BIOGRAPHY

OF

SIR WILLIAM NAPIER.

CHAPTER XVI.

REMARKS ON THE HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.'

THE merit of the 'History of the Peninsular War' is best proved by the fact of its steady growth in popularity and fame; for seldom has a book been commenced with less immediate promise of circulation and favour. Even after the appearance of the first volume had proved the incontestable ability of the writer, the book had to fight its way to public favour against the prejudices which its peculiar political opinions created. The spirit of the work was directly offensive to the opinions of those times.

"It affected Englishmen, because it assailed the still dominant policy of Toryism, and conceded infinitely more credit to Napoleon, to his system, and to the French army, than the still rabid anti-Gallic feelings of the country could pardon. It offended Spaniards, for it brushed away the brag of the nation, and reduced the enthusiasm and efforts of the patriot armies to dimensions more consistent with fact. Frenchmen it might possibly conciliate, for it recorded their military merits with a chivalrous apprecia

VOL. II.

* Times,' Feb. 14, 1860.

B

tion to which they were wholly unused in English writers; but to no other sympathies did it seem addressed. These opinions brought down on the author a perfect storm of obloquy. Among other imputations, he, the grandson of a duke and the great-great-grandson of a king, found himself charged with a malignant hostility to aristocratic birth, an attack which he quietly repelled by observing that he was at least as nobly connected as the people he was accused of decrying.

"But, however the author might be infected with political heresy, his characteristic dedication of the work to the Duke, and the genuine sentiments with which its every page was underlaid, soon proved that its real and sole object was to erect a fitting monument of British glory achieved by British arms; and as the development of the History showed it gradually and triumphantly attained, the angry clamours of the Strangfords, the Beresfords, and the Percevals were left to die unheeded away. Against the current of popular and political prejudice, the work forced its way by its intrinsic fascinations to the summit of public favour; and though the ground had been occupied by favourite and attractive writers, the supremacy of Napier's History soon became incontestable. The truth is, besides the genuine nationality of its object and its tone, there was a dignity in the treatment, and a living verity in the descriptions, which led the mind unresistingly captive. Never before had such scenes been portrayed with such wonderful colouring. As event after event was unfolded in the panorama, not only the divisions and the brigades, but the very regiments and regimental officers of the Peninsular army, became familiarized to the public eye. Marches, combats, and battles came out upon the canvas with the fidelity of photographs; while the touches by which the effect was produced be

spoke, not the ingenuities of historic art, but the involuntary suggestions of actual memory. The shrillness of Craufurd's scream at Busaco, as he ordered the Light Division to charge, was probably ringing in the author's ears as he wrote; and the whole scene upon the Coa, with the little drummer-boy beating the charge, the French officer, in a splendid uniform,' leaping on the bridge, and the surgeon tending the wounded in the midst of the fire, must have risen before his eyes as he drew it. For the sake of painting like this, for the sake of an eloquence unknown before, and devoted unreservedly to the recompense of British valour, people readily forgave the prepossessions or deficiencies of the work. If its spirit was haughty, it was also so national and so public that the very haughtiness was becoming; if its style trenched upon bombast, such loftiness of language did but correspond with the grandeur and heroism of the deeds described; and when the magnificence of its diction culminated into sublimity in the stories of Albuera and Badajoz, every reader felt that the theme and treatment were consistent with each other."

By the completion of this work Colonel Napier's fame as an author was completely established. The style was universally admitted to be as nearly perfect, regard being had to the nature of the subject, as any writing could be. "There is certainly no great quality in which it is deficient ; it has ease, animation, brevity, correctness, and vigour, and these, taken together, in a greater degree than any other historical writer of English, except Raleigh and Hallam.

Its historic accuracy as to facts was only established the more firmly by the inevitable attacks of men who, having been actors in the scenes described, found the parts they had played unnoticed, or thought them undervalued.

*John Stirling, in 'Athenæum.'

The only important criticism which has survived to the present time is that, owing to the author's partiality for Napoleon, he both laid out of sight the detestable criminality of his first aggression on Spain; and, still more, that he undervalued the patriotic efforts of the Spaniards, and dealt out very harsh judgment upon them. This opinion found so many supporters that Colonel Napier's biographer will here endeavour to show by a few extracts that these charges have no sound foundation. But before proceeding to do so it may be well to ask if the supporters of those charges were not themselves in the position of jurymen who come to try a cause with a strong prejudice in favour of one of the parties to the suit; and whether, while condemning the historian for unfair bias in favour of the French and against the Spaniards, their own judgment was exempt from strong national anti-Gallic prejudices, and unwarped by the romantic interest with which the general rising of the Spanish nation and the holiness of their cause invested the efforts of the patriots.

First, as to the charge that the author glossed over the criminality of Napoleon's aggression. In the very first chapter of his work are found the following paragraphs.

"Hence the craving of his (Napoleon's) military and political system, the dangerous vicinity of a Bourbon dynasty, and still more, the temptation offered by a miraculous folly outrunning even his desires, urged him to a deed which well accepted would have proved beneficial to the people, but enforced contrary to their wishes was unhallowed by justice or benevolence. In an evil hour for his own greatness and the happiness of others he commenced the fatal project. Founded in violence, attended with fraud, it spread desolation through the Peninsula, was calamitous to France, destructive to himself; and the conflict between his hardy veterans and the vindic

tive race he insulted was of unmitigated ferocity; for the Spaniards defended their just cause with proverbial hereditary cruelty, while the French struck a terrible balance of barbarous actions." (Vol. i. p. 3, revised edition.)

"A cause manifestly unjust is a heavy weight upon the operations of a general; it reconciles men to desertion, sanctifies want of zeal, furnishes pretexts for cowardice, renders hardships more irksome, dangers more obnoxious, glory less satisfactory to the mind of the soldier. The invasion of Spain, whatever its real origin, was an act of violence repugnant to the feelings of mankind. The French were burdened with a sense of its iniquity, the British exhilarated by a contrary sentiment." (Vol. i. p. 5, revised edition.)

Read also the concluding words of the second chapter.

"With a strange accent he (Joseph) called from the midst of foreign bands upon a fierce and haughty race to accept a constitution which they did not understand, his hope of success resting on the strength of his brother's arms, his claims on the consent of an imbecile monarch and the weakness of a few pusillanimous nobles, in contempt of the rights of millions now arming to oppose him. This was the unhallowed part of the enterprise; this it was that rendered his offered constitution odious, covered it with a leprous skin, and drove the noble-minded far from the pollution of its touch!

"But a dislike to the war prevailed in the higher ranks of the French army; the injustice of it was too glaring." (Vol. i. p. 79, revised edition.)

"His invasion of Spain was at first viewed with anxiety, rather than with the hope of arresting it; but when the full extent of the injustice became manifest, the public mind was vehemently excited; and when the Spanish people rose against the man feared by all, the admiration