These stanzas were written and published at the breaking out of the present war, when, it will be recollected, the enemy’s threats of invasion were not altogether despised in this country. Some of my readers will possibly observe, that the style and metre of this trifle are not very dissimilar from those which have been more lately used by some popular writers. I have therefore thought it necessary to state that it was published early in 1803--but the truth is, that the practice of breaking the regular eight syllable verse into distichs or ternaries, by shorter lines, is very ancient in English poetry. The Chester Mysteries, written in 1328, exhibit this metre in a tolerably perfect state. After a long disuse, it is indebted for its revival and popularity to the good taste and extraordinary talents of Mr. Scott; and I cannot but think that it is, in his hands, one of the most harmonious and delightful of our English measures: to my ear, indeed, the versification of Marmion, in which Mr. Scott has used this style very freely, is more agreeable than that of the Lady of the Lake, in which he has employed it more sparingly. 1812. _II.--SONG OF TRAFALGAR.--Page 69._ St. III. l. 4.--_Aboukir’s Isle._ The western point of Aboukir Bay is formed by an island, now called in our charts, Nelson’s Island. On this island probably, and the adjoining peninsula, stood the ancient Canopus, both being, to this day, covered with ruins, supposed to be those of that celebrated city. This, I am inclined to think, is the Canopic Island known to all antiquity, and in later times called the Island Aboukir. (Eutychius, Ann. 2. 508.) This would account for the testimony given by Pliny, Strabo, &c. as to the insular situation of Canopus, and by Scylax, as to an island in the Canopic mouth, without having recourse to the supposition that the Isthmus, somewhere between Alexandria and Aboukir castle, had been covered by the sea, which indeed seems rather to have encroached upon, than receded from, that part of the coast. St. III. l. 7.--_St. Vincent’s towery steep._ On the summit of St. Vincent’s, and close on the precipices which overhang the sea, is a convent, which gives the name of its patron to the Cape. _III.--SONG OF TRAFALGAR.--Page 73._ St. II. l. 3.--_Twenty hostile ensigns low._ Such was the statement of the London Gazette, of the 27th Nov. 1805; but in a subsequent number this was noticed as an error, there being, in fact, _but nineteen_ sail of the line taken or utterly destroyed. I have been assured by a gentleman who was at that period in Germany, that this instance of the scrupulous veracity of the British government produced an effect little less favourable to the British character than the news of the victory itself. I hope, however, that I may be forgiven for adhering to the first report, particularly as these lines were written on the day I first heard of the battle, and before the corrected statement came to my knowledge.