402 M'CLURE'S EXPLORATIONS. 



years old : do you think we ought to let him go ? ' I 

 said, ' He is a fitter man to go than any I know ; and if 

 you don't let him go, the man will die of disappoint- 

 ment/ He did go, and has been gone eight years ; and, 

 therefore, I leave to yourselves to consider what is the 

 probability of the life of that excellent and valuable man. 

 lii the whole course of my experience I have nevei 

 known a man like ^ranklin. I do not say it because he 

 is dead upon thi principle de morluis nil nisi bonum ; 

 but I never knew a man in whom different qualities 

 were so remarkably combined. In my dear friend 

 Franklin, with all the tenderness of heart of a simple 

 child, there was all the greatness and magnanimity of a 

 hero." 



To this touching tribute, from the lips of a fellow- 

 navigator, we append the following beautiful lines, 

 quoted by a writer in one of the British quarterly re- 

 views : 



" Where is he ? where ? Silence and darkness dwell 

 About him ; as a soul cut off from men : 

 Shall we behold him yet a citizen 

 Of mortal life? Will he return to tell 

 (Prisoner from Winter's very citadel 

 Broken forth) what he before has told, again 

 How to the hearts and hands of resolute men, 

 God aiding, nothing is impossible ? 



Alas ! the enclosure of the stony wave 

 Is strong, and dark the depths of polar night ; 



Yet One there is omnipotent to save, 



And this we know, if comfort still we crave, 

 Into that dark he took with him a light 



The lamp that can illuminate the grave." 



It will be remembered that Captains Collinson and 

 M'Clure sailed for Behring's Strait in 1850, through 

 which, in connection with the Plover and Herald, the/ 

 endeavored to pass, but without success, except in thi 

 case of the Investigator (Captain M'Clure), which was 



