Although Nelson hated the French so vehemently, I cannot help thinking, after a prolonged study of his career, that he had many of their characteristics. His vivacity, his imagination, his moods tend to confirm me in this. A less typical specimen of John Bull would be difficult to find. A word or two concerning Nelson’s crowning victory and then I must bring my lengthy introduction to a conclusion. It has a literature all its own. A wordy warfare, which was indulged in the correspondence columns of the _Times_ from July to October 1905, made one almost believe that it is easier to fight a battle than to describe it accurately. To use Prof. Sir J. Knox Laughton’s terse phrase, “the difficulty is that the traditional account of the battle differs, in an important detail, from the prearranged plan.” The late Admiral Colomb held a brief for the theory that the two columns of the British fleet moved in line abreast, or in line of bearing, as against the old supposition of two columns, line ahead. In this contention, he is supported by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, G.C.B., whose ideas are set forth in a pamphlet issued by the Navy Records Society, an institution which is doing excellent work in rescuing historical documents relating to the service from ill-deserved oblivion. To add further to the discussion would probably serve no useful purpose. The second volume of “Logs of the Great Sea-fights (1794-1805),” and “Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816,” both published by the Society already mentioned, will be found extremely useful to those who would pursue the subject in detail. Tennyson’s “Mighty Seaman” has been apotheosised in poetry as well as in prose, “_For he is Britain’s Admiral Till setting of her sun,_” to quote Meredith’s superb lines. Wordsworth, Scott, Rossetti, Henley, Swinburne, Newbolt and others have said noble things of the Man of Duty, while Nelson looms large in Thomas Hardy’s magnificent epic, “The Dynasts.” No one who has read it is likely to forget: “_In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land, And the Back-Sea met the Front-Sea, and our doors were blocked with sand, And we heard the drub of Deadman’s Bay, where the bones of thousands are, We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar._ (ALL) _Had done, Had done, For us at Trafalgar!_ * * * * * _The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore, As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore; Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far, Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar._ (ALL) _The deep, The deep, That night at Trafalgar!_” Contents PAGE