of displayed gallantry be fallen out of date as hardly
applicable under changed circumstances, did the nobler qualities of such naval
magnates as Don John of Austria, Doria, Van Tromp, Jean Bart, the long line of
British admirals and the American Decaturs of 1812 become obsolete with their
wooden walls.
    Nevertheless, to anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being
inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary
old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the
decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic reproach,
softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the
European ironclads. And this not altogether because such craft are unsightly,
unavoidably lacking the symmetry and grand lines of the old battle-ships, but
equally for other reasons.
    There are some, perhaps, who while not altogether inaccessible to that
poetic reproach just alluded to, may yet on behalf of the new order be disposed
to parry it; and this to the extent of iconoclasm, if need be. For example,
prompted by the sight of the star inserted in the Victory's deck designating the
spot where the Great Sailor fell, these martial utilitarians may suggest
considerations implying that Nelson's ornate publication of his person in battle
was not only unnecessary, but not military, nay, savoured of foolhardiness and
vanity. They may add, too, that at Trafalgar it was in effect nothing less than
a challenge to death; and death came; and that but for his bravado the
victorious admiral might possibly have survived the battle, and so, instead of
having his sagacious dying injunctions overruled by his immediate successor in
command, he himself when the contest was decided might have brought his
shattered fleet to anchor, a proceeding which might have averted the deplorable
loss of life by shipwreck in the elemental tempest that followed the martial
one.
    Well, should we set aside the more than disputable point whether for various
reasons it was possible to anchor the fleet, then plausibly enough the
Bethamites of war may urge the above.
    But he might have been is but boggy ground to build on. And certainly in
foresight as to the larger issue of an encounter, and anxious preparations for
it - buoying the deadly way and mapping it out, as at Copenhagen - few
commanders have been so painstakingly circumspect as this reckless declarer of
his person in fight.
    Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish
considerations, is surely no special virtue in a military man; while an
excessive love of glory, exercising to