aloft surveying the generations who do him homage; far away, on the shores
of Tynemouth, a solitary figure of Collingwood, not erected till 1845,
gazes out across the ocean of his exile. It is as though the loneliness
which tortured that great soul in life haunts him beyond the grave, as the
adulation which was balm to Nelson's soul remains his portion to all
eternity. There might even be imagined an unconscious irony in the last
reference to Collingwood which occurs in the Stanhope correspondence,
wherein Mrs Stanhope, after the first horror which the news of her
kinsman's death had evoked, sums up thus the immediate effect of that
event upon her family life:--


_May 10th._

London is very gay now.... To give you some idea how we go on, I will
mention some of our engagements. To-night Opera; tomorrow, concerts at
Mrs Boehms and Lady Castlereagh's; Thursday, Dow. Lady Glyn, Lady de
Crespygny musick, and Lady Westmorland's; Saturday, Opera; 23rd., 24th
and 26th Balls. On Friday, of course, there are cards, but I shall not
go out on account of its being the funeral of our justly-lamented
friend.




CHAPTER III

1806-1807

ON DITS FROM YORKSHIRE, LONDON AND RAMSGATE