Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

could write, for that he the writer had once written to Wellington, and had received an answer from him; nay, the writer once went so far as to strike a blow for Wellington; for the last time he used his fists was upon a Radical subeditor, who was mobbing Wellington in the street, from behind a rank of grimy fellows. But though the writer spoke up for Wellington to a certain extent when he was shamefully underrated, and once struck a blow for him when he was about being hustled, he is not going to join in the loathsome sycophantic nonsense which it has been the fashion to use with respect to Wellington these last twenty years. Now what have those years been to England! Why the years of ultra-gentility, everybody in England having gone gentility mad during the last twenty years, and no people more so than your pseudo-Radicals. Wellington was turned out, and your Whigs and Radicals got in, and then commenced the period of ultra-gentility in England. The Whigs and Radicals only hated Wellington as long as the patronage of the country was in his hands, none of which they were tolerably sure he would bestow on them; but no sooner did they get it into their own, than they forthwith became admirers of Wellington. And why? Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by foreign princes, and a very genteel personage. Formerly many of your Whigs and Radicals had scarcely a decent coat on their backs; but now the plunder of the country was at their disposal, and they had as good a chance of being genteel as any people. So they were willing to worship Wellington because he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of the country out of their hands. And Wellington has been worshipped, and prettily so, during the last fifteen or twenty years. He is now a noble fine-hearted creature; the greatest general the world ever produced; the bravest of men; and⁠—and⁠—mercy upon us! the greatest of military writers! Now the present writer will not join in such sycophancy. As he was not afraid to take the part of Wellington when he was scurvily used by all parties, and when it was dangerous to take his part, so he is not afraid to speak the naked truth about Wellington in these days, when it is dangerous to say anything about him but what is sycophantically laudatory. He said in ’32,391 that as to vice, Wellington was not worse than his neighbours; but he is not going to say in ’54, that Wellington was a noble-hearted fellow; for he believes that a more cold-hearted individual never existed. His conduct to Warner, the poor Vaudois, and Marshal Ney, showed that. He said in ’32, that he was a good general and a brave man; but he is not going, in ’54, to say that he was the best general, or the bravest man, the world ever saw. England has produced a better general⁠—France two or three⁠—both countries many braver men. The son of the Norfolk clergyman was a brave man;392 Marshal Ney was a braver man. Oh, that battle of Copenhagen! Oh, that covering the retreat of the Grand Army! And though he said in ’32 that he could write, he is not going to say in ’54 that he is the best of all military writers. On the contrary, he does not hesitate to say that any Commentary of Julius Caesar, or any chapter in Justinus, more especially the one about the Parthians, is worth the ten volumes of Wellington’s Despatches; though he has no doubt that, by saying so, he shall especially rouse the indignation of a certain newspaper, at present one of the most genteel journals imaginable⁠—with a slight tendency to liberalism, it is true, but perfectly genteel⁠—which is nevertheless the very one which, in ’32, swore bodily that Wellington could neither read nor write and devised an ingenious plan for teaching him how to read.

Now, after the above statement, no one will venture to say, if the writer should be disposed to bear hard upon Radicals, that he would be influenced by a desire to pay court to princes, or to curry favour with Tories, or from being a blind admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but the writer is not going to declaim against Radicals, that is, real Republicans, or their principles; upon the whole, he is something of an admirer of both. The writer has always had as much admiration for everything that is real and honest as he has had contempt for the opposite. Now real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, a much finer thing than Toryism, a system of common robbery, which is nevertheless far better than Whiggism393⁠—a compound of petty larceny, popular instruction, and receiving of stolen goods. Yes, real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, and your real Radicals and Republicans are certainly very fine fellows, or rather were fine fellows, for the Lord only knows where to find them at the present day⁠—the writer does not. If he did, he would at any time go five miles to invite one of them to dinner, even supposing that he had to go to a workhouse in order to find the person he wished to invite. Amongst the real Radicals of England, those who flourished from the year ’16 to ’20, there were certainly extraordinary characters, men partially insane, perhaps, but honest and brave⁠—they did not make a market of the principles which they professed, and never intended to do so; they believed in them, and were willing to risk their lives in endeavouring to carry them out. The writer wishes to speak in particular of two of these men, both of whom perished on the scaffold⁠—their names were Thistlewood and Ings.394 Thistlewood, the