on to use with respect to Wellington these last twenty years. Now
what have those years been to England! Why the years of ultra-gentility,
everybody in England having gone gentility mad during the last twenty
years, and no people more so than your pseudo-Radicals. Wellington was
turned out, and your Whigs and Radicals got in, and then commenced the
period of ultra-gentility in England. The Whigs and Radicals only hated
Wellington as long as the patronage of the country was in his hands, none
of which they were tolerably sure he would bestow on them; but no sooner
did they get it into their own, than they forthwith became admirers of
Wellington. And why? Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by
foreign princes, and a very genteel personage. Formerly many of your
Whigs and Radicals had scarcely a decent coat on their backs; but now the
plunder of the country was at their disposal, and they had as good a
chance of being genteel as any people. So they were willing to worship
Wellington because he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of
the country out of their hands. And Wellington has been worshipped, and
prettily so, during the last fifteen or twenty years. He is now a noble
fine-hearted creature; the greatest general the world ever produced; the
bravest of men; and--and--mercy upon us! the greatest of military
writers! Now the present writer will not join in such sycophancy. As he
was not afraid to take the part of Wellington when he was scurvily used
by all parties, and when it was dangerous to take his part, so he is not
afraid to speak the naked truth about Wellington in these days, when it
is dangerous to say anything about him but what is sycophantically
laudatory. He said in '32, that as to vice, Wellington was not worse
than his neighbours; but he is not going to say, in '54, that Wellington
was a noble-hearted fellow; for he believes that a more cold-hearted
individual never existed. His conduct to Warner, the poor Vaudois, and
Marshal Ney, showed that. He said, in '32, that he was a good general
and a brave man; but he is not going, in '54, to say that he was the best
general, or the bravest man the world ever saw. England has produced a
better general--France two or three--both countries many braver men. The
son of the Norfolk clergyman was a brave man; Marshal Ney was a braver
man. Oh, that battle of Copenhagen! Oh, that covering the retreat of
the Grand Army! And though he