If, says an eloquent writer in the Quarterly Review, we cherished, in
_former_ circumstances of the war, a hope of the success of our efforts
for the assistance of Spain, and of her final deliverance, ‘We own we
cannot consent to abandon it _now_, when such a day as that of Talavera
has re-established, in its old and romantic proportion, the relative
scale of British and French prowess; when an achievement, the recital of
which is alone sufficient to shame despondency, and to give animation
to hope, has not only inspired us with fresh confidence in ourselves,
but, by infusing into our allies a portion of that confidence, has
furnished them with new means and new motives for exertion.’----
_Quarterly Review, No. III. p. 234._
St. XXXIV. l. 18.
_For those that die_
_In honour’s high career._
I lament exceedingly that my plan and limits did not permit me to pay to
those distinguished officers who fell in this action the tribute they
individually deserved--but it is to be hoped that the Country will show
its sense of their glorious services and fall by a public monument.
St. XXXV.
The author’s brother died a few months before the publication of this
poem, at the age of twenty-two; at the moment when he, who had ever been
a source of happiness to his family, was become its ornament and
support, and had just entered on public life, with (for a person of his
level) the fairest prospects, and under the happiest auspices.