The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1863-12-17
KENOsHA, WISCONSIN,, THURSDAY, DECEMBER II, 1868.

permitted to lend him books, if they were
not published in America and made no allu-
sion to it. These were common enough in
the olden days, when people in the other
hemisphere talked of the United States as
little as we do Of Paraguay, He had almost
all the foreign papers that came into the ship
sooner or later only they must go over
them first, and cut out any advertisement or
stray paragraph that alluded to America.
This was a little cruel sometimes, when the
back of what was cut out might be as limo
cent as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one
of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's
speeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole,
because on the back of the page Of that pa
per there had been an advertisement Of a
packet for New York, or a scrap from the
Presidents message. say this was the first
time l ever heard of this plan, which after
wards l had enough, and more than enough
to do with. | remember it, because poor
Phillips, who was of the party, as soon as the
~allusion tip reading was made, told a story of
something which happened at the Cape of
Good Hope IN Nolans first voyage and it
lis the only thing l ever knew of that voyage,
They had touched at the Cape, and had done
the civil thing with the English Admiral and
the feet, and then, leaving for a long cruise
up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed
a lot of English books from an officer, which,
in those days, as, indeed, in these, was quite
a windfall. Among them, as the devil would
order, was the LAY of the Last Minstrel, -
which they had all of them heard of, but
which, most of them had never seen. l think
it could not have been published long. Well,
nobody thought there'could be any risk of
anything national in that, though Phillips
swore old Shaw bad cut out the Tempest,
from Shakspear, before he let Nolan have it,
because he said the Bermudas ought to be
and, by Jove, should be some day So No
Ian was permitted to join the circle one after
noon when a lot Of them sat on deck smok-
ing and reading aloud. People do not do
such things so often now; but when | was
young we got rid of o great deal OF time so.
Well, so it happened, that, in his turn, Nolan
took the book and read to the others and
he read very well, as [ know. Nobody in
the circle knew q line of the poem, only it
was all magic, and border chivalry, and was
ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read
steadily through the fifth canto, stopped a
moment and drank something, then began,
without a thought of what was coming
.Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
W no nc e. ~ hlihoS H~h o"O1
It seems impossible to US that anybody ever
heard this for the first time but all these
fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went
on, still unconsciously or mechsnically,-
This is my own, my native lsndl"
Then they all SOW something was to pay +;
but he expected to get through, l suppose,
turned a little pale but plunged on
whose heart hath meier within him burnes,
AS home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on d foreign strand?
II such there breathe, go, mark him wel,'
BY this time the men were all beside them
selves, wishing there was any way to make
him turn over two pages but he had not
quite presence Of mind for that he gagged
a little, colored crimson and staggered on
sPor him no minstrel rsptures swell
High though his titles, proud Ills name,
Boundless his wealth rs wish can claim,
Despite these titles, power aud pell,
The wretch coAcentered all in SELF
and here the poor fellow choked. could not go
on, but started up, swung the book into the
sea, vanished into his state room, ''and, by
Jovo," said Phillips, 1--WE did not see him for
some beggarIy story to that Engeon as to why
[ did not return his Walter Scott to him"
That story shows about the time when No
lan's bragadocia must have been broken
down. At first, they said, he took a high
tone, considered his Imprisonment q mere
farce, e~ffecting to enjoy the voyage, and all
that but Phillips said that after he came
out of the state room he never was the same
man again. He never read aloud again, I'M
less it was the Bible or Shapspeare, or some
thing else he was sure Of. But it was not
that merely. He neves entered in with the
lpfhar UoIInr mon nvaptIU 1s q Communion
again. He was always shy, afterwards,
when l knew him, very seldom spoke, unless
he was spoken to, excegt to a very few friends.
He lighted up occasionally remember late
in his life, hearing him fairly eloquent on
something which had been suggested to him
by one of Flechier's sermons, but generally
he had the nervous, tired look of a wounded
man.
When Captain Shaw was coming home,-
if, as | say, it was Shaw, rather to the sur
prise of everybody, they made one of the wind
ward Island, and lay off and on for nearly a
week. The boys said the officers were sick
Of salt junk, and meant to have turtle soup be-
fore they came home. But after several days
the Warren came to the same rendezvous
they exchanged signals; sent to Phillips and
these homeward bound men letters and pa
pers, and told them she was outward bound,
perhaps to the Mediterranean, and took poor
Nolan and his traps on the boat back to try
hissecond cruise. He looked very blank when
he was told to get ready to join her. He had
known enough Of the of the signs Of the sky to
know that till that time he was going 'home."
But this was evidence of something he had
not thought of, perhaps,-that there was no
going home for him, even to a prison. And
this was the first Of some twenty such trans
fers, which brought him sooner or later into
half our best vessels, but which kept him all
his life at least some hundred miles from the
country he had hoped he might never hear of
again.
It may nave been on that second cruise
it was once when he was up the Mediterrane-
an,-that Mrs. Grail, the celebrated Southern
beauty of those days danced, with him. They
had been lying a long time III the Bay Of Ma
Piles, and the officers were very intimate in the
English feet, and there had been great festivi-
ties, and our men thought they must give a
grand ball on board the ship. How they ever
did it on board the Warren | am sure | do not
know. Perhaps it was not the Warren, or
perhaps ladies did not take up SO much room
as they do now. They wanted to use No
laD's state room for something and they ha-
ted to do it without asking him to the bali !;
SO the captain said they might ask him, if
they would be responsible that he did not talk
with the wrong people, "who would give him
intelligence So the dance went on, the fin
est party that had ever been known, | dare
say for [ had never heard of a man-of-war
ball that was not. For ladies they had the
family Of the American Consul, one or two
travellers who had adventured so far, and a
nice bevy of English girls and matrons, per-
haps Lady Hamilton herself.
Well different officers relieved each other
in standing and talking to Nolan in a friendly
way, so as to be sure that nobody else
spoke to him. The dancing went On with
spirit, and after a while even the fellows, who
took this honorary guard Of Nolan ceased to
fear any contre temps. Only when some Eng
lishEladv-Lady Hamilton. as | said, perhaps