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counter at the same time a feeble Government, a factious Opposition, and a distrustful people, scandalous allies, and the most powerful enemy in the world. He gained victories with starving troops, and carried on sieges without tools; and, as if to complete the fatality which in this sense always awaited him, when he had succeeded in creating an army worthy of Roman legions, and of himself, this invincible host was broken up on the eve of the greatest conjuncture of his life, and he entered the field of Waterloo with raw levies and discomfited allies.

But the star of Wellesley never paled. He has been called fortunate, for fortune is a divinity that ever favours those who are alike sagacious and intrepid, inventive and patient. It was his character that created his career. This alike achieved his exploits and guarded him from vicissitudes. It was his sublime self-control that regulated his lofty fate. It has been the fashion of late years to disparage the military character. Forty years of peace have hardly qualified us to be aware how considerable and how complex are the qualities which are necessary for the formation of a great general. It is not enough to say that he must be an engineer, a geographer, learned in human nature, adroit in managing mankind; that he must be able to perform the highest duties of a minister of state, and sink to the humblest offices of a commissary and a clerk; but he has to display all this knowledge and he must do all these things at the same time, and under extraordinary circumstances. At the same moment he must think of the eve and the morrow-of his flanks and of his reserves; he must carry with him ammunition, provisions, hospitals; he must calculate at the same time the state of the weather and the moral qualities of man; and all these elements, which are perpetually changing, he must combine amid overwhelming cold or overpowering heat: sometimes amid famine, often amid the thunder of artillery. Behind all this, too, is the ever-present image of his country, and the dreadful alternative whether that country is to receive him with cypress or laurel. But all these conflicting ideas must be driven from the mind of the military leader, for he must think-and not only think-he must think with the rapidity of lightning, for on a moment more or less, depends the fate of the finest combination, and on a moment more or less, depends glory or shame. Doubtless, all this may be done in an ordinary manner by an ordinary man; as we see every day of our lives ordinary men making successful Ministers of State, successful speakers, successful authors. But to do all this with genius is sublime. Doubtless, to think deeply and

clearly in the recess of a Cabinet is a fine intellectual demonstration, but to think with equal depth and equal clearness amid bullets is the most complete exercise of the human faculties. Although the military career of the Duke of Wellington fills so large a space in history, it was only a comparatively small section of his prolonged and illustrious life. Only eight years elapsed from Vimiera to Waterloo, and from the date of his first commission to the last cannon-shot on the field of battle scarcely twenty years can be counted. After all his triumphs he was destined for another career, and, if not in the prime, certainly in the perfection of manhood, he commenced a civil career scarcely less eminent than those military achievements which will live for ever in history. Thrice was he the Ambassador of his Sovereign to those great historic congresses that settled the affairs of Europe; twice was he Secretary of State; twice was he Commander-inChief; and once he was Prime Minister of England. His labours for his country lasted to the end. A few months ago he favoured the present advisers of the Crown with his thoughts on the Burmese War, expressed in a state paper characterised by all his sagacity and experience; and he died the active chieftain of that famous army to which he has left the tradition of his glory.

Ex. 184. Speech against Paine's 'Age of Reason.'

Disraeli.

The defendant stands indicted for having published this book, which I have only read from the obligations of professional duty, and which I rose from the reading of with astonishment and disgust. For my own part, Gentlemen, I have been ever deeply devoted to the truths of Christianity, and my firm belief in the Holy Gospel is by no means owing to the prejudices of education (though I was religiously educated by the best of parents), but arises from the fullest and most continued reflections of my riper years and understanding it forms, at this moment, a great consolation of my life, which, as a shadow, must pass away; and without it, indeed, I should consider my long course of health and prosperity (perhaps too long and too uninterrupted to be good for any man), only as the dust which the wind scatters, and rather as a snare than as a blessing.

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This publication appears to me to be as mischievous and cruel in its probable effects, as it is manifestly illegal in its principles; because it strikes at the best, sometimes, alas! the only refuge and consolation amidst the distresses and

afflictions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it-they have more occasion for firm hope beyond the grave than those who have greater comforts to render life delightful. I can conceive a distressed, but virtuous man, surrounded by children, looking up to him for bread, when he has none to give them, sinking under the last day's labour, and unequal to the next, yet, still looking up with confidence to the hour when all tears shall be wiped from the eye of affliction, bearing the burden laid upon him, by a mysterious Providence which he adores; and looking forward with exultation to the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and happier than the happiest of mankind. What a change in such a breast might not be wrought by such a merciless publication !

But it seems, this is an age of reason, and the time and the person are at last arrived, that are to dissipate the errors which have overspread the past generations of ignorance. The believers in Christianity are many; but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason; superior reason may, therefore, Idictate to the weak. In running the mind over the long list of sincere and devout Christians, I cannot help lamenting that Newton had not lived to this day, to have had his shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. But the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly and directly. Newton was a Christian! Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our finite conceptions. Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy-not those visionary and arrogant presumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting on the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie. Newton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which all created matter is held together and exists. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, the errors which a minuter investigation of the created things on this earth might have taught him, of the essence of his Creator.

What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the brute inanimate substances which the foot treads on? Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine, to look up through nature to nature's God! Yet the result of all his contemplations was the most confirmed and devout belief of all which the other holds in

contempt as despicable and drivelling superstition but this error might perhaps arise from a want of a due attention to the foundations of human judgment, and the structure of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth.

Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who was, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, a Christian. Mr. Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the fountain of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination, putting a rein besides upon false opinion, by practical rules, for the conduct of human judgment. But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind.

Gentlemen,-In the place where we now sit to administer the justice of this great country, above a century ago the never-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruit in man, administering human justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, which has been, and will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration.

Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splendid or illustrious, among created beings-all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature (if not inspired by its Universal Author for the advancement and dignity of the world)— though divided by distant ages, and by the clashing opinions, distinguishing them from one another, yet joining, as it were, in one sublime chorus, to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the neverfading offerings of their immortal wisdom.

Ex. 185.

Speech for Hamilton Rowan.

Erskine.

This paper, Gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged as part of the libel. If they had waited another year-if they had kept this prosecution impending for another year— how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the progress of public information was eating away the grounds of the pro

secution. Since the commencement of the prosecution, this part of the libel has unluckily received the sanction of the Legislature. In that interval, our Catholic brethren have obtained that admission, which it seems it was a libel to propose. In what way to account for this I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren ? Has the bigoted malignity of any individuals been crushed? Or has the stability of the Government, or that of the country, been weakened? Or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they received should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance? If you think so, you must say to them-' You have demanded emancipation, and you have got it but we abhor your persons; we are outraged at your success; and we will stigmatise, by a criminal prosecution, the adviser of that relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country.' I ask you, do

you think, as honest men, anxious for the public tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this language, at this time, to men who are too much disposed to think, that in this very emancipation they have been saved from their own Parliament by the humanity of their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare them for the revocation of these improvident concessions? Do you think it wise or humane, at this moment, to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths: Do you think that a blessing of that kind --that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression-should have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose that measure ?-To propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the Church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the 'so-much-censured words of this paper, 'Universal Emancipation !' I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil-which proclaims, even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot on British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced ;no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him ;-no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been

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