BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF THE LATE CAPTAIN ALEXANDER HOOD

Summary

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tyger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair Nature with hard favour'd rage!

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head,

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

As fearfully, as doth a galled rock

O'er-hang and jutty his confounded base,

Swell'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

To his full height!

Shak.

It has been ever the custom in all ages among the various inhabitants who are scattered over the face of the globe, however widely their manners differ in other respects, to agree in honouring the memory of those who have fallen in battle with peculiar marks of distinction. The mythology of our Scandinavian ancestors admitted those only who were slain in fight to an honourable seat in the heaven of Woden. The distant shores of Africa which have so recently witnessed the triumphant exertions of Britannia's sons, groan beneath the weight of massy pyramids, that bidding defiance to the efforts of time, have long outlived the memory of those persons whose fame they were intended to perpetuate.