he Lord combined to show it to the best advantage--dark headlands
in the distance standing as a massive background, long pellucid billows
lifting bulk Titanic, and lace-like maze, sweet air wandering from
heaven, early sun come fresh from dew, all the good-will of the world
inspiring men to merriness.

Nelson was not fierce of nature, but as gentle as a lamb. His great
desire, as he always proved, was never to destroy his enemies by the
number of one man spareable. He had always been led by the force of
education, confirmed by that of experience, to know that the duty of an
Englishman is to lessen the stock of Frenchmen; yet he never was free
from regret when compelled to act up to his conscience, upon a large
scale.

It is an old saying that nature has provided for every disease its
remedy, and challenges men to find it out, which they are clever enough
not to do. For that deadly disease Napoleon, the remedy was Nelson; and
as soon as he should be consumed, another would appear in Wellington.
Such is the fortune of Britannia, because she never boasts, but grumbles
always. The boaster soon exhausts his subject; the grumbler has matter
that lasts for ever.

Nelson had much of this national virtue. "Half of them will get away,"
he said to Captain Blackwood, of the Euryalus, who was come for his
latest orders, "because of that rascally port to leeward. If the wind
had held as it was last night, we should have had every one of them. It
does seem hard, after waiting so long. And the sky looks like a gale of
wind. It will blow to-night, though I shall not hear it. A gale of wind
with disabled ships means terrible destruction. Do all you can to save
those poor fellows. When they are beaten, we must consider their lives
even more than our own, you know, because we have been the cause of it.
You know my wishes as well as I do. Remember this one especially."

"Good-bye, my lord, till the fight is over." Captain Blackwood loved his
chief with even more than the warm affection felt by all the fleet for
him. "When we have got them, I shall come back, and find you safe and
glorious."

"God bless you, Blackwood!" Lord Nelson answered, looking at him with a
cheerful smile. "But you will never see me alive again."

The hero of a hundred fights, who knew that this would be his last, put
on his favourite ancient coat, threadbare through many a conflict with
hard time and harder enemies. Its beauty, like his own, had suffered
in the