BOOKS.

YONGE'S LIFE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.*

A minicar life of Britain's most illustrious Captain has not yet been written. Much material, however, has been collected, and the day will no doubt arrive when this " king of men," like Ho- race's Agamemnon, will have his " sacred poet," not indeed to sing his doings in jingling rhyme, but to tell them in the plain beauty of a homely English prose, that shall be poetic because it makes us see and feel, with a present sympathy of sense and in- telligent emotion, the facts of perennial interest in the career of a heroic man. Among the contributors or arrangers of valuable material Mr. Yonge has claims to take high rank. Assisted in his task by the present Duke of Wellington, who has courteously permitted his frequent appeals ; availing himself of the access ac- corded to the copious and valuable political diary kept by the late Lord Colchester ; and informed as to the Duke's private habits by his domestic secretary, Mr. Algernon Greville, this new biogra- pher has some privilege of knowledge which justifies his assump- tion of the office of reporter to a really great man. In addition to a portrait, maps and plans, this work contains, in an appendix, " the important memorandum on the battle of Waterloo drawn up by the Duke himself' as a commentary on the narrative of General Clausewitz." It possesses also an index. In opinion Mr. Yonge is aristocratic and conservative ; when illi- beral, illiberal on principle ; and even not unfavourable to such re- forms as are of the kind termed organic. A strong anti-Whig, he ap- pears to discern little merit in the hereditary monopolists of political amelioration. An ordinary radical historian, however, would assuredly be open to an analogous imputation. The generous can- dour that prompts an avowal of our own faults, in private or pub- lic life, and acknowledges the often splendid superiorities of oppo- nents, is as yet a rare quality. It is not the less a duty which the time demands and even facilitates, in any review of the last seventy years of English history, to indicate the virtues as well as the derelictions of the political section to which we are opposed. The liberal party has committed errors no less than the anti-liberal party. Whig and Tory have alike served the State, nor is it just to debit one with all the evil and the other with all the good of our modern social evolution. If Reform legislation has its tri-

umphs, Conservative administration is not without its victories. If Lord Castlereagh, in brilliant emulation of Mrs. Malaprop, did

accuse an honourable gentleman of " turning his back upon him- self," he showed statesmanly sagacities which it would be but justice in his more grammatical opponents to allow. In this spirit of generous recognition few political works are conceived or exe- cuted. If we hesitate to include Mr. Yonge's among the excep- tional few, we willingly acknowledge that his criticism is not that of a blind partisan or a systematic detractor. If he has no admi- ration for Whig statesmanship, he admits at least the existence of some elements of good in Whig measures. If he is impeded by the ordinary limitations of modern Toryism, his conviction of the in- trinsic worthlessness of free speculation and democratic institutions is deliberate and sincere. For instance, reluctantly allowing or-

thodox dissent an entrance into Parliament, he conscientiously, closes the doors of the Imperial Senate against absolute non-con- formists, thus ignoring their primary rights as men and citizens.

Accordingly he justifies Wellington's opposition to the Jew Relief Bill of 1833, maintaining that the principle of toleration does not apply to those who deny "proved facts or revealed truths." "Who," he demands, "would trust a steward of his estate who denied that two and two make four ? And how can it be argued that in the still more important matter of legislation we should trust those who deny truths still more important than those of arithmetic ? "

With such convictions or prepossessions has the present bio- grapher entered on his task ; giving us, in the end, a somewhat diffuse but, we think, a faithful " account of the chief incidents

in the life of one who was before the eyes of the world for a longer period than has yet been granted to any other public man in the

history not only of England but of Europe . . . . from the day that he was first appointed to important command as Governor of Mysore to that of his death—a period of above half a century." Mr. Yonge's narrative is appreciating, and even admiring ; but it nowhere evinces that calm-sustained glow of composition which a real creative enthusiasm would impart. It wants epical com- pleteness, and that De Foe like circumstantiality, which enables us to realize the absent and unfamiliar. We have found no great original thought in the whole of this book about one of our greatest modern men. We are not made to feel what the world of Napoleon and Wellington was ; nor what was the significance of their protracted contest. The style is answerable to the cha- racter of the book. It is not terse nor graphic, it is not that of our best philosophic or rhetorical historians. It is, however, always respectable and intelligible, and if sometimes verbose and wearying, sometimes also lively and attractive. The estimate which Mr. Yonge forms of the Duke's character is not exaggerated. He is no servile flatterer of his hero. He highly appreciates his moral and intellectual nature, but we rarely find ourselves challenging his judgment; we believe neVer, except when the question at issue is one of principle. We could have wished to have learned something of the early life of Arthur Wesley or Wellesley ; but no recollection of the childhood and

• The Life of Field-Harehal Arthur Duke of Wellington. By Charles Duke Yonge. Published by Chapman and Hall.

but one doubtful tradition of his schoolboy career has been pre- served. His Indian successes, his Irish Secretaryship, his com- mand in the Peninsula, are illustrated with more or less of la- borious copiousness in the first volume of this work ; his brilliant but judicious strategy, his unfailing resources, his fine practical

discernment and his courageous determination in the midst of the obstructions and complexities resulting from disastrous cir- cumstance, perverse selfishness, and official fatuity, are all fairly exhibited ; while his magnanimity, patience and humanity, are fittingly noted and commended. The crowning victory of Wa- terloo, 'where Wellington with 68,000 men defeated Napoleon with 72,000 or perhaps even 80,000, left our great countryman not only the conqueror in war but the arbiter in peace. It was then that he determined to enforce the policy of treatino. France as a friendly country ; it was then that he suggested the spon- taneous recall by the French nation of Louis XVIII., which really seems to have been the only practicable procedure ; it was then that, while refusing the ex-Emperor a passport, lie wrote to Blucher, who had avowed his intention to shoot Napoleon when- ever he caught him, denying that the Vienna declaration to which the Prussian General had appealed could authorize any such ac- tion, and reminding him that they had played too noble a part to become executioners. It was while Wellington held this lofty eminence that the trial of Ney took place. It has been said that the French Marshal was protected by the terms of the military convention, and it is certainly difficult if not impossible to under- stand the import of the 12th article (which secured to every in- dividual in the capital his rights and liberties, and promised that no inquiry should be made into the political conduct or opinions of any one), unless we suppose it to apply to the hostile armies, binding only the generals that signed, or to the civil authorities. For foreign generals to institute any such political inquiry would, as Mr. Yonge admits, have been an iniquitous and un- precedented measure. Yet there is evidence that neither the Duke of Wellington, Fouche, Carnet, Moncey, nor any of Ney's Coun- cil, conceived the clause really to protect the gallant but weak- minded and traitorous soldier. If we admit the force of the evidence we are obliged to accept the alternative position, that the article had a purely military reference, and to give it such a meaning or no-meaning as may seem most plausible. The peers at once declined to entertain an argument founded on a military convention. The Duchesse d'Angottleme is reported to have urged, with vehement insistence, the expediency or justice of Ney's execution. The Duke of Wellington, though it was be- lieved in many quarters that he privately recommended a miti- gation of the penalty, refused to interfere with the course which the French Government had resolved to adopt. Great obloquy attached to the Duke for this refusal, but his " rigorous regard for truth and honesty" is so firmly established, that his decision can only be attributed to that stern sense of duty which was the master motive of all his conduct.

Disbanding in 1818 the Army of Occupation, the Duke of Wel- lington returned to England. From this time it became his " peculiar fortune, after having served his country for nearly a quarter of a century in the field, to render her a service of even longer duration at the Council board." " Before the end of the year 1818 he succeeded Lord Mulgrave as Master of the Ordnance, and as such became a member of the Cabinet." In the temporary retirement which followed, Mr. Yonge shows us the Duke, in his fatherly capacity, making constant visits to Eton to inquire into the progress of his sons. Destined to " serve the king," as soldiers, they were not the less required to attain a respectable degree of scholarship, on which the Duke, influenced perhaps by Lord Wellesley 's early classical reputation, set a high value. But above all, it was their father's request, so gravely and beautifully worded, that they " should be brought up as Christian gentlemen in all singleness and simplicity, and taught to postpone every consideration to that of duty." Next to the education of his children came his care for the estate of Strath- fieldsay, conferred on him by the Parliament. A bad soil, con- sisting chiefly of sour clay, was gradually brought into a con- dition of unexpected fertility. The farm-houses were enlarged. The wooden cabins were replaced by warm and substantial dwellings, with an ample breadth of garden ground assigned to each, and let at a reduced rent, " so that the condition of the husbandmen soon became a model for other landlords."

In 1822, Wellington was selected as England's representative at the Congress of Verona. The Duke has been accused of having " sanctioned the formation and approved the objects of the Holy Alliance ".' but it is now notorious, affirms Mr. Yonge, that from the first he protested against that unjust and mischievous con- federacy. The condition of Spain then became a subject of anxious deliberation. The French Ministers were desirous of re- establishing Ferdinand's authority by force, and endeavoured to obtain the sanction of the Congress for such interference. As- serting the principle' of non-intervention, and earnestly wishing to preserve peace, Wellington vainly endeavoured to save France from the discredit of an unjustifiable invasion. On this occasion, as in his mission to St. Petersburgh in 1826, the Duke "showed himself a most skilful diplomatist and a moat faithful and able expositor of the policy of his goverhment."

Passing over the Duke's advocacy of Canning's proposition for " the despatch of a British force to aid our ancient ally," when Portugal was invaded by Spain ; and glancing at his accession, on the Duke of York's death, 1827, to the Command-in-chief of the Army, we come to the political complications which preceded

and followed the death of the great orator-Statesman in that year. Mr. Yonge seems to leave it undecided whether the Duke's sepa-

ration from Canning was founded on erroneous prej udioe or based on solid reason, condemning, however, his resignation of a purely military office, and rejecting his unwarrantable characterization of Canning's letter as one of rebuke and insult. The knot, how- ever, was untied or rather out by the new Premier's death. Lord Goderieh's short-lived administration followed, to be almost suddenly succeeded by one over which Wellington himself presided. Hitherto the Duke had been an inveterate opponent of Catholic emancipation. The disturbed state of Ireland now induced him to abandon his opposition and to advocate a measure which he had once denounced. Not regarding the concession of the Ca- tholic claims as a reasonable satisfaction of justice but as a com- pulsory surrender topolitical expediency, he rested his case solely on the condition of Ireland, and preferred the alternative of ad- mitting an anti-Protestant element into the national Senate to that of a possible civil war. Mr. Yonge, in ratifying the sentence of the Duke, when he pronounced Catholic emancipation indis- pensable to the peace of the United Kingdom, willingly acknow- 1 es that it was demanded no less by justice than by policy. e administrative ability of the chief of the Tory Cabinet is the theme of Mr. Yonge's special panegyric. The reduction of the State expenses was the object which the Duke and his col-

es had particularly, at heart. "Pensions, sinecures, and useless posts, were abolished with unsparing hand. In the war

estimates great retrenchments were effected without any diminu- tion of military efficiency. In the year 1830 eight millions of the National Debt had been paid off, and a remission of taxes to the amount of three millions and a half was then effected without imperilment of the revenue." Among other measures for which Mr. Yonge approves of the Wellington Administration, was one for the temporary mortgaging of Poor-rates, intended to promote emigra- tion ; another for the prohibition of Scotch one pound notes into England ; the Beer Act, the new Police Act, and the new Corn-

law, which "opened the door in some degree to free trade, sub- stituting the principle of limited importation for the previous rule of almost absolute restriction."

Beaten in a division following a debate immediately connected with a fresh settlement of the Civil List, and apprehending a more decisive defeat on the question of Reform, the Wellington admin- istration resigned, after it held office not quite three years.

In 1832 the Reform Bill past ; not without strenuous opposition from the Duke of Wellington, who, however, says Mr. Roebuck, "nobly redeemed his error by yielding to the popular demand." In criticising this measure our author admits that the Bill intro- duced undeniable improvements, and allows the right of honest, independent and educated intelligence to such a voice in the management of public affairs as is implied in the possession of a vote at the election of a representative. On the other hand, he

contends that some of Wellington's forebodings have been strictly realized, that delegation does threaten to displace representation, and that the Government is rendered deplorably and perniciously weak.

A singular illustration of the energy and promptitude of the Duke's character was afforded in the year 1834, when after the resignation of the Whig ministry, and during the interval that elapsed before Peel's return from Italy, he conducted the whole business of the Government for three weeks. For this concentra- tion of offices he was assailed. with violent reproach and made the subject of harmless ridicule. His conduct was characterized by one member of the House as deserving of impeachment ; by others it was termed illegal or unconstitutional. " Others again, with H. B., the caricaturist, found an excuse for the variety of his duties in the mul- tiplicity of his titles ; and issued a list of the new Cabinet, assign- ing the seals of the Home Office to the Prince of Waterloo, the presidency of the Council to the Marquis of Torres Vedras," and so forth. Whatever may be thought of the transaction, when

viewed as a question of abstract polities, no imputation can now rest on the patriotism of a man who did but "accept the supreme power in the state to hold it as a sacred deposit till he could place it in the hands to which it was entrusted."

In 1846 we find the Duke cooperating in carrying the bill for the repeal of the corn laws, vindicating the measure on the ground of its positive necessity, as he had previously defended the Catholic

Emancipation Act. Mr. Yonge denies that the Duke is here to be accused of inconsistency, since he was always true to the princi-

ple which he laid down, that the government of a nation is usually a choice between evils, or at least between difficulties, and that the task of its governors is to choose the least evil or the least diffi- cult path. It must however, we think, be allowed that Welling- ton's merit as a statesman was exhibited in the practical rather than in the speculative sphere of politics. He appears to have disliked all organic changes, and to have admitted them only on coin on. He was a sagacious and masterly administrator, not

a philosophic politician. His change of policy was owing rather to the coercion of circumstance than the force of conviction. " Needs must when the Devil drives," might have been his motto. In this prompt acceptance of the cogent fact of political defeat, and the consequent choice of the path of least danger or least difficulty, he evinced, in close union with the clear common sense of the practical statesman, something of that soldierly decision which his experience in the field had rendered almost instinctive.

Mr. Yonge throughout his second volume bears frequent wit- ness to Wellington's emphatic recognition of the duty of pre-

serving peace, and his diligent and successful labours to main- tain it. Unlike the English Minister who avowed himself a lover of honourable war, this preeminent soldier deprecated it as the greatest of calamities, and when wantonly entered into as the greatest of orimes. In his government of the Army a leading object with the Duke was its moral improvement. Thus, while he resisted the entire abolition of corporal punishment he im- posed a legal limit on its amount. It is important also to re- member that for the true elevation of the Army the Duke looked chiefly to the encouragement of a general scheme of education, and that he it was who inaugurated the examining system, " which has been extended since his death, and has already pro- duced valuable fruit." Nor must all notice of the Duke's plans for the defence of the kingdom be forgotten here, especially his repeated recommendation to embody and discipline our old con- stitutional force, the Militia.

Admirable as was Wellington's loyal and patriotic discharge of duty, it was not the only virtue which was conspicuous in his life. His high-minded support of the policy of his political opponent., where he could conscientiously give it, as in the case of the first China war, when he "successfully vindicated the conduct of the Ministry in sanctioning the continuance of the opium trade" ; his liberality to friends, as when hearing that Lord Hill's famil y had met with severe pecuniary loss he placed his purse and his house in Paris at Hill's disposal ; his noble appreciativeness, as in his estimate of Canning's "great and varied abilities," when he proposed to Parliament to grant a pension to the family of that distinguished Minister ; and his courageous candour, as in his confession of error in the 5uestion of the Roman Catholic seminary of St. Salpiee, and his frank withdrawal of objection to Lord Sydenham's ordinance—all like attest the inspiration of a truthful and magnanimous nature.

Mr. Yonge, however, does not pretend that his hero was with- out excesses or defects. These excesses or defects we shall not enumerate here. The Great Duke lived down well-nigh all his unpopularity, and in his calm and grand old age was acknow- ledged as a sort of sovereign arbitrator that stilled the contending passions of political party, till in 1845 he stood supreme in the national regard.

" He used to ride at this time," says his admiring biographer, " a horse of remarkable appearance, a dark bay, with a silver mane and tail; and every afternoon, when the sight of a groom, leading him in front of the Horse Guards, gave signs that the Duke might be expected to come forth from his office, a crowd would gather round the well-known steed, examin- ing all his points with the deepest apparent interest, till his master appeared, when, in a moment, every hat was raised, as though he bad been a Royal prince ; and often the respectful silence of the throng was broken by a cheer, which speedily became unanimous as the old warrior, raising his linger to his hat, cantered down the shady side."