onsummation of fortune with which Mr.
Wolfe's wonderful career ended. If no man is to be styled happy till his
death, what shall we say of this one? His end was so glorious, that I
protest not even his mother nor his mistress ought to have deplored it,
or at any rate have wished him alive again. I know it is a hero we speak
of; and yet I vow I scarce know whether in the last act of his life I
admire the result of genius, invention, and daring, or the boldness of
a gambler winning surprising odds. Suppose his ascent discovered a
half-hour sooner, and his people, as they would have been assuredly,
beaten back? Suppose the Marquis of Montcalm not to quit his entrenched
lines to accept that strange challenge? Suppose these points--and none
of them depend upon Mr. Wolfe at all--and what becomes of the glory
of the young hero, of the great minister who discovered him, of the
intoxicated nation which rose up frantic with self-gratulation at
the victory? I say, what fate is it that shapes our ends, or those of
nations? In the many hazardous games which my Lord Chatham played,
he won this prodigious one. And as the greedy British hand seized the
Canadas, it let fall the United States out of its grasp.

To be sure this wisdom d'apres coup is easy. We wonder at this man's
rashness now the deed is done, and marvel at the other's fault. What
generals some of us are upon paper! what repartees come to our mind when
the talk is finished! and, the game over, how well we see how it should
have been played! Writing of an event at a distance of thirty years,
'tis not difficult now to criticise and find fault. But at the time when
we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deeds upon the Plains of Abraham--of
that army marshalled in darkness and carried silently up the midnight
river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid leader and his troops--of
that miraculous security of the enemy, of his present acceptance of our
challenge to battle, and of his defeat on the open plain by the sheer
valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the
news. The whole nation rose up and felt itself the stronger for Wolfe's
victory. Not merely all men engaged in the battle, but those at home who
had condemned its rashness, felt themselves heroes. Our spirit rose as
that of our enemy faltered. Friends embraced each other when they met.
Coffee-houses and public places were thronged with people eager to talk
the news. Courtiers rushed to the King and th