The Sun. — London, England, 1852-11-18 00:00:00

THE GREAT DUKE WELLINGTON. AN ANECDOTAL BIOGRAPHY. As characteristic of the illustrious personage whose solemn obsequies have this day been performed by the assembled dignitaries of Great Britain in St. Paul's Cathedral, a few particulars may, we conceive, be appro priately collected for the occasion from the various writings in which his career has been already celebrated. We would here endeavour, in a popular form, to relate the most interesting incidents of his very extraordinary and protracted existence, and, in doing so, to record some of those remarkable anecdotes which illustrate the peculiarities of his temperament. Nothing like an osten tatious effort at biography is thus attempted by our selves. We are simply desirous of accompanying the event of this grand national interment of Arthur, the Great Duke of Wellington, with memorial passages such as cannot but prove fraught with interest to the vast majority of his contemporaries. Those who may be solicitous to peruse some more ordered and substantial history of the deceased, may turn with profit to the luminous volumes penned by the late W. H. Maxwell, as well as to those which have been produced by the hand of Sir J. E. Alexander. Besides these works there have latterly been submitted to the public numer ous others of a similar character, some of them very admirably condensed, and one especially—we mean the " Memoir " reprinted from the Times, by the Messrs. Longman, and published in the " Traveller's Library,"— which constitutes the most brilliant and the most lucid epitome yet produced of the events which marked the memorable existence of the Great Duke of Wellington. It cannot, under any circumstances, be otherwise than interesting to contemplate the history of that distin . guished man, over whose demise the nation has this morn ing cast the glory of the popular lamentation. His was a career, indeed, worthy of becoming the study of every pa triotic Englishman. His nature was of that elevated class which appeals the most directly and the most lastingly to the British sympathies. It had the grandeur at least of sim plicity. It was distinguished throughout by a very appreciable consistency. Its prominent characteristics were—a profound veneration for Truth, and an unflinch ing devotion to Duty. From its commencement to its conclusion, this career was eminently noticeable for punctilious exactitude in the fulfilment of every social responsibility. Arthur Wellesley cannot, of course, be brought into immediate comparison with those wonder ful heroes who occupy the more conspicuous posts in the world's Wallhalla—those matchless adventurers who have risen to supreme power by deeds scarcely less than miraculous—conquerors and lawgivers, whose genius seems to have come perfected and orbicular from the hand of the Divinity. It were only to follow the dictates of a foolish and of an idle adulation to place him in the same category with Alfred, with Hannibal, or with Charlemagne—with Alexander, who, while still a strip ling, conducted his triumphant legions to the oriental pomps of an almost fabulous dominion—with Caesar, who grappled with the pride of ancient Rome in the full ness of its puissance, grasping its sceptre like a bauble, and, while writing annals with the pen of a Tacitus, rul ing the then known world with the brand of a Jupiter- Tonans—or, later still, with that extraordinary being who rose from obscurity to become the Lord of the European Continent, who overran most of the civilized countries of the world with his enormous armies, plant ing his standard upon the walls of their respective capi tals, who carried his eagles in the north to the Baltic, in the South to the Pyramids, in the East to the Asiatic frontiers of Russia, and in the West to the Zuyder-Zee, the founder of an imperial dy nasty, who made the ancient mistress of the world the second city of his empire, who himself, an em peror and a king, was the last and the greatest of the king makers, and whose code of laws even now, after the lapse of half-a-century, is still accepted, and obeyed, and re verenced by the majority of the races of Christendom. To say that the illustrious personage whose loss we are now lamenting cannot be classed in the same category with Alexander, and Caesar, and Napoleon is derogating in no manner from the dignity of the genius or the brightness of the glory of Arthur Duke of Wellington. Rather, it should be said, by setting his name apart from those we have here mentioned we are evidencing his more genuine, and, let us add too, his more honourable appreciation. His renown in this respect must be regarded by us all as more consonant with the simple greatness of his character. After gaining victories that, in ancient days, might have placed a diadem on his forehead, Arthur Wellesley died, as he had lived, a loyal subject—the first subject if you will—but still to the last a devoted servant of the Crown, a resolute guardian of the country, a fervent and inflexible champion of the Constitution. Those are his titles of honour more truly than any that could be conferred upon him by the parchments of the herald-office. His ambition was so far ennobled by the absence of selfishness that it tended always to advance the interests of patriotism ; it aimed at the realization of security to his fatherland, and of glory to his Sovereign. It is in this aspect that the people of these islands delight to contemplate the career and the character of the Duke of Wellington. It is in this light that they are willing to accord to him a foremost place among the worthies of Great Britain. It is thus that they have come at last to con sider his noble and lofty reputation as second to no one among the military heroes whose achievements have tended to adorn the annals of the United Kingdom. They are ready to admit the justice of that magnificent eulogium pronounced by Mr. Macaulay over the memory of the Lord Protector, that he was the greatest prince that ever ruled the destinies of England. Yet they re member, they cannot help remembering, that while Oliver Cromwell fainted away in his carriage, after re fusing to accept the crown of these realms, Arthur Wel lesley was always a firm upholder of the Monarchy,— that while Cromwell was principally instrumental in causing the decapitation of Charles 1., Wellington was the faithful friend and adviser of four successive sove reigns,—that while Cromwell was an unforgiving bigot and a fanatical proselytizer, Wellington gave the world a splendid evidence of his recognition (however tardy) of the humanizing and divine principle of religious liberty through the medium of the memorable act known as the Act of Catholic Emancipation. We remember ofArthur Wellesley, moreover, that his spotless integrity contrasts very wonderfully with the black and despicable turpitude of John Churchill, the renowned Duke of Marlborough. There are perceptible, in fact, throughout the intellect and the temperament of Wellington a solidity of worth such as commands the panegyric of the most cynical, and extorts the eulogiums of the most unsympathizing. He was not endowed with that meteoric splendour of genius, or with that dazzling brilliancy of wit, or with that contagious ardour of intellect which in the poet, the orator, and the statesman, alike kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of their contemporaries. His were rather those qualities, which, while they secure respect by their intrinsic excellence, fail not, at the same time, to obtain the . ew.....a_ ~f . fervent and perennial admiration. This respect is now, in truth, the unfading recompence awarded by a grateful country to the memory of Arthur Wellesley the Great Duke of Wellington. This admiration is his by right of those public and private virtues by which his name has become endeared to the heart of every admirer of patriotism, and we may even venture to add also of every lover of Christianity. For the deceased warrior has e arned a title to these enviable commendations—by his Probity, b y _ y his simplicity, by his unaffected reverence for religi on, by a valour tempered with humanity, by a lo yalty ever kept i n equ i po i se w i t h t h e coun t er b a l ance of b his civi sm, an uncommon obedience to the most in exorable dictates of duty, by an unfailing, and, for him, almost impassioned, veneration for veracity, by a stub born energy, and a dauntless perseverance. Such . were resolution, and inexorable the di s ti ngu i s hi ng f ea t ures o f that elevated and masculine character. Such were the prominent peculiaritie s of a nature which, if it failed i n the majority of instances toawaken during life the sensi bilities of the population, h as nov i r softening influences of recollection', now w h en t h e tomb at least, un d er th e 4 ~,, closes over the form we all of us so wgsetll remember, now w h e n the great man survives amongst annals, warmed tn us merely as a glorious name in the nationalthe popular homag e into a more genial and a more ge nerous rate appreciation. It is with this new, or at an y reani mated, sense of his merits, that England regards with a satisfaction solemnized by the regrets of death, t h e grand funereal pomps of this e ighteenth day of to b N ov emb Worthy their renown, her noblest h eroes o sea and ortr, of the land—d e p os iti ng u nder the dom e of St. Paul's Cathedral close to the remains of Horatio Viscount Nelson, those of a kindred follower of duty, a kindred servant of the Crown, and a kindred lover of his country, those of Ar thur Duke of Wellington. 411 r;''' ' . Inipursuance of our plan of an anecdotal biography, ..._ a , .._- . p w vi e could here briefly, but suggestively, 1 epochs in the career of the departed ri ,,, , , v , - tesman, satisfied that by the subjoined warrior revert to the med method, 4 .< it?';kt).:77", ' ;:,%, -. iest clue may be found to the comprehension of -t, 1 :. yrinth or, in other words, to the threading of the il 3 s intricacies of his character. Simple enough, it is true, that character was in the main, but still through the sub stance of this predo m i na ti ng simplicity there ran veins of apparent contradiction, incomprehensible with out the aid of a searching and sagacious analysis. This analysis has happily been accomplished already by more than one among his industrious biographers—so that we can understand to a considerable extent, even now, that blending of gentleness and severity, of unbending obsti nacy and yet affecting docility to the advice of friendship, which constituted the most striking peculiarities of this redoubtable temperament. Otherwise the world would d find it somewhat bewildering to observe that rigorous dis ciplinarian beautifying the record of his history with so many acts of singular lenity and of the most amiable kind liness—at one moment paying off the debts of an unknown subaltern, and at another distributing flowers or asv eet meats among a cluster of children. Otherwise, again,it would be difficult to reconcile the known stubbornness and inflexibility of that iron will with the fact of its being more than once so exquisitely ductile to the recommen dations of a mind like that of Sir Robert Peel, as was evidenced in regard to the Free-trade measures, and in regard, likewise, to what has already been mentioned — the memorable act of Catholic Emancipation. The re conciliation of these seeming anomalies of character can only, we conceive, be contrived effectually by a watchful observance of the progress made in this notable career in the way of moral and intellectual development. To this end we shall collect together in these columns a variety of particulars illustrative of the advance' made from 1769 to 1852 in the fortunes of the Duke of Wellington—par ticulars selected from an extraordinary profusion of facts, divided from each other by appropriate headings, and yet consecutively grouped together. THE WELLINGTON SUN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1852. the Commander-in-Chief was asleep, sat down before one of the tables, and, leaning his head upon his arms, soon slumbered soundly under the influence of extreme exhaustion. Captain Mackenzie, the next in authority, on proceeding soon afterwards to head-quarters, for the purpose of announcing the repulse of his soldiers to the Commander, is said to have found his superior officer sleeping in the midst of these exigent circumstances. Whether in punishment for this apparent indolence at a moment of such extreme emer gency, or chagrined possibly at the total failure of the night's expedition, General Harris selected General Baird Tor the renewal of the assault upon the following morning, instead of entrusting the task, as he had done over night, to the abilities and energies of Colonel Wellesley. The latter, however, was ultimately allowed to resume his position as the leader of the enterprize, in consequence of the magnanimous request made to that effect by General Baird, and the selection was speedily justified by the seizure of the coveted tope of the Sul taunpettah ! About noon on the 4th of May, the in vading army having been exactly one month before the ramparts of the capital of Tippoo, after a furious struggle and a terrible carnage, the city was finally cap tured, and our banners fluttered in triumph from the towers Of Seringapatam. Here it was that Colonel Wellesley discovered, under a heap of slain and dying, the breathless body of the son of Hyder Ali—the Tiger of Mysore. Immediately upon the defeat and death of Tippoo Sahib, the young Colonel of the'33d Regiment was left in command of the conquered territories, and before the July of 1799 had elapsed, was formally installed in the capital of the province as the Governor of Mysore and of Seringapatam. Entrusted with the responsibilities of the civil as well as the military administration, Ar thur Wellesley, displayed such unusual skill in the con duct of the affairs of finance, of coinage, and of exchanges, besides revealing extraordinary activity in repairing roads, opening up new communications, and showing a gene ral aptitude for public business—that his brother, the Earl of Mornington, was led once to exclaim I believe Arthur's great • strength to be rather in the civil than in the military line 1" That his genius as a captain, however, very marvellously surpassed his undoubted ability as an administrator, was speedily demonstrated by fresh' exploits, in the course of which, he overcame on the lOth of September, 1800, the for midable adventurer, Dhooniah Waugh, and otherwise prepared the popular mind for his subsequent achieve ments in the first war against the Mahrattas. Prior to these, his crowning victories in Hindostan, Colonel Wellesley, after declining the military command of a projected expedition against Batavia—a command placed at his disposal by Lord Mornington—was in volved in a complicated web of arrangements, which threatened at one time to carry him prematurely from the shores. of India, conducting him up the Red Sea and across the desert,• so as to enable him to join his auxiliary troops to the British forces dispatched into Egypt, under the command of Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Fortunately, as it happened, Wellesley was not required by events to quit the scene of his first successes until after he had eclipsed them himself by others ,of yet greater magnitude.. Appointed during a brief interval to the command of some 5,000 troops in Ceylon—at Trincomalee—he was subsequently superseded for having proceeded with his army (without sufficient authority), to Bombay. At this latter place, he was ultimately com pelled, on the 25th of March, 1801, to disembark, in consequence of a sudden attack of fever—an attack which thus prevented him from taking part as second in command under General Baird, in the expedition that soon afterwards setsail to carry what proved in the end superfluous assistance to the Egyptian army of the brave but ill-fated Abercrombie. Recalled upon his recovery to his temporarily aban doned command in Mysore, he soon found himself in volved in the perils of a deadly war with - the Mahrattas. His allies among the groupe of chieftains, were the old Peishwa, and the younger but more prudent Guicowar. His enemies in the same direction, were the Rajah of Berar, Holcar, and Scindiah. Hostilities, after being warded:43ff for some time, were at length, in the Novem ber of 1802, found to be inevitable. Whereupon, in the February of 1803, Arthur Wellesley (who had been promoted to the rank of Major-General in the April of 1802) was called from his administrative occupations at Mysore, to conduct a campaign, for the first time, with the supreme authority of Commander-in-Chief. Scarcely 10,000 men, including both natives and Europeans, con stituted the army with which he set out for the conquest of the terrible and dreaded Mahrattas. Ghooklah, one of the chiefs of these Mahrattas, speaking of this same body of invaders, and referring especially to Wellesley as its commander, wrote thus, says Colonel Nichols, to his friends at Poonah :—" These English are a strange people, and their General a wonderful man. They came here in the morning, looked at the Pettah walls, walked over it, killed all the garrison, and returned to breakfast ! What can withstand them ?" Nor was Ghooklah mis taken—the English showing themselves indeed a "strange people," and their General proving himself, in truth, " a wonderful man"—when, on the 23d of September, Ar thur Wellesley, with 4,500 men, routed the grand army of Scindiah (an army of 50,000 combatants, and 100 pieces of cannon) hard by the village of Assaye. victory which, it has been observed without ex aggeration, surpasses the glory won by Clive at Arcot, and at Plassey—Scindiah having been, in fact, a foe in all respects more powerful than either Chunda Sahib or Suraj-a-Dowlah. During the havoc which marked this memorable strug gle, General Wellesley had two horses killed under him, while, close beside him, his orderly's head was torn away by a cannon ball. Such was the crowning victory by the force of which historians have deempd that our sway in the Oriental Pen insula was consolidatBd. Such was the " foughten field " from which our hero carried back with him to England the last laurcls he had reaped with his good sword, on the soil of the Asiatic Cotitinent. Such was the final token of prowess with which—now newly created a Knight of the most honourable Order of the Bath—SirArthurWellesley inthe September oflBos, after nine years'absence, returned homewards to receive, immediately after landing upon our shores, intelligence that thanks had been awarded to him by the King and by the Parliament. THE DUKE'S PARENTAGE. Singularly enough, the name of the deceased warrior, as well as the date and place of his birth, have all of them proved to be alike matters of controversy. The historians of Napoleon have argued long, and some of them fiercely, as to whether he first saw the light in 1768 or in 1769, and have sifted the equally important ques tion as to whether his surname should be spelt more cor rectly Bonaparte or Buonaparte. Biographers have been puzzled in a similar manner, it must now be ob served, in reference to the introductory details of the life of Wellington. Every one has agreed, of course, that he was born in 1769, and that he first drew breath in Ireland : but people seem to be alto g ether divided in opinion as to the pre cise day, and as to the exact locality, rendered remark able by that most notable occurrence. Hitherto, it has been asserted without hesitation, that Arthur, the fourth son of the Earl and Countess of Mornington, was born on the Ist of May, 1769, at Dangan Castle, county Meath. Researches in the cotemporary periodicals of the Irish capital, and in the register of St. Peter's Church in that metropolis, have very recently proved, beyond all further doubt, that the subject of these remarks was christened, in the sacred edifice just mentioned, on the 30th of April, 1769—Isaac Maun officiating upon the, occasion as archdeacon. Additional evidence, adduced from the pages of a magazine then published in Dublin from month to month, appears to us to corroborate the before-mentioned circumstance—insomuch, that we may now assert, as facts conclusively proven, that the day of Arthur Wellesley's birth was the 29th of April, 1769, and that the place of his birth was in St. Andrew's parish, in the city of Dublin, at No. 114, Grafton-street, then known as Mornington House, but now as her Ma- jesty's Stationery Office, opposite the Provost's dwell ing, Trinity College. Our lamented hero derived his origin from a house in which two ancient families were combined, both being English by extraction, and Irish by settlement. One of these families migrated across the Bristol Channel from Sussex, and the other at a later period in the sixteenth century from Rutlandshire. The latter have been variously mentioned by the names of Colley, or Cooley, or Cowley ; the former no less vari ously as Wesley, or Westley, or Wellesley. In each instance the orthography seems to have been accepted in the manner last specified, if we may judge from the circumstance of one of the Duke's brothers having been created Baron Cowley, and another Marquis of Welles ley. Nevertheless, it is not unworthy of remembrance, that he himself was first gazetted a soldier in the British army as the Hon. Arthur Wesley, and as such he first attained distinction. In addition to the foregoing par ticulars, it may be mentioned that it was in 1728 that Richard Colley, of Castle Carbery, county Kildare, assumed the name and property of Garret Wesley, of Dangan Castle, county Meath, by right of succession ; that, in 1746, this Richard Colley was raised to the Irish peerage by the title of Baron Mornington ; and that, in 1750, his son was ad vanced to the rank of Earl of Mornington. A curious reflection occurred once upon a time to the late Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, in reference to this memor able family of the Wesleys—a reflection, too, coming rather appropriately, as it happened, from an author whose eclectic sympathies had rendered him the cele brant both of the war in Spain and of Methodism. It appears that, some time prior to his decease in 1728, Garret Wesley offered to adopt Charles, the brother of the celebrated John Wesley—Charles being, at that time, a boy in the great school at Westminster. The offer was rejected by the father, for some reason altogether unimaginable, and thereupon Richard Colley was chosen to succeed to the estates of the discomfited gentleman, and was thereby enabled to attain the dignity of a patrician. Remembering these things, Southey re marked, with some show of reason, by a very startling deduction, that, supposing the generous proposition had not been declined, there might have been no Methodists, and our arms in the East might still have been threat ened from Seringapatam ! As it was, matters fell out differently, and the second Baron, after acquiring cele brity as a musical composer, and becoming first Earl of Mornington, died in 1781, leaving behind him nine chil dren by his wife, Anne, the daughter of Arthur Hill, the Viscount Dungannon. It is probable from this, that our great captain was christened Arthur, from his ma ternal grandfather. Colley Cibber is said by some ingenious genealogists to have been amongst the ancestral relations of the de ceased—Cibber's mother having been the daughter of one of the Colleys of Rutlandshire. Speaking of the family of the Wellesleys, Mr. J. Bernard Burke, a high authority on such matters, has taken occasion in the course (p. 9) of Mr. Timbs's very entertaining little volume " Wellingtoniana " to remark that " the name was originally written de Wellesley and subsequently became corrupted into Wesley ;" adding, "the late Marquis Wellesley resumed the correct ortho graphy." It is a circumstance tolerably familiar to the world by this time, that directly a man renders himself illustrious, genealogists start up prepared to prove, upon the clearest evidence, that royal or imperial blood flows in his veins, —illustrating it by some "tree" of stupendous and be wildering ramifications. It happened thus with regard to the Emperor Napoleon, and we all remember his reply—that he was the Rodolph of his own family. The following statement, however, is sufficiently curious to be transcribed entire—undertaking, as it does, to demon strate the existence of a remote relationship between his Grace the late Duke and her Majesty Queen Victoria, by indicating his direct descent in an unbroken line from the Royal House of Plantagenet. The descent is thus explained : Edward 1., King of England, had by his Queen, Eleanor of Castile, several children, of whom the eldest son was King Edward 11., and the youngest daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet, wife of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, Constable of Eng land. King Edward 11., as is, of course, well known, was direct ancestor of the Royal Plantagenets, whose eventual heiress, the Princess Elizabeth of York, daugh ter of King Edward IV., married King Edward - VII., and was mother of Margaret Queen of Scotland, from whom Queen Victoria is eleventh in descent. Reverting to the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet, daugh ter of King Edward 1., and wife of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, we find that she was mother of a daughter, Lady Eleanor de Bohun, who married James Earl of Ormonde, and was ances tress of the subsequent peers of that illustrious house. Pierce, the eighth Earl of Ormonde, (sixth in descent from the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet) left, with other issue, a daughter, Lady Helen Butler, who married Donogh, second Earl of Thomond, and was mother of Lady Margaret O'Bryen, wife of Dermod Lord Inchi quin, and ancestress of the later barons of that title. The Hon. Mary O'Bryen, dau g hter of Dermod, fifth Lord Inchiquin , married Michael Boyle, Archbishop of Armagh and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and had by a daughtcy, Flianor - Boyle ' w hol3eca,nle tit - Er - wife of the Right Hon. Willi a m Hill, M.P., and grandmother of Arthur Hill, first Viscount Dungannon, whose daugh ter Anne, Countess of Mornington, was mother of Arthur, first Duke of Wellington, who was, through these des cents, ninetee n th i n a di rec t unbroken line from King Edward." HIS EDUCATION. Arthur Wellesley, when ten years of age, was, accord ing to the British and Foreign Review, placed for a while under the tuition of the Rev. William Gower, at Chelsea, and it was from that pedagogue consequently that his Grace received the rudimentary parts of his education. Child as he was then, his love of probity already began to be displayed—his little companions referring to him in all their games as umpire. At a later period, namely, when he was about twelve, Arthur Wellesley accompanied his brother, the future Marquis, on a visit in North Wales, at Brynkinalt. It was there, says the Observer, that a battle was fought, "not mentioned in the dispatches." The battle—which was one between Arthur Wellesley and the sister of David Evans, one of his playfellows—after threatening to prove a " battle royal," although relating only to a handful of marbles, terminated abruptly by the future hero, " with tears in his eyes," leaving the field in the undisputed possession of his fair but vixenish little com panion. - After the death of hiS' father, our great captain was placed by the widowed Countess at Eton, where he re sided in the boarding-house kept by Mrs. Raganeau. Years after, on taking his own children—the present Duke and Lord Charles Wellesley—to the same place to pass through the ordeal of instruction, he went with them to the underground floor, and pointed out the spot on the kitchen door where he had carved his name with a penknife. Although but a trifle in itself, it is to be regretted, for the sake of its associations, that this me mento has b een s i nce t h en e ff ace d . At Et o n th e l a t e Duk e i s still spoken of in the school traditions, as a boy venri retirin g an d med i tative, but at the same time active was ag the l --11 Duk e o f it w high ite S p i rited. As a proof of the latter peculiarity, remarked b y th e l a t e B o b us S m ith—" I Wellington's first victory !" " How ?"people would ask him. ~ on e A _ "Why," would reply the humorist, a d fi h T, at Eton Arthur Wellesley andlh a g t, and he b his second battle, an d his firsteat me soundly." That was a boy to thrash at Eton, victory ; but then he had a girl at Brynkinalt. while his contest was with a A comical story has been related by the Examiner about the Duke when an Eton scholar having, together with Lord Wellesley and Lord Maryborough, "hocus sed" Lady Dungannon while spending their holidays with her in Shropshire, their statement being (with grave faces) that their sister Anne had eloped with a footman. The intelligence, of course fictitious, shocked Lady Dungannon most dreadfully. They entreated her, however, that she would not mention the circumstance to any one, hoping, as they said, that their sister might come back again. Lady Dungannon now excused her self, having promised to pay a visit to lab'. neighbour, Mrs. Mytton, and unable to keep this secret, of course told it to her. On her return, she nearly killed them by saying, " Ah, my dear boys, ill news travels apace ! Will you believe me ? Mrs. Mytton knew all about poor Anne !" After remaining but for a brief interval at Eton, and being removed thence for a still shorter period for pri vate instruction at Brighton, the future warrior was taken abroad by his mother Lady Mornington. As yet he had displayed no sort of intellectual superiority— being a child but of "ordinary" parts, and according to some, of even less than ordinary. His slight and almost imperceptible advance in the acquisition of knowledge is described indeed as having been the source of much solicitude to the Countess. To this anxiety, in fact, has been attributed his rapid removals from Chelsea to Eton, from Eton to Brighton, and from Brighton to Angers— at the military academy in which latter place it has been, nevertheless, remarked by one writer, that the boy was dropped, as his mother passed through France, for the simple reason that she found him " troublesome in the carriage." However this may be, at Angers, although he acquired there no reputation for ability, Arthur Wellesley , continued to store up an abundance of valuable and ser viceable information, obtaining a perfect familiarity with the French language, and advancing prodigiously in the study of engineering, under the guidance of the very able director of the seminary, Pignerol. Scarcely six years were thus occupied in the toils of education, when, after his absence at Angers, our hero returned to England ; and it is related of the Countess of Mornington that she' first recognized her son in the little theatre in the Haymarket, after their two years' separation, by exclaiming—" I do believe there is my ugly boy Arthur." HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE ARMY. At eighteen years of age, namely, on the 7th of March, 1787, the Hon. Arthur Wellesley obtained his first com mission, being gazetted as ensign in the 73d Foot Regi ment. Aided by his aristocratic connexions, he was rapidly promoted. Before a year had elapsed, he was removed from the 73d, as a Lieutenant, into the 76th Regiment. During the next eighteen months he ex changed twice—first, still as a subaltern, into the 41st Foot, and then into the 12th Light Dragoons. His captaincy he received on the 30th of June, 1791, in the 58th Regiment, from which he was transferred in the following October to the 18th Light Dragoons. Ulti mately, on the 30th of April, 1793, he was advanced to his majority in the 33d Regiment. It was in this corps that he first obtained celebrity, being promoted in it, moreover, to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and at length to that of full Colonel. It cannot very speedily be forgotten by the 33d that it was in command of that regiment that Wellington reaped his first laurels on the peninsula of Hindostan. HIS ELECTION AS M.P. FOR TRIM. Prior to his promotion as Captain of the 58th, Arthur Wellesley was, in 1790—having but then recently come of age—returned as the representative of the family borough of Trim, to a seat in the Irish Parliament. At that period he was attached as Aide-de-camp to the staff of the Earl of Westmoreland, then presiding over the affairs of Ireland, as Lord-Lieutenant. It is mentioned by Sir Jonah Barrington, that having lounged one evening into the gallery of the House of Commons, in Dublin, his attention was attracted by a young man dressed in a scarlet uniform, with very large epaulettes, and on inquiry as to who he might be, received for answer, " That is Captain Wellesley, a brother of Lord Mornington, and one of the aides-de-camp to the Lord- Lieutenant." It was in his capacity as representative, that Captain Wellesley moved the Address to the Crown, in a speech asserting the advisability of r e l ax i ng th e penal laws against Catholics—a recommendation which the young aide-de-camp is said to have dilated upon with singular emphasis and vehemence. "This man in his old age," says the Dublin Evening Post, in referring to the circumstance, "was the Prime Minister in whose administration the final measure was consummated." During his residence in Dublin, it is strange to relate that, for the only time in his life, Arthur Wellesley was guilty of improvidence. He is said to have been so far involved in debt as to be driven to the necessity of re ceiving pecuniary assistance of a temporary character from a bootmaker, in whose house he had taken up his residence. Upon quitting the country to proceed on foreign service with his regiment, he so arranged mat ters, however, that he was enabled to liquidate his va rious liabilities by instalments transmitted through the hands of another Dublin tradesman. HIS FIRST CAMPAIGN. Having just attained his twenty-sixth anniversary, and being at the time in command of the 33d Regiment, our hero embarked at Cork in the May of 1794 for active service on the European Continent. It was at the period when war had been declared between France and Eng land, and when 10,000 British troops, under the conduct of H.R.H. the Duke of York, were seconding the efforts of the Allied Powers in the Low Countries against the forces of the Republic. By one of the startling coinci dences marking his history, Arthur Wellesley was thus called upon to commence his military career in that very portion of the globe in which it was brought by events to its resplendent completion. The particulars of this unfortunate expedition, however, were by no means so satisfactory as to interest us in giving their detailed enumeration. It opened in doubt and closed in disaster. Whatever duties devolved upon Colonel Wellesley were, nevertheless, performed in a• manner redounding to his honour. His first endeavour, that to conduct the evacuation of Ostend by the 33d Re g iment, was successfully accomplished, and having subsequently taken his corps round by the Scheldt and landed again at Antwerp, he was enabled, in the July of 1794, with all due dispatch to join the Duke of York at head-quarters. The operations terminated and so ended the first campaign of the deceased hero—early in 1795, with the retreat of the Allied forces into West phalia. HIS DEPARTURE FOR INDIA, Immediately on the return of the Dutch expedition to England, the 33d having disembarked at Harwich, re mained at Warley in encampment. Towards the close of the ensuing autumn they were marched by their Colonel to Southampton, with the intention of being conducted by him to the West Indies, on board the out ward bound fleet, under the flag of Admiral Christian. Detained for some time by apparently untoward circum stances, and driven back at last by stress of weather, so that they were compelled to put in to Portsmouth, the 33d found in the spring of 1796 that the orders formerly received from the Horse Guards had been counter manded. They were no longer to proceed westwards, but were directed on the contrary to embark forthwith for Bengal. Here it was, under these exigent circum stances, that Colonel Wellesley was again, as he had oc casionally been before, prostrated by indisposition—an incident strange for us to remember of one whom we have been accustomed during nearly forty years of peace to speak of as the " Iron Duke," and this hardly more in reference to his inflexible character than in allusion to his ripe old age, and the - vigour of his unyielding constitution. Sickness prevented him from accompanying his corps in their embarkation, but he was happily enabled to join them at the Cape of Good Hope, and, in the February of 1797, they all landed safely at Calcutta. HIS ORIENTAL VICTORIES. Here, in earnest, may be said to have commenced that career of glory which carried the triumphs of the great Captain from the plains of Assaye to the heights of Waterloo, witnessing at their opening the defeat of Tip poo, and at their close the downfall of Napoleon. At the period of Colonel Wellesley's arrival in India, the Governor-General was Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth. A letter of introduction to his Ex cellency, given to the young officer before his departure from England by the Marquis of Cornwallis—bearing date, " Whitehall, June 10, 1796"—was couched as follows : " Dear Sir,—l beg leaie to introduce to you Colonel Wesley, who is Lieutenant-Colonel of my regiment. He is a sensible man, and a good officer, and will, have no doubt, conduct himself in a manner to merit your tion. Words of singulaiiy cautious praise, as applied to a sol dier destined so soon afterwards to render himself illus trious by his achievements. Sir John Shore does not seem, however, to have been undiscerning, even from the first, in regard to the object of this introduction. Indeed, the present Lord Teignmouth has r e l a t e d t h at upon the occasion of the v er y firs t interview between our hero and the Governor-General at a l evee, Sir John turned quickly round to his Aides-de-camp, as Colonel Wesley retired, re marking—"lfthat offic er s h ould ever have an opportunity of distinguishing himself, he will do it, and greatly. About this critical juncture in his career, Arthur Wellesley is said to have been remarkable f or hi s com bination of good sense and boyish playfuhiess. For tunately for hiM, he had scarcely set foot in Calcutta when a new Governor-General was appointed in the person of his brother, afterwards Marquis of Wellesley, but then Earl of Mornington. He had therefo re on l y to display merit to have th at merit at once re cogn i zed. And yet more fortunately for him, though terribly for England, as involving it' in a desperate but happil y triumphant struggle, the o pp ortunit y for distinction arose in the war which speed il y broke out a g ainst th e son of Hyder Ali, the terrible and redoubtable Tippoo Sahib or Saltaun. Against the gigantic armies of the dreaded Tiger of Mysore, the British Commander-in- Chief, General (afterwards Lord) Harris, was only en abled to advance forces of great numerical inferiority— forces, however, which comprised 10,000 from Bombay, 30,000 from the Carnatic, and another division, placed entirely under the command of Colonel Wellesley , a di vision consisting of his own corps united with the con tingent of our ally the Nizam of the Deccan. Before the close of February, 1799, the British forces had crossed the boundaries of Mysore, and, after worsting Tippoo, successively at Cannanore and Malavelly, arrived in full strength by the 4th of April before the battlements of Seringapatam. It was during the night of the sth that Colonel Wellesley —entrusted by the Commander-in- Chief with the duty of occupying, if possible, an impor tant position immediately under the walls of the fortress, called the Sultaunpettah tope, or grove of betel pushedth em o ne s trees — failed, underer such p ecu li ar c i rcumstances, i n th e i n t en d e d enterprize. Accompa n i e d, a f ter n i g h t f a ll , b y C ap t a i n t s h the u us u light r t c e o d m u p u a d n e y r of a heavy fire from the enemies batteri es , th e assa il an ts wer e the Mackenzi e, 33d, when,he had finding compelled to retreat in the dark ness , an d th a t, moreover , with the utmost expedition. Colonel Wellesley imme diately after this untoward but unavoidable movement, hastened to the tent of General Harris, but finding that HIS CAPTURE OF COPENHAGEN. Nearly three years: now elapsed, during which Sir Arthur was appointed in turn Privy Councillor; and, in 1806, Irish Secretary ; being also once again returned, this time as M.P. for Newport, to a seat in Parliament. Military expeditions were, about this period, sent off in various directions by England, with a view to harass Napoleon while our gold was lavishly subsidizing to the same end the armies of coalition after coalition. Among these expeditions, one of a rather important charac ter was, in 1807, entrusted to the command of Welles ley—the expedition against Copenhagen. Conducting a rather considerable force into the Baltic, Sir Arthur pro ceeded with such vigour against the Danes, that after routing a body of their troops, with a loss on their part and of 14 pieces of cannon, at before the capital and was enabled dim capitulation. Although over of our great Captain ty of Englishmen, this achievement over looked o i o nk i. g e : g e s d , bt h o i yea negotiate the ie s sraa n b appearede r oor has been mentioned by Adolphe Thiers, in deserved terms of commendation. HI S ARRIVAL IN PORTUGAL. r u t a land,hrepe n t ea veterans nne : d r aw . ntuhh: triumphal march Caesar, f from In 1808, only a few months after his successful enter prise against Copenhagen, Sir Arthur Wellesley com menced that . series of renowned exploits which has as sociated his name as a symbol of imperishable glory with the prolonged and memorable wars in the Spanish it came to pass that troops were l P a e n n d i e n d su a l t a. this H l 7 riod in Portugal, the world knows as familiarly as any other of the grand events connected with the wonderful days of the imperial reign of Napo leon. England at last discovered in the Peninsula an cs o h f tini t h h ee at great army which had carried the aat might uo perceptiblehop e t o disadvantage competea las t upon with m heretofore ity t o cityin one throughout uninter - oozing out perpetually in a golden stream that from energiest ies o f o t f h eG_rEuropeaneat Britain—besides Continent. time Hitherto t fn i mttnhhece: principal modern r t ic h i okeu countries soldiers of the Allied Sovereigns— had been almost wholly restricted to her contests on the ocean. And those contests had closed for another half century at least at Trafalgar. Ho ratio Nelson, " the darling hero of England, " had yielded up his life in that terrible storm of glory and death, in which, while perishing him self in the struggle, he had struck down, as with a de luge of thunderbolts, th e pride of France upon the seas for an entire generation. All that the British Govern ment could do then—for it was eaten into its very vitals with a fierce and inextinguishable hatred against Napo leon—was to send shiploads of soldiers at intervals, now to Quiberon Bay and cow to Ferrol, now to the Helder and now to St. Domicgo, The Cabinet of St. James's could only thus feebly and intermittently appease its lust of battle with the extraordinary Conqueror then over shadowing the world with his colossal dominion—the Hero-Adventurer whom the rulers of England hated with an immortal hatred, if only for all those diadems he had squandered upon bis family, or for all those majestic titles which had been lavished upon himself as Emperor of the French, as Ici n g of Italy, as Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, and as Mediator of Switzer land. The British Government could only watch the sequence of his astonishing victories, and—while they , nurtured the Hydra of Coalition with their enor mous subsidies, increased and increased as each head was lopped off by the trenchant sword of Napoleon —wait for their oppo r tunity. And at length the oppor tunity came in ear n est. Petty expeditions were no adventured upon. Spam aenod. Portugalco-operation. atiouwere The pearmel lo mellowed floorngaervastto insurrectionary ed—a grand one was to be ripe. And Sir Arthur Wellesley was the one selected t . o shak e it ou t o f t h e b r anches. To Lord Castlereagh is due the honour of that ever-memorable choice. It was his sagacity that recognized in the " Sepoy- General," who had won the pitched battle of Assaye, and effected the capitulation of Copenhagen, a fit com petitor for the Marshals of Napoleon, and the future conqueror o f th e P en i nsu l a . Remembering this circum stance, we could not but recognize the other day a graceful tribute to the Past, in the conference of the Garter, left vacant by the death of our illustrious Cap tain, upon the brother of the statesman who may be said to have first appreciated his genius as a military commander, upo n th e b r other of Viscount Castlereagh— himself an old companion in arms of the late Duke, when he served under him as Sir Charles Stewart, now the veteran Marquis of Londonderry. We all remember, of course, the ridiculous manner in which Lord Castlereagh's selection of Sir Arthur Wel lesley to the command of the army dispatched into Portugal was rendered for a while in a great me asure ineffective—namely, by compelling him to surrender his authority to Sir Harry Burrard, who was in like manner obliged to yield up his position as chief to Sir Hew Dalrymple. Overshadowed by the prospect of these preposterous but inevitable interruptions to his scheme of a campaign, Wellesley landed his troops in the August of 1808 in Mondago Bay, situated immediately between Oporto and Lisbon. When starting on the 9th of August upon his first march in the Peninsula, Sir Arthur found himself at the head (for the time being) of nearly 13,000 British soldiers. Nevertheless, with these, on the 17th of August, he over came 5,000 French under Laborde on the heights of Rolica, and on the 21st entirely defeated Junot with 14,000 men at Vimeira. By this time, however, Sir Harry Burrard had arrived, and Sir Arthur Wellesley being displaced, was prevented by his superior officer from following up his successes. No wonder when he saw the enemy allowed thus comfortably to retreat upon Torres Vedras,—no wonder, indeed, that Wellesley, turning to his staff, remarked, with a shrug of the shoulders, " Well then, gentlemen, we may go now and shoot red-legged partridges !" Consummate talents were compelled for a time to make way before the pompous strut of mediocrity. Naturally enough our great Captain—seeing himself displaced by Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Harry Buriard in his turn displaced by Sir Hew Dalrymple—returned to England, anxious no doubt to forget his disappointed hopes of victory in the duties of his Secretaryship and the debates of Par liament. HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND. Compelled by circumstances to withdraw from the contest which his tactics had opened so advantageously for England, and the admirable results of which were already visible in the colours taken at Rolica and Vimiera, as well as in the convention signed soon after wards at Cintra with the Duke of Abrantes,---Sir Arthur Wellesley occupied his time on his return to England in endeavouring to impress upon Ministers a clearer apprehension of the situation of affairs in the Peninsula. His confidence in the British soldiers he had already announced in that communication addressed to the Duke of York, in which he remarked, in reference to the con flict of the 21st of August—" I cannot say too much in favour of the troops. Their gallantry and their discipline were equally conspicuous, and, I must add, that this is the only action that I have ever been in, in which every thing passed as it was directed, and no mistake was made by any of the officers charged with its conduct." Indirectly, a similar tribute was offered by our hero to the fighting quality of the men subsequently placed at his disposal, when—on being pestered by an " ex quisite " in epaulettes with an argument at the dinner table to this effect, " If the French moved there, and then did this, and then did that, which they would in evitably do, then what would your Grace do ?"—he re replied with delicious sang froid, " Give them the most infernal thrashing they have had for some time !" HIS RE-APPEARANCE IN THE PENINSULA. Reflection soon convinced the Cabinet that Napoleon could never be subdued by a mere handful of men under the guidance of a Burrard or a Dalrymple. They deter- Mined, therefore, after mature consideration, to augment the English troops in Portugal to 30,000 in the aggre gate, and to entrust the supreme command to Sir Arthur Wellesley. Accordingly, the " Sepoy General" once more repaired to the European Continent to measure swords with an antagonist more formidable in every re spect than the Rajah o. Berar, or the Tiger of Mysore, or Scindiah, the most dreaded among the chiefs of the Mahrattas. The history of the remarkable wars which thereupon ravaged the Peninsula has happily been penned by more than one gifted and remarkable annalist. Those who may not already have studied any complete narrative of the campaigns which followed each other in rapid suc cession, may turn with pleasure and advantage to many works of an authoritative character—to the picturesque accounts furnished by Alison, to the condensed military memoir written by Viesseux, to the elaborate delinea tions of Southey, to the minute records of Hamilton, to the faithful commentaries of Londonderry, to the biogra phical narrative given to the world by Maxwell, as well as to that other produced by Alexander ; but most confi dently, and, we doubt not, most delightedly among all, to the masterly volumes of Napier, and those noble " Des patches," edited by Gurwood, which constitute the most splendid and imperishable monument of the Duke of Wel lington's reputation. Sufficient for our present purpose will it be to epitomize, with the utmost attainable brevity, the catalogue of those victories which illustrated the movements made by our great Captain during five eventful years in the Penin sula—victories which must ever be regarded as the most eminent of his many extraordinary achievements. It was on the 12th of May, 1809, that Sir Arthur Wellesley effected that daring passage of the Douro—a river, at the point arrived at, three hundred yards in width—which led to the defeat of Soult, and the evacua tion of Oporto by the forces of the vanquished. As if in jocose celebration of the victory, Sir Arthur seated him self that evening in the captured city, and partook (we may be certain with considerable relish) of the dinner which had been prepared by the French cooks for the Duke of Dalmatia. Having united his troops, amounting to some 22,000 altogether, to 56,000 Spanish soldiers, under Cuesta, Wel lesley, on the 28th of July, gained the first great pitched battle that had yet been fought between the French and English in the Peninsula. His antagonists numbered about 55,000, conducted by King Joseph Napoleon in person, accompanied by Marshals Victor and Jourdan. This was that famous victory of Talavera, in honour of which the British Commander-in-Chief was created Baron Douro and Viscount Wellington. Startled by these unaccustomed reverses, the Emperor Napoleon forthwith dispatched to the seat of war one of the most notable Captains in the grand army, Massena, designated by his Imperial Master the Spoilt Child of Victory. Under the orders of Massena, were Regnier, and Junot, and Ney, with enormous forces, advancing to avenge the disasters at the Douro and at Talavera. Wellington recognized at once that his only chance was to act for the present upon the defensive. After preparing, by way of covert for his forces whenever they might be at the last extremity, an enormous chain of fortifications, extending from the Tagus, above Lisbon, to the coast of the Atlantic, and known now familiarly enough by every Englishman as the Lines of Torres Vedras, the British General slowly began to retire before the overwhelming array of his antagonists. Once, during this withdrawal upon his fortifications, the British General paused, the British army stood at bay, and there was fought that great fight of Busaco, which showed that even the Spoilt Child of Victory was not invincible. Some one, before the battle commenced, expressed a fear that the Prince of Esling might not attack. " But if he does, I shall beat him," was the pithy remark of Wel lington. Sheltered effectually by the lines of Torres Vedras, the English forces set alike at defiance the valour and the strategy of the French Marshals. After tarrying long in front of those vast barriers in the vain expectation of coming to blows with the concealed enemy, Massena was at length compelled—with his troops dispirited by inglo rious delays, and thinned at once by disease and priva tion—to begin that memorable retreat which brought him at last, through a prolonged succession of failures, to the foot of the Pyrenees. Foremost among all these repulses, was that expe rienced by the French in the gallant encounter at Fuentes D'Onore, where the valiant Brotherton led the 14th Light Dragoons at a gallop through the crush of the combatants, and where the brave Stewart took Colonel Lamotte, of Napoleon's Guard, with his own hand, prisoner—a contest which immediately brought about the re-capture of the fortress of Almeida. Defeated, as we have seen, Massena was replaced by Marmont, and Lord Wellington, resolved at last to pene trate beyond the Spanish frontiers from his position in Portugal, turned his attention to the capture of the several border fortresses. At the outset, his endeavours in this direction were fruitless, and both Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo still continued in the possession of the enemy. During the time of his attempt to blockade the latter place, he was enabled, however, at El Boden once more to vanquish his antagonist. Baffled in these enter , prizes for a while, Wellington was far from being dis couthged. By a masterly combination of forces, he con trived, on the 19th of January, 1812, to storm and take Ciudad Rodrigo ; and, on the 7th of April, after a des perate resistance on the part of the garrison, to capture the important stronghold of Badajoz. Advancing into Spain, the British Commander-in- Chief, on the 22d of July, totally routed the army of Marmont at Salamanca. As indicative of the independent judgment rigidly maintained by him at this period in regard to the con duct of a campaign, it may here be remarked, that upon one occasion, when Sir Thomas Picton ventured, while Wellington was giving his directions, to differ in opinion with the latter as to the propriety of some proposed movement, he received for reply this curt rebuke—" Sir Thomas Picton, I sent for you to hear my orders, not to receive yours." According to a statement made in the United Service Journal, a musket ball perforated the late Duke's cloak, folded in front of his saddle, during the conflict at Sala manca. • Shortly after this renowned victory, the conqueror of so many of Napoleon's greatest Marshals—the conqueror of Massena, of Soult, of Victor, of Jourdan—made his triumphal entry into Madrid, pelted, for one brief inter val at least, with flowers instead of cannon balls. From repose in the Spanish capital, however, the British Captain was driven back upon the Agueda, after five weeks ineffectual siege of Burgos—our forces being threatened in one direction by 44,000, under Souham, and in another by 70,000, under Marshal Soult and King Joseph Napoleon. Upon the approach of winter, Lord Wellington re paired to Cadiz, whence, having obtained supreme power over the native contingents from the Cortes established in that seaport, he returned to his army, and bidding a final adieu to Portugal, opened the campaign of 1813 with an effective force of 70,000 men, exclusive of th e Spaniards. Then came, in June, that resplendent battle of Vit toria, which dissipated the power of Jos e ph, as i t were, to the four winds of heaven. A blow was on that day struck, not very sanguinary, it is true, but terrible and resistless. Perhaps no single victory ever yielded such spoils to a conqueror-150 pieces of artillery, 415 caissons, the military chest, upwards of 3,000 carriages, waggons, and cars laden with t reasures, among them 200 coaches belonging to th e CO urt, the generals, and private individuals—vehi c l es crammed full of State robes, embroidered uniforms, insignia, jew e l s , p l ate, pictures ! The trophies of the fight were almost count less ; and among them a stand of colours and the baton of Marshal Jourdan ! The last-mentioned was sent home by the victorious General to the Prince Regent ; and thus wrote the Prince in acknowledgment--" You have sent me among the trophies of your unrivalled fame the staff of a French Marshal, and I send you in return that of England." Wellington, indeed, in re compence for the intelligence of his victory on that oc casion, received not on l y t h e baton of a Field-Marshal, but the patent of a Dukedom. Notwithstanding the desperate valour with which Soult poured down upon the elated English through the passes of the frontier mountains, the victor was again successively victorious at Maya and at Sorauven ; and after taking St. Sebastian by storm, by the 19th of No. vember, he had quitted the soil of the Peninsula. "After years of toils," exclaims Sir William Napier, in language of eloquent exultation, " after years of toils and com bats, admired rather than understood, Lord Wellington, emerging from the chaos of the Peninsula struggle, crowned the Pyrenees—a recognized conqueror. From that pinnacle the clangour of his trumpets was heard, and the splendour of his genius blazed out, a flaming beacon for warring nations." He had advanced across the Bidas soa and the Nivelle in defiance of every imaginable ob struction ' • and, after finally va n q u i s hi ng th e f orce s of Marshal Soult at Toulouse, fluttered his banners, no longer menaced, in the imperial dominions of Napoleon. His however no longer very speedily afterwards—when the Allied forces following up the elementary disasters of the Russian campaign, and the defection of the Saxons, and the faithlessness of the Austrian Francis, and the treachery of Fouche and Talleyrand, and a host of other titled traitors, surprised Paris into a shameless capitu lation, and thereby compelled the great Emperor who had subjugated Europe, the Hero-Adventurer who had for fourteen years directed the destinies of Christendom, to sign an almost unconditional abdication in the Palace of Fontainebleau. HIS MOVEMENTS AS PLENIPOTENTIARY. Napoleon had fallen, and retired to Elba with his Old Guard and the title of Emperor. The British forces, under Wellington, had advanced beyond the Pyrenees— victorious in every engagement—as far as Bordeaux. The Bourbons—protected by foreign bayonets—had re turned to the Tuilleries. Negotiations were then requisite for the reorganization of affairs, in accordance with the new state of things, throughout the various powers of the European Continent. Attention was, therefore, at once directed, not .only by the English Government, but by the Cabinets likewise of all the Allied Sovereigns, to se cure the assistance of the wise counses and sagacious forethought of the Conqueror of the Peninsula. Within four days after his departure from the army he had so often conducted to victory, the Duke of Wellington was in stalled in Paris as the British Ambassador. Within another week he was once more at Madrid endeavouring to reconcile the Spanish people to the restoration of the rule of their ancient sovereign. Within six months more he was dis patched to Vienna, to take a conspicuous share in the Congress then assembled in the capital of Austria, for the settlement of the principal kingdoms of the Eastern hemisphere: During the brief interval of his absence from the Con tinent in England, Arthur Wellesley had been formally introduced to the House of Peers as one of its Members by all the titles of nobility in the gift of the Crown. The Lord High Chancellor having taken his seat upon the woolsack, shortly after three o'clock on the 28th of June, 1814, the illustrious patrician entered the house in his ducal robes, accompanied by the Duke of Beaufort and the Duke of Richmond. His different patents of nobility were then read by the Clerk, one after another—those wonderful parchments which declared that Arthur Wellesley had been created a Baron and a Viscount for Talavera, an Earl for Ciudad Rodrigo, a Marquis for Salamanca, and a Duke for Vittoria. Among not the least interested spectators of that remarkable scene, were the hero's mother,and his wife—Anne (nee Hill, daughter of Viscount Dungannon) Countess of Mornington, and Catherine (nee Pakenham, daughter of Baron Longford,) Duchess of Wellington. HIS CROWNING SUCCESS AT WATERLOO, The Congress was still sitting at Vienna when there arrived the astounding news of Napoleon's escape from El ba, and of his triumphal march from Cannes to theTuileries. The Duke was the one who first announced to his brother Plenipotentiaries the course to be pursued in consequence of this marvellous intelligence. " Gentlemen," said he, when they had all assembled to dine with the Prince Metternich, " have you heard of the Emperor's escape ?" adding, as he went up to Prince Talleyrand, and touched him on the shoulder—" Quant d moi, Mon sieur de Talleyrand, je suis soldat du roi de France." Everybody knows the details of the ensuing campaign ; it is among the household stories of France and Eng land, and has penetrated, years and years ago, to every inhabited corner of the two hemisphe r es. After the celebrated contests at Ligny and at Quatre Bras, there came on the yet more renowned 18th of June—that tre mendous struggle at Waterloo, where the banners of Napoleon were borne down and trampled under foot by the united ranks of the English, Dutch, Germans, Bel gians, and Brunswickers. Familiar as the generality are with the incidents of this great battle, and with the nature of its conse quences, they are possibly not as familiar with the very surprising coincidence that, upon one occasion during the course of his brilliant campaigns, the Duke of Marl borough meditated a struggle against the French bat talions on those very plains of Waterloo which were ultimately the arena of the last military exploit of the Duke of Wellington. The circumstance is pointed out by Haydn in his "Dictionary of Dates," and will be found thus distinctly recounted by Smollet in his "His tory of England :" " On the 3d of August, 1705, Baron Spaar, with a body of Dutch troops, marched to Raboth, on the canal of Bruges, forced the French lines, a t L oven d ege n, and took four forts by which they were defended ; but, re ceiving advice that the enemy were on the march to wards him, he retired to Mildegern, and carried with him several hostages, as security for the payment of the contribUtions he had raised. On the 15th the Duke of Marlborough moved from Mildert to Corbais ; next day continued his march to Genap, from whence he advanced to Fischermont. On the 17th, General D'Auverquerque took the post of Waterloo ; and next day the Confederate Army was drawn up in order of battle before the enemy, who ex tended from Overysche, near the wood of Soignies, to Neerysche, over the little river Ysch in their front, so as to cover Brussels and Louvain. The Duke of Marl borough proposed to attack them immediately before they should recollect themselves from their consterna tion ; and D'Auverquerque approved of the design ; but it was opposed by General Schlangenburg, and the other Dutch officers, who represented it in such a light to the Deputies of the States that they refused to concur in the execution. The Duke being obliged to relinquish the scheme, wrote an expostulatory letter to the States- General, complaining of their having withdrawn that confidence which they had reposed in him while he acted in Germany. This letter being published at the Hague, excited murmurs among the people ; and the English nation were incensed at the presumption of the Deputies, who wrote several letters in their own justification to the States-General. But these had no effect upon the populace by whom the Duke was respected even to a degree of adoration." HIS CAREER AS PACIFICATOR. After the second and final downfall of the French Emperor, the Duke of Wellington was for a considerable period occupied in the somewhat intricate and bewilder ing task of European pacification. His endeavours were sedulously directed to tranquillize the people of the Con tinent, now that they were relieved from the agitation of those stupendous wars which had followed almost uninterruptedly upon the outbreak of the first Revolu tion. To this end he prevented Blucher from destroying the monuments of Paris, and withstood all attempts to bring about in that capital an odious and vengeful con fiscation. His argument was, that Europe could alone hope to be tranquil when France was no longer agitated—a declaration identical with that memor- able one recently made by the Third Napoleon at Bordeaux " When France is satisfied, the world is tranquil !" In order the more speedily and effectually to moderate the popular excitement in the great country which had been vanquished by the banded armies of Christendom, the Conqueror of the Peninsula so arranged matters that the Army of Occu pation, of which he himself was elected the Commander in -Chief, was only to be temporary, and not, as was ori ginally intended, permanent. Wellington did not, it is true, throw the shield of magnanimity over the bravest of the brave, the glorious and ill-fated Michel Ney, the Marshal of the Empire, Prince of Moskwa, and Duke of Elchingen—but, if he failed in this act of generosity, he succeeded in saving France from many indignities, from much turpitude, and from a most das tardly vengeance. During his sojourn in Paris, after the battle of Water loo, the Duke paid the penalty of his renown, in being the object of two infamous attempts at assassination. Happily, neither of these atrocious crimes were con summated. The first occurred upon a fête-day, when some miscreant placed gunpowder in the cellar of the house occupied by our great Captain ; the second oc curred on the driving of his carriage one day . through the gateway of the same residence, when a pistol was discharged at the window by the ruffian Cantillon. A kind of supplementary meeting of the Congress of Vienna was held in 1818, at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was attended by three crowned heads—the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Russia, and the Emperor of Austria. As the representatives of England, there were Lord Castlereagh, and the Duke of Wellington. In conse quence of this interview, France was r e li eve d a t l ast from the burden of the Alied Army of Occupation.. Subsequently, in 1822, his Grace attended the Con gress at Verona, as Plenipotentiary on the part of the British Government. This was immediately anterior to the advance of a French army into Spain, for the sup pression of the popular movement--an invasion opposed to the wishes of the Foreign Secretary of England, Mr. Canning, but instigated by the Foreign Secretary of France, M. de Chateaubriand. Later on, namely, in 1826, the Duke proceeded upon an extraordinary embassy to St. Petersburg. HIS CAREER AS ADMINISTRATOR. Master -General of the Ordnance under Lord Liver pool's Administration the Duke of Wellington partook largely in the odium attached to the latter days of the old Tory Government. That Government, however, early in 1827, fell to pieces, and the King appealed td Mr. Can ning to und er t a k e th e res p ons ibility of constructing a Cabinet. England was no longer called upon to witness the maintenance of the old worn-out system which defied reform, laughed to scorn the notion of progress, and pre posterously dreamt of building upadyl( of restrictions against the advancing flood of civiliaztion. Liverpool had at last closed his prolonged and most repres s i ve Administration. Sidmouth had withdrawn from official anxieties, Eldon had "paled his ineffectual fires, "and death had carried away to other regions the once dominating intellect of Londonderry. It can never be forgotten by Englishmen, and it can never be remembered by them without emotion, how George Canning strov e w i t h all the resources and energies of his genius, to raise out of the ruins of the departed Ministry the fabric of a strong and liberal Government. Everything in turn failed him in the endeavour—friends forsook him, opport un iti es vanished before his glance, ambition and patr i ot i sm, indomitable courage, and inexorable resolution— all proved of no avail against the overwhelming diffi culties encountered by the new leader of the Government. A great mind was clouded, and a great heart broken, under the pressure of these ma nifold and most bitter disappointments. Mr. Can ning had not been four months Prime Minister of Eng land, when he died in the midst of the hopeless struggle in which be had become involved. The Duke of Wellington was, in consequence, sum moned by his Majesty to take the helm of the State in his grasp at that period of supreme emergency, and, as First Minister of the Crown, to employ his known jail' ence in the reconciliation of differences hitherto al ) " parently irreconcileable. In order to effect this object, his Grace found it absolutely imperative to concede upon points of considerable moment, in regard to which his opinions had been hitherto inflexible. It was because °f his conviction as to this necessity that he carried through the House of Lords the measure for the repeal of the, Test and Corporation Act s i n t ro d uce d i n to the House 01 Commons by Lord John Ru sse ll, an d afterwards con sented to the consolidation into an enactment of the Corn Bill proposed by Mr. Huskisson. It was charac teristic of the man, that on the transmission to him of the well-known letter written by the last-mentioned st ates ; man, the Duke was pleased to regard the docume nt in the light of a formal tender of resignation, ° l3- serving, when that notion of its meaning was eata voured to be explained away—" There is no naistsi' e l, there can be no mistake, and there shall be no mistake —a resolute mode of expression which may have g . gested to Mr. Hume that kindred one a bout "the Bill' the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," which infu se s an appreciable incentive a little while afterward into the hearts of the Reformers. Upon the expulsion—for we can scarce ly call it th t e retirement—of Huskisson from the Cabinet, there wen s out with him no less than four other notable Canning i j e —Dudley, Grant, Lamb, and Pal mers t on . The Ministry was then re-constructed. At the Ho me -office there was Peel, and at the Exchequer Goulburn, and to these w i e l l ' e now added, Hardinge, and Murray, and Aberdeen. . Duke felt himself powerful i n hi s p os iti o n as Pr° ll- Minister—he recognised the g r e a t requ i r ement of tr time—he saw O'Connell elected memb er for Clare-l e d perceived Ireland on the very verge of insurrection -4 ,', et in that year of 1829 he passed the memorable of Catholic Emancipation. Because of his conduct in p ass i ng thi s gre at Iner r il e r b e : the Duke immediately afterwards, o n th e 21st of 1 %-" a l co . fought a duel in Battersea-field s w ith L or d Winehei g i be His antagonist had written thus in reference t ° course pursued by the Prime Minister : Oh ° " Late political event s h ave conv i nce d me tha whole transaction was i n t en d e d as a bli n d to theme, testant and High Church party, that the noble who had for some ti me p rev i ous to t h at period °, e ,"s - s, mined upon breaking in upon the Constitution of ut might the more effectually, under the cloak of some ward show of zeal for th e P ro t es t an t re li g i on, carrY,c°o his insidious designs fo r th e infringement of our lib e 'i l ef and the introduction of Pop er y i n t o every d e p a rtnie° the State." de' The Duke considered some explanation to he d in an manded for language so peculi ar ly i n t em p er ate ; e en this manner it was that shots were exchanged be t s bis Winchelsea and Wellington—the former having ° d or second Lord Falmouth, and the latter Sir HenrY,,, a t is dinge. It is interesti n g t o remem b er , however, '''.Boo! this strange encounter, our hero's life was in n g e a, S ho t imperilled—the Earl h av i ng , i n th e exc h an ge °L "iy c e( l , fired his pistol into the air, and subsequently as was originally required, to his opponent. r ve(l ' Having yielded thus sagaciously, as we have obs e but not only to the necessity of Free-trade modificatietios also, and in a particular manner, to the need of reli , d to emancipation, the Duke of Wellington was now f 3t , te e i 5 steer directly upon that rocky question of Ref ° A ' - doi; Parliament, which caused the total wreck of his """ o seu nistration. Against any changes of this kind he oPP ga s all the iron stubbornness of his temperament. I gor no great matter in his eyes that East Retford sen t 10 5 bers to the House of Commons, while Birminghl, a polog to without a representative. He considered ma tters to 5 0 well enough as they then were, and would consent the sort of alteratio n . At thi s j unc t ure it wa s tha"„of people forgot the glory of the warrior in the obstirSoce the statesman—and disg race d th emse l ves i n the el l t t he of his unpopula r ity, by compe lli ng hi m to pre, te , e peit' windows of Apsl e y H ouse w ith i ron bli n d s, and ' ;11 .11). ing the hero of Assaye and the conqueror of the r otia, sula—pelting him w ith mu d an d b r i c kb ats w hen h e info' on horseback alo ng Pi cca dill y. Th e i nc id en t is P a llit to record, as another sign of the fickleness of P ° l :e re enthusiasm ; but may now, with salutary effect , called to the general remembrance. 10' l'a r A9 Immediately up on th e assem bli ng o f the new „ n o.- ment, in the Nov em b er o f 1830— scarce ly three I' v er after the explosiv e ou tb rea k o f th e secon d French or lution—the Duk e o f Wellington openly avowed h ' s ot tagonism to Reform, in words that could not for an in er te( l / be mistaken. As Fi rs t Mi n i s t er o f th e C r own he ' s e w - liie h that the country already possessed a Legislatuitat tbo answered all the good purposes of legislation, tu . ,, etd system of representation possessed the full 10 . tire confidence of the country, and that L' t oo; not only not prepar e d t o b r i ng f o rward all as sure of Reform, but would resist such as long Titr y, held any station in the Government of the cone 0 Barely eight months before his acceptance of d te v ', the Chief of an Administration, his Grace ha s ii iriee in the House of Lords, on being taunted with s 4 bee° to Ministerial supremaCy, that he " should ila ve f beis mad to think of it," for that he was " sensible o unqualified for such a situation." The coun ty Or seen him, nev er th e l ess , w ithi n a y .1 31 ear afterw_ r a':' i ' s tri' stalled in D own i ng - s t ree t a t the head of a ' ll ll e ltd They doubt e d f or a w hil e t h e correctness o f thetpr own judgment as to his capabilities as an admini.,, e s ' e foll i t he After his sol emn an d exp li c it d ec l arat i on aga i ns t 3 `,, in the House o f L or d s , i n th e N ovem b er o f 1830'„ie could no longer hesitate in acknowledging the en f t i f: o o l tice of his ow n sen t ence o f self-depreciation. -1',7,011t• words were the unconsc i ous k ne ll o f hi s Goverl i. d " bW The Duke's Cabinet was at once broken up, an Delp Ministerial career may be said to have then definp terminated. HIS AFTER LIFE UNTIL DISSOLUTION. j oy% l Virtually, th e D u k e o f W e lli ng t o n's 0 11 1 career terminated, we re p ea t, w ith that sudden sr th oti t tidal breaki ng u p o f hi s Ad m i n i s t ra tion. it c o ,bii` e actually, he to o k p ar t i n thd C ounc ils of the w tit% formed in 1841, though without holding a t h iobt what the French call a "portfolio." Besides w" 0 0 1 must ever be remembered as perhaps the most 00 . 1 0 ii i s i incident recounted in the history of British C 10 1; tions, that in 1834, shortly after his election a 'flob e cellor of the University of Oxford, and when Sir s bor e Peel, on the resignation of the Whigs ! • w t 3 he riedly sent for by the King to Rome—p ending to Pl' occupied in th e re t urn o f th a t grea t statesman 0 _ e st e land—the D u k e o f W e lli ngton, a t the el is es the treaty of his M a j es ty, ac t ua lly t oo k upon kt of , e shoulders f or th e ti me b e i ng no l ess th an eig'; he tint principal offi ces o f th e G overnmen t , i nc luding.; s l o l B Chief Secretary s hip s ! M oreover , upon the ar ri h oge ec t Robert from It a ly, th e D u k e con ti nue d to die strictet, duties of For e i gn Mi n i s t er , b u t on l y d ur i n g th e r tt e ted period which m ar k e d th a t s h or t-lived and be e ' ministration. t o inil 3e A r re - What the existence of our illustrious Captain e • c li since then, we all of us surely well rememberwe member him in every phase of that honoured ~.,.'1 i reo, e is now associated so intimately with the poPn wfr o f I n tion. We remember him in every public tok e l s O l io methodical and well- or d ere d rou ti ne which " th ° --- I T d id tamed uninterruptedly to the d a y o f his de 3 nri St fl 'of the lamented 14th of S e pt em b er , 1852—by the bon t he of disciplinarian s . W e remem b er hi m in 11 ; 9 ce in "0- toil or of amusement—regular in his attenual i his f o t House of Lords , in his box at the Opera, and, II :be l* to cial calls at the Horse Guards. It was ii° l :„ eti itie ° o , surprising testimony o f th e v i gour o f all his l a o derio the last, that he continued to preside as C° ll3l ,t de el ais . Chief over the armies o f G rea t B r it a in from r e es tro of Lord Hill, in 1843, up to the moment of his co solution. io ors e t y Admired and revered by th e p eo ple, his among them, of late years especially, wa s T a Ar e i signal fo r some t o k en o f t h e i r adm i rat i on . not behold without those loftier emotions L o ice always excit e d more or less by the r enterTt ba t great histo r i ca l events, the venerable form tier e lf who had long survived almost the last of his ear soeviog temporaries—th e man w h om Bulwer Lytton c`' and so finely apostrophized in his noble 0 0 0 °f Arthur :" Lo, he whose fame outshines the F a bulous • 1 0 , Sublime with eagle f ron t, an d th a t grey I'd br° ° ' Which Age, the arch-priest, s e t s on laurel!, toig Lo, Geraint, bending with a wor ld' s renow n hero Every characteristic anecdote of the del ) rtea i- „die, e cix caught up, moreover, with an av idity sufficie n a ppt tive of the depth and sincerity of the poPu la ' r e fore t to tion. Bygone prejudices and heartburning s % ire h e f 9 . hig in the presence of his grave, and we all c l o se e re so think of him as he appeared towards the, i d fig u , A ftea prolonged and illustrious career—the grand °l inimitably described in the "New Timon , i 'i tt otea and comprehensive genius already just no ° l o w " Next, with loose rein and careless cante r Our man of men, the Prince of Waterloo; O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly Pr est ' The firm shape rigid in the b u tton'd ves + Within—the iron which the fire has lsall? And the close Sparta o f a m i n d unntowe' ' l ot, " Not his the wealth to some large natures Divinely lavish, even where misspent, That liberal sunshine of exuberant son], a hole; Thought, sense, affection, warming up th The heat and affluence of a genial power, Rank in the weed as vivid in the flowery it . Hush'd at command his veriest passions hi't Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fall' 1 , glow* Warm, if his blood—he reasons while -`" e w ` s ; Admits the pleasure—ne'er the folly kno ws ' Vulcan for our Mars a snare had set, t He had won the Venus, but escaped. thf': s e i g ht, His eye n e ' er wrong, if circumscribed. tp Widen the prospect and it ne'er is r i g ht, Seen through the telescope of habit still, 5 dr ill ! States seems a cam p, an d all the world is " Yet oh, how few his faults, how falr e V llll Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind ' ; How knightly seems the iron image, 8 .!" throP By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Nap pear__ ther e ; Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud theyyen Stern if his heart, still " man" is grtanvess macle No guile—no crime his step to betraY'd No freedom trampled, and no trus roseose, The eternal ` l' was not his law—he Without one art that honour might oPP And leaves a human, if a hero's name, on s jl To curb ambition while it lights to t 'no• ,p li ds v ier ig hands, been offered to our hero's monn an . g r Noble and touching tributes have d reW—, by 5- lifetime the most abundant honours alreaoY d riv g P rscountry aritt grateful have giv e : lis i ii showered upon him by a t ether bY astonishing catalogue of his og ter miring contemporaries. Elsewhere we with tli te of some few among the t cannot but.ed has:: nation or by individuals. Here as well as f esting to remark how splendid g ifts a rrded to kilnbe in the deato ranks Lady " wh been the panegyrics pronounced ?v s er ef the o r _.,raausu the remarkable personage by all up even to the august " o f the land last and most beloved of his Sovereigns.