Some time a good fellow thou hast And ever, I pray thee, John o' the

been,

And sparedst not thy gold and fee: Therefore I'll lend thee forty pence,

And other forty if need be.

Scales,

To let him sit in thy companie; For well I wot thou hadst his land,

And a good bargain it was to thee.

John of the Scales, in wrath;

"A good bargain!" exclaimed "you know little about bargains, else you would not talk so: curses on my head, say I, if I was not a loser by the bargain."

And here I proffer thee, Heir of That thou shalt have it cheaper back
Linne,
By a hundred marks than I had it of
thee.

Before these lords so fair and free,

"and

"I take you all witnesses, gentlemen," said the Heir of Linne, casting him, as he spoke, a god's penny for earnest-money; here, good John o' the Scales, is the gold." All present stared, for no one expected such an event. the purchase,

And he pull'd forth three bags of gold,

And laid them down upon the
board;

All woe-begone sat John o' the Scales,
So shent he could say never a word.

He told him forth the good red gold,
He told it forth wi' mickle din:

He proceeded to act upon

The gold is thine, the land is mine,
And now I'm again the Lord of
Linne.

Now well-a-day, said Joan o' the
Scales,

Now well-a-day, and woe's my life,
Yestreen I was my Lady of Linne;
Now I'm but John o' the Scales's
wife.

John himself, it would seem, remained silent: the fine edifice which he had reared was pulled about his ears, and he was buried in the rubbish. The Heir of Linne, addressing the guest who offered him the forty pence, made him the keeper of the "wild deer and the tame" throughout all his forests, and, turning to John o' the Scales, as that worthy rose to be gone, said, "Farewell now and for ever; and may my father's curse fall on me if I bring my inheritance into jeopardy again!" The wisest of men may be confirmed in their own resolutions, and the most thriftless may be mended by the precept and example exhibited in this fine old ballad.

The Battle of the Nile.

SOUTHEY,

[ROBERT SOUTHEY, one of the most voluminous writers in our language, was born at Bristol in 1774. He died at Keswick in 1843. He was educated at Westminster, and at Balliol College, Oxford. Of an enthusiastic temperament, he had the misfortune with the strictest honesty of purpose and with undoubted sincerity, to commence life with extreme democratic principles, and, after many ebullitions of wild notions of social improvement, to pass into one of the most stanch and somewhat intolerant supporters of all existing institu tions, defective as they might be. But he has left many writings that are wholly undeformed by either class of extreme opinions. As a poet he must be assigned a second rank; but, as a prose writer, few have exceeded him in purity and clearness of style. Mr Southey was appointed Poet-Laureate in 1813, and received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Oxford in 1821.]

The French fleet arrived at Alexandria on the 1st of July, and Brueys, not being able to enter the port, which time and neglect had ruined, moored the ships in Aboukir Bay, in a strong and compact line of battle; the headmost vessel, according to his own account, being as close as possible to a shoal on the northwest, and the rest of the fleet forming a kind of curve along the line of deep water, so as not to be turned by any means in the south-west.

The advantage of numbers, both in ships, guns, and men, was in favour of the French. They had thirteen ships of the line and four frigates, carrying 1196 guns and 11,230 men. The English

had the same number of ships of the line, and one fifty-gun ship, carrying 1012 guns, and 8068 men. The English ships were all seventy-fours: the French had three eighty-gun ships, and one three-decker of one hundred and twenty.

During the whole pursuit it had been Nelson's practice, whenever circumstances would permit, to have his captains on board the Vanguard, and explain to them his own ideas of the different and best modes of attack, and such plans as he proposed to execute on falling in with the enemy, whatever their situation might be. There is no possible position, it is said, which he

did not take into consideration. His officers were thus fully acquainted with his principles of tactics; and such was his confidence in their abilities, that the only thing determined upon, in case they should find the French at anchor, was for the ships to form as most convenient for their mutual support, and to anchor by the stern. "First gain your victory," he said, "and then make the best use of it you can." The moment he perceived the position of the French, that intuitive genius with which Nelson was endowed displayed itself: and it instantly struck him, that where there was room for an enemy's ship to swing there was room for one of ours to anchor. The plan which he intended to pursue, therefore, was to keep entirely on the outer side of the French line, and station his ships, as far as he was able, one on the outer bow and another on the outer quarter of each of the enemy's. Captain Berry, when he comprehended the scope of the design, exclaimed with transport, "If we succeed, what will the world say?" "There is no if in the case," replied the admiral; "that we shall succeed is certain-who may live to tell the story is a very different question."

As the squadron advanced, they were assailed by a shower of shot and shell from the batteries on the island, and the enemy opened a steady fire from the starboard side of their whole line, within half gunshot distance, full into the bows of our van ships. It was received in silence; the men on board every ship were employed aloft in furling sails, and below in tending the braces, and making ready for anchoring;-a miserable sight for the French, who, with all their skill and all their courage, and all their advantages of number and situation, were upon that element on which, when the hour of trial comes, a Frenchman has no hope. Admiral Brueys was a brave and able man; yet the indelible character of his country broke out in one of his letters, wherein he delivered it as his private opinion that the English had missed him, because, not being superior in force, they did not think it prudent to try their strength with him. The moment was now come in which he was to be undeceived.

A French brig was instructed to decoy the English, by

manoeuvring so as to tempt them towards a shoal lying off the island of Beguieres; but Nelson either knew the danger, or suspected some deceit, and the lure was unsuccessful. Captain Foley led the way in the Goliath, outsailing the Zealous, which for some minutes disputed this post of honour with him. He had long conceived that, if the enemy were moored in line of battle in with the land, the best plan of attack would be to lead between them and the shore, because the French guns on that side were not likely to be manned, nor even ready for action. Intending, therefore, to fix himself on the inner bow of the Guerrier, he kept as near the edge of the bank as the depth of water would admit; but his anchor hung, and having opened his fire, he drifted to the second ship, the Conquérant, before it was cleared, then anchored by the stern, inside of her, and in ten minutes shot away her masts. Hood, in the Zealous, perceiving this, took the station which the Goliath intended to have occupied, and totally disabled the Guerrier in twelve minutes. The third ship which doubled the enemy's van was the Orion, Sir J. Saumarez; she passed to windward of the Zealous, and opened her larboard guns as long as they bore on the Guerrier; then, passing inside the Goliath, sunk a frigate which annoyed her, hauled toward the French line, and, anchoring inside between the fifth and sixth ships from the Guerrier, took her station on the larboard bow of the Franklin and the quarter of the Peuple Souverain, receiving and returning the fire of both. The sun was now nearly down. The Audacious, Captain Gould, pouring a heavy fire into the Guerrier and the Conquérant, fixed herself on the larboard bow of the latter, and when that ship struck, passed on to the Peuple Souverain. The Theseus, Captain Miller, followed, brought down the Guerrier's remaining main and mizen masts, then anchored inside the Spartiate, the third in the French line.

While these advanced ships doubled the French line, the Vanguard was the first that anchored on the outer side of the enemy, within half-pistol shot of their third ship, the Spartiate. Nelson had six colours flying in different parts of the rigging,

lest they should be shot away-that they should be struck, no British admiral considers as a possibility. He veered half a cable, and instantly opened a tremendous fire, under cover of which the other four ships of his division, the Minotaur, Bellero phon, Defence, and Majestic, sailed on ahead of the admiral. In a few minutes every man stationed at the first six guns in the fore part of the Vanguard's deck was killed or wounded-these guns were three times cleared. Captain Louis, in the Minotaur, anchored next ahead, and took off the fire of the Aquilon, the fourth in the enemy's line. The Bellerophon, Captain Darby, passed ahead, and dropped her stern anchor on the starboard bow of the Orient, seventh in the line, Brueys' own ship, of one hundred and twenty guns, whose difference in force was in proportion of more than seven to three, and whose weight of ball, from the lower deck alone, exceeded that from the whole broadside of the Bellerophon. Captain Peyton, in the Defence, took his station ahead of the Minotaur and engaged the Franklin, the sixth in the line; by which judicious movement the British line remained unbroken. The Majestic, Captain Westcott, got entangled with the main rigging of one of the French ships astern of the Orient, and suffered dreadfully from that three-decker's fire; but she swung clear, and closely engaging the Heureux the ninth ship in the starboard bow, received also the fire of the Tonnant, which was the eighth in the line. The other four ships of the British squadron, having been detached previous to the discovery of the French, were at a considerable distance when the action began. It commenced at half-after six, about seven the night closed, and there was no other light than that from the fire of the contending fleets.

Trowbridge, in the Culloden, then foremost of the remaining ships, was two leagues astern. He came on sounding, as the others had done. As he advanced, the increasing darkness increased the difficulty of the navigation, and suddenly, after having found eleven fathoms' water, before the lead could be hove again, he was fast aground; nor could all his own exertions, joined to those of the Leander and the Mutiné brig, which came to his