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Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment by Thomson Willing
page 10 of 58 (17%)
in the Peninsular War. In 1811, he became the hero of Barossa, and in
the same year was made second in command to the Duke of Wellington. He
was created Lord Lynedoch of Balgowan, Perthshire, and frequently was
thanked by Parliament for his services. Sheridan said, "Never was
there a loftier spirit in a braver heart." And alluding to his
services during the retreat to Corunna, he said, "Graham was their
best adviser in the hour of peril; and in the hour of disaster, their
surest consolation." Scott eulogizes him in the poem, "The Vision of
Don Roderick," in the lines,--

"Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide
Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound,
Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied;
Danger and fate, he sought, but glory found.

"From clime to clime, wher'e'r war's trumpets sound,
The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia, still
Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;
He dreamed mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill,
And heard in Ebro's roar his Lynedoch's lovely rill.

"O hero of a race renowned of old,
Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle swell!"

Old Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, wrote of a late Duke of Athole:
"Courage, endurance, stanchness, fidelity, and warmth of heart,
simplicity, and downrightness, were his staples." They are ever the
staples of the Scotch character, and they were all pre-eminent in Sir
Thomas. His life was noble, and his affection was faithful to its
early troth.
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