the guise of just recognition of work done.  Words of complaint, whether heard or read, strike a discord to one who himself at the moment is satisfied with his surroundings.  We all have an instinctive shrinking from the tones of a grumbler.  Nelson’s insistence upon his grievances has no exemption from this common experience; yet it must be remembered that these assertions of the importance of his own services, and dissatisfaction with the terms in which they had been mentioned, occur chiefly, if not solely, in letters to closest relations,—­to his wife and uncle,—­and that they would never have become known but for the after fame, which has caused all his most private correspondence to have interest and to be brought to light.  As a revelation of character they have a legitimate interest, and they reveal, or rather they confirm, what is abundantly revealed throughout his life,—­that intense longing for distinction, for admiration justly earned, for conspicuous exaltation above the level of his kind, which existed in him to so great a degree, and which is perhaps the most potent—­certainly the most universal—­factor in military achievement.  They reveal this ambition for honor, or glory, on its weak side; on its stronger side of noble emulation, of self-devotion, of heroic action, his correspondence teems with its evidence in words, as does his life in acts.  To quote the words of Lord Radstock, who at this period, and until after the battle of Cape St. Vincent, was serving as one of the junior admirals in the Mediterranean, and retained his friendship through life, “a perpetual thirst of glory was ever raging within him.”  “He has ever showed himself as great a despiser of riches as he is a lover of glory; and I am fully convinced in my own mind that he would sooner defeat the French fleet than capture fifty galleons.”

After all allowance made, however, it cannot be denied that there is in these complaints a tone which one regrets in such a man.  The repeated “It was I” jars, by the very sharpness of its contrast, with the more generous expressions that abound in his correspondence.  “When I reflect that I was the cause of re-attacking Bastia, after our wise generals gave it over, from not knowing the force, fancying it 2,000 men; that it was I, who, landing, joined the Corsicans, and with only my ship’s party of marines, drove the French under the walls of Bastia; that it was I, who, knowing the force in Bastia to be upwards of 4,000 men, as I have now only ventured to tell Lord Hood, landed with only 1,200 men, and kept the secret till within this week past;—­what I must have felt during the whole siege may be easily conceived.  Yet I am scarcely mentioned.  I freely forgive, but cannot forget.  This and much more ought to have been mentioned.  It is known that, for two months, I blockaded Bastia with a squadron; only fifty sacks of flour got into the town.  At San Fiorenzo and Calvi, for two months before, nothing got in, and four French frigates could not