_The Duke of Wellington._--Lord de Grey, in his _Characteristics of the
Duke of Wellington_, pp. 171, 172., gives the following extract from the
despatches published by Colonel Gurwood, and refers to vol. viii. p. 292.
"It would undoubtedly be better if _language_ of this description were
never used, and if officers placed as you were could correct errors and
neglect in _language, which should not hurt the feelings_ of the person
addressed, and without vehemence."
Compare this passage with the following advice which Don Quixote gives to
Sancho Panza before he sets off to take possession of his government:
"Al che has de castigar con obras, no trates mal con palabras, pues le
basta al desdichado la pena del suplicio sin la anadidura de las malas
rezones."--Part II. ch. xlii.
See translation of _Don Quixote_ by Jarvis, vol. iv. b. III. ch. x. p.
76.[1]
The very depreciatory terms in which the Emperor Napoleon used to speak of
the Duke of Wellington as a general is well known. The following extract
from Forsyth's _Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe_, appears to me
worthy of being brought under the notice of the readers of "N. & Q.:"
"After the governor had left the house (upon the death of Napoleon he
had gone to the house of the deceased with Major Gorrequer to make an
inventory of and seal up his papers), Count Montholon called back Major
Gorrequer to ask him a question, and he mentioned that he had been
searching for a paper dictated to him by Napoleon a long time
previously, and which he was sorry he could not find, as it was a
_eulogium on the Duke of Wellington_, in which Napoleon had spoken in
the highest terms of praise of the military conduct of the Duke."--See
vol. iii. p. 299.