TOBY PHILPOT. 201 



lection not forgetting my own audacity, 

 at the recital of which he laughed im- 

 moderately. 



Poor Toby ! * thou hadst as true and 

 honest a heart as ever warmed the 

 breast of a British sailor, and as noble 

 a spirit. Nearly fifty years have rolled 

 away since the awful calamity that 

 bereft their country of so many excel- 

 lent officers, and of so many hundreds 

 of fine fellows, lost to, and bemoaned 

 by, their families and friends, occurred; 

 and the sad remembrance of thy, alas ! 

 premature, death is more forcibly brought 

 to my mind by the comparatively recent 

 bereavement of a fine, handsome, high- 

 spirited boy. Just of the age I then 

 was, in the heyday of youth, hopeful 

 and joyous, following the profession of 

 his choice, he died in the camp before 



* This young and active, but short-lived, officer was 

 named Henry Philpot, and had no affinity to the cele- 

 brated original, except in name. 



