published shortly after her death, another side of the case is brought forward, and Lady Nelson appears as rebutting with quiet dignity the reproaches of her husband for heartlessness, displayed in her unsympathetic attitude towards her rival, when suffering from indisposition.  Into these recriminations it is needless to enter; those who wish can read for themselves in the works mentioned.  A marked symptom of growing alienation was afforded by his leaving her on the 19th of December, in company with the Hamiltons, to spend the Christmas holidays at Fonthill, the seat of William Beckford.

During this visit occurred a curious incident, which shows that the exultant delight unquestionably felt by Nelson in battle did not indicate insensibility to danger, or to its customary effects upon men, but resulted from the pleasurable predominance of other emotions, which accepted danger and the startling tokens of its presence as the accompaniments, that only enhanced the majesty of the part he was called upon to play.  Beckford tells the story as follows:  “I offered to show him what had been done by planting in the course of years.  Nelson mounted by my side in a phaeton, drawn by four well-trained horses, which I drove.  There was not the least danger, the horses being perfectly under my command, long driven by myself.  Singular to say, we had not gone far before I observed a peculiar anxiety in his countenance, and presently he said:  ’This is too much for me, you must set me down.’  I assured him that the horses were continually driven by me, and that they were perfectly under command.  All would not do.  He would descend, and I walked the vehicle back again."[17] Nelson, of course, never claimed for himself the blind ignorance of fear which has been asserted of him; on the contrary, the son of his old friend Locker tells us, “The bravest man (so we have heard Lord Nelson himself declare) feels an anxiety ‘circa praecordia’ as he enters the battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more."[18] In battle, like a great actor in a great drama, he knew himself the master of an invisible concourse, whose homage he commanded, whose plaudits he craved, and whom, by the sight of deeds raised above the common ground of earth, he drew to sympathy with heroism and self-devotion.  There, too, he rejoiced in the noblest exercise of power, in the sensation of energies and faculties roused to full exertion, contending with mighty obstacles, and acting amid surroundings worthy of their grandeur; like Massena, of whom it was said that he only found his greatest self when the balls flew thick about him, and things began to look their worst.