which so soon and so deeply wrinkle the smoothest brow, and so cruelly furrow the comeliest countenance.  If they were shocked, at reflecting what their incomparable but mutilated friend must have suffered, in the severe and disastrous fortune of war; they were enraptured to perceive him by no means impaired in any of those higher qualities which had given birth to their reciprocal attachments.  Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, returning from his glorious victory off the Nile, was the same kind, affable, intelligent, and virtuous friend, as Captain Nelson had formerly been, when departing for Toulon.  An amity thus founded on a union of superior intellect in the respective parties, could only be destroyed, however it might be envied, by the decay of that celestial principle which had served to cement it’s origin.

The hero’s birth-day occurring on the 29th, when he completed his fortieth year, a most splendid fete, with a ball and supper, were given by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, to the nobility and gentry of Naples, at which upwards of eighteen hundred persons are said to have been entertained.  On this occasion, a grand rostral column was erected in the principal saloon, with the celebrated old Roman motto—­

    “VENI; VIDI; VICI!”

which was never more appropriately applied, since it’s original adoption by Julius Caesar.

It is to be regretted, that the harmony of this festival, which cost Sir William Hamilton two thousand ducats, was considerably deranged, towards it’s conclusion, by the hero’s son-in-law; who, it seems, so far forgot himself, as grossly to offend the very man whom every other person was delighting to honour.  To such a height, indeed, was this young gentleman’s intemperance unfortunately carried, that Captain Troubridge and another officer felt themselves under the absolute necessity of conducting him out of the room.  This disagreeable occurrence, naturally agitating the breast of the worthy admiral, who was at that very period soliciting the indiscreet young man’s preferment, in a letter then on it’s way to England, occasioned a violent return of those internal spasms to which all excesses of the passions had constantly subjected him since the time when this grievance first commenced, while his anxious mind was occupied in vainly pursuing the French fleet:  indeed, he always said, and it seems highly probable, that the disappointment, had it much longer continued, and his expectation of encountering them been finally frustrated, would certainly have “broke his heart.”  It is from no disrespect to Captain Nisbet that this affair is mentioned:  nor is it for the sake of observing, what that gentleman must be sensible is the undoubted fact, that he was indebted for a reconciliation with his father-in-law, shortly after, to the kind interference of Sir William and Lady Hamilton; who, very properly representing it as solely the effect of a young man’s pardonable inebriety on so joyous an occasion, again introduced him to favour at their rural villa in the vicinity of Naples.  The fact, in itself, is trivial; but, on subjects of domestic or family delicacy, the minutest thread of verity may chance to have it’s use in conducting through the intricate labyrinth by which the temple of truth is generally found to be environed.