THE THREE KINGDOMS.

EVERY other matter of public interest is, for the time,
absorbed in the death of the Duke of Wellington.
All the world is uttering its thoughts of the great man
who has so lately passed away. Since the event was
known, there has been but one feeling or desire
animating every public writer possessing the least
claim to represent public spirit or public opinion
amongst us,—namely, how best to express what he
was, and what all parties honoured him for having
been. Wonderfully has this been done. No solemn
state or gorgeous ceremonial that may yet await what
remains of the great warrior, can add to the glory
which has been gathered round his name and services
from day to day since his mortal career ended. The
country has reason to be proud, which can show such
a healthy and noble appreciation of a noble life.
Rarely, upon any theme, has such high intellectual
power been displayed, under guidance of so true a
moral sense. There has been no vulgar worship of
the successful soldier. The "splendida facinora"
which every sinner may perpetrate, have been
counted as nothing to those life-long services of duty
which only the good as well as great achieve.

The full harvest of praise gathered in, little remains
to the gleaner. But it has occurred to us to turn to
the language of the Duke himself for some leading
illustrations of his character. Thus may we best
confirm the most exalted anticipations of what the
final verdict of history will be. For if the Duke of
Wellington had any one merit more signal than
others which distinguished him, it was that of being
always able to measure himself with exactness, his
own wants, his capacities, and his powers. He
equalled the ablest of his adversaries in knowing,
upon all emergencies, what should be done; but he
surpassed them in also knowing the precise means
by which to do it, and in the ability himself to put
those means in operation. In proof of this we have
but to turn to his Despatches, the most durable of all
the monuments which the Duke lived to see erected to
his own glory.

And first let us show how he wrote these despatches.
"I am obliged to you," he tells a correspondent
at the outset of his Peninsular career, "for your offer
to procure me assistance to copy my despatches; but
I have plenty of that description. The fact is, that,
excepting upon very important occasions, I write my
despatches without making a draft; and those which
I sent you were so written before I set out in the
morning, and I had not time to get them copied
before they were sent, which is the reason why I
asked you to return me copies of them." The clear-
ness of view, and decision of purpose, with which the
Duke addressed himself to whatever business he took
in hand, is here very strikingly apparent.

Self-possession in particular circumstances is the
most remarkable of human qualities. There is no
more decisive test of greatness. Marlborough was
without education, unacquainted with grammar, in

literature a mere lowest-form boy all his life; yet his
perfect master over himself gave him a singular
mastery over others, and no man could persuade or
convince more successfully. Wellington's power in
this respect was supreme. The most elaborate of
his despatches appear to have been written in
circumstances which probably no other living man would
have found compatible with such an occupation.
Of one of these extraordinary performances (a most
lengthy as well as able treatise on Portuguese finance,
addressed to the British Minister at Lisbon), Colonel
Gurwood tells us that it must have been written
whilst the enemy were manœuvring in view.

The early manifestation of the Duke's genius and
character breaks upon the reader of his despatches
with startling effect. He is the same man when as
junior-officer he commands a single brigade on home-
service, when major-general in the Deccan, or colonel
in Mysore, as he is when in command of the allied
army of occupation in the full effulgence of his fame.
Sir Arthur and the Duke are identical. In India fifty
years ago, as in the Peninsula a few years later, he
administers the entire civil affairs of extensive
territories, manages the minutest details of commissariat
finance, brings difficult negotiations to successful
issue, and leads numerous armies to brilliant victories,
with the same resolute determination, the same calm
decision, the same immovable discipline, an impar-
tiality as of fate itself, and the same steady and
unfaltering results. "There is a fellow by the name of
Mousa, at Tillicherry," he says during the war with the
Mahrattas, "who supplies the Rajah with rice, to my
certain knowledge. A hint might be given to him that
I am in the habit of hanging those whom I find living
under the protection of the Company and dealing
treacherously towards their interests; that I spare
neither rank nor riches, but that, on the contrary, I
punish severely those who, by their example, create
the evils for which the unfortunate people suffer." It
would be difficult to express in fewer or more simple
words the rule of severe, yet healthy justice, which
had afterwards such wonderful effect in the great
Peninsular campaigns.

One of the most memorable of the Duke's despatches
is the first that was written to Lord Castlereagh, on
landing in Portugal. The intimation had at this time
reached him that other general officers of superior
rank to his own had been ordered on the same service.
But he makes no complaint. "All that I can say," he
remarks, "upon that subject is, that whether I am to
command the army or not, or am to quit it, I shall do
my best to ensure its success; and you may depend
upon it that I shall not hurry the operations, or commence
them one moment sooner than they ought to be
commenced, in order that I may acquire the credit of
the success." And then he proceeds, while the troops
have not yet disembarked, to sketch in a few sentences
the plan of the war, so exactly as it was afterwards
successfully carried out, that but for the means