The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-14 00:00:00

nection, but he enjoyed as yet no literary position,
and so far was he from being recognised as the man
for the task that a certain officer of rank on whom
he waited for information told him his production
would only be an ephemeral affair, and that elabo-
rate plans would be thrown away upon it. The
spirit, moreover, or as we may say the bias of the
work was directly opposed to the opinions of those
times. It offended Englishmer, for it assailed the
still dominant policy of Toryism, and conceded in-
finitely more credit to Napoleon, to his system, and
to his troops than the prejadices of the country had
yet allowed. It offended Spaniards, for it brushed
away the brag of the nation, and reduced the en-
thusiasm and efforts of the patriot armies to dimen-
sions more consistent with fact. " I cared not,"
avowed the historian in his very preface, " to swell
my work with apocryphal matter, and neglected
the thousand winding currents of Spanish warfare
to follow that mighty stream of English battle
which burst the barriers of the Pyrenees, and left
deep traces of its fury on the soil of France."
Frenchmen it might possibly conciliate, for it re-
corded their military merits with uncommon can-
dour, but to no other sympathies did it seem ad-
dressed; and, above all, white depicting the war
and its glories in unprecedented colours, it im-
peached the policy out of which the contest bad
arisen, and attacked the spirit in which it was
conducted. Opinions like these brought on the
author's head a perfect storm of obloquy, which,
with the family genius for improving a contro-
versy, he contrived rather to aggravate than as-
suage. He was accused not only of professional
incapacity under a thousand forms, but of poli-
tical and almost moral heresies without number.
Among other imputations, he, the grandson of a
peer and the great-great-grandson of a King, found
himself charged with a malignant and democratic
hostility to aristocratic birth—an attack which he
quietly repelled by observing that ho was at least
as nobly connected as the people he was said to be
decrying.
It can hardly be denied that the " History of the
Peninsular War" did really present indications of
a distinct, and for those times au unusual, bias.
Its opening sentence, for example, might almost
have figured in a certain pamphlet of Mr. Cobden,
and its comparative delineations of French and
English systems might possibly have been considered
unnational, as nationality had been recently under-
stood. But so to regard the work was to be blind
to its real import and character ; nor was the in-
stinctive acuteness of the public long in discovering
the truth. However the author might be infected
with the heresy of political opposition, his charac-
teristic dedication of his work to the Duke, and
the genuine sentiments with which its every page
was underlaid, soon proved that its real and sole
object was to erect a fitting monumtnt of British
glory as achieved by British arms. That was the
aim of the historian, and as the development of the
history showed it gradually and triumphantly at-
tained, the angry clamours of the Strangfords,
the Beresfords, and the Percevals ware left to die
unheededly away. Against the current of popular
and political prejudice, the work forced its way by
its intrinsic fascinations to the summit of public
favour. It is not, in reality, either constructed or
composed on a popular model. It is by no means
easy reading, and, though not a purely military
history, is technical in its details and severe in its
style. It is a work which at first sight would be
thought likely to commend itself to ordinary readers
desirous of learning how the great war in the Penin-
sula was fought, and yet, though these obstacles
were to be encountered on the threshold, and
though the ground had been occupied by
favourite and attractive writers, the supre-
macy of Napier's History soon became incon-
testable. The truth is, bes'.des the genuine
nationality of its object and its tone, there
was a dignity in the treatment and a living
verity in the descriptions which led the mind un-
resistingly captive. Never before had such scenes
been portrayed, norwith such wonderful colouring.
As event after event was unfolded in the panorama,
not only the divisions and the brigades, but the very
regiments and regimental officers of the Peninsular
army became familiarised to the public eye.
Marches, combats, and battles came out upon the
canvas with the fidelity of photographs, while the
touches by which the effect was produced bespoke,
not the ingenuities of historic art, but the involun-
tary suggestions of actual memory. The shrillness
of Crawfurd's scream at Busaco as lie ordered the
Light Division to charge was probably ringing in
:he author's ears as he wrote ; and the whole scene
upon the Coa, with the little drummer boy beating
the charge, the French officer, " in a splendid uni-
form," leaping on the bridge, and the surgeon tend-
ing the wounded in the midst of the fire, must have
risen before his eyes as he drew it. For the sake
of painting like this—for the sake of an eloquence
unknown before, and devoted unreservedly to the
recompense of British valour, people readily forgave
the prepossessions or deficiencies of the work. If
its spirit was haughty, it was also so national.and
so public that the very haughtiness was becoming;
if its style trenched upon bombast, such loftiness of
language did but correspond with the grandeur
and heroism of the deeds described ; and when the
magnificence of its diction culminated into sublimity
in the stories of Albuera and Badajoz, every reader
felt that the theme and the treatment were consis-
tent with each other.

The completion of this extraordinary work not
only established Col. Napier's fame as an author,
but contributed probably, in conjunction with the
brilliant services of his brother Charles, to improve
even his professional position. He had indeed
earned in the fair discharge of military duty allthe
promotien, which now overtook him, for he had
borne an active and distinguished part throughout
a protracted war, and was justly entitled to the
gradual advancement reserved for its survivors.
Still, it can hardly be doubted that the brother
of Sir Charles Napier and the historian of
the Peninsular war commanded a greater respect
than would have been paid to the half-pay officer
of the 43d, and when the red riband of the Bath
and the colonelcy of a regiment was added to the
promotions arriving by seniority the public was
gratified at the recognitions evinced. Yet Sir
William Napier remained Napier still, and clashed
against the opinions of men as rudely in his later
as in his earlier days. As the Light Division ac-
counts for one period of his life, and his " History"
for a second, so his advocacy of Sir Charles Napier's
excellence in every capacity may be taken for the
business of a third. The spirit of the family has
been uniformly clannish, in excess even of the
Scottish standard, but Sir William's devotion to
the reputation of his brother is almost without n
wito ques-
tion ta
parallel. On this point he would boo
at any hands. In the lonian Islands, in India. ,
in the command of a home district—wherever Sir
dCihdar
his Charlesright.
as
stationed,l'lieand
historian
whatever
o f
the he
wu
acts Napier w
were
in the Peninsula even resumed his pen, for his
brother's sake, to write the "Conquest of &hide,"
and so wholly must his heart have been in the task
that his alleged preference of this work to his great
achievement is not quite incredible. Even when
the life and services of Sir Charles had terminated
together, Sir William still stood champion over his
grave, and at the most critical period of Indian
for the reputation of
his brother,
debates his cwhiheifehaniznietthyesweads
discussions he thought
might possibly be impugned. How little measure
he observed in the controversies which this devo-
tion provoked—how repulsively he treated the
consideration which all were ready to bestow we
need not stop to remark. His labours and his
quarrels are now ended, and as Sir Charles's death
proved the signal for the universal oblivion of his
faults, and the unqualified recognition of his vir-
tues, so with the life of Sir William will all those
acrimonies cease which his intractable pen was but
too apt to occasion. The public will forget the
controversialist, or remember him only to reflect
that even in the least fortunate of his encounters he
never proposed to himself an unworthy aim. The
image which will remain impressed upon its me•
mery is that of a 'noble soldier who. did his duty la.
one of England's greatest wars, and who attn.
wards redoubled this service by raising for his.
country an imperishable monument a the glory site
had acquired.— in les.