decisive
features, was largely dependent upon the necessity laid upon him for
action; which is probably equivalent to saying that it was usually
elicited by a sobering sense of responsibility. In his letters and
despatches may be found many wild guesses, inconsistent from week to
week, colored by changing moods and humors,--the mere passing comments
of a mind off guard,--the records of evanescent impressions as
numerous, fickle, and unfounded as those of the most ordinary mortal.
It is when urgency presses and danger threatens, when the need for
action comes, that his mental energies are aroused, and he begins to
speak, as it were, _ex cathedra_. Then the unsubstantial haze rolls
away; and the solid features of the scene one by one appear, until,
amid all the unavoidable uncertainties of imperfect information, it
becomes plain that the man has a firm grasp upon the great landmarks
by which he must guide his course. Like the blind, who at first saw
men as trees walking, and then saw everything clearly, so his mental
illumination gradually reduces confusion to order, and from perplexity
evolves correct decision. But what shall be said of those flashes of
insight, as at Cape St. Vincent, elicited in a moment, as by the
stroke of iron on rock, where all the previous processes of ordered
thought and labored reasoning are condensed into one vivid
inspiration, and transmuted without a pause into instant heroic
action? Is that we call "genius" purely a mystery, of which our only
account is to give it a name? Or is it true, as Napoleon said, that
"on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
recollection"?

From Rose Nelson went to the Comptroller of the Navy, Sir Charles
Middleton, who afterwards, as Lord Barham, sent him forth to
Trafalgar. Middleton had replied promptly to the first report of the
fraudulent transactions, giving assurance of his readiness to act, and
urging that all the information possible should be secured, as he
feared that the allegations were substantially true. He now showed the
instructions of the Navy Board, under which its colonial employees
acted, to Nelson, who said that, if honestly followed, they must
prevent the unlawful practices; but that he believed they were
habitually violated, and that he himself, though senior officer on the
station, had never before seen the instructions. This failure to
intrust supervision to the one person upon whom all responsibility
should ultimat