THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.*

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S is perhaps the most popular figure of any in English history. His honesty, his simplicity, his bluntness, appeal to the imagination of the average man in a way that is rare among geniuses. Everyone has a pretty clear conception of what the Duke was like, but no one can grow tired of reading of his battles in the wars a hundred years ago. There is clearly an opening for such a popular life of Wellington as this, for who, when it comes to details, knows much of his life—apart, that is, from the fights ? Who remembers, for instance, that at the time of starting for the Peninsular War Wellington held the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland ? Dr. Fitchett speculates in his " proem " as to whether Wellington would not have held a "more absolutely nnshadowed place in the memory of mankind" if his life had been ended by a. stray bullet at La Belle Alliance after the Battle of Waterloo was won. Be that as it may, Wellington had lived scarcely more than half his life on that evening, and the one complaint we have to make of Dr. Fitchett's work is that it frankly deals with Wellington up to that point only. " Wellington's career as a soldier," he says, "has the completeness of an epic." To gain this epic completeness Dr. Fitchett has sacrificed all the light that the thirty-seven years after Waterloo would have thrown on his hero's character. And we cannot help wishing that he had been more ambitious, and had given us instead of the career of the soldier the life of the man. We can desire nothing better than that Dr. Fitchett should presently com- plete for us the portrait which he has begun so finely. For these volumes tell the story of Wellington's victories with all the freshness and spirit that have made their author's other works so popular. His descriptions of battles combine clarity with dash ; but he never forgets that history is concerned with individuals as well as armies, and his pages are therefore The Great Duke. By W. H. Fitchett. In 2 Vold. London : Smith, Elder _mad Co. 023-1

brightened with countless anecdotes that throw into relief his personages and their mental habits.

The greater part of Dr. Fitchett's two volumes is naturally devoted to the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns ; but, although their thrilling stories can be read again and again, many readers will turn with even more interest to the earlier and far less familiar part of Wellington's life, and especially perhaps to the history of bis eight years in India, which, in his own words, "effected a total change in my constitution." The first years of his life are described by Dr. Fitchett as a catalogue of failures. " He had been an unloved son, an undistinguished schoolboy, a silent member of Parliament,

a disappointed lover, a soldier who had been pushed through many stages of promotion by family influence, but who had never seen a shot fired in anger, and whom nobody suspected. of possessing any military qualities." But if we are astonished

to hear of a Wellington, who was a member of the Irish House of Commons, and whose "single accomplishment was the power to play the violin," we soon find a more familiar

Wellington in the commander of the rear-guard in the- disastrous retreat from Malines to Bremen at the beginning

of the French wars in 1794-5. For it was in the Netherlands. that Wellington saw active service for the first as well as for the last time. His share in the Duke of York's unfortunate- campaign was at least of value to him in one way : "I learned," he says, " what one ought not to do, and that is always.

something." He learnt especially that wars are not won by battles alone, but no less by the tedious spade-work of previous.

organization. It is curious, by the way, to remember that, on his- return from the Netherlands, Wellington decided to give up his military career, and actually made an application to the Lord. Lieutenant of Ireland for a post on the Treasury Board in Dublin. The application was fortunately refused, and not long afterwards Wellington's regiment was ordered to India. His extremely rapid rise in the service was primarily duo to. the fact that his brother, Lord Mornington, was Governor- General ; and surely not the least of that great man's claims- to distinction are the perspicacity which recognized Welling- ton's genius and the courage which put it instantly to the best uses. Almost immediately after his landing, in 1797, Welling- ton was given the important task of organizing the expedition- ary force that was to march from Madras against Tippoo. Sahib ; and after Tippoo's defeat and death he was left in.

command of all the forces in Mysore, and with the whole administration of the country in his hands. This was in 1799, when he was just thirty years old. His administration of Mysore, which lasted (with a considerable interval) until 1803, was principally a struggle against the depredations of native- robbers and the corruption of the Company's servants. "I intend," he declared, " to ask to be brought away with the army if any civil servant of the Company is to be here, or any person with civil authority who is not under my orders,. for I know that the whole is a system of job and corruption from beginning to end, of which I and my troops will be made- the instruments." In 1803 the Mabratta campaign opened and culminated at Assaye, where Wellington, with 5,000 men, defeated an army ten times as large. Two years later he- embarked for England. Many of the most interesting

of Wellington's famous Despatches date from this Indian period. If the lesson which he learned in the Low Countries. was the necessity for organization, in India he seems specially

to have discovered the importance of offensive rather than defensive tactics. He is for ever emphasizing the advantages, of the attacking party. " Even in retreat," he remarks, " it must be recollected that it is safe and easy in proportion to- the number of attacks made by the retreating corps." Never must the enemy be allowed to attack a British force. " Move out to attack them. Do not allow them to attack your camp on any account." As the motto of an English admiral these constant reiterations would be only natural, but they come little strangely, perhaps, from the hero of the Linea of Tories.

Vedras and of the ridge of Mont St. Jean.

Wellington left India in 1805 and arrived in England in time for his solitary and accidental interview with Nelson in,

a waiting-room at the Colonial Office :— " The story [says Dr. Fitchett] was told by Wellesley himself in a talk with Croker, and is well known. Wellesley recognized Nelson from the pictures of him he had seen and by the looped sleeve of his uniform which showed the loss of an arm. Nelson, in his impetuous fashion, plunged into conversationwith Wellesley at once, without knowing who he was,. and ,.ears Wellesley, all about himself, and in a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.' Presently something Wellesley said caught Nelson's quick intelligence, and showed him that his interlocutor was an uncommon man. He went out -of the room for a moment-41 have no doubt,' says Wellesley, 'to ask the office-keeper who I was '—and when he returned lie was a different man, both in style and speech. All that I had thought charlatan style had vanished . . . in fact, he .talked like an officer and statesman; for the last half or three- quarters of an hour I do not know that I over had a conversation that interested me more.' "

The contrast between the two characters was a strange one, -and was plainly revealed in this single meeting : Nelson, the emotional genius who was yet at the same time an incredibly competent man of action; and Wellington, with his sound judgment, his almost pedestrian common sense, and yet his astonishing capacity for the most brilliant strokes of general- ship, such as the lightning thrust at Salamanca. In no circum- stances, Dr. Fitchett points out, could Wellington " have said, • Kiss me' to any epauletted Hardy when he was dying." And never, on the other hand, we may add, could Nelson have declared that the Bill must go through because " the King's ,government must be carried on."