cale, cannot manage masses of men; and moreover
it fails to deal effectively with a state of war in which mechanical
skill and the tactical movement of large bodies of troops win the day.
There may be as much personal heroism as ever, but it is lost in the
multitude. Nevertheless sea-fighting, where separate ships may
encounter and grapple like two mortal foes, with the deep water
around and beneath them, gives heroism a better chance; and the
mariner is always a poetic figure. So Thomas Campbell did rise very
nearly to the heroic level in his poem on the battle of the Baltic,
written when the true story of Nelson's famous exploit was still
fresh; we have a clear and forcible impression of the British ships
moving silently to the attack; and the closing lines touch the ancient
ever-living feeling of gratitude to Captain Riou and his brave
comrades, 'so tried and yet so true,' who fell in the great victory.

With this exception, the prolonged conflict between England and
France, which lasted twenty years up to its end at Waterloo, struck
out hardly a spark of heroic poetry. Yet the Peninsular War is full of
splendid military exploits, of fierce battles and the desperate
storming of fortresses: it was a period of great national energy, when
the people were contending with all their heart and strength against a
most dangerous enemy; it was also a time when England was singularly
rich in poets of the highest order. Nevertheless the only verses that
may be assigned to the peculiar class which I have been attempting to
define, were written, not by one of the famous group of poets, but by
an unknown hand; and they relate not to a great battle, but to a
slight incident, not to a victory, but to a hasty retreat. I am
alluding to the well-known stanzas on the _Burial of Sir John Moore_,
who was killed at Corunna in 1809; and my apology for quoting anything
so hackneyed must be that it is trite by reason of its excellence; for
a short poem, like a single happy phrase, wins incessant repetition
and lasting popularity, because the words precisely fit some universal
feeling. Why have these verses made such an effect that they are
familiar to all of us, and fresh as when they were first read? Is it
not because the writer had one clear flash of imaginative light,
which showed him the reality of the scene, so that the description
speaks for itself, without literary epithets, creating, as the French
say, the true image. He struck the rig