terlitz campaign, or of the campaigns in France, was splendid in its conception and execution. The lines of Torres Vedras and the desolation of Portugal made that country impossible for the French. The seizure of Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo made the invasion of Spain possible. The consequences of the Salamanca campaign relieved the south of Spain of the French. Vittoria swept them out of the Peninsula. If caution, leading to slowness of decision, somewhat carried to excess appears anywhere, surely it is in the Waterloo campaign. What wonder? To come into collision for the first time with a man with such a career as that of Napoleon behind him was likely to make any man cautious, no matter what confidence he had in himself. To face Napoleon, not with his old Peninsular army, but with a motley host of Dutch, Belgians, militiamen, and a mere sprinkling of solid English troops, held together by a scratch staff forced on him, despite all his remonstrances, by people of whom I never can think without getting too angry to dare to express myself, surely under such circumstances the feeling, "I shall beat him if I don't make some mistake," was a most natural one. To turn a hurried glance to other features of his character, it always seems to me that the disorders of the retreat from Burgos, and the famous circular letter dated Frenada, November 28, 1812, in which he frankly scolded the whole army for them, made a complete change in his feelings towards the men who had fought under him, and in theirs to him. Even Maxwell, his devoted and enthusiastic biographer, is obliged to admit that, as addressed to the whole army, it was thoroughly unjust. It did the worst thing that reproof addressed to the correction of abuses can do. It made no distinction between the real offenders and those corps which had, as some undoubtedly had done, preserved their discipline when others had lost theirs. Now, seeing that it is a much severer trial of a man to be "faithful among the faithless found" than to be so when all are doing their duty, this was doubly injurious to discipline. It screened the offenders, and it censured the men who had proved that they could we thoroughly depended on. The army, as a whole, never forgave him, absolutely as they trusted him as a leader. The genial words which at a later time another could so easily have said to the particular corps to whom he had been unjust, words which would in a moment have wiped out the remembrance of the wrong, were as impossible to him as it would have been to him to have said to Lord Charles, "I am sorry I did not understand earlier the reason of your being late." And yet, even when, in 1808, he commanded in Portugal, he could take pride and pleasure when writing to Major Barclay in saying, "As usual, I had an unanimous army, who would have undertaken anything for me; and I took care that the troops should be well provided with everything they wanted." I believe that the relations represented by that letter existed absolutely throughout his Indian career, and were not changed in any respect till that fatal November 28, 1812, subsequently to which and practically as a consequence of the exposures of the retreat from Burgos, he created that army which "could go anywhere and do anything," but one which never had with him the sympathy of those earlier campaigners under him. When, on his return to England, he almost kicked off his connection with the army' as with a worn-out shoe that had done its work, no doubt the influences upon him were mixed. He had an unrivalled position in society, one which, at least till the Reform Bill began to loom in the distance, was of supreme influence both in the country and in the House of Lords. Many of the statesmen with whom he associated were suspicious of a soldier as such, and the less he ar peared to bind himself up with the army, the more easy was it for him to take the high offices which almost inevitably, despite the suspicions of many of his colleagues, opened to him. He had been in the Irish Office even before he had seen fighting, and had associated on intimate terms all his life with leading statesmen. His military career was obviously over; the largest career which opened before uim was that of statesmanship. The habits of hard, businesslike work which he had acquired in the field made an active career necessary to him. He was still young-only forty-six when Waterloo was fought. Probably the extent to which he threw himself into society, and preferred to be known as a man of fashion rather than as a soldier, was at first simply due to yielding to the attractions of a life which had been always familiar and pleasant to him, all the more attractive because of long years of campaigning. Nevertheless, I feel tolerably sure that the cause which made him cut himself off from all association with his old comrades in arms, so that hardly any of them were ever to be seen at Strathfieldsaye, was something more than this. In the first place, though his culture was of a certain special kind, the wide-minded view of a man who had all his life been dealing with large questions both of politics and business, and did not represent much knowledge of the thought of mankind in other branches of life, it gave him an interest in subjects about which most of his brother offcers cared very little and knew less. In the second place, when once the relations between him and his army, which began in 1812, and must have been increased by his undoubtedly just but most unpopular denunciations of the army which had won Waterloo for him, had been established, he was, as the stories of his relations with his own sons show clearly enough, not the man to take one step to clear them. But when one begins to try to produce a reasonable portrait of that massive face, and to sketch, not in the colorless white in which it is ordinarily presented to us, but with the light and shade that bring out its strong features, one needs not an article, but a volume. If, in trying to carry out the suggestion made to me that I should take "Assye" as the starting-point of a paper on Wellington for the September number of this mag azine, I have been able to suggest that there are many parts of the character which deserve to be brought out in order that one of our greatest generals may be known, I have done all that I can hope to do here. F. MAURICE. From The Nineteenth Century. Dr. Johnson is reported to have said that being in a ship was like being in a gaol, with the chance of being drowned; and without doubt one's "cabined, cribbed, confined" position, even on the largest modern steamers, is a prison; but with regard to "the chance of being drowned," I was assured that on board one of the great transatlantic liners was about the safest place in the world. In spite of all assurances, however, I am inclined to think that it is generally, if not in reality, at least in feeling and conjecture, rather a pitch-and-toss affair! In mid-ocean, on a precipitous and moving island, in a state of constant warfare with the most powerful elements of nature; now rocked from side to side by the enormous heaves of the ocean swell, and now breathlessly buffeting the thunderous beats of wave and wind, we must feel, even under the most favorable circumstances, that we are tiding over a time of considerable danger and risk. And accordingly, with or without good cause, I certainly found that an atmosphere of very great timidity and precaution permeated the whole ship. We see, also, that we are weathering the rough assaults of forces which, though equally inimical to all, are yet not such as are best confronted, in case of a mishap, by a united struggle, but that, on the contrary, so strong and merciless are they, that the only way of escaping from their sweeping and wholesale devastation is by single, selfish efforts-sauve qui peut. For we know that collective salvation will not then be the belief or order of the day, but that the survivors will be few and far between. It is true that in the mean time we are all in the same boat; but similarity of situation does not in these particular surroundings encourage much sympathy or friendliness, but tends rather to rouse special feelings of rivalry and hostility. We are therefore strangely on the defensive in our conduct and relations to one another. In fact, it is really quite ludicrous to see how careful and suspicious we become. We are on our guard from every quarter, north, south, east, and west; for, like weathercocks, we know not whence an ill wind may come blowing nobody any good. Every person and thing seems labelled "Dangerous," for does not each represent a possible collision and upset, or at least unpleasant disturbance? A touch, a word, a look may do it. One fears lest any injudicious remark or rash act should disarrange our machinery or that of the vessel, and perhaps spring a leak somewhere. Like the notable pots that were fellowtravellers down a stream, it is all right so long only as we take care not to crack one another. So we move gin gerly; we look askance; we speak disjointedly. Our sounds are signals; our movements balances; our seats anchorages. Nobody is at their ease. Every thing is angular and awkward, and liable to fall or slide at any moment. It is a shaky experience, where there is truly many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. It is a world out of plumb, where levels are constantly varying and lines crossing. We are, in fact, the whole time perilously bordering on an upsidedown state of affairs. Every one therefore takes up a position of stern personal vigilance and reserve, and each passenger is as isolated on board the ship as the ship herself is on the ocean. They look like mere colorless bundles of human ballast. Their expressions are as blank as mummies, and their manners as frigid and congealed as the frozen mutton below. Not a pore is open that can be shut. Weather-proof and water-tight, all their desires and interests are self-centred. Egoism reigns supreme. Dante's Inferno, is not more individual. Thus the boat is peopled with little human skiffs, separated and estranged from one another through this strong sense of the general risk and jeopardy of the situation and of the imminent possibility of rivalry and antagonism and thus, in coats of mail, as it were, we breast the dangers of the voyage, and such are the prevailing influences that regulate our conduct and sentiments; and of some such sort, also, is man, I fear, when placed between the devil and the deep sea. The truth is, we are only too thankful to be thus left high and dry both by the receding waves and our retiring companions, and would in neither case invite more intimate relations. This nervous spirit dominating everything, and our defensive, unfriendly appearance and bearing to one another, are not attractive. In fact, on board a ship is not for many reasons a sociable place, and most travellers are very near land again before they consent to become even nodding acquaintances. Such close quarters-on deck and at table, sharing state-rooms and sittingrooms-seem to enforce a companionship that most people dislike and resent: and so, if only for this reason, we are as cool and distant in manner as is possible under the pressing circumstances, until we have had time to recover from the shock of this inevitable and ubiquitous proximity. Nor is this climatic pillory a becoming place to the physical or even sartorial sides of our being. Saturated on deck with the salt sweat of the brine and unstinted fresh air, or pent up in air-tight holes for hours, or perhaps days, our physical appearance is in neither case shown off to advantage, while the costumes worn, especially the ladies' marine garments, look extremely ugly. So we are not, or rather we are, taken altogether, a pretty kettle of fish. Indeed, a collection of passengers at sea is uncommonly like a great cargo of human rubbish gathered from all parts of the globe, and heaped together in one discordant pile for the purpose of being carted out into midocean and there ignominiously consigned to the waves and deeps of oblivion. If, however, it should luckily escape this appropriate and timely end, and, thus as it were reprieved, should reach in safety a landing-stage, there is some justification for this merciful prolongation of life in the remarkable transformation scene that takes place when the happy hour of release approaches. Grace and chivalry once more relate the sexes; there is an extraordinary change for the better in their physical appearance; color and expression again declare themselves, and hair falls into place and shape, while their figures and limbs seem actually to take a new shape as they stand once more on steady ground, and, with autochthonic pride, tread in the well-worn footsteps; and clothes become again decorative. Verily, to disembark is to escape as from a gaol, and the minute the "unplumbed, salt, estranging" gulf that separates us from home and hearth is bridged by the gangway, pushing forward, bag and baggage, we hasten across to coveted freedom and exercise of mind and body, to roam and to stretch to our heart's content after our long, cramped confinement. Without delay we settle down in the soft lap of luxurious earth, and, shaking the spray off the hem of our garments, we would, in our great joy and delight, like dogs, like donkeys, like anything, roll and roll. in the dust and the grass. For physical and moral, as well as æsthetic reasons, a landscape is a necessary background to human figure. II. Any one who has ever been on a long sea voyage knows its little excitements and diversifications-the reading of the log-book, which is the daily newspaper, the standard concert, the drawing of sweep-stakes, etc. It is not lively. There is nothing entertaining or dramatic in a sponge-bag, and suchlike is our milieu for the time being. But any life and fun there was seemed to me to be among the steerage passengers. There humor and pathos, love and laughter, accidents and tragedies might be seen. But, curiously enough, a great part of their time was passed in religious exercises, singing and preaching and praying. Some were apprehensive and earnest, some were content to do at Rome as Rome does, and some evidently found it an amusing pastime. One young man, with a damsel on each arm, and followed by a procession, paraded about singing snatches of hymns in a very convivialist, if not revivalist, fashion. But beyond such mild efforts the voyage was quite uneventful. We saw no sea-serpents. Nobody fell overboard. There were no deaths, nor were there any births, as there often are, and, though there may have been some betrothals unknown to me, there were no marriages. I am not an ancient mariner. This was, in fact, my first really outlandish expedition, and I must say I found it gratified, with one exception, none of the ordinary pleasures and tastes of life. For even the best ship can hardly be said to be a cosy or comfortable place. Like some huge lavatory, there is everywhere a cold, petrified aspect, and I thought one's narrow berth preferable only to the rather too wide bed of the ocean outside. Then the food tastes insipid and artificial. Meat kept in ice seems as though it had been washed and rinsed till all the essence was gone, while, strange to relate, fish at sea are not as good as coals at Newcastle. There is no delicious flavor of clay in the vegetables, and the water one drinks has come from no fresh mountain spring. But it is the paradise of the idle and lazy. On the sea one has no use for feet at all, since the ship does all the motion, although she even, as in the Irish song, "walks through the water without any feet." One cannot stand, or walk, or run except on a few short planks. The unwebbed toes and unfledged arms of the human kind are useless and out of place. Man is an exotic on the water. He is most distinctly out of his element. He is, in fact, every bit as bad as a fish out of water. Only a Dagon, with fishy tail, could possibly enjoy himself. There is, therefore, nowhere to go, nor is there anything to do. One does not read or write much, and people are not even conversational at sea, and any talk there may be is but far-fetched reminiscences of the distant land and its faded interests. Nor can one even think. This vast void of wind and water takes one's very breath away, suffocating both mind and body. Man's physical properties and cares, at all times a danger to his soul, are ruinous to it at sea. In fact, it is quite awful to contemplate how sterile and dull we should become if long at sea. The infinite volume of the ocean would, I fear, mentally drown us. Such interminableness and monotony do not conduce to intellectual fruition. Eternity is, I suspect, thoughtless. Philosophy in the clouds is only true very metaphorically, for I believe no system of thought will ever be worked out in a ship or a balloon. After all, it is in the study, or at least in the fields, that the brain of man is at home. But voyaging in this boundless space, where clouds only are formed and rain made, there is nothing to catch the wandering eye or fix and occupy the vacant mind. There are no objects, no distinctions, no limits, no standards, no contrasts. To select or discriminate is impossible. Who knows one wave from another? We are swimming in a basin of liquid, and the solids of life, so to speak, have been left behind. It is a soupy, sloppy fare, tasteless and unpalatable to the mental appetite. is Thus, sundered from the body of life, we reel and we roll and we gasp, and flounder hopelessly in our efforts to find bottom. Like Archimedes, one is sadly in want of room to stand on in order to set to work. For at sea there no locus standi. Man is in every way out of his depths. His calculations are unsound; his views undefined; his reflections unfathomable. The products of the mind are as unstable and fruitiess as the bubbles rising and bursting in the surf. Neither can escape into separate existence. A mental vacancy seems, indeed, to pervade the whole of this watery realm of fish, of whom the complaint has been made that it is impossible to obtain from them a single instructive look or sound. A spiritual chill possesses us in their domain as though we also were coldblooded animals. We, too, became deaf and dumb in this voiceless world; for, as you know, "the things that live in the sea are all mute." Our thoughts and feelings lie dormant. It is a hibernating season, as it were. A low-lying stagnancy oppresses us, and we succumb to the degraded level of jelly-fish. And how abhorrent is this negative existence to the soul and consciousness of man, who, in order to thrive, must like a flower of the field, be planted and rooted! For he cannot live and bear fruit while drifting, like some plants of seaweed whose roots even float upon the surface of the sea. He cannot, like the halcyon, build his nest on the water. He is rather a bird of passage, who finds here no home or resting-place. It is a precarious existence too-just keeping our heads above water. For we are but puppets, bobbing for very life in the storm and stress of the ocean, on the secret brow of which, even when at rest, dreaded doom treacherously broods. Even the smooth desert of the ocean is too ominous of the calm that precedes a storm to be called a peace. The sleep of the sea is that of a sleeping dog. Tragic uncertainty, in its most unrelenting form, reigns throughout these unfamiliar regions. So we are all fatalists on the ocean, just as those who live on its shore always are, and mere human character and will are completely submerged in the mysterious depths of destiny and chance. Man is, in fact, no longer a free agent in mind or body, but the victim of strange, unearthly powers. And how impersonal we must and do become! Dipped, as it were, in the waters of Lethe, we have shaken off all manners, morals, and customs, as antediluvian remnants of some now remote order of things. All old associations, local, national, legal, of birth, name, home, class, country, of kinship and friendship, evaporate in this realm of nothingness. Variations of age, sex. character, of religion, habits, pursuits, have no room or opportunity for display. Passion and purpose have no vent and become obsolete, Wiped off the face of the earth, we are lost in the splash and the mist. How wanting, too, in local color it all |