FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102  
103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>   >|  
er the impression that the city had fallen into his hands, "required Palafox to surrender in these words: 'Quartel-general, Santa Engracia. La Capitulation!' ['Head-quarters, St. Engracia. Capitulation']. The reply was, 'Quartel-general, Zaragoza. Guerra al cuchillo' ['Head-quarters, Zaragoza. War at the knife's point']." Subsequently, December, 1808, when Moncey (1754-1842) again called upon him to surrender, he appealed to the people of Madrid. "The dogs," he said, "by whom he was beset scarcely left him time to clean his sword from their blood; but they still found their grave at Zaragoza." Southey notes that "all Palafox's proclamations had the high tone and something of the inflection of Spanish romance, suiting the character of those to whom it was directed" (_Peninsular War_, ii. 25; iii. 152; _Narrative of the Siege_, by C. R. Vaughan, 1809, pp. 22, 23). Napier, whose account of the first siege of Zaragoza is based on Caballero's _Victoires et Conquetes des Francais_, and on the _Journal of Lefebvre's Operations_ (MSS.), does not record these romantic incidents. He attributes the raising of the siege to the "bad discipline of the French, and the system of terror established by the Spanish leaders." The inspirers and proclaimers of "war even to the knife" were, he maintains, _Tio_ or Goodman Jorge (Jorge Ibort) and Tio Murin, and not Palafox, who was ignorant of war, and who, on more than one occasion, was careful to provide for his own safety (_History of the War in the Peninsula_, i. 41-46).] 19. And thou, my friend! etc. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I have lost _her_ who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction-- "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn." _Night Thoughts: The Complaint_, Night i. (London, 1825, p. 5). I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too muc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102  
103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Zaragoza
 

thrice

 

Palafox

 
Engracia
 
Capitulation
 
Quartel
 

quarters

 

general

 

Spanish

 

surrender


Guards
 
Wingfield
 

Coimbra

 

provide

 

careful

 

safety

 

occasion

 

ignorant

 

History

 

Peninsula


Stanza
 

friend

 

Honourable

 
London
 

Complaint

 
Thoughts
 
ventured
 

College

 

Downing

 

Cambridge


Fellow

 

Matthews

 
memory
 
Charles
 

Skinner

 
tolerable
 

Goodman

 

suffice

 

archer

 

fiction


Insatiate

 

happiest

 
romantic
 

scarcely

 
Madrid
 
people
 

proclamations

 

inflection

 
Southey
 

appealed