with a sense of discipline and decorum which prevented him from moving when a bombshell was fizzing between his feet, and yet a man of thoughtful and philosophic temperament, with a weakness for solitary musings, for children, and for flowers.  He has written for all time the classic account of a great battle, seen from the point of view of a battery commander.  Many others of Wellington’s soldiers wrote their personal reminiscences.  You can get them, as I have them there, in the pleasant abridgement of “Wellington’s Men” (admirably edited by Dr. Fitchett)—­Anton the Highlander, Harris the rifleman, and Kincaid of the same corps.  It is a most singular fate which has made an Australian nonconformist clergyman the most sympathetic and eloquent reconstructor of those old heroes, but it is a noble example of that unity of the British race, which in fifty scattered lands still mourns or rejoices over the same historic record.

And just one word, before I close down this over-long and too discursive chatter, on the subject of yonder twin red volumes which flank the shelf.  They are Maxwell’s “History of Wellington,” and I do not think you will find a better or more readable one.  The reader must ever feel towards the great soldier what his own immediate followers felt, respect rather than affection.  One’s failure to attain a more affectionate emotion is alleviated by the knowledge that it was the last thing which he invited or desired.  “Don’t be a damned fool, sir!” was his exhortation to the good citizen who had paid him a compliment.  It was a curious, callous nature, brusque and limited.  The hardest huntsman learns to love his hounds, but he showed no affection and a good deal of contempt for the men who had been his instruments.  “They are the scum of the earth,” said he.  “All English soldiers are fellows who have enlisted for drink.  That is the plain fact—­they have all enlisted for drink.”  His general orders were full of undeserved reproaches at a time when the most lavish praise could hardly have met the real deserts of his army.  When the wars were done he saw little, save in his official capacity, of his old comrades-in-arms.  And yet, from major-general to drummer-boy, he was the man whom they would all have elected to serve under, had the work to be done once more.  As one of them said, “The sight of his long nose was worth ten thousand men on a field of battle.”  They were themselves a leathery breed, and cared little for the gentler amenities so long as the French were well drubbed.

His mind, which was comprehensive and alert in warfare, was singularly limited in civil affairs.  As a statesman he was so constant an example of devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and high disinterested character, that the country was the better for his presence.  But he fiercely opposed Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bill, and everything upon which our modern life is founded.  He could never be brought to see that a pyramid should stand on its base and not