I was obliged to put the Spanish army into cantonments as soon as I passed the Nivelle. It would have been useless to attempt to keep them in the state in which they were, and I should have lost them all. This circumstance, but more particularly the state of the roads from the constant bad weather, has cramped my operations since; and I hope that I shall soon be able to renew them in style.

:. In the meantime Soult has received another large reinforcement, being the third since the battle of Vitoria.

We have found the French people exactly what we might expect (not from the lying accounts in the French newspapers, copied into all the others of the world, and believed by everybody, notwithstanding the internal sense of every man of their falsehood, but) from what we knew of the government of Napoleon, and the oppression of all descriptions under which his subjects have laboured. It is not easy to describe the detestation of this man. What do you think of the French people running into our posts for protection from the French troops, with their bundles on their heads, and their beds, as you recollect to have seen the people of Portugal and Spain?

I entertain no doubt that, if the war should continue, and it should suit the policy of the allied powers to declare for the House of Bourbon, the whole of France will rise as one man in their favour, with the exception, possibly, of some of the préfets, and of the Senate, and that they will be replaced on the throne with the utmost ease. I think it probable that the Allies will at last be obliged to take this line, as you will see the trick that Bony has endeavoured to play by his treaty with King Ferdinand.

If Priscilla is with you, give my best love to her. I received her letter from Berlin; and I have sat to Mr. Heaphey for a picture for her, which I suppose will be sent to her unless one of her sisters or her mother should seize it. Believe me, &c.

WELLINGTON.

CCXXXVIII.

The exultant English public had enough and to spare of 'Accounts of the Battle of Waterloo' in the years 1815 and 1816; but unfortunately they were for the most part lamentably incorrect. Certain people who had chanced to converse with an

officer or private actually engaged in the combat, or had gossiped
with a citizen of Brussels, or had cross-questioned any one of
the numerous peasants of the great cockpit of Europe,' pub-
lished a version of the event with an air of authority that im-
posed on the unwary and irritated the experts. In the two
following letters it will be seen that the Duke of Wellington
himself, who at no time entertained the hope of ever read-
ing a perfectly accurate account of all the details of his great
triumph (vide Supplementary Despatches,' vol. x. p. 507),
was particularly provoked by these crude and garbled publica-
tions.

Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Sir J. Sinclair, Bart. Bruxelles: April 28, 1816.

Sir, I have received your letter of the 20th. The people of England may be entitled to a detailed and accurate account of the battle of Waterloo, and I have no objection to their having it ; but I do object to their being misinformed and misled by those novels called 'Relations,' and 'Impartial Accounts,' &c., &c., of that transaction, containing the stories which curious travellers have picked up from peasants, private soldiers, individual officers, &c., and have published to the world as the truth. Hougoumont was no more fortified than La Haye Sainte; and the latter was not lost for want of fortifications, but by one of those accidents from which human affairs are never entirely exempt.

I am really disgusted with and ashamed of all that I have seen of the battle of Waterloo. The number of writings upon it would lead the world to suppose that the British army had never fought a battle before; and there is not one which contains a true representation, or even an idea, of the transaction; and this is because the writers have referred as above quoted instead of to the official sources and reports.

It is not true that the British army was unprepared. The story of the Greek is equally unfounded as that of Vandamme having 46,000 men, upon which last point I refer you to Marshal Ney's report, who upon that point must be the best authority. I have, &c.

WELLINGTON.

CCXXXIX.

Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Francis Mudford.
Paris: June 8, 1816.

Sir, I have received your letter of the 21st May. I have already explained to you my reasons for declining to give a formal permission that any work with the contents of which I should not be acquainted should be dedicated to me, with which you appear to be satisfied; and I applied those reasons particularly to a work on the battle of Waterloo, because that, notwithstanding so much had been published on that event by so many people, there was but little truth. You now desire that I should point out to you where you could receive information on this event, on the truth of which you could rely. In answer to this desire, I can refer you only to my own despatches published in the ‘London Gazette.' General Alava's report is the nearest to the truth of the other official reports published, but even that report contains some statements not exactly correct. The others that I have seen cannot be relied upon. To some of these may be attributed the source of the falsehoods since circulated through the medium of the unofficial publications with which the press has abounded. Of these a remarkable instance is to be found in the report of a meeting between Marshal Blücher and me at La Belle Alliance; and some have gone so far as to have seen the chair on which I sat down in that farm-house. It happens that the meeting took place after ten at night, at the village of Genappe; and anybody who attempts to describe with truth the operations of the different armies will see that it could not be otherwise. The other part is not so material; but, in truth, I was not off my horse till I returned to Waterloo between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. I have, &c. WELLINGTON.

CCXL.

A string of searching questions respecting our military esta-
blishments and regulations having been addressed by the Russian
Ambassador, Prince Lieven, on the part of his Emperor,
General Sir Herbert Taylor, the matter was referred to the
Duke of Wellington, who refused, with some indignation, to

recommend the Ministers to gratify the curiosity of the Russian, or any foreign Government. The Duke considered there was sufficient publicity of details in the documents usually laid before Parliament, and that it would be inconvenient to encourage a comparative discussion of our system with that of other military establishments. And he had not forgotten that during his visit to Russia the War Minister at St. Petersburg refused him information on a simple point of military expenditure.

Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to Lord FitzRoy Somerset. Sudbourne: October 20, 1829.

My dear Lord FitzRoy,—I wish that you would look at and show to Lord Hill my letter to Sir Herbert Taylor on the queries from the Emperor of Russia respecting the army.

In truth the organisation and economy of our army are not its brilliant parts. Its conduct in the field is unrivalled. Its officers are gentlemen, and moreover the gentlemen of England. The organisation suits the purposes of our service in peace and war, scattered as the army is from Indus to the Pole, and from the pillars of Hercules to the Eastern extremities of the earth. But it would be ridiculous, when opened in all its details, to one of the military nations of Europe; and that for the purpose of being criticised. Ever yours, &c.

WELLINGTON.

CCXLI.

The still waters of Wordsworth's affection ran very deep, and he never became entirely consoled for the loss of the brother whom he deplores in this touching letter. As he says in the fine verse that he dedicated to Captain Wordsworth's memory, the sailor 'to the sea had carried undying recollections' of the Cumberland landscape, and was one of the very few who understood the poet's peculiar mission from the first. He was wrecked off the Bill of Portland February 5, 1805.

William Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere: February 11, 1805.

My dear Friend,-The public papers will already have broken the shock which the sight of this letter will give you. You will have learned by them the loss of the Earl of Abergavenny, East Indiaman, and along with her, of a great proportion of the crew-that of her captain, our brother, and a most

beloved brother he was. This calamitous news we received at two o'clock to-day, and I write to you from a house of mourning. My poor sister, and my wife who loved him almost as we did (for he was one of the most amiable of men), are in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power to alleviate; but Heaven knows, I want consolation myself. I can say nothing higher of my everdear brother, than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words.

Alas! What is human life? This present moment.

I thought this morning would have been devoted to the pleasing employment of writing a letter to amuse you in your confinement. I had singled out several little fragments (descriptions merely), which I purposed to have transcribed from my poems, thinking that the perusal of them might give you a few minutes' gratification, and now I am called to this melancholy office.

I shall never forget your goodness in writing so long and interesting a letter to me under such circumstances. This letter also arrived by the same post which brought the unhappy tidings of my brother's death, so that they were both put into my hands at the same moment.

Your affectionate friend,

W. WORDSWORTH.

CCXLII.

The assiduity of Mr. Dyce constrained Wordsworth, not much or naturally addicted to the pleasures of antiquarianism, to take an interest in the forgotten poets of the seventeenth century. But it is curious to note how easily the fate of Shirley brings him back to Cumberland, and to a story that might find its place in the 'Excursion.'

William Wordsworth to Alexander Dyce.

Rydal Mount: March 20, 1833. My dear Sir, I have to thank you for the very valuable present of Shirley's works, just received. The preface is all that I have yet had time to read. It pleased me to find that you sympathised with me in admiration of the passage from the Duchess of Newcastle's poetry; and you will be gratified to be told that I