The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-09-21 00:00:00

serried train on our TT

,find, in looking back upon

the hero's career, almost bewilder us; and we can-
not but shrink from the attempt to gather, and

arrange, and digest them, wh

e as yet over-

whelmed by the contemplation of " the foremost

man of all our age" lying low under the stroke of
the inexorable tyrant, Death.
Contemporaries can seldom do justice to histo-
rical characters ; and although WELLINGTON has
already, for half a century, belonged to history, he

was too lately among us, too familiar to our regard,
too closely mixed up in affairs with respect to
which most of us have had our private, and class
and party, feelings and prejudices, to permit us
thoroughly to appreciate him in all the bearings of
his public character.

On one great point contemporaries of every hue
of political opinion, and the millions of posterity
must all agree, that in the story of WELLINGTON'S
life is to be found an example of lofty and unflinch-
ing devotion to the performance of duty which will
be profitable to mankind throughout all time.
Never, we may fearlessly affirm, has it been the lot

of any man to exercise so large an influence on the
destinies of his fellow-men--to occupy so prominent
a place in the history of the world—to be so incom-
parable a champion of the glory of a great nation in
the field, and so wise a director of its peaceful
councils ; and yet to preserve his honour and alle-
giance unsullied, and make it impossible for
calumny herself to suggest that, throughout a long
career of unparalleled temptation, he ever once
made the minutest sacrifice of duty to his own
interest. It is, perhaps, by comparing the con-
queror of Waterloo with the mighty adversary
whom he annihilated, that Englishmen will learn
best how to appreciate their illustrious countryman,
and to feel with what gratefully jealous care they
ought to consecrate his memory for the admiration
and example of their latest posterity.
In NAPOLEON'S career, from step to step, we
see the very essence of selfishness—self-aggrandise-
ment, the one object towards which all his efforts
were concentrated ; we behold in him various re-
narkable talents, vast influence over the minds of
his dependents and instruments, aided by a super-
stitious reliance on his own high destiny—all used
with an utter practical disregard of the principles of
justice, truth, and honour. No sacrifice of human
life, of popular prosperity, of any of the usually re-
cognised obligations which affect mankind, seem to
have weighed with the great CORSICAN Adventurer
against a chance even of temporary success and
glory. A " bold bad man,"—the reckless scourge
of nations,—he reached a high eminence above his
fellow-men, only that his LUCIFER-like fall might
be the greater, the more irretrievable, the more in-
structive and profitable to the world. What a no-
ble contrast, in such respects, is afforded by the
history of him who has but now been called from
amongst us l If there was something of the Stoic
or of the stern Roman hero in the DUKE of WEL-
LINGTON which restrained him from courting or
expressing gratitude for the sympathy of his fellow-
citizens, his character was therefore only the more
complete. Of him it might well be said,
" He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,

Or Jove, for his power to thunder ;"
yet was he no Cynic, but was ever ready to dis-
charge every duty which society imposed upon
him. This is not the place, nor is this the time, to
recall in detail his exploits as the greatest captain
of the age, or the services he has rendered to his

country since peace crowned his warlike labours.

These,—are they not written in the chronicles of
GREAT BRITAIN and of the WORLD ? NOW that
he has been called from the scene of busy life, he
has become a memory of the past glory and great-
ness of England; and while the name of WELLING-
TON lives beside that of NELSON in the perennial
page of HISTORY, as a shining example for imita-
tation, England may always confidently expect her
sons will "do their duty."