Page:Pleasures of England (1888).djvu/103

 There's a bit of poetry—if you like,—but a piece of steel-clad fact also, compared to which the battle of Hastings and Waterloo both, were mere boys' squabbles.

You don't suppose, you British schoolboys, that you overthrew Napoleon—you? Your prime Minister folded up the map of Europe at the thought of him. Not you, but the snows of Heaven, and the hand of Him who dasheth in pieces with a rod of iron. He casteth forth His ice like morsels,—who can stand before His cold?

But, so far as you have indeed the right to trust in the courage of your own hearts, remember also—it is not in Norman nor Saxon, but in Celtic race that your real strength lies. The battles both of Waterloo and Alma were won by Irish and Scots—by the terrible Scots Greys, and by Sir' Colin's Highlanders. Your 'thin red line,' was kept steady at Alma only by Colonel Yea's swearing at them.

But the old Pope, alone against a Norman army, wanted nobody to swear at him. Steady enough he, having somebody to bless him, instead of swear at him. St. Benedict, namely; whose (memory shall we say?) helped him now at his pinch in a singular manner,—for the Normans, having got the old man's forgiveness, vowed themselves his feudal servants; and for seven centuries afterwards the whole kingdom of Naples remained a fief of St. Peter,—won for him thus by a