Interspersed with the Duke’s more elaborate opinions, will be found his maxims on public policy, which, though few and unpretending, may be said to have sunk into the national mind.

The Editor has added a few remarkable sentences and passages from the dispatches of the Duke; with a cursory memoir of his life, which becomes more elaborate from the commencement of his political career; and has also attempted to portray some of his characteristics, as a soldier and as a civilian.

London, February, 1845.

MEMOIR

OF

His grace the duke of Wellington.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, is the fourth son of Garret, second Earl of Mornington, by Anne, the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill, Viscount Dungannon.  He was borne at Dangan Castle, in the county of Meath, Ireland, on the 1st of May, 1769.

As in the case of many of the chief nobility and landholders in Ireland, the ancestors of the Duke were scions of an English house—­the Colleys (afterwards Cowley), two of whom, named Walter and Robert Colley, proceeded to Ireland in the reign of Henry VIII., and located themselves in the County of Kilkenny.  The two brothers were lawyers by profession, and in the year 1531, were invested with the office of Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, which they were to hold jointly during their lives.  Six years afterwards, we find the elder brother Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and the other Solicitor-General.  In 1549, Walter was made Surveyor-General of Ireland.  It was from this Walter that the immediate ancestors of the Duke of Wellington were, by the mother’s side, descended.

His eldest son, Henry, acquired some distinction as a soldier in the reign of Elizabeth.  He was also a member of the Irish Parliament for the borough of Thomastown.  He was, moreover, a Privy Councillor, and was knighted.

Sir Henry Sydney, who was, perhaps, the wisest and most able of all the Lords Deputy whom Elizabeth sent over to Ireland, appears to have entertained a very high opinion of Sir Henry Colley’s abilities; for, in recommending him to his successor in the Government, he describes him as “valiant, fortunate, and a good servant;” and speaks of him as his “sound and fast friend.”  But he more especially praises the “order,” in which he kept his county.

Thus early did a member of this family earn praise for good service to the State; and if we compare the measure of that praise with what we know of the temper of the times, we might almost suppose that some portion of the spirit of the “sound and fast friend,” the “valiant, fortunate, and good servant,” had been inherited by his illustrious descendant.