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General

Biographers, Modern,

Berry, Miss,

Banking Philanthropy,

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182

Books, New, 48, 96, 144, 173, 180,
189, 190, 239, 340, 432, 467, 470,
480, 501, 516
. 173
178 Kathay, Cruise in China Seas, 30
179 Kingsley's Phaethon.

INDEX TO VOL. XXXVI. OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

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429, 527 Isis, by J. A. St. John,
619 Infidelity, Modern French,
Insects' Talk,
Ingersoll's War in 1812,

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Child's First Letter, .

Constancy in Inconstancy,
Christmas Eve,

48 Homes of American Authors, . 203,!
81

129

346

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. 576

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. 223, 337

Dim Old Woods,

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234

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Jamaica, Condition of,

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.186

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105

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Belgium and Piedmont, . 185, 288, Language, Primeval,

Bartley's Farewell to the Stage, 470 Living Branches on Dead Trees, 171
Berthalde Reimer's Voice, 567 Lobos Question,

82

466 Links in Chain of Destiny,

86

In Peace,

596

Indian Summer,

41

288

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In the Night Time,

. 130

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32, 159 Legends, a Chapter on,

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"I would not live alway," . 586

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46 Love in the Moon,

528

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Chinese Festival, California,

Charles I., Attempted Escapes of, 100 Macaulay's Address,

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97

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Love, Early,

170
383

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Madonna and Child,

Cuba, in a Religious Aspect,

Charles V. in Retirement, 331, 481 Mary Tudor,

287 Mexican Lion,

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Counsel, License of,

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445 Money and Morals,

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Masque of the New Year,

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523 Married, Getting,

458

524 Madiai,

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Montenegro and its Neighbors,

29 Montenegro,

De Quincey, Thomas, Humor of, 64

174 Napoleon III., 193, 468, 508, 517,
336

601 Needle, Crusade of,

Natal, Six Months in,

574
.618

On the Banks of a Beautiful

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575

586 Napoleon I.,

. 235

Railway Nursery Rhymes,

176

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Resignation and Reconcilia-

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47

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School Friendship,

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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 450.-1 JANUARY, 1853.

From the Morning Chronicle, 19th Nov.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

which the young Napoleon showed so decidedly at Brienne. Arthur Wellesley, however, chose the army as a profession in very early life. Richard, his elder brother, the late Marquis of Wellesley, preferred the civil service, and both boys at an early age left Ireland for Eton. From that famous school Richard went to Oxford, and Arthur, in pursuance of his profession, entered himself at the military seminary of Angers-the capital of Anjou, so celebrated in the history of the Plantagenetswhere the French engineer Pignerol then presided. He here spent six years in the pursuit of military knowledge, according to the soon afterwards disused tactics of the old régime. During this period, however, Arthur made no more figure than at Eton, while, nearly at the same time, the young Napoleon was the leading spirit of Brienne. Indeed, it is said that the boyhood of Richard was far more promising than that of his brother.

Ir is yet a mooted point where and when Arthur Wellesley, the great Duke of Wellington, first saw the light. The honor has usually been awarded to Dangan Castle, the residence of his father, the Earl of Mornington, in the county of Meath. On the other hand, certain discoveries lately made in the parish registers of Dublin-particularly an entry in that of St. Peter's Church-point to the probability of the hero having been born in Dublin, at the town house of his parents, which was situated in its garden abutting on Merrion-square. The entry in question is that of the baptism of the infant Arthur, which is dated as having been performed on the 30th of April, 1769, an entry which, if correct, would set aside the ordinarily received opinion that the Duke of Wellington's birthday was the following day-the first of May, 1769. On his return home, in 1787, Arthur Wellesley, Still, of the two statements, both as regards local- in his eighteenth year, was gazetted to an ensigncy, ity and date, that favoring Dangan is most gener- as "Arthur Wesley," in the 73d Regiment; and ally adopted. An attempt to fix the birthplace of on the 25th of the following December, he was the future conqueror at Mornington, on his father's promoted to a lieutenancy in the 76th. Half a property, seems unsupported by any rational evi-dozen exchanges rapidly followed, and family infludence. ence favored his rapid promotion. He was a capArthur was the fourth son of the Earl and tain in 1791-after having been alternately in foot Countess of Mornington. Both his father and and cavalry regiments-and he continued to altermother were of English descent. The Colleys, or nate in his preference of different branches of the Cowleys, who were the founders of the Morning-service while he was rising, which he did rapidly, ton family, had emigrated to Kilkenny in the through the superior grades up to the command of reign of Henry VIII. There were two of them, a regiment. On the 30th of September, 1794, brothers; and they were astute and wily lawyers. Arthur Wellesley was gazetted as lieutenant-colonel The countess' family, the Wesleys, had previously of the 33d, having thus risen, in little more than settled in Ireland, but their original property was six years, without much help from his own merits, in Sussex, and they were of the old Saxon race. from subaltern rank to the proud position of comThe two families were early united by intermar-mander of a veteran regiment. riage, and at length the estates of both passed The young officer had lived carelessly with reinto the possession of a Richard Colley, who, with spect to money matters, and many-some of them the lands, took the name of the testator, Garret very amusing-stories were long current in Dublin Wesley; and these two names, Colley and Wesley, touching the shifts to which he had sometimes been were, in process of time, metamorphosed into the compelled to resort. Under such circumstances a better-known appellations of Cowley and Wellesley. seat in the Irish House of Commons may have been In 1747 the Wellesleys were raised to the peerage highly convenient. Captain Wellesley was returned by George II., under the title-bestowed upon in 1790 for Trim, a rotten borough, the property Richard Cowley Wellesley-first of Baron, and of the Morningtons; and for three or four years then of Earl of Mornington. His successor was he represented in the House little more, it is said, the duke's father. It is strange to think of the than the local squabbles and interests of his pocket difference between the characters and lives of the constituency, and the hereditary toryism of his parent and the child. The earl's business and de- family. He seldom addressed the House, and his light was music. He passed half his life at the style of speaking is reported to have been poor, harpsichord, and gave birth-for he possessed a confused, broken, and altogether ineffective. It is vein of melody of no ordinary character-to several right, however, to add that Sir Jonah Barrington of the most beautiful compositions known in Eng-recollected being told by “a good judge," the first lish glee and madrigal music, and which yet keep the name of Mornington fresh in the love and admiration of all votaries of English art.

time he was introduced to the strangers' gallery, that Captain Wellesley" does speak sometimes, and when he does, believe me, it is always to the purpose."

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Arthur only saw his father in infancy. He was still young when Lord Mornington died; but Thus far, the great qualities of the illustrious his mother, Lady Mornington, possessed powers duke were undeveloped. He appeared to the world which enabled her, in no small degree, to supply a in no other light than as a very lucky young officer, father's place. The boy at first displayed no par- and a rather dull tory member of the Irish House ticular abilities-indeed, the contrary has been of Commons. The diamond was yet uncut, and hinted; and he does not seem to have given any none-perhaps not even himself-suspected the lus juvenile manifestations of those warlike instincts tre of the gem. But at length the scene was to be VOL. XXXVI. 1

CCCCL.

LIVING AGE.

changed, the sphere to be widened-the true chord | for service in October, 1795, when it embarked at was to be struck, and the life of Arthur Wellesley Portsmouth in Admiral Christian's fleet, destined was at last to begin. He embarked with his regi- for the West Indies. It is needless to attempt to ment for Ostend in 1794.

trace the series of incidents which now occurred to For the previous few years the political and social change the destination of Colonel Wellesley from atmosphere of Europe had been growing wilder the West to the East. The fleet was driven back, and blacker. The old system was tottering to its the 33d re-landed, and they were next year foundations. France had struck it mortally, and despatched to Bengal, where they arrived in Sepall dynastic Europe feared to share the fate of the tember, 1796, accompanied by their commander, French monarchy. The excesses of the French who had joined them at the Cape. Two years Revolution had, in particular, driven England passed tranquilly, but at the close of that period frantic with horror and alarm, and the execution the regiment was attached to the Madras Presiof the royal family and the Reign of Terror had dency, where preparations were already making poured the last drop into the cup of international for that terrible contest which ended with the fall bitterness. On every side, people who had been of the dynasty of Mysore, the death of its great found eagerly hailing the first announced principles sultan, Tippoo Saib, and the overthrow of the inof the Revolution, and welcoming the at length dependent Mahratta power at Assaye. These restored rights of man, were recoiling in disgust preparations were, by a singular chance, mainly from the fascinating doctrines which had led to directed by Richard Wellesley, then Lord Mornsuch results; and when Mr. Pitt declared war ington, who, on the 17th May, 1798, arrived from with the republic of France, it was amid shouts England as governor-general of India. The two of national acclamation. But unfortunate were brothers met that year at Calcutta. War was the results of all this enthusiasm. We had nei- then looming darkly ahead. The contests in ther generals who could lead, nor troops which Europe had spread to the other hemisphere; and could fight; and as for the prestige with which our the many partially-subdued and partially overarmy was encompassed, it was unhappily rather awed Indian monarchs over whom we reigned that of Fontenoy than of Blenheim. We had began to feel, as the news of English reverses at ruined our warlike resources by giving the supreme home reached them, that now or never was the command to royal dukes who had neither knowl-time for flinging off forever the British yoke, and edge nor talents to support the position; whilst, amongst the troops themselves, the utmost laxity of discipline prevailed. Moreover, they were illarmed, ill-clothed, ill-drilled, ill-paid, and ill-fed. Consequently, one of the first events of the war was the disgraceful retreat of the Duke of York, who commanded 10,000 troops in the Netherlands, before the levies of the French republicans-bodies of wildly enthusiastic young men, who rushed upon the bayonet singing revolutionary songs, and utterly bewildered the brains of generals whose notions of warfare were drawn from the principles and practice of the days of Louis XIV.

When Wellesley, with the 33d Regiment, arrived at Ostend, as part of the expedition of relief under the Earl of Moira, he came to join a beaten general in a disastrous retreat. It was not an auspicious commencement of a military career, but the young soldier did his duty quietly, coolly, and effectively. He reembarked his troops at Ostend, which place Pichegru was threatening, and joined the Duke of York at Malines. The history of the campaign which followed is that of a beaten army flying from pillar to post, and forced hither and thither at the will of the conqueror. Baffled, and all but heart-broken, the Duke of York was recalled, and the Hanoverian general, Walmoden, took the command, and at once as sumed the offensive. The result was a protracted winter campaign in Holland and Westphalia, in which the allies were generally worsted, whilst they also suffered severely from the severity of the season; and, at its close, Colonel Wellesley, "the leader of a broken host," found himself driven through Holland to the sea, leaving the victorious republicans the masters of Continental Europe.

The military abilities, the energy, and resources displayed by Colonel Wellesley in that disastrous campaign, were made the subject of high praise in the reports of the day. His regiment embarked for England, and was for some time stationed at Southampton; and, after a period barely sufficient for rest and reorganization, it was again called out

asserting their ancient independence. The French element which yet lingered in Asia was naturally employed to fan the rising flame. We had driven the French out of their Oriental possessions, and the recollections of Pondicherry still rankled sorely. It is true that France was not formally at war with us in the East-there was no French regiment in India. The tricolor, which had lately replaced the drapeau blanc, waved over no Asiatic territory to which we laid claim. But there were dangerous French adventurers-principally military men-lurking amid the courts and camps of the Mahratta chiefs, of the Nizam, and especially of the redoubtable Tippoo Saib. These persons hated the English, and the sentiment was fully reciprocated. They were at once dangerous and insidious foes. They whispered triumph into the ears of their Oriental host, they initiated Oriental soldiery in European discipline and European modes of war, and they held out promises of lavish assistance, both in troops and treasure, from the Republic of France. Tippoo had more than a hundred French officers, adventurers or soi-disant political agents, in his service; and these men excited and encouraged an ambition which, in any case, was sufficiently ready to explode. They appear to have had that prince thoroughly in their power. He was a member of their Jacobin club, and he joined in their denunciations of all possible kings, saving always himself and his neighbors, the Mahratta chiefs. With the latter he was anxious to ally himself before sweeping down with his splendid forces—amounting to more than 70,000 highly-armed and disciplined troops-upon the 8,000 sepoys and the 4,000 English soldiers which were all that the governor-general, at the time of his arrival, had at his disposal.

And here let us pause for a moment to glance at the political geography of our Indian territory at that period. We held the points each important for strategic operations of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay; but our possessions, which were mainly limited to the coast, were but spots compared with

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