This strong attachment of the heroic admiral to his fleet, faithfully repaid by an equal attachment on their part to their admiral, had no little influence in attuning their hearts to each other; and when he died, it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another; for all were made acquaintances by the rights of a common anguish. In the fleet itself, many a private quarrel was forgotten, no more to be remembered; many, who had been alienated, became once more good friends; yea, many a one was reconciled to his very enemy, and loved and (as it were) thanked him for the bitterness of his grief, as if it had been an act of consolation to himself in an intercourse of private sympathy. The tidings arrived at Naples on the day that I returned to that city from Calabria; and never can I forget the sorrow and consternation that lay on every countenance. Even to this day there are times when I seem to see, as in a vision, separate groups and individual faces of the picture. Numbers stopped and shook hands with me because they had seen the tears on my cheek, and conjectured that I was an Englishman; and several, as they held my hand, burst themselves into tears. And though it may awake a smile, yet it pleased and affected me, as a proof of the goodness of the human heart struggling to exercise its kindness in spite of prejudices the most obstinate, and eager to carry on its love and honour into the life beyond life, that it was whispered about Naples, that Lord Nelson had become a good Catholic before his death. The absurdity of the fiction is a sort of measurement of the fond and affectionate esteem which had ripened the pious wish of some kind individual, through all the gradations of possibility and probability, into a confident assertion, believed and affirmed by hundreds. The feelings of Great Britain on this awful event have been described well and worthily by a living poet, who has happily blended the passion and wild transitions of lyric song with the swell and solemnity of epic narration.
"--Thou art fall'n! fall'n, in the lap Of victory. To thy country thou cam'st back, Thou, conqueror, to triumphal Albion cam'st A corse! I saw before thy hearse pass on The comrades of thy perils and renown.
The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts Fell. I beheld the pomp thick gathered round The trophied car that bore thy graced remains Through armed ranks, and a nation gazing on.
Bright glowed the sun, and not a cloud distained Heaven's arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath.
A holy and unutterable pang Thrilled on the soul. Awe and mute anguish fell On all.--Yet high the public bosom throbbed With triumph. And if one, 'mid that vast pomp, If but the voice of one had shouted forth The name of NELSON, thou hadst past along, Thou in thy hearse to burial past, as oft Before the van of battle, proudly rode Thy prow, down Britain's line, shout after shout Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand Had lanced the bolt of victory."
SOTHEBY (Saul, p. 80).
I introduced this digression with an apology, yet have extended it so much further than I had designed, that I must once more request my reader to excuse me. It was to be expected (I have said) that Lord Nelson would appreciate the isle of Malta from its relations to the British fleet on the Mediterranean station. It was the fashion of the day to style Egypt the key of India, and Malta the key of Egypt.
