of the army which his brother
Hamilcar raised in Spain, and led across the Pyrenees and the Alps to
perish on the Metaurus. What he did, he did by himself, and by his own
unaided efforts. It was the contributions levied on the cities he
conquered, which furnished his supplies; it was the troops who flocked
to his standard from the provinces he wrested from the Romans, which
filled up the chasms in the ranks he led from Saguntum. Not more than
twenty-six thousand men descended with him from the Alps; of forty-eight
thousand who fought at Cannae, thirty thousand were Gaulish auxiliaries.
There is no example recorded in history of a general doing things so
great with means so small, and support from home so inconsiderable.

Every great commander of whom we read in military annals, possessed in a
considerable degree the art of securing the affections and inspiring the
confidence of his soldiers. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charles XII.,
Napoleon, exercised this ascendancy in the highest degree. The anecdotes
preserved in the pages of Plutarch, and which every schoolboy knows by
heart, prove this beyond a doubt of the heroes of the ancient world; the
annals of the last century and our own times demonstrate that their
mantle had descended to the Swedish and French heroes. The secret of
this marvellous power is always to be found in one mental quality. It is
magnanimity which entrances the soldier's heart. The rudest breasts are
accessible to emotion, from the display of generosity, self-denial, and
loftiness of purpose in their commanders. When Alexander in the deserts
of Arabia, on his return from India, poured the untasted water on the
sand, he assuaged the thirst of a whole army; when Caesar addressed the
Tenth Legion in mutiny by the title of "Quirites," the very word, which
told them they were no longer the comrades of their general, subdued
every heart; when Charles XII., on his officers declaring themselves
unable to undergo the fatigue of further watching, desired them to
retire to rest, for he would go the rounds himself, he silenced every
murmur in his army; when Napoleon yielded up his carriages to the
wounded in the Russian retreat, or drew aside his suite to salute,
uncovered, the Austrian wounded conveyed from Austerlitz, and said,
"Honour to the brave in misfortune!" he struck a chord which vibrated in
every heart of his vast array. No general, ancient or modern, possessed
this key to the generous affections i