The contrast to Napoleon is no Where more seen than in the dispatches of
the one and the bulletins of the other. In his demeanour to his men, the
Duke was reserved; in his language, curt and laconic. If his troops felt
the moral certainty that he was leading them to victory, and honoured
him accordingly, it was not from personal enthusiasm, such as the wild
love the emperor inspired in those around him, but from a deep respect
for his character and a reliance on his talents. Nor did he condescend
to charlatantism or bombast, as his great rival too often did. There is
not the slightest trace of vanity about him. Compare the speech of the
one to his army, beneath the Pyramids, with the simple, "Up, guards, and
at them!" of the other. In these trifles, we find the key to the real
minds of great men.

The political character of the Duke, and his services as a civilian,
have never been sufficiently appreciated by the great mass of his
countrymen. His brilliant military reputation cast into the shade his
sterling but unobtrusive services as a senator and as a minister. It was
even the fashion, for a long time, to assert that his taking office at
all was a sign of defective judgment. Indeed, when he declared, in the
House of Lords, that he would be "worse than mad to think of such a
thing," he gave a colour to the supposition. His subsequent assertion,
after he had become prime minister, that he had done so "because nobody
else would," conveyed, in all probability, the simple truth. The Duke
did not know his own capacity for government, until it was tried.

Another reason why his positive worth, as a politician, has not been so
universally admitted as his military merit, is that, in the imaginations
of a large portion of the public, he has been identified with a party.
This, in a country where party spirit is so strong and so universal,