It sounds like the tolling of funeral bells, as the annunciation is made
of one death after another amongst those who supported our canopy of
empire through the last most memorable generation. The eldest of the
Wellesleys is gone: he is gathered to his fathers; and here we have his
life circumstantially written.
Who, and of what origin are the Wellesleys? There is an impression current
amongst the public, or there _was_ an impression, that the true name
of the Wellesley family is Wesley. This is a case very much resembling
some of those imagined by the old scholastic logicians, where it was
impossible either to deny or to affirm: saying _yes_, or saying _no_,
equally you told a falsehood. The facts are these: the family was
originally English; and in England, at the earliest era, there is no
doubt at all that its name was De Welles leigh, which was pronounced in
the eldest times just as it is now, viz. as a dissyllable, [2] the first
syllable sounding exactly like the cathedral city _Wells_, in
Somersetshire, and the second like _lea_, (a field lying fallow.) It
is plain enough, from various records, that the true historical
_genesis_ of the name, was precisely through that composition of
words, which here, for the moment, I had imagined merely to illustrate its
pronunciation. Lands in the diocese of Bath and Wells lying by the
pleasant river Perret, and almost up to the gates of Bristol, constituted
the earliest possessions of the De Wellesleighs. They, seven centuries
before Assay, and Waterloo, were 'seised' of certain rich _leas_
belonging to _Wells_. And from these Saxon elements of the name, some
have supposed the Wellesleys a Saxon race. They could not possibly have
better blood: but still the thing does not follow from the premises.
Neither does it follow from the _de_ that they were Norman. The first
De Wellesley known to history, the very tip-top man of the pedigree, is
Avenant de Wellesleigh. About a hundred years nearer to our own times,
viz. in 1239, came Michael de Wellesleigh; of whom the important fact is
recorded, that he was the father of Wellerand de Wellesley. And what did
young Mr. Wellerand perform in this wicked world, that the proud muse of
history should condescend to notice his rather singular name? Reader, he
was--'killed:' that is all; and in company with Sir Robert de Percival;
which again argues his Somersetshire descent: for the family of Lord
Egmont, the head of all Percivals, ever was, and ever will be, in
Somersetshire. But _how_ was he killed? The time _when_, viz. 1303, the
place _where_, are known: but the manner _how_, is not exactly stated; it
was in skirmish with rascally Irish 'kernes,' fellows that (when presented
at the font of Christ for baptism) had their right arms covered up from
the baptismal waters, in order that, still remaining consecrated to the
devil, those arms might inflict a devilish blow. Such a blow, with such an
unbaptized arm, the Irish villain struck; and there was an end of
Wellerand de Wellesleigh. Strange that history should make an end of a
man, before it had made a beginning of him. These, however, are the
_facts_; which, in writing a romance about Sir Wellerand and Sir
Percival, I shall have great pleasure in falsifying. But how, says the too
curious reader, did the De Wellesleighs find themselves amongst Irish
kernes? Had these scamps the presumption to invade Somersetshire? Did they
dare to intrude into Wells? Not at all: but the pugnacious De Wellesleys
had dared to intrude into Ireland. Some say in the train of Henry II. Some
say--but no matter: _there_ they were: and _there_ they stuck like
limpets. They soon engrafted themselves into the county of Kildare;
from which, by means of a fortunate marriage, they leaped into the county
of Meath; and in that county, as if to refute the pretended mutability of
human things, they have roosted ever since. There was once a famous copy
of verses floating about Europe, which asserted that, whilst other princes
were destined to fight for thrones, Austria--the handsome house of
Hapsburgh--should obtain them by marriage:
'Pugnabunt alii: tu, felix Austria, nube.'
So of the Wellesleys: Sir Wellerand took quite the wrong way: not
cudgelling, but courting, was the correct way for succeeding in Kildare.
Two great estates, by two separate marriages, the De Wellesleighs obtained
in Kildare; and, by a third marriage in a third generation, they obtained
in the county of Meath, Castle Dengan (otherwise Dangan) with lordships as
plentiful as blackberries. Castle Dangan came to them in the year of our
Lord, 1411, _i.e._ before Agincourt: and, in Castle Dangan did Field-
marshal, the man of Waterloo, draw his first breath, shed his first tears,
and perpetrate his earliest trespasses. That is what one might call a
pretty long spell for one family: four hundred and thirty-five years has
Castle Dangan furnished a nursery for the Wellesley piccaninnies. Amongst
the lordships attached to Castle Dangan was _Mornington_, which more
than three centuries afterwards supplied an earldom for the grandfather of
Waterloo. Any further memorabilia of the Castle Dangan family are not
recorded, except that in 1485 (which sure was the year of Bosworth field?)
they began to omit the _de_ and to write themselves Wellesley _tout
court_. From indolence, I presume: for a certain lady Di. le Fl., whom
once I knew, a Howard by birth, of the house of Suffolk, told me as her
reason for omitting the _Le_, that it caused her too much additional
trouble.
So far the evidence seems in favor of Wellesley and against Wesley. But,
on the other hand, during the last three centuries the Wellesleys wrote
the name Wesley. They, however, were only the _maternal_ ancestors of
the present Wellesleys. Garret Wellesley, the last male heir of the direct
line, in the year 1745, left his whole estate to one of the Cowleys, a
Staffordshire family who had emigrated to Ireland in Queen Elizabeth's
time, but who were, however, descended from the Wellesleys. This Cowley or
Colley, taking, in 1745, the name of Wesley, received from George II. the
title of Earl Mornington: and Colley's grandson, the Marquess Wellesley of
our age, was recorded in the Irish peerage as _Wesley_, Earl of
Mornington; was uniformly so described up to the end of the eighteenth
century; and even Arthur of Waterloo, whom most of us Europeans know
pretty well, on going to India a little before his brother, was thus
introduced by Lord Cornwallis to Sir John Shore (Lord Teignmouth, the
Governor-general), 'Dear sir, I beg leave to introduce to you Colonel
Wesley, who is a lieutenant-colonel of my regiment. He is a sensible man,
and a good officer.' Posterity, for _we_ are posterity in respect of
Lord Cornwallis, have been very much of _his_ opinion. Colonel Wesley
really _is_ a sensible man; and the sensible man, soon after his
arrival in Bengal, under the instigation of his brother, resumed the old
name of Wellesley. In reality, the name of Wesley was merely the
abbreviation of indolence, as Chumley for Cholmondeley, Pomfret for
Pontefract, Cicester for Cirencester; or, in Scotland, Marchbanks for
Majoribanks, Chatorow for the Duke of Hamilton's French title of
Chatelherault. I remember myself, in childhood, to have met a niece of
John Wesley the Proto-Methodist, who always spoke of the, second Lord
Mornington (author of the well-known glees) as a cousin, and as intimately
connected with her brother the great _foudroyant_ performer on the
organ. Southey, in his Life of John Wesley, tells us that Charles Wesley,
the brother of John, and father of the great organist, had the offer from
Garret Wellesley of those same estates which eventually were left to
Richard Cowley. This argues a recognition of near consanguinity. Why the
offer was declined, is not distinctly explained. But if it had been
accepted, Southey thinks that then we should have had no storming of
Seringapatam, no Waterloo, and no Arminian Methodists. All that is not
quite clear. Tippoo was booked for a desperate British vengeance by his
own desperate enmity to our name, though no Lord Wellesley had been
Governor-General. Napoleon, by the same fury of hatred to us, was booked
for the same fate, though the scene of it might not have been Waterloo.
And, as to John Wesley, why should he not have made the same schism with
the English Church, because his brother Charles had become unexpectedly
rich?
The Marquess Wellesley was of the same standing, as to age, or nearly so,
as Mr. Pitt; though he outlived Pitt by almost forty years. Born in 1760,
three or four months before the accession of George III., he was sent to
Eton, at the age of eleven; and from Eton, in his eighteenth year, he was
sent to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated as a nobleman. He
then bore the courtesy title of Viscount Wellesley; but in 1781, when he
had reached his twenty-first year, he was summoned away from Oxford by the
death of his father, the second Earl of Mornington. It is interesting, at
this moment, to look back on the family group of children collected at
Dangan Castle. The young earl was within a month of his majority: his
younger brothers and sisters were, William Wellesley Pole (since dead,
under the title of Lord Maryborough), then aged eighteen; Anne, since
married to Henry, son of Lord Southampton, aged thirteen; Arthur, aged
twelve; Gerald Valerian, now in the church, aged ten; Mary Elizabeth
(since Lady Culling Smith), aged nine; Henry, since Lord Cowley, and
British ambassador to Spain, France, &c. aged eight. The new Lord
Mornington showed his conscientious nature, by assuming his father's
debts, and by superintending the education of his brothers. He had
distinguished himself at Oxford as a scholar; but he returned thither no
more, and took no degree. As Earl of Mornington, he sat in the Irish House
of Lords; but not being a British peer, he was able to sit also in the
English House of Commons; and of this opening for a more national career,
he availed himself at the age of twenty-four. Except that he favored the
claims of the Irish Catholics, his policy was pretty uniformly that of Mr.
Pitt. He supported that minister throughout the contests on the French
Revolution; and a little earlier, on the Regency question. This came
forward in 1788, on occasion of the first insanity which attacked George
III. The reader, who is likely to have been born since that era, will
perhaps not be acquainted with the constitutional question then at issue.
It was this: Mr. Fox held that, upon any incapacity arising in the
sovereign, the regency would then settle (_ipso facto_ of that incapacity)
upon the Prince of Wales; overlooking altogether the case in which there
should _be_ no Prince of Wales, and the case in which such a Prince might
be as incapable, from youth, of exercising the powers attached to the
office, as his father from disease. Mr. Pitt denied that a Prince of Wales
simply _as_ such, and apart from any moral fitness which he might possess,
had more title to the office of regent than any lamp-lighter or scavenger.
It was the province of Parliament exclusively to legislate for the
particular case. The practical decision of the question was not called
for, from the accident of the king's sudden recovery: but in Ireland, from
the independence asserted by the two houses of the British council, the
question grew still more complex. The Lord Lieutenant refused to transmit
their address, [3] and Lord Mornington supported him powerfully in his
refusal.
Ten years after this hot collision of parties, Lord Mornington was
appointed Governor-General of India, and now first he entered upon a stage
worthy of his powers. I cannot myself agree with Mr. Pearce, that 'the
wisdom of his policy is now universally recognized;' because the same
false views of our Indian position, which at that time caused his splendid
services to be slighted in many quarters, still preponderates. All
administrations alike have been intensely ignorant of Indian politics; and
for the natural reason, that the business of home politics leaves them no
disposable energies for affairs so distant, and with which each man's
chance of any durable connection is so exceedingly small. What Lord
Mornington did was this: he looked our prospects in the face. Two great
enemies were then looming upon the horizon, both ignorant of our real
resources, and both deluded by our imperfect use of such resources, as,
even in a previous war, we had possessed. One of these enemies was Tippoo,
the Sultan of Mysore: him, by the crushing energy of his arrangements,
Lord Mornington was able utterly to destroy, and to distribute his
dominions with equity and moderation, yet so as to prevent any new
coalition arising in that quarter against the British power. There is a
portrait of Tippoo, of this very ger, in the second volume of Mr. Pearce's
work, which expresses sufficiently the unparalleled ferocity of his
nature; and it is guaranteed, by its origin, as authentic. Tippoo, from
the personal interest investing him, has more fixed the attention of
Europe than a much more formidable enemy: that enemy was the Mahratta
confederacy, chiefly existing in the persons of the Peishwah, of Scindia,
of Holkar, and the Rajah of Berar. Had these four princes been less
profoundly ignorant, had they been less inveterately treacherous, they
would have cost us the only dreadful struggle which in India we have
stood. As it was, Lord Mornington's government reduced and crippled the
Maharattas to such an extent, that in 1817, Lord Hastings found it
possible to crush them for ever. Three services of a profounder nature,
Lord Wellesley was enabled to do for India; first, to pave the way for the
propagation of Christianity,--mighty service, stretching to the clouds,
and which, in the hour of death, must have given him consolation;
secondly, to enter upon the abolition of such Hindoo superstitions as are
most shocking to humanity, particularly the practice of Suttee, and the
barbarous exposure of dying persons, or of first-born infants at Sangor on
the Ganges; finally, to promote an enlarged system of education, which (if
his splendid scheme had been adopted) would have diffused its benefits all
over India. It ought also to be mentioned that the expedition by way of
the Red Sea against the French in Egypt, was so entirely of his suggestion
and his preparation, that, to the great dishonor of Messrs. Pitt and
Dundas, whose administration was the worst, as a _war_ administration,
thus ever misapplied, or non-applied, the resources of a mighty empire, it
languished for eighteen months purely through _their_ neglect.
In 1805, having staid about seven years in India, Lord Mornington was
recalled, was created Marquess of Wellesley, was sent, in 1821, as Viceroy
to Ireland, where there was little to do; having previously, in 1809, been
sent Ambassador to the Spanish Cortes, where there was an affinity to do,
but no means of doing it. The last great political act of Lord Wellesley,
was the smashing of the Peel ministry in 1834 viz. by the famous
resolution (which he personally drew up) for appropriating to general
education in Ireland any surplus arising from the revenues of the Irish
Church. Full of honors, he retired from public life at the age of seventy-
five, and, for seven years more of life, dedicated his time to such
literary pursuits as he had found most interesting in early youth.
Mr. Pearce, who is so capable of writing vigorously and sagaciously, has
too much allowed himself to rely upon public journals. For example, he
reprints the whole of the attorney-general's official information against
eleven obscure persons, who, from the gallery of the Dublin theatre, did
'wickedly, riotously, and routously' hiss, groan, insult, and assault (to
say nothing of their having caused and procured to be hissed, groaned,
&c.) the Marquess Wellesley, Lord-Lieutenant General, and General Governor
of Ireland. This document covers more than nine pages; and, after all,
omits the only fact of the least consequence, viz., that several missiles
were thrown by the rioters into the vice-regal box, and amongst them a
quart-bottle, which barely missed his excellency's temples. Considering
the impetus acquired by the descent from the gallery, there is little
doubt that such a weapon would have killed Lord Wellesley on the spot. In
default however, of this weighty fact, the attorney-general favors us with
memorializing the very best piece of doggerel that I remember to have
read; viz., that upon divers, to wit, three thousand papers, the rioters
had wickedly and maliciously written and printed, besides, observe,
_causing_ to be written and printed, 'No Popery,' as also the following
traitorous couplet--
'The Protestants want Talbot,
As the Papists have _got all but_;'
Meaning 'all but' that which they got some years later by means of the
Clare election. Yet if, in some instances like this, Mr. Pearce has too
largely drawn upon official papers, which he should rather have abstracted
and condensed, on the other hand, his work has a specific value in
bringing forward private documents, to which his opportunities have gained
him a confidential access. Two portraits of Lord Wellesley, one in middle
life, and one in old age, from a sketch by the Comte d'Orsay, are
felicitously executed.
Something remains to be said of Lord Wellesley as a literary man; and
towards such a judgment Mr. Pearce has contributed some very pleasing
materials. As a public speaker, Lord Wellesley had that degree of
brilliancy and effectual vigor, which might have been expected in a man of
great talents, possessing much native sensibility to the charms of style,
but not led by any personal accidents of life into a separate cultivation
of oratory, or into any profound investigation of its duties and its
powers on the arena of a British senate. There is less call for speaking
of Lord Wellesley in this character, where he did not seek for any eminent
distinction, than in the more general character of an elegant
_litterateur_, which furnished to him much of his recreation in all
stages of his life, and much of his consolation in the last. It is
interesting to see this accomplished nobleman, in advanced age, when other
resources were one by one decaying, and the lights of life were
successively fading into darkness, still cheering his languid hours by the
culture of classical literature, and in his eighty-second year drawing
solace from those same pursuits which had given grace and distinction to
his twentieth.
One or two remarks I will make upon Lord Wellesley's verses--Greek as well
as Latin. The Latin lines upon Chantrey's success at Holkham in killing
two woodcocks at the first shot, which subsequently he sculptured in
marble and presented to Lord Leicester, are perhaps the most felicitous
amongst the whole. Masquerading, in Lord Wellesley's verses, as
Praxiteles, who could not well be represented with a Manon having a
percussion lock, Chantrey is armed with a bow and arrows:
'En! trajecit aves una sagitta duas.'
In the Greek translation of _Parthenopaeus_, there are as few faults
as could reasonably be expected. But, first, one word as to the original
Latin poem: to whom does it belong? It is traced first to Lord Grenville,
who received it from his tutor (afterwards Bishop of London), who had
taken it as an anonymous poem from the 'Censor's book;' and with very
little probability, it is doubtfully assigned to 'Lewis of the War
Office,' meaning, no doubt, the father of Monk Lewis. By this anxiety in
tracing its pedigree, the reader is led to exaggerate the pretensions of
the little poem; these are inconsiderable: and there is a conspicuous
fault, which it is worth while noticing, because it is one peculiarly
besetting those who write modern verses with the help of a gradus, viz.
that the Pentameter is often a mere reverberation of the preceding
Hexameter. Thus, for instance--
'Parthenios inter saltus non amplius erro,
Non repeto Dryadum pascua laeta choris;'
and so of others, where the second line is but a variation of the first.
Even Ovid, with all his fertility, and partly in consequence of his
fertility, too often commits this fault. Where indeed the thought is
effectually varied, so that the second line acts as a musical _minor_,
succeeding to the _major_, in the first, there may happen to arise a
peculiar beauty. But I speak of the ordinary case, where the second is
merely the rebound of the first, presenting the same thought in a diluted
form. This is the commonest resource of feeble thinking, and is also a
standing temptation or snare for feeble thinking. Lord Wellesley, however,
is not answerable for these faults in the original, which indeed he
notices slightly as 'repetitions;' and his own Greek version is spirited
and good. There, are, however, some mistakes. The second line is
altogether faulty;
[Greek: _Choria Mainaliph pant erateina theph
Achnumenos leipon_]
does not express the sense intended. Construed correctly, this clause of
the sentence would mean--'_I, sorrowfully leaving all places gracious to
the Maenalian god_:' but _that_ is not what Lord Wellesley designed: '_I
leaving the woods of Cyllene, and the snowy summits of Pholoe, places that
are all of them dear to Pan_'--_that_ is what was meant: that is to say,
not _leaving all places dear to Pan_, far from it; but _leaving a few
places, every one of which is dear to Pan_. In the line beginning
[Greek: _Kan eth uph aelikias_]
where the meaning is--_and if as yet, by reason of my immature age_,
there is a metrical error; and [Greek: _aelikia_] will not express
immaturity of age. I doubt whether in the next line,
[Greek: _Maed alkae thalloi gounasin aeitheos_]
[Greek: _gounasin_] could convey the meaning without the preposition
[Greek: _eth_]. And in
[Greek: _Spherchomai ou kaleousi theoi._]
_I hasten whither the gods summon me_--[Greek: _ou_] is not the right
word. It is, however, almost impossible to write Greek verses which
shall be liable to no verbal objections; and the fluent movement of these
verses sufficiently argues the off-hand ease with which Lord Wellesley
must have _read_ Greek, writing it so elegantly and with so little of
apparent constraint.
Meantime the most interesting (from its circumstances) of Lord Wellesley's
verses, is one to which his own English interpretation of it has done less
than justice. It is a Latin epitaph on the daughter (an only child) of
Lord and Lady Brougham. She died, and (as was generally known at the time)
of an organic affection disturbing the action of the heart, at the early
age of eighteen. And the peculiar interest of the case lies in the
suppression by this pious daughter (so far as it was possible) of her own
bodily anguish, in order to beguile the mental anguish of her parents. The
Latin epitaph is this:
'Blanda anima, e cunis heu! longo exercita morbo,
Inter maternas heu lachrymasque patris,
Quas risu lenire tuo jucunda solebas,
Et levis, et proprii vix memor ipsa mali;
I, pete calestes, ubi nulla est cura, recessus:
Et tibi sit nullo mista dolore quies!'
The English version is this:
'Doom'd to long suffering from earliest years,
Amidst your parents' grief and pain alone
Cheerful and gay, you smiled to soothe their tears;
And in _their_ agonies forgot your own.
Go, gentle spirit; and among the blest
From grief and pain eternal be thy rest!'
In the Latin, the phrase _e cunis_ does not express _from your cradle
upwards_. The second line is faulty in the opposition of _maternas_ to
_patris_. And in the fourth line _levis_ conveys a false meaning: _levis_
must mean either _physically light_, _i.e._ not heavy, which is not the
sense, or else _tainted with levity_, which is still less the sense. What
Lord Wellesley wished to say--was _light-hearted_: this he has _not_
said: but neither is it easy to say it in good Latin.
I complain, however, of the whole as not bringing out Lord Wellesley's own
feeling--which feeling is partly expressed in his verses, and partly in
his accompanying prose note on Miss Brougham's mournful destiny ('her life
was a continual illness') contrasted with her fortitude, her innocent
gaiety, and the pious motives with which she supported this gaiety to the
last. Not as a direct version, but as filling up the outline of Lord
Wellesley, sufficiently indicated by himself, I propose this:--
'Child, that for thirteen years hast fought with pain,
Prompted by joy and depth of natural love,--
Rest now at God's command: oh! not in vain
His angel ofttimes watch'd thee,--oft, above
All pangs, that else had dimm'd thy parents' eyes,
Saw thy young heart victoriously rise.
Rise now for ever, self-forgetting child,
Rise to those choirs, where love like thine is blest,
From pains of flesh--from filial tears assoil'd,
Love which God's hand shall crown with God's own rest.'