[Footnote 51: 

    “Lamented hero! when to Britain’s shore
    Exulting Fame those awful tidings bore,
    Joy’s bursting shout in whelming grief was drowned
    And Victory’s self unwilling audience found;
    On every brow the cloud of sadness hung;
    The sounds of triumph died on every tongue. 
    Yet not the vows thy weeping country pays;
    Not that high meed, thy mourning sovereign’s praise,
    Not that the great, the beauteous, and the brave
    Bend in mute reverence o’er thy closing grave;
    That with such grief as bathes a kindred bier
    Collective nations mourn a death so dear;
    Not these alone shall soothe thy sainted shade,
    And consecrate the spot where thou art laid—­
    Not these alone!—­but bursting thro’ the gloom,
    With radiant glory from thy trophied tomb,
    The sacred splendour of thy deathless name
    Shall grace and guard thy country’s martial fame;
    Far seen shall blaze the unextinguished ray,
    A mighty beacon lighting glory’s way—­
    With living lustre this proud land adorn,
    And shine, and save, thro’ ages yet unborn."[52]
]

[Footnote 52:  “Ulm and Trafalgar,” a poem, by the Rt.  Honourable George Canning.]

CHAPTER XX

Discontent of Prussia—­Death of Pitt—­Negotiation of Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale broken off—­Murder of Palm, the bookseller—­Prussia declares War—­Buonaparte heads the Army—­Naumburg taken—­Battle of Jena—­Napoleon enters Berlin—­Fall of Magdeburg, &c.—­Humiliation of Prussia—­Buonaparte’s cruelty to the Duke of Brunswick—­his rapacity and oppression in Prussia.

The establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine rendered Napoleon, in effect, sovereign of a large part of Germany; and seemed to have so totally revolutionised Central Europe, that Francis of Austria declared the Imperial Constitution at an end.  He retained the title of Emperor as sovereign of his own hereditary dominions; but “The Holy Roman Empire,” having lasted full one thousand years, was declared to be no more; and of its ancient influence the representative was to be sought for not at Vienna, but at Paris.

The vacillating court of Berlin heard with much apprehension of the formation of the Rhenish confederacy;[53] and with deep resentment of its immediate consequence, the dissolution of the Germanic Empire.  The house of Brandenburg had consented to the humiliation of Francis in the hope of succeeding, at the next election, to the imperial crown so long worn by the princes of Austria; and now, not only was that long-cherished hope for ever dispelled, but it appeared that Napoleon had laid the foundation of a new system, under which the influence of the house of Brandenburg must, in all probability, be overruled far more effectually than it ever had been, of recent times, by the imperial prerogative of Austria.