show a strong and unaffected piety, and particularly a cheerful, resolute, acceptance of the infirmities of protracted old age, which possesses charm and inspires respect.  There is also a clear indication of the firmness that characterized Nelson himself, in the determination, amid all the feebleness of age, and notwithstanding his pride and love for his famous son, upon whom, too, he was partially dependent, that he would not join in the general abandonment of the wife by the husband’s family.  His attitude in this regard, as far as can be inferred from his letters, commands sympathy and admiration.

A year later, on the 6th of April, 1803, Sir William Hamilton also died, “in Lady Hamilton’s and my arms,” wrote Nelson, “without a sigh or a struggle.  The world never lost a more upright and accomplished gentleman.”  Lady Hamilton, with ready tears, recorded:  “Unhappy day for the forlorn Emma.  Ten minutes past ten dear blessed Sir William left me.”  The grouping of figures and emotions at that death-bed was odd almost beyond comprehension; one of the most singular studies which human nature has presented to itself of its powers of self-cajolement.  A man systematically deceived, yet apparently sincerely regarded, and affectionately tended to the last by his betrayers, one of whom at least prided himself, and for the most part not unjustly, upon his fidelity to his friends.  Hamilton, alone among the three, seems to have been single-minded—­to have viewed their mutual relations to the end, not with cynical indifference, but with a simplicity of confidence hard to be understood in a man of his antecedents.  It may have been, however, that he recognized the inevitable in the disparity of years and in his wife’s early training, and that he chose to cover her failings with a self-abnegation that was not without nobility.  Upon such a tacit affirmation he set a final seal in a codicil to his will, well calculated to silence those who saw scandal in the association between his wife and his friend.  “The copy of Madam Le Brunn’s picture of Emma, in enamel, by Bone, I give to my dearest friend Lord Nelson, Duke of Bronte, a very small token of the great regard I have for his Lordship, the most virtuous, loyal, and truly brave character I ever met with.  God bless him, and shame fall on those who do not say amen.”

Sir William’s death, by withdrawing the husband’s countenance to Nelson’s remaining under the same roof, might have complicated matters for the two lovers, but the outbreak of war necessitated the admiral’s departure a month later.  When he returned to England for the last time, in August, 1805, he was, deservedly, the object of such widespread popular devotion, and his stay was so short, that the voice of censure was hushed amid the general murmur of affectionate admiration.  The noble qualities of the man, the exalted spirit of self-sacrifice and heroic aspiration that breathed in his utterances, and was embodied, not only in his brilliant deeds,