The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery was too strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account of his meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office.  He gives the account of it, thirty years after Nelson’s death, to John Wilson Croker at Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood’s great comrade:—­

    WALMER, 1st October, 1834.

We were [that is, Croker and he] talking of Lord Nelson, and some instances were mentioned of the egotism and vanity that derogated from his character.  “Why,” said the Duke, “I am not surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch, though I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an hour.  It was soon after I returned from India.  I went to the Colonial Office in Downing Street, and there I was shown into the little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman, whom, from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognized as Lord Nelson.  He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself, and in, really, a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.  I suppose something that I happened to say made him guess that I was somebody, and he went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the office keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter.  All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and the probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad, that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman.  The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly, for the last half or three-quarters of an hour, I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more.  Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had; but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw."[8]

We must not be too critical of the Duke’s opinions of the vanity of the Admiral, but it calls for some notice, inasmuch as the Duke himself is reputed to have had an uncommonly good amount of it himself, though it took a different form and created a different impression.  Wellington showed it in a cold, haughty, unimaginative, repelling self-importance; fearful of unbending to his inferiors lest his dignity should be offended.  Nelson’s peculiarities were