who had been shot. She and Sir William had literally been made ill by
their hopes and fears, and joy at a catastrophe so far exceeding
all that they had dared to hope for. Their admiration for the hero
necessarily produced a degree of proportionate gratitude and affection;
and when their barge came alongside the VANGUARD, at the sight of
Nelson, Lady Hamilton sprang up the ship's side, and exclaiming, "O God!
is it possible!" fell into his arms more, he says, like one dead than
alive. He described the meeting as "terribly affecting." These friends
had scarcely recovered from their tears, when the king, who went out to
meet him three leagues in the royal barge, came on board and took him
by the hand, calling him his deliverer and preserver. From all the boats
around he was saluted with the same appellations: the multitude who
surrounded him when he landed repeated the same enthusiastic cries;
and the lazzaroni displayed their joy by holding up birds in cages, and
giving them their liberty as he passed.

His birth-day, which occurred a week after his arrival, was celebrated
with one of the most splendid fetes ever beheld at Naples. But,
notwithstanding the splendour with which he was encircled, and the
flattering honours with which all ranks welcomed him, Nelson was fully
sensible of the depravity, as well as weakness, of those by whom he was
surrounded. "What precious moments," said he, "the courts of Naples and
Vienna are losing! Three months would liberate Italy! but this court is
so enervated that the happy moment will be lost. I am very unwell; and
their miserable conduct is not likely to cool my irritable temper. It is
a country of fiddlers and poets, whores and scoundrels." This sense of
their ruinous weakness he always retained; nor was he ever blind to
the mingled folly and treachery of the Neapolitan ministers, and the
complication in iniquities under which the country groaned; but he
insensibly, under the influence of Lady Hamilton, formed an affection