THE DUKE'S PROMINENT CHARACTERISTICS.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 707, 22 January 1853, Page 4

THE DUKE'S PROMINENT CHARACTERISTICS.

(From the " Times," .) If aught can lessen the grief of England upon the death of her greatest son, it is the recollection that the life which has just closed, leaves no duty incomplete and no honour unbestowed. The Duke of Wellington has exhausted nature and exhausted glory. His career was one unclouded longest day, filled from dawn to nightfall with renowned actions, animated by unfailing energy in the public service, guided by unswerving principles of conduct and statesmanship. He rose by a rapid series of achievements which none had surpassed to a position which no other man in this nation ever enjoyed. The place occupied by the Duke of Wellington in the councils of the country and in the life of England can no more be filled. There is none left in the army or the senate to act and speak with like authority. There is none with whom ithe valour and the worth of this nation were so incorporate. Yet when we consider the fulness of his years and the abundance of his incessant services, we may learn to say with the Roman orator " Satis dm viansse dicito," since, being mortal, nothing could be added either to our veneration or tohis fame. Nature her[self had seemed for a time to expand her inexorable limits, and the infirmities of age to lay a lighter jburden on that honoured head. Generations of t men have passed away between the first exploits' of his arms and the last counsels of his age, until,* by a lot unexampled in history, the man'who had

played the most conspicuous part in the annals ofj more than half a century became the last survivor; of h<i> contemporaries, and carries with him to the '{'rave all living memory of his own achievements.] To what a century, to what a country, to what; achievements was that life successfully dedicated ff For its prodigious duration —»or the multiplicity 'of contemporary changes and events, far outnumbering the course of its days and years—for the] invariable and unbroken stream of success which attended it from its commencement to its close, from the first flash of triumphant valour in Indian war to that senatorial wisdom on which the Sovereign and nation hung for counsel to its latest [hour —for the unbending firmness of character which bore alike all labour and all prosperity—[and for unalterable attachment to the same objects, the same principles, the same duties, undisturbed by the passions of youth, and unrelaxed [by the honours and enjoyments of peace and ofj fage—the life of the Duke of Wellington stands [alone in history. I In war, in politics, and in the common transactions of life, the Duke of Wellington adhered in(flexibly to the most precise correctness in word (and deed. His temperament abhorred disguises [and despised exaggerations. The fearlessness ofj !*his actions was never the result of speculative confidence or fool-hardy presumption, but it lay mainly in a just perception of the true relation in which he stood to his antagonists in the field or in the senate. The greatest exploits of his life;— isuch as the passage of the Douio, followed by the march on Madrid, the battle of Waterloo, and thej passing the Catholic llelief Bill —were performed! under no circumstance that could inspire enthusi-I asm. Nothing but the coolness of the player! could have won the mighty stakes upon a cast apparently so adverse to his success. Other commanders have attained the highest pitch of glory when they disposed of the colossal resources of empires, and headed armies already flushed with the conquest of the world. The Duke of Wellington found no such encouragement in any part of his career. At no time were the means at his disposal adequate .to the ready and certain execution of his designs. His steady progress in the Peninsular campaigns went on against the current ot fortune, till that current was itself turned by perseverance and resolution. He had a clear and complete perception of the dangers he encountered, but he saw and grasped the latent power which baffled those dangers and surmounted resistance apparently invincible. That is precisely the highest degree of courage—for it is courage conscious, enlightened, and determined. His superiority over other men consisted rather in the perfection of those qualities which he preeminently possessed than in the variety or extent of his faculties. These powers, which were unerring when applied to definite and certain acts," sometimes failed in the appreciation of causes which had not hitherto come under their observation. It is, perhaps, less to be wondered that the soldier and statesman of 1815, born and bred in the highest school of Tory politics, should have miscarried in his opinion of those eventful times which followed the accession of William IV., than that the defeated opponent of Reform in 1831 should have risen into the patriot senator of 1846 and 1851. Yet the Administration of 1828, in which the Duke of Wellington occupied the first and most responsible place, passed the Catholic (Emancipation Act, and thereby gave the signal of a rupture in the Tory party, never afterwards enStirely healed, and struck the heaviest blow qji a •system which the growing energies of the nation I resented and condemned. Resolute to oppose what he conceived to be popular clamour, no man ever recognised with more fidelity the claims of a {free nation to the gradual development of its inIterests and its rights; nor were his services to the (cause of liberty and improvement the less great [because they usually consisted of bending the Swill or disarming the prejudices of their fiercest {opponents. Attached by birth, by character, and by opinion, to the order and the cause of the British aristocracy, the Duke of Wellington knew that the true power of that race of nobles lies, in this age of.the-world, in their inviolable attachment to constitutional principles, and their honest recognition of popular rights. Although his personal resolution and his military experience qualified him better than other men to be the champion of resistance to popular turbulence and and sedition, as he showed by his preparation in May, 1832, and in April, 1848, yet wisdom and forbearance were ever the hand-maidens of his courage, and while most firmly determined to de - fend, if necessary, the authority of the state, he was the first to set an example of conciliatory sacrifice to the reasonable claims of the nation. He was the Catullus of our Senate, after having been our Ca>sar in the field ; and if the commonwealth! of England.had ever saluted one of her citizens! with the Roman title of Parens Patria;, that touch-! ing honour would have been added.to the peerage! and baton of Arthur Wellesley by the respectful! gratitude and faith of the people. | Though singularly free from every trace of! cant, his mind Avas no stranger to the sublime! influence of religious truth, and he was assiduous! in the observances of the public ritual of the! Church of England. At times, even in the cx-I treme period of his age, some accident would! betray the deep current of feeling which he neverl ceased to entertain towards all that was chivalrous! and benevolent. His charities were unostenta-l tious but extensive, and he bestowed his interest! throughout .life upon an incredible number of persons and things which claimed his notice and solicited his aid. Every social duty, every solemnity, every ceremony, every merry-making, found him ready to take his part. He had a smile for the youngest child, a compliment for the prettiest face, an answer to the readiest tongue, and a lively incident of life which it seemed be-j yond thepowerof age to chill. When time had! somewhat relaxed the sterner mould of his man-j hood, its effects were chiefly indicated by an! Unabated taste for the amusements of fashionable! society, incongruous at times with the dignity ofj extreme old age, and the recollections of so virile! a career. But it seemed a part of the Duke'sl character that everything that presented itself was equally welcome, for he had become a part of everything, and it was foreign to his nature to stand aloof from any occurrence to which his presence could contribute. He seems never to have felt the flagging spirit or the reluctant step of indolence or ennui, or to have recoiled from anything that remained to be done; and this complete performance of every duty, however small, as long as life remained, was the same quality which had can-ied him in triumph through his campaigns, and raised him to be one of the chief Ministers of England and an arbiter of the fate of Europe. It has been said that in the most active and illustrious lives there comes at last some inevitable hour of melancholy and of satiety. Upon the Duke of Wellington that hour left no impression, and probably it never shed its influence over him ; for he never rested on his former achievements or his length of days, but marched onwards to the end, still heading the youthful generations which had sprung into life around him, and scarcely less intent on their pursuits than they are themselves. It was a finely balanced mind to have worn so bravely and so well. When men in after times shall look back to the annals of England for examples of energy and public virtue among those who have raised this country to her station on the earth, no name will remain more conspicuous or more unsullied than that of Authur Wellesley, the Great Duke of Wellington. The actions of his life were extraordinary, but his character was equal to his actions. He was the very type and model of an Englishman; and though men are prone to invest the worthies of former ages with a dignity and merit they commonly withhold from their contemporaries, we can select none from the long 'array of our captains and our nobles who, taken for all and all, can claim a rivalry with him who! is gone from amongst us, an inheritor of imper-' ishable fame. I