es have been varnished over with
specious names, and the gigantic robbers and murderers of the world
have been holden up for imitation to the weak eyes of youth."

No wars, except the very few which we really required for national
self-defence, could attract his sympathy. Wars of intervention in the
affairs of other nations, even when undertaken for excellent objects, he
regarded with profound mistrust.

When in 1823, the nascent liberties of Spain were threatened, he wrote:--

"I am afraid we shall go to war; I am sorry for it. I see every day in
the world a thousand acts of oppression which I should like to resent,
but I cannot afford to play the Quixote. Why are the English to be the
sole vindicators of the human race?"

And again:--

"For God's sake, do not drag me into another war! I am worn down, and
worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protecting mankind;
I _must_ think a little of myself. I am sorry for the Spaniards--I am
sorry for the Greeks--I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of
the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny;
Bagdad is oppressed--I do not like the present state of the
Delta--Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people?
The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be champion of the
Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all
men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid
the consequence will be, that we shall cut each other's throats."

In 1830 he wrote to his friend Lady Holland about her son,[159] afterwards
General Fox:--

"I am very glad to see Charles in the Guards. He will now remain at
home; for I trust that there will be no more embarkation of the Guards
while I live, and that a captain of the Guards will be as ignorant of
the colour of blood as the rector of a parish. We have had important
events enough within the last twenty years. May all remaining events
be culinary, amorous, literary, or any thing but political!"

And so again, according to Lord Houghton, he said in later life:--

"I have spent enough and fought enough for other nations. I must think
a little of myself. I want to sit under my own bramble and sloe-tree
with my own great-coat and umbrella."

This is no fatty degeneration of the chivalrous spirit. It is merely the
old doctrine of Non-interven