spars, and the irritation of not being able to get what he regarded as
life or death requests carried into effect owing to the slothfulness
or incompetent indifference of the Admiralty was continual agony to
him. He writes in one of his dispatches to the Admiralty: "Were I to
die this moment, _want of frigates_ would be found stamped on my
heart. No words of mine," he continues, "can express what I have
suffered and am suffering for want of them."

No person could write such an unconsciously comic lament to a
department supposed to be administered with proficiency unless he were
borne down by a deep sense of its appalling incompetency. It is quite
likely that the recipients of the burning phrases regarded them in the
light of a joke, but they were very real to the wearied soul of the
man who wrote them. I do not find any instances of conscious humour in
any of Nelson's letters or utterances. It is really their lack of
humour that is humorous. He always appears to be in sombre earnest
about affairs that matter, and whimsically affected by those that
don't. The following lines, which are not my own, may be regarded as
something akin to Nelson's conception of himself. If he had come
across them, I think he would have said to himself, "Ah! yes, these
verses describe my mission and me."

"Like a warrior angel sped
On a mighty mission,
Light and life about him shed--
A transcendent vision.

"Mailed in gold and fire he stands,
And, with splendours shaken,
Bids the slumbering seas and lands