The immensity of the shipping below London Bridge was a wonderful sight to him. He had come into dock in a tiny, frail sailing craft, the cradle of “The Flying Dutchman,” after a hazardous passage across the North Sea. The size and number of the trading vessels appealed direct to his largely developed imaginative faculty. He pictured the mysterious Vanderdecken in this and that vessel, and was full of strange fancies of the spectral crew. The sea of sail so fascinated him that he took a special river trip to Greenwich, the closer to inspect the shipping, and with the further intent to visit the Naval Pensioners’ hospital.
When it was known at the hotel in Old Compton Street that he was about starting for Greenwich, he was advised to go over the _Dreadnought_ hospital-ship, then lying in the river just above Greenwich. He seized at the suggestion. The _Dreadnought_ was one of the vessels of Nelson’s conquering fleet in the famous battle of Trafalgar, in the year 1805. Wagner was a devoted worshipper of great men. An opportunity now presented itself to inspect one of the wooden walls of England. It is a widely known fact that hero-worship was a salient feature of Wagner’s character. He always referred to Weber as his “adored idol” or “adored master,” and for Beethoven he was equally enthusiastic. The “Dutchman,” that weird story of the sea, had taken possession of him, and a visit to so celebrated a ship as the _Dreadnought_ was an occasion of some importance. In his maturer age, when closer acquaintance with the English people had given him the right to express an opinion as to their nature, he said that in his judgment they were the most poetic of European nations. Poetry, with them, lay not on the surface as with the impetuous Gauls, nor was it sought after and cultivated as with the Germans; but with the English it was deep in their hearts and associated with their national institutions in a manner unknown among any other modern people. No nation has produced such a galaxy of poetic luminaries. The employment of the disabled battle-ship as a refuge for worn-out seamen, men who had fought their country’s battles, was, he thought, an incontestable proof of a poetic sentiment founded in the heart of a nation and fostered by natural love. I am aware how much this is in opposition to the judgment of the English by a man who enjoyed a high social standing and intimate acquaintance with the best of Albion’s intellect, viz. Lord Beaconsfield, whose famous dictum it was that the “English people care for nothing but religion, politics, and commerce,” but the thoughtful opinion of a poet of acknowledged celebrity, Wagner himself, I have deemed it advisable to set forth.