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

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
earned a title to these enviable commendations—by his
Probity, by
_
y
his simplicity, by his unaffected reverence for
religion, by a valour tempered with humanity, by a
loyalty ever
kept in equipoise with the counterbalance of b
his civism,
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 distinguishing features of
that elevated and masculine
character. Such were the
prominent peculiarities of a nature which, if it failed in
the majority of instances toawaken during life the sensi-
bilities of the population, has
novir
softening influences of recollection', now when the tomb
at least, under the
4 ~,,
closes over the form we all of us so
wgsetll remember,
now when the great man survives amongst
annals, warmed tn
us merely as
a glorious name in the nationalthe
popular homage into a more genial and a more
generous
rate
appreciation. It is with this new, or at any reani-
mated, sense of his merits, that England regards with a
satisfaction solemnized by the regrets of death, the grand
funereal pomps of this eighteenth day of
to
b N ov emb
Worthy
their renown, her noblest heroes o sea and ortr,
of the
land—depositing under the dome 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.
411r;''' ' . Inipursuance of our plan of an anecdotal biography,
..._
a ,
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.pwvie 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
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intricacies of his character. Simple enough, it is true,
that character was in the main, but still through the
sub stance of this predominating 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.