pending much of his time at the
Priory with the monks, who assisted him in the delightful study of
astronomy, which he was passionately fond of; but he beautified the
place, and kept up a noble establishment there, worthy of his own
exulted station, and of the lady he had made his bride.

"Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth;
The shepherd lord was honoured more and more:
And ages after he was laid in earth,
`The good Lord Clifford' was the name he bore."

Wordsworth.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE STORY OF NELSON, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

My great ambition as a boy was to be a sailor; the idea of becoming one
occupied my thoughts by day and influenced my dreams by night. I
delighted in reading naval histories and exploits and tales of the sea,
and I looked upon Rodney, Howe, Nelson, and Saint Vincent, as well as
Duncan, Collingwood, Exmouth, and Sir Sidney Smith, as far greater men,
and more worthy of admiration, than all the heroes of antiquity put
together--an opinion which I hold even to the present day, and which, I
hope, all my readers will maintain with me.

Once it happened during my summer holidays that, most unwillingly, I was
taken up to London. During the time, a naval friend, having compassion
on me, suggested that I might find matter of interest by a trip to
Greenwich, and a visit to the Hospital. I jumped at the proposal. I
can never forget the feelings with which I entered the wide, smooth
space on which that beautiful collection of buildings stands, forming
the Royal Hospital for Seamen, with its broad terrace facing, the river,
and found myself surrounded by many hundreds of the gallant veterans who
had maintained not only so nobly the honour of Old England on the deep,
but had contributed to preserve her from the numberless foes who had
threatened her with destruction.

The building is of itself interesting. On this spot once stood the
Royal Palace of Placentia, in which no less than four successive
sovereigns were born--Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary, and
Elizabeth. Charles the Second had intended to rebuild it, but left it
unfinished; and it was put into the heart of good Queen Mary, the wife
of William of Orange, to establish that noble institution for the
reception of the disabled seamen of the Royal Navy, which, much
augmented in size, has ever since existed the noblest monument to a
sovereign's memory.

I visited the beautiful chapel and the painted ha