permanent establishment, at no distant day, on this very basis; in which
the voluntary subscriptions of benevolent and opulent individuals shall
almost vie, in the extent of it's charity to this meritorious class of
society, whose services can alone preserve the united kingdom and it's
extended commerce in full security, with the grand and munificent public
endowment which so nobly adorns our country at Greenwich: to which,
also, some national augmentation might, with much propriety, be at the
same time made; not only to keep pace with the increase of our navy, but
to afford an equally needful asylum for those deserving and greatly
exposed auxiliaries, the unfortunate and superannuated Royal Marines. A
sight of such noble institutions, with suitable pictures and statues of
naval heroes and their glorious atchievements, in which Lord Nelson and
his transcendent actions must for ever stand pre-eminently conspicuous,
would far surpass, in genuine grandeur, perhaps, and certainly in
rational and philosophical contemplation, the loftiest and most
stupendous pillar or pyramid ever raised by human art and industry, for
little other purpose than to attract the gaze of profitless admiration,
with the vain attempt of mocking the powers of tempests and of time, by
which the proudest of these trophied monuments must necessarily be bowed
to subjection, and finally crumbled into dust. The solitary hermitage,
which shelters a single hoary head, is more interesting to the feeling
heart than the proudest display of barren pomp that neither rises over
the tomb of departed worth nor affords any living mortal a comfortable
habitation. The grand naval pillar, to commemorate the battle off the
Nile, for which a large sum was some years since subscribed, without any
previously decided plan, and which is said to be still undisposed of, if
employed in erecting a respectable edifice for the residence of those
brave veterans by whom that battle was fought, and such of their
successors, for ever, as should live to find such a residence desirable,
might be so constructed and endowed, with the money contributed, as to