fleet off Cadiz; “but it was thought right to desire me to come forth, and I obeyed.”  “I expected to lay my weary bones quiet for the winter,” he told another friend in Naples, “but I ought, perhaps, to be proud of the general call which has made me to go forth.”  The popularly received account, therefore, derived from Lady Hamilton, of her controlling influence in the matter, may be dismissed as being—­if not apocryphal—­merely one side of the dealing by which he had to reconcile the claims of patriotic duty with the appeals of the affections.  As told by Southey, her part in his decision was as follows:  “When Blackwood had left him, he wanted resolution to declare his wishes to Lady Hamilton and his sisters, and endeavoured to drive away the thought.  He had done enough, he said:  ‘Let the man trudge it who has lost his budget!’ His countenance belied his lips; and as he was pacing one of the walks in the garden, which he used to call the quarter-deck, Lady Hamilton came up to him, and said she saw he was uneasy.  He smiled, and said:  ’No, he was as happy as possible; he was surrounded by his family, his health was better since he had been on shore, and he would not give sixpence to call the king his uncle.’  She replied, that she did not believe him, that she knew he was longing to get at the combined fleets, that he considered them as his own property, that he would be miserable if any man but himself did the business, and that he ought to have them, as the price and reward of his two years’ long watching, and his hard chase.  ‘Nelson,’ said she, ’however we may lament your absence, offer your services; they will be accepted, and you will gain a quiet heart by it; you will have a glorious victory, and then you may return here, and be happy.’  He looked at her with tears in his eyes:  ’Brave Emma!  Good Emma!  If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.’  His services were as willingly accepted as they were offered.”

The fidelity with which Nelson destroyed Lady Hamilton’s letters prevents our knowing just what was her attitude towards his aspirations for glory, and her acquiescence in his perils, in view of the entire dependence of her future upon his life; a dependence such as an honored wife could by no means feel, for the widow of Nelson could rely safely upon the love of the nation.  Certain it is that his letters to her contain enough appeals to the sense she should have of his honor, to show that he stood in need of no strengthening at her hands; and it seems legible enough, between the lines, that he had rather to resist the pull of her weakness, or her interest, than to look for encouragement in the path of hardship and self-denial.  It is certain, too, that some days before Blackwood arrived, Nelson understood that he might be wanted soon, and avowed his entire willingness to go, while not affecting to conceal his hope that circumstances might permit him to remain until October, the time he had fixed to Collingwood for his return.  Whatever the inside