Other men might have written lives of Lord Nelson, but they did not; and all who write on Lord Nelson now, paraphrase Southey.
And thus are great literary reputations won on a fluke.
Horatio Nelson, born in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight, was one of a brood of nine children, left motherless when the lad was nine years of age. His father was a clergyman, and passing rich on forty pounds a year. It was the dying wish of the mother that one of the children should be adopted by her brother, Captain Suckling, of the Navy.
This captain was a grandnephew of Sir John Suckling the poet, and one of the great men of the family—himself acknowledging it. Captain Suckling promised the stricken woman that her wish should be respected. Three years went by and he made no move. Horatio, then twelve years of age, hearing that "The Raisonnable," his uncle's ship, had just anchored in the Medway, wrote the gallant captain, reminding him of the obligation and suggesting himself as a candidate.
The captain replied to the boy's father that the idea of sending the smallest and sickliest of the family to rough it at sea was a foolish idea; but if it was the father's wish, why send the youngster along, and in the very first action a cannon-ball might take off the boy's head, which would simplify the situation.
This was an acceptance, although ungracious, and our young lad was duly put aboard the stage, penniless, with a big basket of lunch, ticketed for tidewater. There a kind-hearted waterman rowed the boy out to the ship and put him aboard, where he wandered on the deck for two days, too timid to make himself known, before being discovered, and then came near being put ashore as a stowaway. It seems that the captain had made no mention to any one on the ship that his nevy was expected, and, in fact, had probably forgotten the matter himself.
And so Horatio Nelson, slim, slight, slender, fair-haired and hollow-eyed, was made cabin-boy, with orders to wait on table, wash dishes and "tidy up things." And he set such a pace in tidying up the captain's cabin that that worthy officer once remarked, "Dammittall, he isn't half as bad as he might be."
Finally, Horatio was given the tiller when a boat was sent ashore. He became an expert in steering, and was made coxswain of the captain's launch. He learned the Channel in low tide from Chatham to the Tower, making a map of it on his own account. He had a scent for rocks and shoals, and knew how to avoid them—for good pilots are born, not made.
A motherless boy with a discouraged father is very fortunate. If he ever succeeds, he knows it must be through his own exertions. The truth is pressed home upon him that there is nothing in the universe to help him but himself—a great lesson to learn.