out any plan, but relying upon the enemy's want of numbers, which prevented them from attempting to act upon the offensive, and ready to take advantage of any accident which might occur, approached Naples. Fort St. Elmo, which commands the town, was wholly garrisoned by the French troops; the castles of Uovo and Nuovo, which commanded the anchorage, were chiefly defended by Neapolitan revolutionists, the powerful men among them having taken shelter there. If these castles were taken, the reduction of Fort St. Elmo would be greatly expedited. They were strong places, and there was reason to apprehend that the French fleet might arrive to relieve them. Ruffo proposed to the garrison to capitulate, on condition that their persons and property should be guaranteed, and that they should, at their own option, either be sent to Toulon, or remain at Naples, without being molested either in their persons or families. This capitulation was accepted: it was signed by the cardinal, and the Russian and Turkish commanders; and, lastly, by capt. Foote, as commander of the British force. About six and thirty hours afterwards Nelson arrived in the bay, with a force which had Joined him during his cruise, consisting of seventeen sail of the line, with 1700 troops on board, and the prince royal of Naples in the admiral's ship. A flag of truce was flying on the castles, and on board the Seahorse. Nelson made a signal to annul the treaty; declaring that he would grant rebels no other terms than those of unconditional submission. The cardinal objected to this: nor could all the arguments of Nelson, sir W. Hamilton, and lady Hamilton, who took an active part in the conference, convince him that a treaty of such a nature, solemrly concluded, could honourably be set aside. He retired at last, silenced by Nelson's authority, but not convinced. Capt. Foote was sent out of the bay; and the garrisons taken out of the castles, under pretence of carrying the treaty into effect, were delivered over as rebels to the vengeance of the Sicilian court.-A deplorable transaction! a stain upon the memory of Nelson, and the honour of England! To palliate it would be in vain; to justify it would be wicked: there is no alternative, for one who will not make himself a participator in guilt, but to record the disgraceful story with sorrow and with shame. "Prince Francesco Caraccioli, a younger branch of one of the noblest Neapolitan families, escaped from one of these castles before it capitulated. He was at the head of the marine, and was nearly seventy years of age, bearing a high character both for professional and personal merit. He had accompanied the court to Sicily; but when the revolutionary government, or Parthenopæan republic, as it was called, issued an edict, ordering all absent Neapolitans to return, on pain of confiscation of their property, he solicited and obtained permission of the king to return, his estates being very great. It is said that the king, when he granted him this permission, warned him not to take any part in politics; expressing, at the same time, his own persuasion that he should recover his kingdom. But neither the king, nor he himself, ought to have imagined that, in such times, a man of such reputation would be permitted to remain inactive; and it soon appeared that Caraccioli was again in command of the navy, and serving under the republic against his late sovereign. The sailors reported that he was forced to act thus: and this was believed, till it was seen that he directed ably the offensive operations of the revolutionists, and did not avail himself of opportunities for escaping when they offered. When the recovery of Naples was evidently to the duke of Calvirrano, for protection; near, he applied to cardinal Ruffo, and expressing his hope, that the few days during which he had been forced to obey the French, would not outweigh forty years of faithful services :-but, perhaps, not receiving such assurances as he wished, and knowing too well the temper of the Sicilian court, he endeavoured to secrete himself, and a price was set upon his head. More unfortunately for others than for himself, he was brought in alive, having been discovered in the disguise of board lord Nelson's ship, with his hands a peasant, and carried one morning on tied behind him. "Caraccioli was well known to the British officers, and had been ever highly esteemed by all who knew him. Capt. Hardy ordered him immediately to be unbound, and to be treated with all those attentions which he felt due to a man who, when last on board the Foudroyant, had been received as an admiral and a prince. Sir William and lady Hamilton were in the ship; but Nelson, it is affirm ed, saw no one, except his own officers, during the tragedy which ensued. His own determination was made; and he issued an order to the Neapolitan commodore, count Thurn, to assemble a court-martial of Neapolitan officers, on board the British flag-ship, proceed immediately to try the prisoner, and report to him, if the charges were proved, what punishment he ought to suffer. These proceedings were as rapid as possible; Caraccioli was brought on board at nine in the forenoon, and the trial began at ten. It lasted two hours; he averred, in his defence, that he acted under compulsion, having been compelled to serve as a common soldier, till he consented to take command of the fleet. This, the apologists of lord Nelson say, he failed in proving. They forget that the possibility of proving it was not allowed him; for be was brought to trial within an hour after he was legally in arrest; and how, in that time, was he to collect his witresses? He was found guilty, and sentenced to death; and Nelson gave orders that the sentence should be carried into effect that evening, at five o'clock, on board the Sicilian frigate La Minerva, by hanging him at the fore-yard-arm till sunset; when the body was to be cut down, and thrown into the sea. Caraccioli requested lieutenant Parkinson, under whose custody he was placed, to intercede with lord Nelson for a second trial,—for this, among other reasons, that count Thurn, who presided at the courtmartial, was notoriously his personal enemy. Nelson made answer, that the prisoner had been fairly tried by the officers of his own country, and he could not interfere: forgetting that, if he felt himself justified in ordering the trial and the execution, no human being could ever have questioned the propriety of his interfering on the side of mercy. Caractioli then entreated that he might be shot. -I am an old man, sir,' said he: I leave no family to lament me, and therefore cannot be supposed to be very anxicus about prolonging my life; but the disgrace of being hanged is dreadful to me.' When this was repeated to Nelson, he only told the lieutenant, with mach agitation, to go and attend his duty. As a last hope, Caraccioli asked the lieutenant, if he thought an application to lady Hamilton would be beneficial? Parkinson went to seek her. She was wot to be seen on this occasion,-but she was present at the execution. She had the most devoted attachment to the Nea politan court; and the hatred which she felt against those whom she regarded as its enemies, made her, at this time, forget what was due to the character of her sex, as well as of her country. Here, also, a faithful historian is called upon to pronounce a severe and unqualified condemnation of Nelson's conduct. Had he the authority of his Sicilian majesty for proceeding as he did? If so, why was not that authority produced? If not, why were the proceedings hurried on without it? Why was the trial precipitated, so that it was impossible for the prisoner, if he had been innocent, to provide the witnesses who might have proved him so? Why was a second trial refused, when the known animosity of the president of the court against the prisoner was considered? Why was the execution hastened, so as to preclude any appeal for mercy, and render the prerogative of mercy useless?--Doubtless, the British admiral seemed to himself to be acting under a rigid sense of justice; but, to all other persons, it was obvious, that he was influenced by an infatuated attachmenta baneful passion, which destroyed his domestic happiness, and now, in a second instance, stained ineffaceably his public character. "The body was carried out to a considerable distance, and sunk in the bay, with three double-headed shot, weighing 250 pounds, tied to its legs. Between two and three weeks afterward, when the king was on board the Foudroyant, a Neapolitan fisherman came to the ship, and solemnly declared, that Caraccioli had risen from the bottom of the sea, and was coming, as fast as he could, to Naples, swimming half out of the water. Such an account was listened to like a tale of idle credulity. The day being fair, Nelson, to please the king, stood out to sea; but the ship had not proceeded far before a body was distinctly seen, upright in the water, and approaching them. It was soon recognised to be, indeed, the corpse of Caraccioli, which had risen, and floated, while the great weights attached to the legs kept the body in a position like that of a living man. A fact so extraordinary astonished the king, and perhaps excited some feeling of superstitious fear, akin to regret. He gave permission for the body to be taken on shore, and receive christian burial.” The late Dr. Clarke mentions in his "Travels," that as he was "one day leaning out of the cabin window, by the side of an officer who was employed in fishing, the corpse of a man, newly sewed in a hammock, started half out of the water, and continued its course, with the current, towards the shore. Nothing could be more horrible: its head and shoulders were visible, turning first to one side, then to the other, with a soleinn and awful movement, as if impressed with some dreadful secret of the deep, which, from its watery grave, it came upwards to reveal." Dr. Ferriar observes, that "in a certain stage of putrefaction, the bodies of persons which have been immersed in water, rise to the surface, and in deep water are supported in an erect posture, to the terror of uninstructed spectators. Menacing looks and gestures, and even words, are supplied by the affrighted imagination, with infinite facility, and referred to the horrible apparition." This is perfectly natural; and it is easy to imagine the excessive terror of extreme ignorance at such appearances. January 19. Sts. Martha, Maris, Audifax, and Abachum. St. Canutus. St. Henry. St. Wulstan St. Blaithmaie. St. Lomer. 17th. St. Anthony. Garden Anemone. Anemone hortensis. 18th. St. Prisca. Four-toothed Moss. Bryum pellucidum. 19th. St. Martha. Sts. Martha, Maris, &c. St. Martha was married to St. Maris, and with their sons, Sts. Audifax and Abachum, were put to death under Aurelian (A. D. 270.) Butler says, that their White Dead Nettle. Larnium album. relics were found at Rome, in 1590, one thousand three hundred and twenty years afterwards. DEDICATION OF FLOWERS. The monks, or the observers of monkish rules, have compiled a Catalogue of Flowers for each day in the year, and dedicated each flower to a particular saint, on account of its flowering about the time of the saint's festival. Such appropriations are a Floral Directory throughout the year, and will be inserted under the succeeding days. Those which belong to this and the eighteen preceding days in January are in the following list: JANUARY. 1st. St. Faine. NEW YEAR'S DAY. Laurustine. Viburnum Tinus. 2d. St. Macarius. Groundsel. Senecio vulgaris. THE GARDEN. In the "Flora Domestica" there is a In the Salonian garden's noble shade, show All the delights which in these gardens grow, To thank the gods, and to be thought myself To the author of the "Flora Domestica," and to the reader who may not have seen a volume so acceptable to the cultivator of flowers, it would be injustice to extract from its pages without remarking its usefulness, and elegance of composition. Lamenting that "plants often meet with an untimely death from the ignorance of their nurses," the amiable author "resolved to obtain and to communicate such information as should be requisite for the rearing and preserving a, portable garden in pots ;-and henceforward the death of any plant, owing to the carelessness or ignorance of its nurse, shall be brought in at the best as plantslaughter." The cultivation of plants commences with our infancy. If estranged from it by the pursuits of active life, yet, during a few years' retirement from the " great hum" of a noisy world, we naturally recur to a garden as to an old and cheerful friend whom we had forgotten or neglected, and verify the saying, a man, and twice a child." There is not "one of woman born" without a sense of pleasure when he sees buds bursting into leaf; earth yielding green shoots from germs in its warm bosom; white fruitblossoms, tinted with rose-blushes, standing out in clumps from slender branches; once flowers courting the look by their varied loveliness, and the smell by their delicacy; large juicy apples bowing down the almost tendril-shootswherefrom they miraculously spring; plants of giant growth with multiform shrubs beyond, and holly-hocks towering like painted pinnacles from hidden shrines : Can imagination boast, 'Mid all its gay creation, charms like these? Dr. Forster, the scientific author of a treatise on "Atmospheric Phenomena," and other valuable works, has included numerous useful observations on the weather in his recently published "Perennial Calendar," a volume replete with instruction and entertainment. He observes, in the latter work, that after certain atmospheric appearances on this day in the year 1809," a hard and freezing shower of hail and sleet came with considerable violence from the east, and glazed every thing on which it fell with ice; it incrusted the walls, encased the trees and the garments of people, and even the plumage of birds, so that many rooks and other fowls were found lying on the ground, stiff with an encasement of ice. Such weather," Dr. Forster observes, "has been aptly described by Philips as occurring oftentimes during a northern winter: Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass, The stag in limpid currents, with surprise, The spreading oak, the beech, and tow'ring pine, The cracking wood beneath the tempest bends, "It may be observed, that in both the above descriptions of similar phenomena, the east wind is recorded as bringing up Philips, Lett. from Copenhagen. the storm. There is something very remarkably unwholesome in east winds, and a change to that quarter often dis Is noted in Doblada's Letters from Spain, as within the period that ushers in the carnival with rompings in the streets, and vulgar mirth. ST. AGNES' EVE. port to maidens who desired to know who And on sweet St. Agnes' night BEN JONSON. Old Aubrey has a recipe, whereby a lad or lass was to attain a sight of the fortunate lover. "Upon St. Agnes' night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." "The custom alluded to by Horace of sticking a tail, is still practised by the boys in the streets, to the great annoyance of old ladies, who are generally the objects of this sport. One of the ragged striplings that wander in crowds about Seville, having tagged a piece of paper with a hooked pin, and stolen unperceived behind some slow-paced female, as wrapt up in her veil, she tells the beads she carries in her left hand, fastens the paper-tail on the back of the black or walking petticoat called Saya. The whole Little is remembered of these homely gang of ragamuffins, who, at a convenient methods for knowing "all about sweetdistance, have watched the dexterity of hearts," and the custom would scarcely their companion, set up a loud cry of have reached the greater number of read'Largalo, largalo'- Drop it, drop it'ers, if one of the sweetest of our modern this makes every female in the street look poets had not preserved its recollection in to the rear, which, they well know, is the a delightful poem. Some stanzas are fixed point of attack with the merry light- culled from it, with the hope that they troops. The alarm continues till some may be read by a few to whom the poetry friendly hand relieves the victim of sport, of Keates is unknown, and awaken a dewho, spinning and nodding like a spent sire for further acquaintance with his top, tries in vain to catch a glance at the beauties: |