I end by pointing out as I pointed out before, that “while the things I have said have not been disproved, the things which have been disproved are things I have not said.”—Nineteenth Century.
LITERARY NOTICES.
The Correspondence and Diaries of John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830; a Founder and for Many Years a Chief Contributor to the Quarterly Review; and the Political, Literary or Personal Associate of Nearly All the Leading Characters in the Life of his Time. Edited by Louis J. Jennings. With portrait. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
John Wilson Croker was one of the most noted men of his day, not perhaps to the world at large, but to those who knew him in the important relations he bore to the many distinguished personages of his era. He knew everybody worth knowing; he was often in the secret councils of the great; he had an official position of great confidence; he was a literary man of brilliant ability which he, however, sometimes used unscrupulously; he was the principal power in one of the great English reviews, which fifty years ago were formidable agencies in making and unmaking men and opinions. These things make his reminiscences highly fascinating. He takes us into the best company, Wellington, Canning, Lyndhurst, Peel, Lord Ashburton, Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, Guizot, Metternich, Sir Walter Scott, Isaac D’Israeli, Lockhart, Madame de Staël and innumerable others of similar celebrity. It need hardly be said that personal information, anecdotes and gossip about such people, who filled a large place in the public eye and mind, are all very fascinating. So we find, on opening these thick volumes anywhere, a mine of the deepest interest, and one can hardly go astray in turning over the pages. There can be no doubt that aside from the personal interest of these reminiscences, they constitute material of the richest character to the early history of our century. The only way properly to represent the value of such a work, is to give extracts from it indicating its quality, and this we shall propose to do. Among the things to which we shall first call attention, are the conversations with the Duke of Wellington, taken down as they occurred. The Iron Duke expressed the following opinion of his great antagonist, Napoleon, whom it seems he thoroughly despised as a man, however much he admitted his military genius: “I never was a believer in him, and I always thought that in the long-run we should overturn him. He never seemed himself at his ease, and even in the boldest things he did there was always a mixture of apprehension and meanness. I used to call him Jonathan Wild the Great, and at each new coup he made I used to cry out ‘Well done, Jonathan,’ to the great scandal of some of my hearers. But, the truth was, he had no more care about what was right or wrong, just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable, than Jonathan, though his great abilities, and the great stakes he played for, threw the knavery into the shade.” Again, he tells the following of Napoleon: “Buonaparte’s mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him; what we understand by gentlemanlike feelings he knew nothing at all about; I’ll give you a curious instance.
“I have a beautiful little watch, made by Breguet, at Paris, with a map of Spain most admirably enamelled on the case. Sir Edward Paget bought it at Paris, and gave it to me. What do you think the history of this watch was—at least the history that Breguet told Paget, and Paget told me? Buonaparte had ordered it as a present to his brother, the King of Spain, but when he heard of the battle of Vittoria—he was then at Dresden in the midst of all the preparations and negotiations of the armistice, and one would think sufficiently busy with other matters—when he heard of the battle of Vittoria, I say, he remembered the watch he had ordered for one whom he saw would never be King of Spain, and with whom he was angry for the loss of the battle, and he wrote from Dresden to countermand the watch, and if it should be ready, to forbid its being sent. The best apology one can make for this strange littleness is, that he was offended with Joseph; but even in that case, a gentleman would not have taken the moment when the poor devil had lost his châteaux en Espagne, to take away his watch also.”
In a letter to Croker, the duke tells the story of the truth of his order to the Household troops at Waterloo, “Up, Guards, and at ’em,” so often quoted as the mot d’ordre of that famous charge which finally decided the day: “I certainly did not draw my sword. I may have ordered, and I dare say I did order, the charge of the cavalry, and pointed out its direction; but I did not charge as a common trooper.
“I have at all times been in the habit of covering as much as possible the troops exposed to the fire of cannon. I place them behind the top of the rising ground, and make them sit and lie down, the better to cover them from the fire.
“After the fire of the enemy’s cannon, the enemy’s troops may have advanced, or a favorable opportunity of attacking might have arrived. What I must have said, and possibly did say was, Stand up, Guards! and then gave the commanding officers the order to attack.