The Scots Grays, the
Life Guards, Maitland's and Mitchell's regiments, Pack's and Kempt's
infantry, Ponsonby's and Somerset's cavalry, the Highlanders playing
the bagpipes under the shower of canister, Ryland's battalions, the
fresh recruits who could hardly manage a musket, and yet held their
ground against the old bands of Essling and Rivoli--all this is grand.
Wellington was tenacious; that was his merit, and we do not deny it
to him, but the lowest of his privates and his troopers was quite as
solid as he, and the iron soldier is as good as the iron duke. For our
part, all our glorification is offered to the English soldier, the
English army, the English nation; and if there must be a trophy, it
is to England that this trophy is owing. The Waterloo column would be
more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it raised to the clouds
the statue of a people....
But this great England will be irritated by what we are writing here;
for she still has feudal illusions, after her 1688 and the French
1789. This people believes in inheritance and hierarchy, and while no
other excels it in power and glory, it esteems itself as a nation and
not as a people.
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