The appearance of the cathedral will never be forgotten. Tiers of seats covered with black cloth rose on every side of the nave. The sombre draperies of the interior threw up the florid architecture of the great Protestant temple in relief of dazzling whiteness, and rows of gas jets round the cornices shed a soft, warm radiance on the scene. The service was choral. The Dean read the lesson, and when the “Nunc dimittis” was chanted, a dirge accompanied by trumpets followed, at the end of which the body was slowly lowered into the vault, the while the organ and wind instruments pealed forth the sad strains of the “Dead March.” As the coffin slowly vanished from view a wave of intensely sorrowful emotion passed over the vast assembly of mourners. Prince Albert visibly shook with grief. The veteran Marquis of Anglesey lost control of his feelings. Tears suddenly coursed down his furrowed cheeks, and, stepping forward, he placed his trembling hand on the vanishing coffin, as if to bid a last farewell to his old chief and companion in arms. The rest of the service proceeded in the usual manner, the conclusion of the ritual being Handel’s anthem—“His body is buried in peace.” Thereupon Garter King at Arms stepped forward and proclaimed the style and titles of the illustrious dead, and the Comptroller of the Household of the Duke advanced, broke his staff of office, and handed the pieces to Garter King at Arms, who laid them in the grave. The Bishop of London pronounced the benediction, and all was over.
The Queen and Prince Albert were of opinion that no éloge on the great Duke was in better taste than Lord John Russell’s; but, perhaps, the one that will best stand the test of time was that of Alfred Tennyson:—
“Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
Here in streaming London’s central roar,
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore.
* * * * *
Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the past,
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute:
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crimes,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in sowing common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
O good grey head, which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall’n at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er.
The great World-victor’s victor will be seen no more.”
THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, COMPLETED IN 1878. (By Alfred Stevens.)
Though much has been written about the career of the Duke of Wellington, a brief review of his character may not be amiss here. “His striking characteristic was his judgment,” writes Mr. Spencer Walpole. “He had no doubt in addition capacity and courage. He could not have fought Salamanca without the one, and he would not have held Waterloo without the other. But in capacity he was not, possibly, superior to Moore; in courage he was not superior to Gough. He was a great general, not because he had a great intellect, but because he made fewer mistakes than other men.”[62] His success in war was as conspicuous as his failure in politics, and for the simplest of reasons. He was the only great soldier of his time who understood that to triumph in battle it is necessary to have the most exact and minute knowledge of the mechanism of an army, to know as thoroughly how a soldier’s knapsack should be buckled, as how a mighty campaign should be planned. In this consisted his superiority over Napoleon I., who concentrated his mind on the grand scheme of a battle or a campaign, leaving to his subordinates the task of carrying it out in detail. All Napoleon’s subordinates could do the work of subordinates better than their Imperial master. Not one of Wellington’s subordinates, from the Marquis of Anglesey himself down to the humblest private, could do his individual work better than the Duke could do it for him. It was this easy mastery in handling all the machinery of war that enabled him to readjust his arrangements so much more quickly than his opponents could, when any part of a carefully-planned scheme miscarried. But just because he did not possess the same minute and exact knowledge of the political organism, he constantly fell into grievous errors in statesmanship. Starting with wrong premises in politics, he perpetually blundered into erroneous conclusions. His saving virtue as a politician was his strong common sense. It taught him with unerring certitude when a thing must be done long before his reasoning faculty, obscured by faulty data, taught him that it ought to be done. He never regarded himself as in any sense the servant of the people. It was as the sworn servant of the Crown that he always spoke and acted, and the only test he ever applied to any project of legislation was whether it was likely to strengthen or weaken the Monarchy. No considerations of personal consistency, conviction, or convenience could deter him from accepting or abandoning a policy or a principle, if it could be shown that by doing either he prevented the authority of his Sovereign from being undermined. Duty to the Crown was the pole-star of his life. To gain a point for the advantage of his Sovereign he would even push aside all considerations of personal dignity. Sir Francis Doyle tells a story about him which illustrates most curiously this dominant trait in his character. One day, when Sir Francis Doyle’s father was dining at Apsley House, the Duke said to him, “After the battle of Talavera I wanted the Spanish force to make a movement, and called upon Cuesta to take the necessary steps, but he demurred. He said, by way of answer, ‘For the honour of the Spanish Crown I cannot attend to the directions of the British general, unless that British general go upon his knees and entreat me to follow his advice.’ Now,” proceeded the Duke, “I wanted this thing done, while as to going upon my knees I did not care a twopenny damn, so down I plumped.”[63] This little anecdote gives one a clearer insight into the secret of the Duke of Wellington’s public life than all the biographies of him that have ever been written.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LAST YEAR OF “THE GREAT PEACE.”
Abortive Attacks on the Ministry—Mr. Disraeli’s First Budget—Fall of the Tory Cabinet—The Queen and Lord Aberdeen—Organising the Coalition—A Ministry of “All the Talents”—The Queen and South Kensington—A Miser’s Legacy to the Queen—Sport at Balmoral—Proclamation of the Second Empire—The “Battle of the Numeral”—The Queen Initiates a Policy—Personal Government in the Victorian Age—A Servile Minister—Lord Malmesbury’s Spies—Napoleon III. and “Mrs. Howard”—Creole Card-Parties at Kensington—Napoleon III. Proposes to Marry the Queen’s Niece—Lord John Russell’s Education Scheme—Mr. Gladstone’s First Budget—The India Bill—Transportation of Convicts to Australia Stopped—The Gold Fever in Australia—The Rush to the Diggings—The First Gold Ships in the Thames—Gold Discoveries and Free Trade—Chagrin of the Protectionists—The Rise in Prices—Practical Success of Peel’s Fiscal Policy—Strikes and Dear Bread—End of the Great Peace.
No sooner had the Duke of Wellington been buried than rival parties resumed the war of faction. The Free Traders, who had been resuscitating the old anti-Corn Law organisation in the North of England, resolved to force from the Ministry an unambiguous declaration against Protection. Mr. Charles Villiers accordingly moved a series of resolutions on the 23rd of November, affirming, that the Free Trade policy of the country had been wise, just, and beneficial[64]—“three odious epithets,” said Mr. Disraeli, which could not be accepted by the Tory Party. He ridiculed this attempt to revive the cries of “exhausted factions and obsolete politics.” He was himself fain, however, to propose a resolution, which admitted that Free Trade had cheapened the necessaries of life, which bound the Government to adhere to that policy, but which did not contain any formal recantation of Protectionist principles.[65] Mr. Bright hit the weak spot in these tactics when he asked, was it safest to let the national verdict on Free Trade be drawn up by Mr. Villiers, who advocated it, or by Mr. Disraeli, who did not advocate it, and the majority of whose followers were pledged to exact from the people some kind of compensation to the landed interest for the repeal of the bread tax? Had it suited Lord Palmerston to let the Ministry be beaten, nothing could have prevented their defeat. But, as we have seen, he had resolved never to serve under Lord John Russell; and there was too much reason to fear that at the moment Lord John was the only possible Premier in the event of Lord Derby resigning office.