these pages are sufficient to create abhorrence of it in principle and practice. It is the occupation of ambitious barbarians, the charm of the ferocious and the vulgar, and the delusion of the vain and the reckless. It belongs to an era now passing away, which may be termed the pseudo-political and the warlike. The last great battle which deposed Napoleon and gave peace to Europe, may be said to have closed that era. The trifling expeditions and civil discord now continuing, have no connexion with a great war like that which ended in 1815; they are only proofs of the depravity and cruelty of men. But there are two kinds of war, the one of aggression, the other of resistance; the former is the kind we condemn,-the latter, properly pursued, is acting in conformity with a law of nature-self-preservation, developing the force of intellect and resolution, and calling into action many of the highest of the human faculties. That kind of warfare excites admiration and respect.

The Duke of Wellington led the armies of two invaded countries who never exemplified those high qualities. Our own army bore no resemblance to an armed population steadily resolved to conquer; it was an army brought into discipline, and kept in it by a mixture of influence and the lash, and who were like lions in leashes. Compare the heroic valour, unanimity of action, and heavenly-mindedness of Henri Arnaud and his countrymen when they recaptured their native haunts in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont, with all that was ever done during the last great war, and it sinks into insignificance. The avowed objects of all Napoleon's wars place them amongst the lowest and most degrading occupations of mankind, and brand the application of the energies and mental powers necessary to prosecute them, as the perversion of every feeling which might otherwise have raised our conceptions of the powers of the human soul. The Duke of Wellington stands in a position which has never before been fairly delineated, and will lead us to an analysis of the practical qualities of our nature, as developed in him, which, if anything could, may add to the estimation which every reflecting man must feel for him. He commanded armies destined to conquer territory, or to repel aggression and invasion. Those armies were not influenced by the high and patriotic feelings of which we have spoken. But every public act of

his Grace, as shown in these volumes, depicts him as actuated by the highest views, the justest feelings, and a sense of duty which seems never to have been turned from its course.

There were without doubt many in his armies whose views and feelings were of a similar stamp; but the majority were mere soldiers, ready to advance or retreat, to fight or plunder, as either circumstances required or opportunities offered. From first to last he is never the mere soldier, but the diplomatist whose inviolable faith made rulers and nations depend on his word as a shield between them and injury; the dispenser of justice which kindled the sincerest sentiments of gratitude in the bosoms of those over whom he ruled; the consistent supporter of discipline in his armies; and the equitable distributer of rewards to the deserving. Economical of the public money and of all public supplies, he compelled to the utmost of his ability every subordinate to follow his example, and treated with scorn and anger every attempt at peculation and unfair dealing towards the Government: he was an uncompromising reformer of every abuse, in every department over which he could exercise control; a cautious, active, bold, prompt and sagacious general, who never uselessly sacrificed his men, whose untiring forethought was continually exercised in saving them from undue hardship and danger, and whose talent and experience in military strategy led to a dependence on his commands which has never been exceeded.

From the volumes may be deduced these prominent characteristics. Great quickness of perception, kept under the guidance of unceasing caution, while a clear, close-reasoning, powerful judgement made deductions which were seldom changed unless new circumstances arose to require it; great facilities of resource, so that no difficulty seemed to be insurmountable; firmness of purpose and perseverance, supported by a strong sense of justice; general feelings of consideration for others, often expressed in polished language; simplicity of purpose and expression, showing that its strict observance was estimated as power, and connected with the necessary self-dignity of high position; a consciousness of mental capacity, producing great self-reliance, with a grasp of intellect which could embrace, without confusing, the most opposite and varied subjects. There does not appear the slightest indica

tion of imagination, or of those qualities which usually accompany the possession of it-among them, enthusiasm, which, in his opinion, " is, in fact, no aid to accomplish any66 thing, and is only the excuse for the irregularity with which "everything is done." Neither in these volumes, nor in any other work, have we seen any marked indications of the estimation of the merely beautiful. Mistrust, a quality so closely allied to caution that it is difficult to separate them, is evident in every page: "I mistrust the judgement of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned."-(Vol. iii. p. 642.) When in India, a sum of money is received for the uses of the army-and is said by the Duke to be "under an officer's guard opposite his tent." The whole tenour of the volumes indicates that useful quality in constant operation.

Let any of the leading characteristics of great and successful leaders of ancient or modern times be carefully considered, and much resemblance will be found in them to the Duke of Wellington in some of those characteristics. Charlemagne, Cromwell, Washington, were all men with similar qualities in different degrees, and none of them with imagination, enthusiasm, or marked feelings for the merely beautiful. If such an expression may be permitted, his Grace stands the first among those intellects which may be termed utilitarian, and to which the great names we have just quoted are allied. Whether the unconfined sublimity of a Milton, whose spirit was too etherial not to rise on the wings of thought and imagination, and to taste before his time of a life beyond this— or the intellect of a Shakspeare, which delineated with unerring power the minds and manners of a world, and floated at will on the wings of fancy, or guided with steady hand the high imaginings of that unseen, immortal power bestowed on man, are of a higher order, let others determine. Between the two stand the scientifically useful, who, from investigating the laws of the universe, lead the soul to the adoration of its Creator.

Which are the highest faculties bestowed on man? Conscientiousness, justice, firmness, caution, judgement, perception, perseverance, all in high degree, or those of the order we have referred to? A combination would be superior to either separate. It may be a question, if the powers of Milton or Shakspeare, superadded to those of a Wellington,

would not effectually have prevented the latter from pursuing the course he did; while his mistrust and caution, and continual reference to facts, would have checked effectually the flights of fancy, and the richer gems of illustration and thought, and of ideas that leave their impress on mankind. A great and triumphant career, directed by a genius for war, guided by high-mindedness, instructing by precept and unsullied example, must also leave a useful impress while history lasts. If the sternly practical cannot be allied to the ornate, imaginative and sublime, and still with equal certainty perform its duties, we must reflect, whether those thoughts that wander through eternity, and give some faint glimpses of the etherial nature of our immortal part, are likely to be productive of more positive good by abstractedly elevating the mind, than the every-day practice of those qualities on which the order and stability of society depend.

In the first part of our observations it was unhesitatingly said, that the great series of events which had begun to transpire, when the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon (who were born in the same year) appeared on the arena, formed a part of that series, which, directed by Providence, was leading to some great conclusion. Perhaps hereafter we may enter boldly yet cautiously into that exciting subject; now we must confine ourselves to those prominent and general points which may interest the reader as being closely connected with the operations of the period comprised in these volumes. It was mentioned, that those men selected to carry through to completion the views of Providence, must be trained to their work, and that the training of both had produced the opposite results; preparing the one for permanent triumph, the other for defeat. The state of Europe was given in outline. The wars of revolutionary France commenced near the field of Waterloo, where they terminated. France, with a population nursed in anarchy, blood and infidelity, became as it were a vial of wrath poured out over the face of civilized Europe. Her legions were commanded by a vaunting leader, surrounded by upstart satellites, whose objects seem to have been indefinite, and generally were satisfied with plunder, and the inflation of a vanity which fed to repletion on usurpation, desolation and slaughter. After having been made the scourges of the north, the degraded and besotted countries of

Western Europe were to receive at their hands the chastisement required to rouse them from their moral lethargy. None but leaders and men equally devoid of all the higher sentiments which should stimulate mankind to action, could have been made the invaders of nations who had never injured them, and there have rioted in every cruelty and excess. No sooner had the punishment been inflicted, than the instruments were to be destroyed. Some sleep in the desert sands of Syria and ancient Egypt, destroyed by the same nation which swept the last remnant from the field of Waterloo; thousands and tens of thousands perished amid the howling tempests and snows of Russia; whole legions were hunted to their graves from Silesia to the Rhine; Spain and Portugal, incited and led on by England, strewed their insulted realms with the bodies of their invaders, and turned the fertile valleys of Southern France into sepulchres of the armies which had desolated their homes. Those who had manned her navies, either dyed the ocean with their blood, or were left to long reflection in prisons remote from the intercourse of men.

Thus passed away the greater portion of the generation of revolutionary France. What the beneficial and final results of those dreadful punishments will be, are yet to be known. They have begun; and, as the mental progress of nations is, in its main stream, as irresistible as the torrent or the ocean tide, it can only be hoped that rulers will arise to direct its course into channels which will diffuse security, peace and happiness. The leader of the hosts who were the aggressors, and the commander of those who conquered and destroyed them, were as different as their objects. Their talents, faculties and dispositions were exactly adapted to the purposes for which they were intended; their training such as called into action the very faculties which would lead the one to his intended destruction, the other to his permanent success.

Both possessed great military talents, quickness of perception, readiness and apprehension, and facilities of resource: however profound the combinations, both appear to have avoided duplex or complex operations, and seem to have generally waited the results of success :-there the similarity seems to end. One of the characteristics of the Duke of Wellington is simplicity, while in Napoleon mystery and bombast were rife. The former never was known to be