Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/256

 22G ZEAL FOR AX was one of the very foremost members of the war- like throng which was pressing upon the Cabinet and craving for adventure and glory. He easily received new impressions, and had nevertheless a quick good sense, which generally enabled him to distinguish what was useful from what was worth- less. He seemed to understand the great truth that, without being military, the English are a warlike people, and that it is one of the great prerogatives of a nation gifted with this higher quality to be able to command other races of men, and to impart to them the fire of martial virtue. He also knew that when England undertakes M'ar against a great European Power, she must engage the energies of the people at large, and must not presume to rely altogether upon the merely pro- fessional exertions of her small Peace Establish- ment. It was not from his default, but in spite of his endeavours, that for several months people lingered in the notion that our military system was an apparatus sufficing for war. But the degree of public confulence inspired by the Duke was hardly, I think, quite propor- tionate to the evident merits which a reader of his despatches and letters would be inclined to attribute to him. Perhaps the very zeal with which he seized and adopted the ideas of the outer public was one of the causes which tended to lessen his weight ; for he who comes into council with common and popular views, however likely it may be that he will get them assented to, can scarcely hope to kindle men's minds with the fire