David McDowall Hannay

“ The war in its ensemble is the typical “war with limited aim,” carried out by professional armies in the interests of sovereigns and their cabinets and (except in the last stages of the war in northern France) enlisting no more than the platonic sympathies of the various peoples whose rulers were at war. Nevertheless, its monotonous round of marches and sieges is now and then quickened by the genius of three great soldiers, Marlborough, Eugene and Villars, and Peterborough and Galway, Catinat and Vendôme, though less highly gifted, were men of unusual and conspicuous ability. ”

“ When we pass from Goldsmith to Hazlitt—one of the greatest names in English criticism—we find that “humour” has grown in meaning, without quite reaching its full development. In the introduction to his Lectures on the English Comic Writers he attempts a classification of the comic spirit into wit and humour. “Humour,” he says, “is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. ”

“ Nevertheless, at the time of the Spanish Succession War the generals had not yet wholly reconciled themselves to their new position of superior chess-players. Moreover, the object of the war, at least in the case of England and Holland, was less to add a few cities and districts to their own domains than to cripple the power of Louis XIV. The ambition of the Grand Monarque had stepped beyond these narrow limits, and by placing on the throne of Spain his grandson Philip he had brought into politics the fear not merely of a disturbance but of an entire overthrow of the “balance of power.” ”

“ I am more convinced every day how little advantage there is in being what at school and the university is called a good scholar: one receives a good deal of amusement from it, but that is all. At present I read nothing but Italian, which I am immoderately fond of, particularly of the poetry.... As for French, I am far from being so thorough a master of it as I could wish, but I know so much of it that I could perfect myself in it at any time with very little trouble, especially if I pass three or four months in France. ”

“ Townley had hardly joined the French buccaneers remaining in the South Sea ere he died, and the Frenchmen with their companions crossed New Spain to the West Indies. And thus the Pacific, ravaged so long by this powerful and mysterious band of corsairs, was at length at peace.
The West Indies had by this time become hot enough even for the banded pirates. They hung doggedly along the coasts of Jamaica and Santo Domingo, but their day was nearly over. ”

“ When the king of Naples had been despoiled, the French and Spaniards quarrelled over the booty. The Great Captain now found himself with a much outnumbered army in the presence of the French. The war was divided into two phases very similar to one another. During the end of 1502 and the early part of 1503 the Spaniards stood at bay in the entrenched camp at Barletta near the Ofanto on the shores of the Adriatic. He resolutely refused to be tempted into battle either by the taunts of the French or the discontent of his own soldiers. ”

“ It is certain that many felons have been condemned on circumstantial evidence less complete. The opposition to his claim is based on such assertions as that his known handwriting was inferior to the feigned hand of Junius, and that no man can make a disguised hand better than his own. But the first assertion is unfounded, and the second is a mere expression of opinion. It is also said that Francis must have been guilty of baseness if he wrote Junius, but if that explains why he did not avow the authorship it can be shown to constitute a moral impossibility only by an examination of his life. ”

“ In despair Louis negotiated for peace, but the coalition offered such humiliating terms that not only the king, but—what in the 18th century was a rare and memorable thing—his people also, resolved to fight to the end. The ruinous winter gave force to the spirit of defence, for fear of starvation, inducing something akin to the courage of despair, brought tens of thousands of recruits to the colours. ”

“ Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. ”

“ The introduction of the India Bill in November 1783 alarmed many vested interests, and offended the king by the provision which gave the patronage of India to a commission to be named by the ministry and removable only by parliament. The coalition, and Fox in particular, were assailed in a torrent of most telling invective and caricature. Encouraged by the growing unpopularity of his ministers, George III. gave it to be understood that he would not look upon any member of the House of Lords who voted for the India Bill as his friend. ”

“ Settled labour, the warrant of real wealth, was unacceptable to those who lived by promoting its insecurity. Regular trade—though rendered attractive by smuggling—and pearl gathering and similar operations which were spiced with risk, were open in vain to them, and in the absence of any domestic life, a hand-to-mouth system of supply and demand rooted out gradually the prudence which accompanies any mode of settled existence. In everything the policy of the buccaneers, from the beginning to the end of their career, was one of pure destruction, and was, therefore, ultimately suicidal. ”

“ When, therefore, the Catholic sovereigns decided to support the Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII. of France, Gonzalo was chosen by the influence of the queen, and in preference to older men, to command the Spanish expedition. It was in Italy that he won the title of the Great Captain; Guicciardini says that it was given him by the customary arrogance of the Spaniards, but it was certainly accepted as just by all the soldiers of the time of whatever nationality. ”

“ The reasons for believing that Sir Philip Francis (q.v.) was Junius are very strong. His evasions were only to be expected. Several of the men he attacked lived nearly as long as himself, the sons of others were conspicuous in society, and King George III. survived him. Sir Philip, who had held office, who had been decorated, and who in his later years was ambitious to obtain the governor-generalship of India, dared not confess that he was Junius. The similarity of his handwriting to the disguised hand used by the writer of the letters is very close. ”

“ If you laugh all round him (to wit, the ridiculous person) , tumble him, roll him about, deal him a smack, and drop a tear on him, own his likeness to you, and yours to your neighbour, spare him as little as you shun, pity him as much as you expose, it is spirit of Humour that is moving you.... The humourist of mean order is a refreshing laugher, giving tone to the feelings, and sometimes allowing the feelings to be too much for him. ”

“ In domestic politics Fox had no time to do more than insist on the abolition of the slave trade. He, like Pitt, was compelled to bow to the king’s invincible determination not to allow the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. When a French adventurer calling himself Guillet de la Gevrillière, whom Fox at first “did the honour to take for a spy,” came to him with a scheme for the murder of Napoleon, he sent a warning on the 20th of February to Talleyrand. ”

“ In the 18th century British public men were not ashamed to say that Barbary piracy was a useful check on the competition of the weaker Mediterranean nations in the carrying trade. When Lord Exmouth sailed to coerce Algiers in 1816, he expressed doubts in a private letter whether the suppression of piracy would be acceptable to the trading community. Every power was, indeed, desirous to secure immunity for itself and more or less ready to compel Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Salli and the rest to respect its trade and its subjects. ”

“ But the untimely death of Mansfield nipped in the bud the only rational scheme of settlement which seems at any time to have animated this wild community; and Morgan, now elected commander, swept the whole Caribbean, and from his headquarters in Jamaica led triumphant expeditions to Cuba and the mainland. He was leader of the expedition wherein Porto Bello, one of the best-fortified ports in the West Indies, was surprised and plundered. ”

“ With any other prince, the shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you alone had created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have outweighed the memory of your former services. ”

“ With his veterans of the Granadine war, foot soldiers armed with sword and buckler, or arquebuses and crossbows, and light cavalry, trained to unsleeping vigilance, capable of long marches, and of an endurance unparalleled among the soldiers of the time, he could carry on a guerrillero warfare which wore down his opponents, who suffered far more than the Spaniards from the heat. ”

“ After 1063 he was assailed by Fernando El Magno of Castile and Leon, who marched to the gates of Seville, and forced him to pay tribute. His son, Mahommed Abd-ul-Qāsim Abenebet—who reigned by the title of El Motamid—was the third and last of the Abbadides. He was a no less remarkable person than his father and much more amiable. Like him he was a poet, and a favourer of poets. El Motamid went, however, considerably further in patronage of literature than his father, for he chose as his favourite and prime minister the poet Ibn Ammar. ”

“ If there is any place for humour in Goldsmith’s sordid example, it must be made by pity, and shown by a deft introduction of the de te fabula dear to Thackeray, by a reminder that the world is full of people, who, though wanting noses, are extremely curious in their choice of snuff-boxes, and that the more each of us thinks himself above the weakness the more likely he is to fall into it. ”

“ Spain was unable to take immediate action. Eight years later, however, watching their opportunity when many buccaneers were absent in the larger island, the Spaniards attacked Tortuga, and massacred every settler they could seize. But the others returned; and the buccaneers, now in open hostility to the Spanish arms, began to receive recruits from every European trading nation, and for three-quarters of a century became the scourge of the Spanish-American trade and dominions. ”

“ A statesman whose words have to be interpreted by an esoteric meaning cannot fairly complain if he is often misunderstood. In 1788 he travelled in Italy, but returned in haste on hearing of the illness of the king. Fox supported the claim of the prince of Wales to the regency as a right, a doctrine which provoked Pitt into declaring that he would “unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life.” ”

“ There are passages in his writings which can be best described in the words which Burke applied to another writer: “A mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once vapid and sour.” But at his best Junius attains to a high degree of artificial elegance and vigour. He shows the influence of Bolingbroke, of Swift, and above all of Tacitus, who appears to have been his favourite author. The imitation is never slavish. Junius adapts, and does not only repeat. The white heat of his malignity animates the whole. ”

“ In the House of Commons the coalition was strong enough to drive Shelburne from office on the 24th of February. The king made a prolonged resistance to the pressure put on him to accept Fox and North as his ministers (see Pitt, William) . On the 2nd of April he was constrained to submit to the formation of a new ministry, in which the duke of Portland was prime minister and Fox and North were secretaries of state. ”

“ They are the answer to the poet of the nobles who represented the king as having submitted to take a degrading oath at the hands of Ruy Diaz of Bivar (the Cid) , in the church of Santa Gadea at Burgos, and as having then persecuted the brave man who defied him. When every allowance is made, Alphonso VI. stands out as a strong man fighting for his own hand, which in his case was the hand of the king whose interest was law and order and who was the leader of the nation in the reconquest. On the Arabs he impressed himself as an enemy very fierce and astute, but as a keeper of his word. ”