“I rejoice with the heart of a Scotsman in the success of Lord Wellington, and with all the pride of a seer to boot. I have been for three years proclaiming him as the only man we had to trust to—a man of talent and genius—not deterred by obstacles, not fettered by prejudices, not immured within the pedantries of his profession—but playing the general and the hero when most of our military commanders would have exhibited the drill sergeant, or at best the adjutant. These campaigns will teach us what we have long needed to know, that success depends not on the nice drilling of regiments, but upon the grand movements and combinations of an army. We have been hitherto polishing lunges, when we should have studied the mechanical union of a huge machine. Now—our army begin to see that the grand secret, as the French call it, consists only in union, joint exertion, and concerted movement. This will enable us to meet the dogs on fair terms as to numbers, and for the rest, ‘my soul and body on the action both.’
“The downfal of Buonaparte’s military fame will be the signal of his
ruin, and, if we may trust the reports this day brings us from Holland, there
is glorious mischief on foot already. I hope we shall be able to fling fuel
into the flame immediately. A country with so many dykes and ditches must be
fearfully tenable when the peasants are willing to fight. How I should enjoy
the disconsolate visages of those Whig dogs, those dwellers upon the Isthmus,
who have been foretelling the rout and ruin which it only required their being
in power to have achieved! It is quite plain, from Sir Robert Wilson’s account, that they neglected to feed
the lamp of
| LETTER TO MR MORRITT—APRIL, 1811. | 341 |
“I grieve for your loss at Barrosa, but what more glorious fall could a man select for himself or friend, than dying with his sword in hand and the cry of victory in his ears?
“As for my own operations they are very trifling, though sufficiently miscellaneous. I have been writing a sketch of Buonaparte’s tactics for the Edinburgh Register, and some other trumpery of the same kind. Particularly I meditate some wild stanzas referring to the Peninsula: if I can lick them into any shape I hope to get something handsome from the booksellers for the Portuguese sufferers: ‘Silver and gold have I none, but that which I have I will give unto them.’ My lyrics are called the Vision of Don Roderick: you remember the story of the last Gothic King of Spain descending into an enchanted cavern to know the fate of the Moorish invasion—that is my machinery. Pray, don’t mention this, for some one will snatch up the subject as I have been served before: and I have not written a line yet. I am going to Ashestiel for eight days, to fish and rhyme.”
