As he had been obliged to cover with his fame the sins of his patrons at the opening of his career, so he suffered in the disgrace of others when he had helped to win Europe for them. The tyrants of the Holy Alliance made him appear an accomplice in their iniquity, though he was in nowise responsible for the abuse of the power which he had so mainly contributed to recover for them. This is admitted and comprehended now. When we turn to him as a statesman, we have the same character, but employed on a subject respecting which his mind was not specially instructed. There were the same sense of right, the same simple singlemindedness, the same disdain of hollow convention, the same disregard of personal consequences; but there were, also, the pride of birth and the habit of aristocratic predilection, and the absence of philosophical training which might countervail them. What he could discern, he saw rightly; but he could not see enough. In the case of Catholic emancipation he perceived a coming civil war, and with the courage that would rather bear obloquy than inflict such miseries as civil war entails, he magnanimously yielded his political preferences. Reform he opposed because he could not see how the king's government was to be carried on.' He professed no theoretical distinction of right; he never said that the aristocracy ought, as a moral choice, to have the government of England: but he had a machine that would work, with which, indeed, he had secured England's safety in the Catholic emancipation against England's will, and he did not wish to see the machine broken till he was sure that another could be provided. When the Reform Bill had done that, he accepted it, and, in his way, he did his best with it. Never a violent partisan, in the latter years of his life he has been almost released from party altogether. As Commander-in-Chief he has independently pursued the good of the service, and applied the nation's forces to their most effectual purpose. He has been an arbiter between factions, with the power of the House of Lords to enforce his decrees. Of that institution he may almost be said to be the saviour, in moderating its opposition when opposition was most dangerous. The Peerage was instinctively grateful to him. He held its decisions often and continuously in the proxies he had in his pocket. To the last it would have been a desperate attempt to move the Lords to thwart his will or oppose his judgment. He had a veto, at least, upon all

that was proposed in the British Legislature. He is gone. The Northmen's image of death is finer than that of other climes; no skeleton, but a gigantic figure that envelopes men within the massive folds of its dark garment. Wellington seems so enshrouded from us, as the last of a mighty series, the greatest closing the procession. The robe draws round him and the era is past. His offices and honours lie like a wreck and spoil on his empty path. They must only be taken up by worthy hands. It will be an additional reproach upon all insufficiency, that it struts in the garment of the Duke of Wellington. Royal personages are

bruited as his successors in his greatest function, that of Commander-in-Chief. Let them shun the comparison. Let them pause before they revive ideas which it is wise in their order to obliterate. It will be difficult enough to arrange for the due performance of that anomalous office. We require at once a security that it should not be made an instrument of party bribery by a Minister of War, and that it shall not be removed from the animadversions of public opinion in the House of Commons. There is a Gordian knot to be loosed as intricate as the East Indian government. But, in any case, the Commandership must not be the prize of blood, or interest, or connexion. Prince Albert would begin his unpopularity by assuming such a dignity, to the exclusion of men who have earned their experience in hard soldierly life. The insult of placing the Duke of Cambridge in such a position is not to be surmised without proof. As to the minor means of patronage, even to the bestowal of the ribbon of the Garter, we are entitled to demand a strict account. There is no irresponsible patronage now. If an institution, even such as an order of chivalry, is to be upheld, it must be by associating to it only such as mankind will willingly honour. If public assent does not confirm the new knight in his election, his companionship is disgraced. We know the suddenness of selfish action, or we should not advert to such topics in this article. By the memory of the past we charge the dispensers of the future. And here we pause, not from having exhausted our subject, but of necessity, being content, for the moment, to yield our concurrence in many points on which men are agreed, and to propound such differences as we need not fear to maintain. Many among our readers will have to talk of the subject of this article to satisfy the interest of children's

children; the best proof of the sincerity of present praises is our belief that his name will be spoken to children's children with increased reverence and affection."

The following article from the "Assemblée Nationale" is in striking and honourable contrast to the remarks which have been made in some of the Paris journals. The "Assemblée"

says:

"Great men disappear, and every day witnesses the fall of the last illustrious personages who have been on the stage since the commencement of the present century. By the death of the Duke of Wellington, M. de Metternich is the sole survivor of the political celebrities who remodelled the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna. We have already spoken of the Duke of Wellington, and have retraced the principal circumstances of his glorious career. If we now return to this subject, it is to protest against the bad taste of some journals, which, in order to flatter the cause which now triumphs, draws comparisons between the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Buonaparte. We know nothing more. odious than the judgments passed on illustrious contemporaries from the point of view of a narrow and unjust patriotism. This low rhetoric is of a nature to degrade us in the eyes of foreigners who read our journals, and who take them for the expression of public opinion. Every great nation, we know, is animated with a national spirit, which has its inevitable prejudices. France and England will never agree on the manner of judging Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. Is it therefore impossible, by rising above those passions of circumstances, to arrive at the truth with regard to these two illustrious rivals? The year 1769 witnessed several glorious births, but certainly there was nothing more remarkable in that year than the simultaneous appearance on the stage of the world of the two men who were to meet at Waterloo. It appears that Providence proposed to balance one by the otherto oppose to a great genius one of a quite contrary character, and to bring in contact qualities and gifts of the most dissimilar kind. The principal characteristics of the genius of Napoleon were a prodigious and insatiable imagination, aspiring to the impossible, the most vast and flexible faculties, but also a singular mobility

of ideas and impressions. A solid judgment, a cool reason, a wonderful justness of perception both on the field of battle and in the cabinet, the most penetrating good sense, amounting to a power which became genius, a perseverance which nothing could tire or turn aside, and the most unshakeable firmness in great dangerssuch are some of the points which give the Duke of Wellington such a prominent figure in the history of the nineteenth century. It was at a giant's pace that Napoleon ran through a career which was to lead him for a moment to the head of human things. By the rapidity of his ascent he dazzled the world, and everything with him took the character of a magic improvisation. His rival, on the contrary, rose with patient and modest slowness by a courageous reflection. He never drew back, however; he always went forward, and his glory followed a progression which escaped all reverses. To speak warmly to the imagination of men, to fascinate them, to excite their enthusiasm, and to labour by every means to inspire them with an admiration, mingled with a little terror, was the constant study of Napoleon, who was far from disdaining artifice to effect his purpose. The Duke of Wellington never thought but of speaking to the reason; he was never seen to do anything in a theatrical manner. Duty was the only rule which he admitted and which he imposed on others. He had a horror of charlatanism and falsehood. He never sought to excite his soldiers, but sometimes he reminded them that they had to shed their blood because it was their duty. No astonishment will therefore be felt at the difference in the eloquence and the style of the two Generals. In the proclamations of Napoleon, particularly in those of the campaigns of Italy, is to be found a powerful orator, who, in the manner of the ancients, engraves great images in the minds of those to whom he addresses himself. The orders of the day, the dispatches, and the reports of the Duke of Wellington, were written with a cold and austere simplicity. No scope is given to effect-everything is positive and true. The Emperor Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington were not only great captains, they have also been both called on to play great political parts. History will perhaps decide, that in Buonaparte the organiser was equal to the conqueror. It must not, however, be forgotten, that the possession and the use of sovereign power smoothed down many obstacles. With despotism great things are often easy.

It was in a free country that during thirty-seven years, from 1815 to 1852, the Duke of Wellington enjoyed an unequalled influence and authority. Placed by his birth, and more particularly by his glory, at the head of the English aristocracy, he belonged, truly speaking, to no party. It may be said that, in the bosom of the constitutional liberty of his country, the Duke of Wellington exercised a kind of moral dictatorship. The assistance which he was able to give or to withhold from the Government was immense. Although naturally Conservative by his principles and the nature of his genius, the Duke of Wellington did not, however, hesitate to propose to the Crown and to Parliament the emancipation of the Catholics. In his eyes that reform was politic, just, and necessary. But his opinion was very different with regard to Parliamentary Reform, which appeared to him to change the political constitution of Old England, and to threaten her with serious dangers. Was he mistaken? The future alone can decide. We only now witness the first consequences of Parliamentary Reform, and twenty years have scarcely passed since the Duke of Wellington opposed it in the House of Lords. We must wait for a longer trial, remarking, however, that the symptoms already seen are far from impeaching the foresight of the illustrious statesman. If at any future period England should find herself exposed to any great danger, either at home or abroad, her ideas would certainly revert to the man who, for sixty years, served and defended her. She will appreciate still more that wise, firm, and sober genius, who never allowed himself either to be intimidated or to be excited, and whose moderation was rewarded by such a splendid destiny. The end and fall of the Emperor Napoleon are the last points of contrast which we pointed out at the outset. The Emperor fell, the scaffolding crumbled away, and he who raised it with heroic temerity only survived his irreparable shipwreck for a few years in exile. His fortunate rival, after a day by which the face of Europe was changed, saw open before him another career, which procured for him a new glory between peace and liberty, and which has only just finished in the midst of the unanimous regret and the gratitude of a great country. Is not such a lesson a striking proof of the final ascendancy of reason and of good sense over all the boldness and the flights of imagination and of genius? The contrast of these two destinies, and these two great historical