This recalls, incidentally, the remarkable affair of the Nelson pension.
Nelson himself, who predicted for himself " a peerage or Westminster Abbey," got the former (though only a vis- county, not an earldom) and instead of the latter St. Paul's. The viscounty died with him, for it was limited to heirs of his body. His barony passed to his elder brother William, an obscure country parson in Norfolk. Him a grateful country selected as recipient of the honours which the dead hero of Trafalgar merited. He was made Earl Nelson of Trafalgar and Merton, presented with £90,000 down, and an annuity of L5,000 a year was attached to the title as long as it should last. (It is lasting well, and the L5,000 a year has been paid from that day to this, the annuities reaching by this time the agreeable total of £680,000.) The thus-handsomely- endowed parson had no heir of his body either, so his sister's fortunate son, a Mr. Bolton, succeeded to the earldom and the k5,0oo, kindly agreeing, in consideration of them, to assume the surname Nelson. From that point there was direct descent to the present earl, who, however, is not a direct descendant even of the victor of Trafalgar's brother, much less of the victor of Trafalgar himself. He has a son and grandsons who have reasonable and legitimate expectations of succeeding to the annuity, but justice would hardly be outraged if Parlia- ment (which can always undo what Parliament has done) decided that still unborn generations of the descendants of Nelson's nephew might be left to face life unendowed.
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