href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@11577@[email protected]#footnote4" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">⁴ before he leaves me.

Your faithful and obliged humble servant,

NELSON.

It will be of great importance that I am in possession of his last will and codicils as soon as possible—no one can say that it does not contain among other things, many directions relative to his funeral.

18 Charles Street, Berkeley Square,

Dec. 13. 1805.

Dear Sir,—I have been to the Admiralty, and I am assured that leave will be sent to you to quit the ship, and follow the remains of my dear brother when you please. We have determined to send Mr. Tyson with the coffin to the Victory, when we know she is at the Nore. He, together with Captain hardy and yourself, will see the body safely deposited therein. I trust to the affection of all for that. The Admiralty will order the Commissioner's yacht at Sheerness to receive it, and bring it to Greenwich. I suppose an order from the Admiralty will go to Captain Hardy to deliver the body to Mr. Tyson, and you will of course attend. But if this should be omitted by any mistake of office, I trust Captain Hardy will have no difficulty.

There is no hurry in it, as the funeral will not be till the 10th or 12th of January.

We do not wish to send Tyson till we have the will and codicil, which Captain Hardy informed me was to come by Captain Blackwood from Portsmouth on Tuesday last. We are surprised he is not here. Compts. to Captain Hardy. Write to me as soon as you get to the Nore, or before, if you can.

Believe me, yours faithfully,

NELSON

Excuse this hasty and blotted scrawl, as I have been detained so long at the Admiralty that I have scarce time to save the Post.

Canterbury,

Dec. 26, 1805

Dear Sir,— I received your letters of the 23rd and 25th this morning. I am glad to hear the remains of my late dear and most illustrious brother are at length removed to Mr. Peddieson's coffin, and safely deposited in Greenwich Hospital. Your kind and affectionate attention throughout the whole of this mournful and trying scene cannot fail to meet my sincere and grateful thanks, and that of the whole family. I am perfectly satisfied with the surgeon's reports which have been sent to me, that every thing proper has been done. I could wish to have known what has been done with the bowels—whether they were thrown overboard, or whether they were preserved to be put into the coffin with the body. The features being now lost, the face cannot, as Mr. Beatty very properly observes, be exposed; I hope therefore everything is closed and soldered down.

I wrote to Mr. Tyson a few days ago, and should be glad to hear from him. I mean to go towards London about the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of Jan (the day not yet fixed), and call at Greenwich for a moment, just to have a melancholy sight of the coffin, &c. &c., when I hope I shall see you.

I shall be glad to hear from you as often as you have any thing new to communicate, and how the preparations go on. Every thing now is in the hands of government, but, strange to tell, I have not yet heard from the Herald's Office, whether I am to attend the procession or not.

Believe me,

Your much obliged humble servant,

NELSON.

The codicil referred to in these letters proved to be, or at least to include, that memorable document which the Earl suppressed, when he produced the will, lest it should curtail his own share of the amount of favour which a grateful country would be anxious to heap on the representative of the departed hero. By this unworthy conduct the fortunes of Lady Hamilton and her still surviving daughter were at once blighted.

The Earl as tightly held all he had, as he grasped all he could get. It was expected that he would resign his stall at Canterbury in favour of his brother's faithful chaplain and when he "held on" notwithstanding his peerage and riches, he was attacked in the newspapers. The following letter is the last communication with which Dr. Scott was honoured, for his work was done:—

Canterbury, May 28, 1806.

Sir,—I am glad to find, by your letter, that you are not concerned in the illiberal and unfounded paragraphs which have appeared and daily are appearing in the public prints.

I am, Sir, your very humble servant,

NELSON.

The Rev. Dr. Scott.

The above have never been printed, and I shall be glad if they are thought worthy of a place in your very useful and interesting periodical. I am, Sir, &c.,

ALFRED GATTY.

Ecclesfield, 7th Nov. 1849.

MISQUOTATIONS.

Mr. Editor,—The offence of misquoting the poets is become so general, that I would suggest to publishers the advantage of printing more copious indexes than those which are now offered to the public. For the want of these, the newspapers sometimes make strange blunders. The Times, for instance, has lately, more than once, given the following version of a well-known couplet:—

The reader's memory will no doubt instantly substitute such hideous for "so frightful," and that for "as."

The same paper, a short time since, made sad work with Moore, thus:—

Moore says nothing about the scents hanging by the vase. "Hanging" is an odious term, and destroys the sentiment altogether. What Moore really does say is this:—

Now the couplet appears in its original beauty.

It is impossible to speak of the poets without thinking of Shakspeare, who towers above them all. We have yet to discover an editor capable of doing him full justice. Some of Johnson's notes are very amusing, and those of recent editors occasionally provoke a smile. If once a blunder has been made it is persisted in. Take, for instance, a glaring one in the 2nd part of Henry IV., where, in the apostrophe to sleep, "clouds" is substituted for "shrouds."

That shrouds is the correct word is so obvious, that it is surprising any man of common understanding should dispute it. Yet we find the following note in Knight's pictorial edition:—

"Clouds.—Some editors have proposed to read shrouds. A line in Julius Cæsar makes Shakspere's meaning clear:—

Clouds in this instance is perfectly consistent; but here the scene is altogether different. We have no ship-boy sleeping on the giddy mast, in the midst of the shrouds, or ropes, rendered slippery by the perpetual dashing of the waves against