FullReads

Much delight and instruction have I had in the course of the journey from my guide, philosopher, and friend, the author of “Murray’s Handbook.” He has gathered together, indeed, a store of information, and must, to make his single volume, have gutted many hundreds of guide-books. How the Continental ciceroni must hate him, whoever he is! Every English party I saw had this infallible red book in their hands, and gained a vast deal of historical and general information from it. Thus I heard, in confidence, many remarkable anecdotes of Charles V., the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, all of which I had before perceived, with much satisfaction, not only in the “Handbook,” but even in other works.

The Laureate is among the English poets evidently the great favorite of our guide: the choice does honor to his head and heart. A man must have a very strong bent for poetry, indeed, who carries Southey’s works in his portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time and occasion. Of course at Waterloo a spirit like our guide’s cannot fail to be deeply moved, and to turn to his favorite poet for sympathy. Hark how the laureated bard sings about the tombstones at Waterloo:–

“That temple to our hearts was hallow’d now,
For many a wounded Briton there was laid,
With such for help as time might then allow,
From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed.
And they whom human succor could not save,
Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave.
And here, on marble tablets, set on high,
In English lines by foreign workmen traced,
The names familiar to an English eye,
Their brethren here the fit memorial placed;
Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell
THEIR GALLANT COMRADES’ rank, and where they fell.
The stateliest monument of human pride,
Enriched with all magnificence of art,
To honor chieftains who in victory died,
Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart
Than these plain tablets by the soldier’s hand
Raised to his comrades in a foreign land.”

There are lines for you! wonderful for justice, rich in thought and novel ideas. The passage concerning their gallant comrades’ rank should be specially remarked. There indeed they lie, sure enough: the Honorable Colonel This of the Guards, Captain That of the Hussars, Major So-and-So of the Dragoons, brave men and good, who did their duty by their country on that day, and died in the performance of it.

Amen. But I confess fairly, that in looking at these tablets, I felt very much disappointed at not seeing the names of the MEN as well as the officers. Are they to be counted for nought? A few more inches of marble to each monument would have given space for all the names of the men; and the men of that day were the winners of the battle. We have a right to be as grateful individually to any given private as to any given officer; their duties were very much the same. Why should the country reserve its gratitude for the genteel occupiers of the army-list, and forget the gallant fellows whose humble names were written in the regimental books? In reading of the Wellington wars, and the conduct of the men engaged in them, I don’t know whether to respect them or to wonder at them most. They have death, wounds, and poverty in contemplation; in possession, poverty, hard labor, hard fare, and small thanks. If they do wrong, they are handed over to the inevitable provost-marshal; if they are heroes, heroes they may be, but they remain privates still, handling the old brown-bess, starving on the old twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, and after thirty years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yesterday with a pinafore in to papa’s dessert–such a young gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes the command over our veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so throughout time it should be.