New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-02-13
WELLINGTON.
THE IRON DUKE AND HIS FELLOW
SOLDIERS.

vr1JJNcToN. HIS COMRADES AND CON
TEMpoRARIEs.. BY Major Arthur Grifhths'
with Numerous Illustrations octave, PIP hhi'
go LongmanS, Green q 90
This book has evidently been planned as
companion to Laughtons recent volume on Lord
Nelson and his comrades In arms Like that
interesting work it sets out with the honorable
intention of doing justice to those gallant Of
rcars whose fame has been eclipsed by that OF
their more fortunate contemporary. The aim Is
not wholly fulfilled, but this Is because OF cir
cumstances beyond the control of Major Grif-
1ths WELLINGTON had no comrades. hence the
subtitle OF this work Is to certain extent
paradoxical Famous soldiers served with him
and under him, but the student OF the PENN
sular war feels no such personal link between
its greatest hero and the men who co-operated
with him as must invariably be felt by any
reader o. say Captain Mahan's Nelson, or the
book by Professor Laughton to which we nave
Just referred. The whole point to Major Hril-
Sths's biography Of the great English captain
les in his acit enforcement of this striking iacI
lie reveres his subject and protests against the
unsympathetic treatment which ne has received
at the hands OF more than one historian but ne
cannot rerrove the impression Of cod-booded
isolation in which the great Duke stood in his
lifetime and stands to-day.
LADY MorningtCn. the mother OF Arthur
Wellesley regarded him as a gawky, unpronls-
ing lad the fool of the family as she Is SAID TO
have called him. and fit food for powder
Her portrait does not suggest the KIND OF woman
from whom a son might be expected to derive
traits OF geniality and large sympathy be
this as il may. whether he got his inHeAipilty
by inheritance or otherwise. the history OF wei
In gton is that Of a stiff unyieiding .and even
arrogant man. We need not fight his battles
over again Though Major Grittiths attempts
the task it does not provide the best pages Of
his book lie is most interesting when ne Is
painting the personality If the Duke. The latter
used TO laugh somewhat bitterly over the man
ner in which his military associates regarded
him on his early entrance into the army. He
was a mere sprig Of nobility. they said, and mt
only to ornament the service. not TO strengthen
il 10y deeds Of solid value. He knew at the out
set that he would disproyc this falkland his
iabors In India where. mere stripping OF TWEEN
ty-lve he was a bulwark Of strength to the
Governor General. his brother, demonstrated MS
genius-but he seems to have played the lofty
patrjcian from the beginning to the end. Major
Grfiths tells us that all through the Pennsular
war Wellington had two sets Of officers in his
train. one composed Of hard fighters to whom he
intrurted the severest tasks and with whom he
was rarely on intimate terms, the other rrAde
nm ~ ,ut,nger and less able men, reared IKE
himself among the gentry Of England. and quail
fled TO make the court Of a man of fashion. 1t
v,as q curious situation. and it sprang from
nothing more nor less than that cold csotism
which leaves the student of history unmoved
where the personality OF Wengtons great an