r justice. Patrons of all the arts
that humanise mankind--under your protection I place humanity
herself! To the merciful Sovereign of a free people I call aloud
for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of
her Christian sisters have cried aloud--I ask that their cry may
not have risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the throne of
all justice, and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of
purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the
curse hovering over the head of the unjust and the oppressor be
averted from us--that your hearts may be turned to mercy--and that
over all the earth His will may at length be done!"

This is nobly to use noble gifts; it is difficult to think ill of a
man who can carry oratory for a glorious object to such heights of
splendour. It may seem a duty to some to darken his character with
detraction, but his inspiring words remain supreme and unsullied and
will still live when such faults as may be truly laid to his charge
are long forgotten. To fight for a great cause, Antony, is rightly to
use great powers, and this is what Lord Brougham did with all his
might.

Your loving old
G.P.

21

MY DEAR ANTONY,

In the great emprise of war it must often happen that the most awful
scenes of manifested human power, and the most godlike deeds of
human glory, are lost to the contemporary world, and utterly unknown
to succeeding generations, because they were witnessed by no man
with the gift of expression who could record for after time, in adequate
language, the majestic spectacle.

In the great war against Germany no great writer has yet appeared
who was personally in touch as a living witness of the countless deeds
of glorious valour and acts of heroic endurance that were everywhere
displayed upon that immense far-stretched front.

But in the wars of former times, a whole battle could be witnessed from
its beginning to its end by a single commander, and no scenes in
human life could be more terrible and soul-stirring than the awful ebb
and flow of a great combat in which the victory of armies and the fate
of nations hung in the balance.

The battle of Albuera in the Peninsular War might easily at this date
have long been forgotten had not the pen of Sir William Napier been as
puissant as his sword. The battle had raged for hours, and the British
were well-nigh overwhelmed; the Colonel, twenty offi