The political character of the Duke, and his services as a civilian, have never been sufficiently appreciated by the great mass of his countrymen.  His brilliant military reputation cast into the shade his sterling but unobtrusive services as a senator and as a minister.  It was even the fashion, for a long time, to assert that his taking office at all was a sign of defective judgment.  Indeed, when he declared, in the House of Lords, that he would be “worse than mad to think of such a thing,” he gave a colour to the supposition.  His subsequent assertion, after he had become prime minister, that he had done so “because nobody else would,” conveyed, in all probability, the simple truth.  The Duke did not know his own capacity for government, until it was tried.

Another reason why his positive worth, as a politician, has not been so universally admitted as his military merit, is that, in the imaginations of a large portion of the public, he has been identified with a party.  This, in a country where party spirit is so strong and so universal, would alone be sufficient to secure his being misunderstood by all those who are not of the party to which he is alleged to be devoted.  But it is a mistake to call the Duke of Wellington a party man; that is to say, in the ordinary sense of the word.  It is true that, during the greater part of his life he has acted with what is called the conservative party, because in England no man can expect to serve his country efficiently, unless he enlists under some political banner or other.  But there is a great difference between acting generally with a party, and the adoption of all its animosities and prejudices:  and this difference the Duke of Wellington appears always to have perceived and acted upon.  Wherever the choice has lain between the opinions of his party and the general good of his country, the Duke has always preferred his country to his party; and if that is the character of a party man, may all politicians be speedily imbued with the same sentiments!

Notwithstanding this distinction, however, it is certain that the known opinions of the Duke of Wellington, and his ultimately taking office as the prime minister of the tory party, did lead to the belief that he was a party man, and directed towards him all those animosities and all that depreciating rancour which party spirit engenders, and which party tactics perpetuate; so that during a period of some four or five years his distinguished reputation as a soldier was obscured in the minds of many millions of his country, who,—­and this remark applies more particularly to the years 1829, 1830, and 1831,—­laid themselves open to the charge of being guilty of that meanest and basest of all crimes, ingratitude.

Happily, within the last ten years, a total change has come over the public mind.  Those ill-grounded animosities are forgotten:  the long and unparalleled services of the Duke are remembered:  and a re-action, produced by a sense of shame acting upon early affections, has made him more popular, more beloved, more admired than ever he was before.