day and shortly thereafter the drums beating "The Roast Beef of Old England" to call us to dinner, which we washed down with champagne and a halfdozen other wines much loved by Lady Hamilton. Music again in the evening, songs, dancing, the cards and high play. And when Nelson's enchantress became dejected at the coming parting from her hero, Miss Knight, his poet laureate, whose versifying talent seemed bent on throwing a halo around these two, wrote a song of comfort which even I was idiot enough to sit on the moonlit deck and join in singing:

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Come, cheer up, fair Emma! forget all thy grief, For thy shipmates are brave, and a Hero's their

chief.

Look round on these trophies, the pride of the main,

They were snatched by their valour from Gallia and Spain.

"Behold yonder fragment: 'tis sacred to fame; Midst the waves of old Nile it was saved from the flame

The flame that destroyed the new glories of France,

When Providence vanquished the friends of blind chance.

"Those arms the San Joseph once claimed as her

own,

Ere Nelson and Britons her pride had o'erthrown.

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That plume, too, evinces that still they excel

It was torn from the cap of the famed William Tell.

Then cheer up, fair Emma! remember thou'rt

free,

And ploughing Brittania's old empire, the sea. How many in Albion each sorrow would check, Could they kiss but one plank of this conquering deck!"

Chapter IX

As Another Saw It

Y impatience with the thoughtless festivities of the court and my angry sorrow at

the culmination of Nelson's infatuation for Lady Hamilton so wore upon my health and spirits that I gladly welcomed Captain Berry when he came to relieve me of duties that had grown almost unbearable. I was appointed to the Princess Charlotte, and, while I had grave misgivings as to the state of affairs I was leaving behind, it was, on the whole, with a feeling of intense relief that I set sail for England.

Arrived in London, I could not for some time accustom myself to the life of the town, although 'twas but little changed since I last had delved into it. I felt almost a stranger as by day I strolled along Pall Mall, or at night watched rather than shared in the drinking, gaming and quarrelling at Almack's Crockford not yet having dazzled us with his magnificent gambling palace. The Prince of Wales and Sheridan and Beau Brummell were still getting their ideal of life out of women and tailors

and wine cellars, and their imitators in the good old way still wined and dined at their unchanging haunts and sang indecent songs and occasionally lost a fortune in a night.

But these things interested me little. A sailor's life is something like that of a prisoner in that both are of necessity taken away from the artificial and the petty things of life to a quiet from which they return to be surprised at the disgust they feel for the affairs in which they once found their chief delight. So, in this reaction, I endeavoured to be as respectable as possible, going even the length of attending a féte given by the Princess Elizabeth at the Radipole Parsonage―quite a military and naval affair as I now recall it, a number of actors, Elliston being one, impersonating sailors, and the toasts beside those to "the King's good health and a long continuance," to her Majesty, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, being to Cornwallis and Admiral Nelson. But the childish simplicity of the affair-toyshops and a lottery, an open-air luncheon and a fellow arrayed as a Merry Andrew riding about seated on a donkey, being the chief attractions -wearied me, and, although feeling that perhaps 'twas well our ruling family could be content with such amusements, I could but compare it with the

life at the Neapolitan court. And this very parison taught me how differently their Majestie England would treat Nelson's moral transgress should he continue his conduct after his return.

What with this revulsion against the purely re less and a weariness at the deadly respectable, it natural and inevitable that I should find time ha ing heavily on my hands. St. James Street, the fore, became a God-send, no small number of hours being spent at Brook's Club, at the Co Tree, Arthur's and Boodle's. But, for dining, preferred White's, which then, I think, both as gards food and fashion, had a bit the best of Brook There one night I was about ordering a cut off t joint and some accompanying trifles when St. Vi cent entered and joined me at the table. It w unnecessary to ask whom he meant when impatient he exclaimed:

"Well, they'll be here before long."

"So? I have had no details since they lef Italy."

"You know, of course, he's travelling with th Hamiltons?"

"That much, yes; and a pretty state of things i is."

"Isn't it? That woman has much for which to