You will find that the verses are allusive to Lord Nelson; and they will show that I must have sympathised with you in admiration of the man, and sorrow for our loss.  Yet, considering the matter coolly, there was little to regret.  The state of Lord Nelson’s health, I suppose, was such, that he could not have lived long; and the first burst of exultation upon landing in his native country, and his reception here, would have been dearly bought, perhaps, by pain and bodily weakness, and distress among his friends, which he could neither remove nor alleviate.  Few men have ever died under circumstances so likely to make their deaths of benefit to their country:  it is not easy to see what his life could have done comparable to it.  The loss of such men as Lord Nelson is, indeed, great and real; but surely not for the reason which makes most people grieve, a supposition that no other such man is in the country.  The old ballad has taught us how to feel on these occasions: 

    I trust I have within my realm
    Five hundred good as he.

But this is the evil, that nowhere is merit so much under the power of what (to avoid a more serious expression) one may call that of fortune, as in military and naval service; and it is five hundred to one that such men will not have attained situations where they can show themselves, so that the country may know in whom to trust.  Lord Nelson had attained that situation; and, therefore, I think (and not for the other reason), ought we chiefly to lament that he is taken from us.

Mr. Pitt is also gone! by tens of thousands looked upon in like manner as a great loss.  For my own part, as probably you know, I have never been able to regard his political life with complacency.  I believe him, however, to have been as disinterested a man, and as true a lover of his country, as it was possible for so ambitious a man to be.  His first wish (though probably unknown to himself) was that his country should prosper under his administration; his next that it should prosper.  Could the order of these wishes have been reversed, Mr. Pitt would have avoided many of the grievous mistakes into which, I think, he fell.  I know, my dear Sir George, you will give me credit for speaking without arrogance; and I am aware it is not unlikely you may differ greatly from me in these points.  But I like, in some things, to differ with a friend, and that he should know I differ from him; it seems to make a more healthy friendship, to act as a relief to those notions and feelings which we have in common, and to give them a grace and spirit which they could not otherwise possess.