The character of the British seaman is perhaps the most perfect and pre-eminent of all profeffional characters; or, in other words, the character poffeffes, in the highest degree, the peculiar and varied excellencies which the profeffion requires: yet, though it is univerfally allowed that no class of men have been more zealous or fuccessful in the pursuit of glory, perhaps none have been so scantily requited with those memorials of merit, which are neceffary to make glory what Thucydides very happily called it—a poffeffion for ever. May the juftice and spirit of the nation be animated to fuch a completion of the projected naval monument, as may moft gratify our prefent heroes, and moft happily produce to our country, in a future age, a fimilar fucceffion of defenders !

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354

Demofthenes has eloquently displayed this grand use of public monuments, in closing his Oration for the liberty of the Rhodians :

Νομίζετε τοινυν ταυτα αναθῆναι τις προγονες υμών, εχ ινα θαυμαζητε ταυτα θεωρόντες μονον. αλλ ινα και μιμησθε τας των αναθέντων αρετας.

The Abbé Guafco has made fome juft remarks on the ftatues of antiquity equally applicable to this interesting subject:

66

"Il feroit à fouhaiter que ceux à qui la difpenfation des recompenfes

et des temoignages d'eftime publique eft confiée, ne perdiffent ja"mais de vue les idées des anciens à cet égard. Chez eux c'étoit "l'interet même de la patrie qui exigeoit et reclamoit les monumens "honorifiques, dûs au mérite et à la vertu.

"Ces gages immortels de la reconnoiffance nationale furent une des "principales fources de ces vertus et de cet heroifme dont l'hiftoire "ancienne nous offre des traits fi frequents.-De l'Ufage des Statues,

p. 237.

NOTE II. Ver. 74

Which even agony bas fmil'd to hear.

The praise, so fingularly deserved, and so tenderly bestowed, was excited by a few remarkable productions; the more remarkable, as the dear fufferer was, at the time, reduced to fuch decrepitude, that he was obliged to endure a great increase of pain whenever he indulged his fancy in a brief, constrained, and hafty use of the pencil! Yet under these fevere disadvantages he executed fome original designs that are thought, by lefs partial judges, to promise great future excellence, if Heaven graciously restores him from a state of the most calamitous and complicated fufferings, which he has now fupported, for more

than two years, with the mildeft magnanimity. My reader has an opportunity of judging if I speak too partially of the designs executed by this dear invalid, as the Death of Demofthenes (which he drew, reclining himself on the couch of pain, for the affectionate purpose of decorating this Poem) is one of those I allude to. He will at the fame time have the candour to recollect that this defign is literally the production of a youth severely obftructed in the exercise of early talent; and that "the fculptor's art (by which is not meant merely finishing "his compofitions in marble, but forming, with correctness, figures "in any material) demands infinite labour and patience (and maturity "of life) to carry it to perfection."

I borrow the words of an admirable little Treatife, intitled "Thoughts on Outline, Sculpture, &c." by Mr. George Cumberland, an author who can employ, with alternate and mafterly command, both the pen and the pencil.

NOTE III. Ver. 144.

And fighing, bids the imperfect paan close.

I could wish (yet I must not expect such a wish can be realized) that all readers who may be fubject to affliction like that which has made the close of this Poem fo different from what the author meant it to be when the Work was begun, might find, in the perufal of it, a lenient relief fimilar to what I have found, when I could force myself to pursue a compofition frequently interrupted by paternal anxiety, and frequently refumed from the influence of the fame powerful affection, to gratify an intelligent and generous invalid. He often requefted me to purfue my Work at a little diftance from him, that it might fave me from fympathifing too intenfely in pangs that I could

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not relieve. Sometimes I could obey his tender injunctions; and fometimes I have been almost on the point of exclaiming, in the pathetic words of Virgil,

Bis patriæ cecidere manus.

But at last, through a long viciffitude of hopes and fears for health infinitely dearer to me than my own, I am arrived at the close of the Work which this beloved promoter of my fufpended ftudies has fo kindly wished me to complete. I deliver it to the candour of the Public; not infenfible of its imperfections, yet with feelings of gratitude to the great Giver of all gifts, that, under the bitterest disquietude and distress of heart, he has still granted me fuch powers of application, as have enabled me to footh the corporeal anguish of a moft meritorious and long-fuffering child, and to beguile many, many hours of paternal affection.

THE END OF THE NOTES.

POSTSCRIPT

то

MR. FLAX MAN.

WHEN the tide of affliction begins to flow, how dark and deep is

the current!

In a few days after I had dispatched to the press the MS. of the introductory letter prefixed to this Poem, I received the affecting intelligence that my enchanting and ineftimable friend Cowper had expired; and your beloved difciple followed, within a week, that dear departed genius, who had honoured his childhood with the tendereft regard.

I have now to thank you, my excellent compaffionate friend, for a very hafty, but a very kind visit to the dear deceased object of our welldeferved affection and regret.

I am not afraid of your thinking that I exaggerate his merit, and fpeak too long or too loudly on a most dutiful child and a moft diligent difciple: to us, indeed, his juvenile talents and virtues had endeared him to fuch a degree, that our hearts, I believe, are perfectly in unifon, while they re-echo his praise.