we have to test the facts beyond a doubt, it would
be hardly credible. He states the amount and composition
of the force required. He warns the minister
of the incessant exertions and sacrifices that will be
demanded of England ("you must send everything
from England; arms, ammunition, clothing, accoutrements;
ordnance, flour, oats, &c. &c"). He determines
at once the object and the direction of the military
operations; he points out the proper lines of
communication; and he confidently declares the possibility
of saving Portugal from the grasp of France, even in
the event of an unfavourable result in Spain. No
subsequent adverse influence availed to move him
from these designs. He had satisfied himself that
what ought to be done was to be done best in that
manner, and therefore no fears, no doubts, no
obstructions on the part of others, availed to damp, to
discourage, or to turn him aside. What Sir Arthur
Welle.dey thus planned out, while yet uncertain
whether he might not even be superseded in the
command, he afterwards, on the same memorable day,
received his patents as a baron, a viscount, an earl,
a marquis, and a duke, for having carried to
triumphant issue.

Such was the Duke of Wellington's principle of
conduct. He never complained of the withholding
of a favour, or asked for the concession of one, but was
content quietly to make it clear to all whom it might
concern, that he at least was the man who had the
best title to receive it. When the measure of his
honours was afterwards filled up to overflowing, he had
occasion to declare what his rule of conduct had thus
been respecting them, to one whose services he highly
valued, but for whom he nevertheless refused to
ask a favour. ''The only mode," he remarks, "in
my opinion, in which favours can be acceptable, or
honours and distinction can be received with
satisfaction, is when they are conferred spontaneously.
What I would recommend to you is, to express
neither disappointment nor wishes upon the subject,
even to an intimate friend, much less to the government.
Continue, as you have done hitherto, to
deserve the honourable distinction to which you aspire,
and you may be certain that, if the government is
wise, you will obtain it. If you do not obtain it, you
may depend upon it that there is no person of whose
good opinion you would be solicitous who will think
the worse of you on that account. The comparison
between myself, who have been the most favoured of
his majesty's subjects, and you, will not be deemed
quite correct: and I advert to my own situation only
to tell you that I recommend to you conduct which
I have always followed. Notwithstanding the
numerous favours that I have received from the Crown,
I have never solicited one; and I have never hinted,
nor would any one of my friends or relations venture
to hint for me, a desire to receive even one; and
much as I have been favoured, the consciousness that
it has been spontaneously, gives me more satisfaction
than anything else. I recommend to you the same
conduct, and patience; and, above all, resignation,
if, after all, you should not succeed in acquiring what
you wish." The most precious maxims that can
govern ordinary life are here simply and unpretendingly
expressed. They are applicable in every sphere,
and the secret of unspeakable content is contained in
them for all.

It is after reading such words as these we feel the
happy appropriateness of what Lord John Russell has
remarked of the priceless value of the Duke of
Wellington's example. Let us not be so dazzled by the
magnificence of his exploits, says in effect the late
Premier, as not to perceive that what lay at the heart of
them, and formed the substance of his successes, was a
something not in its degree unattainable by the
humblest of his countrymen. Let us fix our thoughts
on such qualities as we may ourselves emulate, and
the example of which should be present with us on
all occasions. In recollecting him as a man of whom
England was so justly proud, let us never fail also to
recollect that what in his sphere made him that
which he became, was precisely that which it is not
less within the reach of all to imitate in their degree,
and to such extent succeed equally in attaining.

But what we have quoted hitherto was written in successful
days, or at times when occasional disaster had not
materially clouded the prospect of success. Let him be
viewed in other circumstances. It was at the gloomiest
period of the war, when the stupidity of our home
ministers and the treachery of our foreign allies bad
made his position most embarrassing, that the common
council of London resolved to address the Throne
against him. "I cannot expect mercy at their hands,''
he writes on the occasion to Lord Liverpool, "whether
I succeed or fail; and if I should fail, they will not
inquire whether the failure is owing to my own
incapacity, to the blameless errors to which we are
all liable, to the faults or mistakes of others, to the
deficiency of our means, to the serious difficulties of
our situation, or to the great power and abilities
of our enemy. In any of these cases I shall become
their victim; but I am not to be alarmed at this
additional risk, and, whatever may be the
consequences, I shall continue to do my best in this
country." From whatever quarter threatenings of
danger assailed him, they found his mind invariably
fixed on what was necessary to be done, and on that
only. "The French threaten us on all points," he
wrote, a day or two after the foregoing, "and are
most desirous to get rid of us. But they threaten
upon too many points at a time, to give me much
uneasiness respecting any one in particular; and
they shall not induce me to disconnect my army.
I am in a situation in which no mischief can
be done to my forces, or to any part of them;
I am prepared for all events; and if I am in a
scrape, as appears to be the general belief in England,
although certainly not my own, I'll get out of it."
Again, not many weeks later: "When we do go, I
feel a little anxiety to go, like gentlemen, out of the
hall-door, particularly after the preparations which I
have made to enable us to do so; and not out of the
back door, or by the area."

Nothing can disturb this cool and quiet temper.
When the French army was within cannon-shot of
his head-quarters, he held a ball to celebrate Lord
Beresford's investiture as a knight of the Bath, every
officer who attended being under arms at his post
before daylight on the following morning. In the
midst of occupations that would have overwhelmed
any ordinary person with the mere amount of work
necessitated by them, if such a person could have
survived the anxiety of mind which they involved,
the Duke of Wellington could find ample time for even
the pastimes and amusements of the country life of
England. "You should embark your infantry under
Salvaterra," he writes to Beresford, "near where we
used to kill our hares." "I see Tweeddale's hounds
are just arrived," he writes to Cotton; " I hope you
will come over and take a hunt some day or other, or
we will draw your way when you like it."

Yet there was not a shade of bravado in all this.
No man that ever headed an army in the field had a
stronger or keener appreciation of the power and
capacity of the men opposed to him, than the Duke
of Wellington; none so disinclined as he, to making
showy brilliant display by inviting needless conflict
"Depend upon it," he writes to Lord Liverpool,
"whatever people may tell you, I am not so desirous
as they imagine of fighting desperate battles; if I was,