has never since been dropped, and never ought to be, as it is in accordance with the plainest expressions of the will of God. Such we believe to be the Christian view of the subject.

A brief sketch of Dr. Hessey's views of the application of his Sunday principles will conclude our task. We can agree with much that the lecturer says on this head. Declining to give any rules for the observance of the day in England, he points out that the higher a man's tone of Christianity is, the more spiritually will he keep the Lord's-day. Much is said, and well said, about the necessity of our taking into account the great variety of employments in the week, which require various degrees of bodily and mental rest on the Sunday. People err not "in acting up to their own principles (there they are right), but in making their own standard a standard for all others." (Simeon, quoted p. 297.) As regards legislation, all that we can expect is that the external conducting of business of all sorts shall be prohibited. An apology is made for necessary Sunday dealings in the crowded parts of London, where, from the peculiar sources of their livelihood, many poor miserable creatures cannot get their food a day beforehand. We do not blame the poor so much as their superiors, who, by a little consideration in the payment of wages, and in other ways, could at once remove the temptation. Sunday should be as far as possible a cheerful day. He quotes an admirable passage from Dr. Miller, of Birmingham. Children of the rich and poor should not be forced into gloomy restraint; much less should the latter be alternately cooped up in school and stowed away almost out of sight and hearing in a close gallery in church, to listen to a service in which they have but little interest, and a sermon which they cannot understand. Individual efforts in

parishes may improve, and in many cases have improved, this state of things. As regards church services, we are recommended to shorten them by breaking them up, and to introduce, if possible, "services such as the mass can attend, more compatibly with their circumstances and habits, and feel interest in, as brought more to the level of their mental cultivation." (p. 332.)

While we think that Dr. Hessey has somewhat exaggerated the evils of the present system, we agree with him that there is much to be remedied; that great allowance is to be made for the poor; and we echo his sentiment, "How little with our superior knowledge, and freer disposal of our time, do we realize the religion of the day!" (p. 338.)

In parting with Dr. Hessey, we may remark, that he writes in a plain yet not uncultivated style; but we wish that there had been less dryness in the discussion, and, above all, more spiritual warmth in the application. And while we feel indebted to him for an elaborate work on so interesting a

subject, we cannot but feel great sorrow to see so much pains taken (or rather wasted) to deprive us of that view of Sunday which allows us to call it "the Sabbath," as well as "the Lord's-day;" a view which includes the idea of a seventh day's rest, in memory of the completion of the work of our Creator; as well as the idea of a first day's joy, for the completed and accepted work of our Redeemer.

WELLINGTON'S CAREER.

Wellington's Career: a Military and Political Summary. By Edward Bruce Hamley, Captain R. A., and Lieut.-Colonel. Edinburgh: Blackwoods. 1860.

We have seldom been more perplexed by a small and almost insignificant work, than by this little book of colonel Hamley's. Its author writes well, and understands, generally, the subject which he has taken in hand. Yet it is difficult to appreciate with any clearness the object of the publication. It is not a biography. It is not a brief history of the Duke's campaigns. It is not an attempt to estimate his character, or to compare him with other great generals, so as to fix his place and ascertain his rank. It is a sort of rapid sketch of the Duke's life, in which nothing is fully made out, no distinct impression left, But there is one feature in it which will appear to many to be repulsively absurd.

It gives us, more especially with reference to the battle of Waterloo, colonel Hamley's criticisms on the Duke's movements. Twelve pages are devoted to the events of the 16th, 17th, and 18th of June, 1815, without an attempt to describe the battle; and of these twelve, ten are occupied with animadversions on the Duke's opinions, decisions, and movements; all tending to prove that in his principal course of action, the Duke was in error, and colonel Edward Bruce Hamley would have done better! Thus, at page 72, we are told, that "the Duke was persuaded that Napoleon would attack by the latter roads, and the Duke was wrong." At page 74, "we must believe the Duke in error.' At page 76, "this singular mistake has never been explained." At page 77, "the Duke was throwing away golden minutes." At page 79, "he never suspected that in a few hours he would be sorely taxed to hold his ground." At page 80, "the English had a narrow escape." "Yet the Duke was for some hours in greater danger." At page 81, "Wellington was extricating himself from his dangerous position." At page 82, "the Duke's

apprehensions for his own right never ceased to haunt him. It might have been supposed that so practised a general would have read in the French movements," &c. "Yet the Duke not only detached a considerable force to Hal, but kept it there during the day, though it was sorely needed."

And, finally, after having thus kindly pointed out all the Duke's blunders, colonel Hamley dismisses him at last, in the following gracious and patronizing sentence :

"But these and the other errors we have alluded to were amply redeemed by the issue. The Duke never displayed a cooler and more indomitable resolution than during the great crowning action of his life." (p. 83.)

Yes, the Duke did manifest "resolution." He had that one quality which was possessed also by every private soldier of the foot-guards! All he wanted was a little of that strategic skill and knowledge which colonel Edward Bruce Hamley endeavours to exhibit and impart.

Yet colonel Hamley admits his consciousness that this opinion of the Duke's, which he chooses to call "an error," was not a hasty thought, but a deliberate conviction, which his Grace in after-life steadily maintained. He must know, too, that the great master of the art of war whose opinion he thus overrules, was described by the first of German critics, Niebuhr, as "the only general in whose conduct of war we cannot discover any important mistake."

For our own parts, regarding, as we do, the duke of Wellington as a man specially raised up, and specially endowed with extraordinary talents for war, we have no hesitation in expressing our conviction, that when the Duke delivers one opinion on a question of this kind, and colonel Edward Bruce Hamley another, the probabilities are quite one hundred to one that the Duke is right. Colonel Hamley adduces reasons for his own opinion; to which we reply, that we are quite certain that all these reasons, and a great many more, were taken in at a glance by that penetrating eye, and pronounced to be insufficient. And so we leave this part of the subject.

Colonel Hamley's little book, however, calls to our recollection the fact, that we have never yet seen, in any compact and popular form, either a rapid sketch of the main facts of the Duke's life, or an estimate of his character. Either or both of these colonel Hamley might have given us, and if he had done so in a proper tone and spirit, he would have conferred on us no small benefit. As it is, the deficiency remains, and we feel strongly tempted, in spite of the fullest consciousness of our lack of professional knowledge, to attempt something of the kind which we have pointed out. In fact, colonel Hamley's manifest failure rather encourages us; for it shows, that an

exclusively military education is rather a hindrance than a qualification for such a task. If colonel Hamley had given us less of his military_criticism, he would probably have written a better book. Twelve pages, in competent hands might have, sufficed to supply a vivid sketch of "the world's earthquakeWaterloo."* Instead of which, colonel Hamley devotes ten pages to the proof that, in his general notions, "the Duke was wrong," and in the other two he merely alludes to the battle, instead of describing it.

The only view which we are able to take of the very remarkable life of the duke of Wellington is that which was forcibly sketched, in outline, by an eloquent writer, who has just been removed from us. Dr. Croly, in tracing, in 1828, the movements of God's providence in the French revolution and the vast changes which succeeded it, had described Pitt and Burke as two men, "each forming a class by himself," and preparing England for the contest which was to follow. He then went on to say,

"But the struggle for life and death was still to come. A new and tremendous antagonist-the most extraordinary man of the last thousand years-appeared in the field. France, relieved from the distractions of the democracy, and joining all the vigour of republicanism to all the massiveness of monarchy, flung herself into the arms of Napoleon. His sagacity saw that England was the true barrier against universal conquest; and, at the head of the fleets of Europe, he moved to battle for the dominion of the seas!

"A man was now raised up, whose achievements cast all earlier fame into the shade. In a profession of proverbial talent and heroism, NELSON instantly transcended the noblest rivalry. His valour and his genius were meteor-like; they rose above all, and threw a splendour upon all. His name was synonymous with victory. He was the guiding-star of the fleets of England. Each of his battles would have been a title to immortality; but his last exploit, in which the mere terror of his name drove the enemy's fleet before him through half the world, to be annihilated at Trafalgar, had no parallel in the history of arms. Nelson, too, formed a class by himself. Emulation has never approached him. He swept the enemy's last ship from the sea, and, like his two mighty compatriots,† having done his work of glory, he died!

"Within scarcely more than two years from the death of Pitt and Nelson, another high intervention was to come. The Spanish war let in light upon the world. England, the conqueror of the seas, was now called to be the leader of the armies of Europe. A soldier now arose, born for this illustrious task. He, too, has formed a class by himself. Long without an equal in the field, his last victory left him without a competitor... . . It can be no faithlessness to the glorious dead to place in the highest rank of living fame,‡ that soldiership which stopped a torrent of conquest swelled with the wreck of Europe; Written in 1828.

* Tennyson.

† Pitt and Burke.

redeemed kingdoms; overthrew, from battlement to foundation, the most powerful dominion since the days of Rome, and, in one consummate victory, hand to hand, tore the sword from the grasp, and the diadem from the brow, of NAPOLEON!"

A few years later, from the same glowing pen dropped the following golden sentences:

"If man can be taught a belief in Divine Providence by the strongest proof that events can give, he must be taught by the events of this great war. During a quarter of a century of battle, with continual changes of continental fortune, England never suffered any one great casualty; was never defeated in a pitched battle; never lost a fleet, a colony, a foot of territory. From the period when the war became naval, with all the world against her, she fought a succession of the most glorious victories; and when, after having closed up the ocean against Napoleon, she was summoned to protect the rising independence of Spain, she commenced a career of soldiership, unshaken by a single defeat; a constancy of success to which Europe has no parallel, a great triumphal era of seven years, a march marked only by trophies, from the shores of Portugal to the plains of the Netherlands, and finishing in the twofold capture of the enemy's capital, the extinction of the empire, and the captivity of the emperor!"

It seems to us that some benefit may be derived from the study of the life of Wellington from this point of view. We believe that there is scarcely such another instance in the page of history of a man especially raised up, created, fitted, educated, and then placed in the exact sphere and department for which he had been prepared, in such sort, and after such a manner, that the Unseen Hand seems to come visibly forth, like the hand which wrote on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, and force us to confess that "the things which are not seen" are of more weight than the "things which are seen."

The early life of Arthur Wellesley has never been traced with any particularity or exactness. Two of its best-known circumstances, however, had an important influence in making him what he afterwards became. He was of a noble family, the son of the earl of Mornington, and thus had that advantage which rank always gives in the race and competition of human life. Had he been born in Havelock's walk of life, it might have been his fate, like Havelock's, to be discovered to be a hero when his sixtieth year was past. But, secondly, being, by his birth, destined to command, he received, what few in those days could obtain, a thoroughly good professional education. Thus doubly qualified for promotion, he became an ensign at 17; a captain, M.P., and aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant at 21; lieut.-colonel at 24; and colonel at 26 years of age. We stop not to discuss the merits or demerits of this system; we only note the hand of Providence, in paving the way for his Vol. 60.-No. 278.

T