carried them out. Though the affair passed off without
disturbance, being at all times under police control, so thorough
were the Duke's preparations as to have made a successful
revolution impossible.

To his latest year the Duke continued to attend the sessions of
the Lords, and his opinions were listened to with respectful
attention. It was fitting that his last speech there should have
been in a military debate, and that in urging the value of
militia organization, he should have drawn upon his experience
with the raw Hanoverian levies in the Waterloo campaign. This was
in the summer of 1852. On the evening of the 13th of the
following September he retired in his usual condition of health.
The next morning he was seized with sudden illness and did not
live the day out.

Enough has been said in this brief sketch of his public career to
show that the Duke of Wellington, though among the greatest of
English soldiers, cannot rank high among English statesmen,
although he served his country in the highest offices. If read in
detail the record of his career in the Cabinet and in the House
of Lords would confirm the reader in the opinion that his only
sure title to greatness rests in his military career. It has
often been said that, had he died in the moment of victory as did
Nelson, it would have been happier for his fame. But it must not
be forgotten that the years of his political action were those in
which England was passing through the stages of a social and
political revolution, in which the democracy was rising to power
and the landed aristocracy was losing prestige and privilege.
That this revolution was accomplished without such a convulsion