infancy; and, where it is, every hero does not, like Hercules, find a
serpent successfully to encounter in his cradle.
Of Lord Nelson's infancy, from whatever causes, scarcely any anecdote is
now preserved. That which may, probably, be considered as the first, has
often been related; but never, heretofore, in a manner sufficiently
accurate and circumstantial.
At the very early age of not more than five or six years, little
Horatio, being on a visit to his grandmother, at Hilborough, who was
remarkably fond of all her son's children, and herself a most exemplary
character, had strolled out, with a boy some years older than himself,
to ramble over the country in search of birds-nests. Dinner-time,
however, arriving, and her grandson not having returned, the old lady
became so excessively alarmed, that messengers, both on horseback and on
foot, were immediately dispatched, to discover the wanderer. The
progress of the young adventurers had, it seems, been impeded by a
brook, or piece of water, over which Horatio could not pass; and, his
companion having gone off and left him, he was found ruminating, very
composedly, on the opposite bank. It is not ascertained, whether his
companion had got across the water, or gone back again by the way they
had approached it: whether the young hero was meditating how it might be
passed; or too weary, or unwilling, to retread all his former steps. Who
shall pretend to say, that this child, thus sitting, in a state of
abstraction, by the side of an impassable piece of water, might not
first feel that ardent thirst of nautical knowledge excited, the
gratification of which has since led to such glorious consequences! Be
this as it may--for even himself, if living, might not now be conscious
of the fact--it is perfectly well remembered that, on his being brought
into the presence of his grandmother, the old lady concluded her lecture
respecting the propriety of children's rambling abroad without the
permission of their friends, by saying--"I wonder, that fear did not
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