The remarks of your correspondent have led me to examine the book, and I refer any one who has the least regard for candour or fairness, to do the same. I would ask them to judge it as a whole, to see the number and variety of the references, and the care which has been bestowed upon them; and to say whether—because he missed one passage, and knew not its importance—the editor can be fairly charged with incompetency; or the committee of the Anglo-Catholic Library accused of neglect, in leaving the work in his hands without exercising over him such supervision as implies the reading every sheet as it passed through the press; for assistance the editor had, and amply acknowledges that he received, at the hand of the superintending editor.
ANOTHER SUBSCRIBER TO THE
ANGLO-CATHOLIC LIBRARY.
GENERAL JAMES WOLFE.
(Vol. iv., pp. 271. 322.)
Many letters of Wolfe's will be found published in the Naval and Military Gazette of the latter part of last and early part of this year.
By the statement of your correspondent MR. COLE, Wolfe was promoted as captain in Burrell's regiment (at present the 4th, or king's own) in 1744. Now Burrell's regiment took the left of the first line at Culloden, so that James Wolfe, unless absent on leave, or employed on particular duty, must have been in that action. The left of the second line was occupied by "Colonel Wolfe's" regiment (now the 8th or "king's"). See the "Rebellion of 1745," by Robert Chambers, in Constable's Miscellany, vol. xvi. p. 86. Captains of nineteen were common enough at that period, but Wolfe is the only one whose name has excited attention.
As to Wolfe's having been "the youngest general ever intrusted with such a responsible command" as that at Quebec, your correspondent surely forgets Napoleon in modern, and the Black Prince in more remote times.
I have seen at Mr. Scott's, of Cahircon, in the co. Clare, an engraving of Wolfe: he is designated as the "Hero of Louisburgh," and is represented with his right to the spectator, the right hand and arm raised as if enforcing an order. The features are small, the nose rather "cocked," and the face conveys the idea of spirit and determination; he wears a very small three-cocked hat, with a plain black cockade, a sort of frock coat reaching to the knees, where it is met by long boots; there are no epaulets, a twist belt confines the coat, and supports a cartouche-box in front, and a bayonet at the right side, and he carries a fusil slung from his right shoulder "en bandouillière."
It is said that the father of Wolfe was an Irishman, and I have been shown in the co. Wicklow the farm on which it is said that James Wolfe was born. It lies near Newtown-Mount-Kennedy. Be that as it may, the name has been made celebrated in Ireland within the last half century by three individuals: first, the Lord Kilwarden, who was murdered during Emmett's rising in 1803; secondly, the late Chief Baron, who spelt his name "with a difference;" and last, not least, the author of the celebrated lines on the "Burial of Sir John Moore."
KERRIENSIS.