The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-31 00:00:00

thing melancholy in the sight of a veteran, whom
neither lead nor steel could daunt, crippled by
gout, or bowed down by paraLysis ; and we cannot
but rejoice that such men should die as they have
lived, erect and unbroken.
Next to the Duke of Wellington, there was none
among our military worthies so well known to his
countrymen as Sir Charles Napier. Few who wit-
nessed the scene will have forgotten how, on the
day of the Wellington funeral, conspicuous even
amongst that illustrious band, he advanced—with
bowed head, and with slow, but scarcely tottering,
step—to gaze upon the coffin of his great com-
mander. His individual deeds of daring have be-
come more familiar to us than, perhaps, those of
any of his contemporaries. His courage, re-
sembling rather that of aknight-errant than of
a modern general, had in it something startling
and romantic which peculiarly captivated the
imagination. His love of personal danger, in-
deed, knew no bounds. As a subaltern in the
Peninsula, he was always found where the fire
was thickest and hottest. By a series of mira-
culous escapes, and with the aid of an extraordi-
nary constitution, he survived upwards of twenty
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advancing over broken ground, followed only by
four men, to the capture of a French gun, until,
pierced by five wounds, he was saved from death
by the humanity of a French drummer. But it
was in India that he earned his fame as one of the
greatest generals of the day. His victories over
the Belooches in Scinde were won in defiance of as
vast a disparity of numbers as signalised the tri-
umphs of Marathon or Arbela. At Meeanee, he
defeated thirty thousand men with something un-
der two thousand English and Sepoys ; and the
victory over Shere Mahomed, and the capture of
Hyderabad, were achieved with five thousand men,
against nearly six times that number. But Napier
although a brave soldier, was not a foolhardy com-
mander. He had much in him of the diplomatist
as well as of the general. His negotiations with
the chieftains of Scinde were carried through with
consummate skill, and the wily Ameers found that
they were opposed to a foe who could not only beat
them in the field, but outwit them in negotiation.
He saw through their machinations and conspira-
cies with an eagle's glance ; and when at last he
drove them to "a terrible warfare," it was, as he
himself said, because they would not content them-
selves with an honest policy.
Like his valour, his aspect was wild and strange,
and his clear expressive eye, his features stern
rather than harsh, and his white, long-flowing hair,
there Was much that reminded one of the finest of
Rembrandt's portraits. Simple and austere in his
own habits he disdained luxurious self-indulgence
in others, and never could be made to see that a
soldier wanted any baggage beyond a " clean shirt,
a change of shoes, and a piece of soap." His lan-
guage
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musket or the formation of a column. He never
turned aside from a word, if he thought it expres-
sive ; and many amusing anecdotes are told of his
plain-spokenness, as that of the Duke of Welling-
ton, both in public and private life. In one of his
general orders, we find him telling his officers, that
" Gentlemen, as well as beggars, if they like, may
ride to the devil when they get on horseback ;"
and that, " without obedience, an army becomes a
mob, a cantonment a bear-garden." In another,
he informs them that " the reviews which the Com-
mander-in-Chief makes of the troops are not to be
taken as so many ' chips in porridge.' "
His mind was as versatile as it was powerful,
and there are passages in his dispatches and other
compositions which indicate that, had he not been
engrossed by the more practical business of a sol-
di.er's life, he might have attained to something of
his brother's excellence as a military historian. Nor
was Sir Charles Napier less great as an administra-
tor than as a commander. During his residence in
India, he corrected innumerable abuses. " There
never," said Lord Ellenborough, " has been, is or
will be, any name in Scinde so great as Sir Charles
Napier's, for his is the only name associated with
justice." He was, perhaps, the most zealous mili-
tary reformer in the army ; and although bred in
an old-fashioned school, having served his first
campaign in Ireland during the rebellion, he was
not a man of antiquated prejudices, or of a narrow
or bigoted mind. We cannot more fitly sum up
his character as a general than in the emphatic
testimony which, on a memorable occasion, the
Duke of Wellington bore to his merits—" Either
you must go to India, or I must."