Wellington's ability of yielding more readily was based on his ability of seeing more clearly, than most of the other members of his party: they resembled the captains of Captain Sword, in Hunt's well-known poem; but he was the great Captain Sword himself. When the peaceable Captain Pen threatens to bring a world of men" at his back, and to disarm the old warrior, the poet tells us that 66 "Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword, But their chief looked vexed, and said not a word; And wherever he went he was 'ware of a sound, In his moral character the Duke was eminently an honest and truthful man,—one of the most devoted and loyal of subjects, and one of the most patriotic of citizens. His name has been often coupled with that of the great military captain of England in the last century-Marlborough; but, save in the one item of great military ability, they had nothing in common. Wellington was frank to a fault. One of the gravest blunders of his political life,-his open declaration in Parliament that the country's system of representation possessed the country's full and entire confidence, and that he would resist any measure of reform so long as he held any station in the Government,-was certainly egregiously impolitic; but who can deny that it was candid and frank? Marlborough, on the other hand, was one of the most tortuous and secret of men. Wellington was emphatically truthful; -Marlborough a consummate liar. Wellington would have laid down life and property in the cause of his sovereign ;— Marlborough was one of the first egregiously to deceive and betray his royal master, who, however great his faults and errors, was at least ever kind to him. Wellington was, in fine, a thoroughly honest man ;-Marlborough a brilliant scoundrel. There seemed to be but little of the soft green of humanity about the recently departed warrior. He was, in appearance at least, a hard man, who always did his own duty, and exacted from others the full tale of theirs. He had seen, too, in his first and only disastrous campaign, that of the Duke of York in the Netherlands,-the direful effects of unrestrained licence in an army. Enraged by numerous petty acts of violence and plunder, the people of the country became at length undisguisedly hostile to their nominal allies, and greatly enhanced the dangers and difficulties of their frequent retreats. And Wellington, taught, it is said, by the lesson, was ever after a stern disciplinarian, and visited at times with what was deemed undue severity, the liberties taken by his soldiery with the property of an allied people. And so he possessed much less of the love of the men who served under him, than not only the weaker but tenderhearted Nelson, but than also the genial and good-humoured Duke of York, a prince whom no soldier ever trusted as a general, or ever disliked as a man. But never did general possess more thoroughly the confidence of his soldiers than Wellington. Wherever he led, they were prepared to follow. We have been told by an old campaigner, who had fought under him in one of our Highland regiments in all the battles of the Peninsula, that on one occasion, in a retreat, the corps to which he belonged had been left far behind in the rear of their fellows, and began to express some anxiety regarding the near proximity of the enemy. "I wish," said one, "I saw ten thousand of our country folk beside us. "I wish, rather," rejoined another, "that I saw the long nose of the Duke of Wellington." A few minutes after, however, the Duke was actually seen riding past, and from that moment confidence was restored in the regiment. They felt that the eye of Wellington was upon them, and that all was necessarily right. Nor, with all his seeming hardness, was Wellington in any degree a cruel or inhumane man. He was, on the contrary, essentially kind and benevolent. The same old campaigner to whom we owe the anecdote,-a gallant and kind-hearted, but, like many soldiers, thoughtless man, -had, notwithstanding a tolerably adequate income for his condition, fallen into straits; and he at length bethought him, in his difficulties, of availing himself of that arrangement made by the Whigs about twenty years ago, when they first came into office, through which he might sell his pension. The proposed terms, however, were hard; and poor Johnston, wholly unconscious of the politics of the day, wrote to his old general, to see whether he could not procure for him better ones from his Majesty's Ministers, recounting, in his letter, his services and his wounds, and stating that it was his intention, with the money which he was desirous of raising, to emigrate to British America. And prompt by return of post came the Duke's reply, written in the Duke's own hand. Never was there sounder advice more briefly expressed. "The Duke of Wellington," said his Grace, "has received William Johnston's letter; and he earnestly recommends him, first, not to seek for a provision in the colonies of North America, if he be not able-bodied, and in a situation to provide for himself in circumstances of extreme difficulty; secondly, not to sell or mortgage his pension. The Duke of Wellington has no relation whatever with the King's Ministers. He recommends William Johnston to apply to the adjutant-general of the army. (London, March 7th, 1832)." The old pensioner did not take the Duke's advice; for he did sell his pension, and, though, in consequence of his wounds, not very able-bodied, he did emigrate to America, and, we fear, suffered in consequence; but it was not the less true humanity on the part of his Grace to counsel so promptly and so wisely the poor humble soldier. But alas! his last advice has been given, and his last account rendered; and it will be well for our country should the Sovereign never miss his honoured voice at the Council Board, nor, to borrow from ancient story, the soldier never "vehemently desire him in the day of battle."-September 18, 1852. EARL GREY. ON Saturday last, the body of Charles, Earl Grey, was committed to the tomb of his ancestors; and his Lordship's existence in relation to the present scene of being ranks but among the things that were. His political life extends over the long term of sixty years. Its beginnings pertain to the annals of the last age. History has long since pronounced judgment on the illustrious group of his earlier friends and opponents; on Pitt, and Fox, and Burke, Windham, Sheridan, Erskine, and Dundas; and the portion of our literature in which they are celebrated, or which we owe to them, is a literature that has descended to us from our fathers. Were William Pitt still living, he would be but four years older than the late Earl Grey. It may seem fanciful; but the prolonged existence of this veteran statesman, so influential in the councils of his country at a period when his years had well-nigh reached the full tale indicated by the Psalmist, taken in connection with the imperishable associations of his early history, has served to remind us of what we have some times witnessed beside the waters of a petrifying spring: we have seen tufts of vegetation, with their upper sprigs green and flourishing, and the lower converted into solid stone; the vital influences vigorous in the newer portion of the plant, while the older were imperishably fixed in marble. There are various deeply interesting aspects in which the political career of his Lordship may be viewed. When he first entered public life, the dissolute Court and infidel literature of France were busily engaged in sowing the seeds which germinated and bore fruit as the first French Revolution. It was a gay winter in Paris, that of 1786, when the Earl, then Mr Grey, was first returned to Parliament for his native county, Northumberland. The Chevalier de Boufflers was engaged in making charming songs on the new fashions; the Queen had just pensioned her milliner, and had got nine hundred thousand livres of the public money to pay some of her own small debts;" the courtiers, who had been inconsolable for some time,-for the most accomplished opera dancer in the world had sprained her ankle,had recovered their spirits again, for the ankle had also recovered; and, though thousands of the industrious poor were starving, and speaking ominously, in their distress, of America and its revolution, and though even the ladies had begun to wear bonnets à la Rodney, no one could see how trifles such as these should bear with sinister effect on the general hilarity. Nor could the young representative of Northumberland have possibly seen aught in them with which he, as a public man, had anything to do. more certain, however, than that the emphatically important portion of the history of Earl Grey which so peculiarly belongs to that of his country is entwined with the history of France. We could not better illustrate the influence which, in these times of advanced civilization, the destinies of one great European country exert on those of another, than by instancing what his Lordship at one period of his life attempted, but signally failed to perform, and so completely accomplished at another. The special work of the life of Nothing |