, and the ripening hopes of fraternity, made just then priceless, the ardent spirit of the prisoner chafed in maddening impatience against the bars of his cage, and life itself was not without danger, no less from his own hand than disease, amid the outbreaks of his rage, and the broodings of his despair. After bearing for a month what he calls the "mute and terrible severities" of his horrible abode, he was allowed the privilege of complaint, and we have him writing to his jailer" My health is rapidly failing, and my mind, sinking under the weight of so many disgraces, loses all its energy. If I ought to have hopes in the clemency of the king, then, doubtless, he does not destine me to a perpetual prison. Ah! what a prison !* Alas! I am thoroughly wearied out by these inertitudes, these gleams of hope, these torturing fears! Never was I so weak and desolate. Physically, as morally, I feel as if annihilated!" repute of History, if her value were to be tested by her faithfulness on an incident so interesting at the moment to Europe, and occurring under the eyes of so many eminent writers. Discrepancies and mistakes, the results of negligence, meet us on every side; and the utmost brevity no more excludes them, as seen in Alison, than the greatest amplitude as shown in so many others. *"Lettres Originales de Mirabeau, ecrites du Donjon de Vincennes." horseback and foot, sharing the violence of |