permitted in the Shades to hear what happens on the Earth, he must smile at the revenge which Time has taken upon the aspirations of democracy. While Gleig was perpetual curate of Ash, he was a constant visitor at Walmer Castle, and he describes the many guests whom the Duke entertained with a shrewd appreciation of their aspect and character. It is difficult to say anything fresh of Talleyrand, yet we know no better portrait than Gleig's: A flat head, covered with a mass of perfectly white hair, which, combed down over the forehead, gave to it the appearance of being preternaturally low, contradicted the received theories which make a lofty brow, an oval crown, the outward and visible signs of genius. His eyes, small, black, and sunken in their sockets, were surmounted with bushy eyebrows perfectly black and straight. A nose short and retroussé, a complexion ashy pale rather than sallow, and a chin strongly marked, made up a countenance which, when in repose, was wellnigh repulsive. However, his face lit up when he made a jest or epigram, but this was seldom, if we may believe Gleig, who says that Talleyrand was taciturn in company, and was particularly disinclined to conversation at dinner, in his eyes the most important function of the day. The Duke apparently thought little of his abilities, regarding him as a "commonplace politician, who owed his advancement to the anxiety of the French Government to obtain the services of as many aristocrats as were willing to make common cause with it." Talleyrand was only one of many foreigners who broke their journey at Walmer. Thither came General Alava, who for many years was intimate with the Duke, but who was so devoted to intrigue that he could not forbear to communicate with Lord Grey even while he was living in the Duke's But house; and Count Nugent, who in the Peninsula offered Wellington the command of the united armies of Austria and Prussia, if only an alliance could be made between those Powers and England. The task which Gleig sets himself of judging the Duke's colleagues in Parliament is not so easy, but he acquits himself with a fair show of justice. He is somewhat too hard upon Lyndhurst, it is true; but he was evidently led away by the gossip of the time to believe the great Chancellor a venal and unstable politician. For this, however, there is little warrant. Though, like many another, Lyndhurst may have been a Jacobin in his youth, he showed himself an able and consistent Tory for nearly half a century, and there is not the slightest ground for doubting his sincerity. Nor will we believe, except on far stronger evidence than Gleig was able to adduce, that he made his patronage profitable. But from the first Lyndhurst was exposed to misunderstanding and slander. Greville declares that he was an American, and he was no more an American than Greville himself. The other Whigs denounced the violence, of which they stood in awe, and did their best to belittle an overmastering talent charges of peculation. But Lyndhurst was wise enough to suffer no hurt from their attacks. His great gifts of knowledge, eloquence, and statecraft raised him above the intrigues wherewith he was assailed, while his handsome person and affable manners shamed many of his opponents into admiration. To win a tribute from men so different as mean Disraeli and Brougham is no achievement, yet, while Disraeli always regarded Lyndhurst as the statesman who first helped and protected him in public life, Brougham, a lifelong adversary, sang his praises with a frank enthusiasm. He admits that Lyndhurst held all men very cheap, but says, "He by was so immeasurably superior to his contemporaries, and indeed to almost all who had gone before him, that he might well be pardoned for looking down rather than praising." At the same time Brougham admits that, despite his superiority, Lyndhurst was always kind and genial. "His good nature was perfect, and he had neither nonsense nor cant any more than he had littleness or spite in his composition." This tribute is the more striking because Lyndhurst never disguised his well-grounded contempt for Brougham's mischievous policy. To Lord Lyndhurst's conversation Gleig does full justice, though he might, as we have said, have dealt more amiably with his character. On the other hand, he has discussed Croker with equal understanding and tact, which are the more remarkable because Croker has been the butt of Whigs and Tories alike. Before his death he inspired two of the bitterest portraits known to literature, and after his death the acid wherewith his character had been etched was not diluted. Indeed, not until Mr. Jennings published his "Correspondence and Diaries" was a single word uttered in Croker's favor. The world had already made up its mind that he was base, venal, and obsequious, and Croker's turpitude seemed as much an article of faith as the invincibility of the British Navy. Gleig has thrown the weight of his authority into Croker's scale, and has given us many excellent reasons why the obstinate verdict of thirty years ago should be revised. Of course, Croker possessed certain traits which irritated or outraged his companions. He could as little conceal his vanity as he could restrain his tongue. He must win all the applause for himself, and monopolize the conversation in all societies. When he sat down to write he dipped his pen in gall, obeying the dictates not of malice but of style, and he was condemned to suffer for the sins of all the others who rent their enemies in "The Quarterly," as well as for his own. On the other hand, as Gleig points out, "Croker was as capable of strong attachments as of strong antipathies. His friendship for Canning was as sincere as it was lasting, and his feelings for the Duke of Wellington amounted to something like reverence." For thirty years he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with Peel, and no one who reads the last letters which passed between the two can doubt for a moment on which side lay the sin of disloyalty. In politics, moreover, he always played a straightforward game, and never once sacrificed principles to profit. In brief, as Gleig says, "Croker was a very remarkable man. His faults were those of temperament and manner. His good qualities were not overbalanced by them. His abilities were of a high order, and if he failed to achieve the highest honors in any one walk of life, it was because he frittered away his powers in too many. But by a sort of consent he has been held up to obloquy for sixty years, and it will be long before his memory is relieved of the weight of prejudice which still lies upon it. Gleig's judgment of Peel is consonant with his known sympathy and opinions. He did not like the great parliamentarian any more than he liked his views or admired his temper. Peel's manners, he writes, "so far as my experience goes, were stiff, cold, and therefore forbidding. The impression they made upon you was that you were in the presence of a man so terribly afraid of committing himself that he could not utter a word on any subject till he had well weighed all its possible consequences." To Gleig he appeared cautious, prim, taciturn, and uncertain of himself. He could never forget, we are told, that though he led the magnates of England he was not of them. He lived in the House of Commons and for the House of Commons, which whole-hearted devotion explains both his power and its limitations. Not a picturesque figure, perhaps; but we cannot charge Gleig with having drawn it in too sombre colors. Indeed, the striking quality of all these sketches is their moderation. The author was evidently determined to do justice to all those whom he encountered, and to be swayed neither by rumor nor by the prejudices of others. The Arbuthnots, Lord and Lady Salisbury, Sir Charles Napier,he finds a judicious word to say of them all, and though in recently published memoirs we have read much of these personages, Gleig, being always sincere, has something to record which has escaped the others. But the true hero of his "Reminiscences," as of his life-long adoration, is the Duke of Wellington himself. As he is the central point of Gleig's politics, so he is the central point of his book. The others are brought on and off the stage merely as they affect the great protagonist, whose character Gleig has sketched with a careful elaboration. Concerning his domestic relations there is little said; indeed, there is little to say. His marriage was a misfortune which embittered his life, and persuaded him to declare that, could he have his career over again, with all its honors and success, he would reject the boon. He was not bound to his sons by strong ties of affection, and thought that his duty towards them was accomplished when he had given them what he deemed the best education and sent them into the army. His views on education were sound and clear. When he was consulted by parents as to the training which would best fit their sons for the army, his answer was always the same. "Send them to a public school," he would say, "or to one of the universities. In this country an officer must be something more than a fighting machine, and should therefore acquire such knowledge and habits of thought as shall qualify him to fill, with credit to himself and benefit to the public, such a post as governor of a colony, and to act, if called upon to do so, as a magistrate." What he urged upon others, he did himself. His sons went from Eton to Oxford, and thence, after what the Duke held an unjust rustication, to Cambridge. But when they had obtained their commissions, they ceased to hold either the affection or the interest of their father. We must not, however, infer from this that the Duke was insensitive or unemotional. On the contrary he was a man of warm friendships, who depended throughout his life upon the sympathy of women, and probably the frigidity of his domestic relations was the cause, not the effect, of a somewhat hard temper. His perfect success in his profession was due as much to a determined concentration as to any other quality. He never frittered his time or his wits upon such vain and pleasant pursuits as could only prove a hindrance to his career. He was a soldier first, then a statesman; but he was never a dilettante, and literature exercised no claim upon him. Though he took a keen interest in history, as one who had also played his part in the world's drama, he was frank enough to avow a distaste of poetry; and he judged all books by the same practical standard of utility wherewith he judged men. Not even the pursuits of the country, in which he spent the greater part of his time, had any attraction for him, and he was as ignorant of agriculture as Montaigne, who confessed, not without a certain boastfulness, that he could not tell a cabbage from a lettuce. On one occasion the Duke asked Arbuthnot how turnips were propagated,―by seed or by cuttings, like potatoes. But though in most affairs of life the Duke was simple as a child, he was a rigid economist in his own house, in which he permitted no detail to escape his vigilance. "Having once suffered from the roguery of an upper servant," says Gleig, "he never again intrusted the payment of his bills to any hand except his own, and kept his cellar low in order that his wine account, like his accounts with butcher, baker, and coalmerchant, should always be of short standing." Economical of all things, he was most economical of his time. Though he emerged at ten o'clock for breakfast, he immediately returned to his room, and as often as not was not seen again until in the afternoon he either drove or rode, in neither of which exercises he excelled. "You return home before dark,"-again it is Gleig who writes,-"repair for an hour or more to your respective chambers, and meet again at seven for dinner. It is a very simple meal, consisting of soup, fresh herrings, an entremet, a small leg of Welsh mutton, a roast pheasant, and a pudding. The Duke has an excellent appetite, and eats fast. He still drinks his wine, though moderately, and after wine and coffee you repair to the drawing-room, where an arm-chair is set on each side of the fireplace, with a little table and candle near it." The details, you may object, are trivial, but it is by details that you may know a man. All great soldiers behave with the same composure on the field of battle. The small differences of habit and custom distinguish one from another; and Gleig, by recording what might seem to be unimportant, has yet done us a signal service. When we approach the more serious side of the Duke's character, we shall see that he engrossed the sterner virtues, as Marlborough, in Chesterfield's phrase, engrossed the Graces. In honVOL. XXIV. 1246 LIVING AGE. or, duty, energy, courage, he was a pattern for his age and for all time. He never fell short of the occasion; he always sacrificed himself to the public good; and never in a long career did he yield a jot of purpose to the vain desire of popularity, the bootless wish to stand well with men. Moreover, so strict was his sense of justice that, aristocrat though he was in feeling and conviction, he would not transgress what he deemed right even to serve his order. As a statesman, he suspected the people of harboring designs against the time-honored institutions of the country. He did not believe that the wisest and best rulerswere to be found among the uneducated. "It was to the influence of an aristocracy," he held, "patriotic, moderate, and just, that England owed her moral superiority over other nations. Secrets were never betrayed in our public offices or in our embassies. Why? Because public offices and embassies were officered by gentlemen who, unlike the officials of other states, were proof against bribes. The English army was the best in the world, not because Englishmen are braver or more enduring than other races, but because the officers of the English army are gentlemen." Yet though he was staunch in this opinion, he was no respecter of persons. As Commanderin-Chief, he once reprimanded the Duke of Clarence, and feared that, when William IV. came to the throne, he would suffer for his honesty. But William IV. was after his own guise as honest as the Duke, and bore no malice for what no doubt he owned to be an act of justice. Again, loyal though he was to the throne, Wellington criticized the kings under whom he had served with the utmost frankness. While he thought George III. the best king that ever ruled over England, he attributed to George IV.'s lack of fidelity to his Ministers most of the diffi culties which he had to meet when in office. "And there is no excuse for him," he said, "as there is for his successor." George IV. was naturally an able man, and was by no means wanting in knowledge on all subjects, and especially on politics. But there was a moral twist in him which made it impossible quite to believe what he said at the moment, and still less to depend upon his promises. The Duke of Cumberland, though neither as clever as he nor possessing a tittle of his general knowledge, had enormous influence over him, simply because he had, while the king had not, a strong will, and he exercised it while he was First Lord of the Treasury in the most mischievous manner. . . . Still the king's death when it occurred was a great misfortune. We could have got on with the Parliament which passed our Bill-ay, in spite of the Revolution in Paris. But his sense of rank and aristocracy was modified by a personal pride, which his career entirely justified. He never forgave Louis XVIII., who, fearing lest the Duke should ask the life of Ney, declined on frivolous pretexts to grant him an audience; and when, after Ney was shot, Louis XVIII. sent word that he would see him, Wellington properly ignored the message. "As commanding my sovereign's troops," said he, "I must remain here, and whatever is officially required of me I will do; but I am likewise an English gentleman. The king has insulted me, and unless the insult be atoned for, I will never go near him except on public business." In that spirit the Duke met the world, a spirit of loyalty, honor, and justice, which is not sympathetic to the most of men. That the Duke was not popular can hardly be denied. He was feared and respected, but he was not loved. Though he never appeared but to the applause of the people except during the years of agitation, though every word he uttered was reverently pondered, the incense offered him burnt at a cold fire. His intimates, even when they were Whigs, like Creevey and Greville, cherished a distant affection for him, but he could not arouse the enthusiasm of the people or of his own soldiers. The truth is, the graver virtues which we have enumerated do not glitter in the public eye, and Wellington was content to do his duty, and, as he might have said himself, to let the rest be damned. In other words, he was a realist, who esteemed truth and a practical issue above all else in the world. The ultimate purpose of his action was always more important in his eyes than its outward effect, and it may be said that he was wholly lacking in decorative instinct. The result was that no sentiment of romance clung to his name. He was rather an ancient Roman than an ancient Greek. He was greeted in Piccadilly not as a man who was something, but as a man who had achieved something. For this reason his presence never exercised the magic without which Napoleon, or Marlborough, or even lesser men than he or they, never appeared before their troops. In truth, the feeling of the army, as of the people, towards the Duke was one of respect and confidence rather than of personal devotion. "This is not to be wondered at," as Gleig says. "Strictly just, according to his own views of justice, the Duke took no pains whatever to conciliate the love or stir the enthusiasm of his followers. In the hour of danger his presence was worth the arrival of a strong reinforcement, and his cheery word and lively manners acted like a charm on the men, however hardly pressed." But beyond taking a scrupulous care of his troops, and seeing that they were well fed and clothed, he did little to win their attachment. He never indulged in rhetoric when he |