[11] "For a while the Venetian sailors defended themselves with desperate courage, for it was a question of victory or perpetual slavery with them; but their numbers were limited, their arms indifferent, and altogether the contest seemed too unequal to last long. It was the first actual fighting in which Howard had been present; but the imminency of the danger and the sight of conflict appealing to the strong combative instincts of his race, he fought on deck with the coolness of a Saxon and the courage of a knight-templar. Indeed, it was his self-possession which proved the salvation of the crew. There was only one gun of large calibre on board, and of this he assumed the direction, though he had probably never fired even a rifle in his life; but, in the hour of peril, fighting seemed to come to him, as to most of his countrymen, by inspiration. _This gun he rammed almost to the muzzle with nails, spikes, and similar charge, and then, steadily waiting his opportunity, as the privateer bore down upon them with all her crew on deck, apparently expecting to see the Venetians strike their flag, he sent the contents in amongst them with such murderous effect_, that, after a moment or two of consternation, the corsairs hoisted sail, and made off at their best speed."--(P. 356.) At Venice he is conducted to the lazaretto, to undergo the quarantine. He is shut up in a close loathsome room, the very walls of which are reeking with foul and pestilential odours. Surely never was a valuable life so heroically ventured, for so futile a purpose. Whilst lying here, smitten with a low fever, he received--we quote from Mr Brown--"intelligence from England of two circumstances which had transpired there, each of them an occasion of the deepest affliction to his mind. The first was the formation of a fund for the erection of a statue to his honour; the second the misconduct of his only son." We can well believe they were _both_ afflictions. Those who have entered into the character of Howard, will feel at once that the project of doing him any public honour would be, in his own language, "a punishment, and not a reward." It was mingling with his conduct and motives that very alloy of vanity, and consideration for men's opinion, which he was so anxious to keep them clear from. If a generous man has done a kind action for kindness' sake, how it spoils all if you _pay_ him for it! You lower him at once. He refuses your payment; he would deny, if he could, his previous action; he begs, at all events, it may be utterly forgotten. To pay Howard in praise was, to his mind, as great an incongruity. He shrank from the debasing coin. He would have denied his philanthropy: "Say it is my hobby, if you will," he is heard at one time to mutter. Dying, he says to his friend--"Lay me quietly in the earth, place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be forgotten." Child of Time--was it not enough?