military education, and an activity and attention to business that would
be admirable in any one, but which are still more praiseworthy as the
voluntary service of a man who has conferred such distinguished benefits
on his country.

* * * * *

Few men have been so blessed by fortune as to have been enabled to
achieve a first-rate reputation in arms, and afterwards to arrive at as
great distinction in the arts of peace. Rarely, at long intervals in the
lapse of time, such opportunities have been afforded to great men; but
still more rarely have even the greatest men been able to use them. To
the Duke of Wellington, in our own time, has this high honour been
especially vouchsafed; and no man ever yet lived who shewed himself more
worthy the distinction, or more able to fulfill the demands of his
country, whether in peace or in war. His youth and prime were spent in
achieving victories: to preserve to posterity the fruits of those
victories, in steady government, together with free institutions; to
make England such an example for foreign nations as would render all
such victories unnecessary hereafter; this has been the still more
glorious task of his declining years.

The military reputation of the Duke of Wellington rests on so firm a
basis, that it will never be shaken. So long as military science is
necessary in the world, so long will his system of tactics be followed
by commanders responsible in their own hearts for the lives of their
soldiers, and to their country for the conduct of their enterprises.

Of the military value of his dispositions and movements, military
critics have recorded, almost universally, their unqualified praise. To