de.

VII

But whatever his ruling passion may have been, his belief in the Power
that rules us all never forsook him. He believed in religious forms as
of a spiritual force. He often committed himself to it, and claimed
the privilege of asking for Heaven's guidance. Call it eccentricity or
superstition, or what you like, but to him it was a reality. One of
the many amusing instances of his devotion to religious rites was the
occasion when he and Lady Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother
at the christening of their daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by
which name she was baptized. To the puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping
in view all the circumstances of parentage) this will be looked upon
as an act of abominable hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him it was a
pious duty.

Like all highly strung and overwrought mortals, he was often moody,
depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of his early
demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly worrying him, as
did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy fortune-teller who had
correctly described his career up to the year 1805, and then stopping
had said, "I can see no further." This creepy ending of the gipsy's
tale was afflicting him with a dumb pain and depression when he
unexpectedly came across his sister Catherine in London. She referred
to his worn, haggard look with a tenderness that was peculiarly her
own. He replied, "Ah! Katty! Katty! that gipsy!" and then relapsed
into morbid silence. The foreboding bore heavily on his mind, and the
story may well make one's heart throb with pity for the noble fellow
who was so soon to fulfil his tragic destiny. Well may we exclaim that
fame seems to be the most wretched of mockeries!

The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery was too
strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account
of his meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office. He gives the account of
it, thirty years after Nelson's death, to John Wilson Croker at
Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood's great comrade:--

WALMER, _1st October, 1834_.

We were [that is, Croker and he] talking of Lord Nelson, and
some instances were mentioned of the egotism and vanity that
derogated from his character. "Why," said the Duke, "I am not
surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different
circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch,
though I only sa