APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 94, 6 April 1907, Page 1

APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

no. xn.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

An Anathematizing Apophthegmatker.

APOPHTHEGM ,AND ANATHEMA, i A great -many people who. misconceive the meaning of the wordj ■ apophthegm, consider it the medium for the expression of maudlin maxims or gocdy-goody gammon— a shbrt way of stating sage sentiments m Scriptural shape. This is the opinion of many ignorant people, whose a<3q,uiantance with the Bible is more famr iliar than with the Dictionary, but, whose knowledge of either is neither perfect nor profound. Apophthegmatizinsc is not, any more than prophesying, the peculiar prerogative of saints ; the devil can apophthegmatize, as well as quote Scrirpture. To apophthegmatize is not always to moralize. Some of the worst amd most wickedly witty sentiments can be, and have been, expressed m the ' form of -apophthegms by ttfie most worldly of men. who. would scorn to be "snufflebusters." Warriors, whose business has been to slaughter men instead of saying their souls, have been amongst the most apt apopbthegmatizers. Foremost amongst 'these have been Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, and Wellington. Napoleon's supremacy as a sayer of short, sharp, pithy, apposite, aphoristic sayings was as pronounced as his supremacy as a strategist. Apophthegimatizers of another class than that of which Napoleon was the personification, are represented by the Duke ol Wellington, whose wit and wisdom were somewhat marred 1 by the -brutal. and blasphemous language m which he' gave them .-•.-ex--.pression. -Nevertheless, some of . his •■ sententious sayings were h0t ..., 0n1y wise, but witty, and therefore .-.well, worth preserving,, notwithstanding their brutality -and. blasphemy. * ; _* " ' * ' !:/ UP, GUARDS, AND AT 'EM ! Most people believe that the Duke of Wellington really did say the famous words— "Up, Guards, and at 'em* !" variously said to have been uttered at Quatre Bras and at Waterloo. But that famous "mot" is a fiction— a purely apocryphal, apophthegmatiziation — one of the many myths that have gathered around Wellington's fame,; which was at one time much exaggerated, at the expense of the greater gains aftd merits of Nelson, England's true national hero, and real saviour from the crushing clutch of The Corsican. Had Nelson not annihilated _• the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, and won the Battle of Trafalgar, there would have been no.. Wellington and no Waterloo. \ But it has ever been the fashion of Britons of the bulldog breed to glorify thc meagre army of England, and its comparatively paltry achievement?, at tbe exrensc bf her mighty navy and stupendous conquests on every sea, at every supreme crisis of England's fate.

ARMY VERSUS NAVY

This ungenerous and unpatriotic practice is alluded to by Byron m the opening stanzas of "Don Juan" •'— I want a hero : an uncommon -want, When every year and month sends f _ rfch a new one, • Till after cloying the gazettes with cant, Thc age discovers he is not the true one ; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll, therefore, take our ancient friend, Don Juan— We all have seen him, m the pantomime, Sent to the devil somewhat ere bis time. Vernon the butcher, Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Kepple, Howe, Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk, And fill'd their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now • Each m their turn like Banquo's monarebs Btalk, ' m Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow : France, two, had Bonaparte and Dumourier. Eecordod m the Moniteur and Courier. i Barnave, Brissot, Oondoreet, Mirabeau, Patron, Cloptz, Dantcn, Marat, La Fa_J yette, i We» French, and Uanam people, as we / know*

(By JOHN NORTON.)

And there were others, scarce forgotten yet, Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix,. Moreau, With many of the military set, Exceedingly remarkable at times, Bnt not at all adapted to my rhymes.

Nelson was once Britannia's god of war, And still should be so, but the tide isturn'd; There's no more to be said of Trafalgar, 'Tis with our hero quietly inurn'd : Because the army's grown .more popular, At which the naval people are concern'd; Besides, the prince is all for the land-service, Forgetting . Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis. ■

A MAD MONARCH'S BLACKGUARD SONS.

The "Prince" alluded to m the penultimate line of .the above quotation was the infamous Duke of York, ' brother to the infanious Prince Regent, better known to infamy as the most infamous George IV., who, with his equally had, black-hearted, brutal brothers, the Dukes of York, Clarence (the infamoufc K,ing "Silly Billy"), Cumberland (the infamous and unnatural outrager and murderer of his valet, Courvoisier), Sussex (physically the soundest, and mentally the sanest, of these German Guelphic ghouls) and Kent (the [crapulous cuckold, whose only cla/un lto fame is that he< was the father \of the late great and good and deeplyr-lamented Queen Victoria, of 'glorious and grateful memory), used to bait' like a bear their blind and balmy old father, George 111., and who, when his medical attendant was out of the way, would tie the malignant, maniacal .monarch up to a bedpost, and then tease, tickle and trounce hatn till he roared, and mowed and mouthed at them m a manner that made them laugh till tears ran % down their cheeks. Sweet sons'! Worthy scions, of a balmy, bawdy, brutal brood, imported by Britons w»ho sing— Britons NEVER, NEVER, NEVER Shall be. slaves! This Duke of. York was not the worst: of a bad lot by any means ; but he was a pig-faced, brain-be-scU'eti. bawd-bossed, feculent fcol, w«_io played the part of bludger on the British army, m order to maintain .his kept woman, Anne Clark, a notorious whore— a common town troll— before the Duke of York. "took her on" and she "took him m." •

THE JUKE AND THE JUDY

It was m this way. York,' who was as muoh a soldier as he was a saint, was made Commander4m-Chiel of the British Army, m which position -he permitted, and aided and abetted, his prostitute-paramour, Mrs (commonly called "Mother") Clark, to sell commissions and promotions m the army ! The Juke and his Judy did a roaring business m this manner for a long time, until it was denounced and exposed by William Corbett and others m the press and Parliament, with the result that York had to resign the Comm'ander-ship-in-Ohief of the army, although a poltroon Parliament pronounced the Pilatian verdict, "We find no fault m him." It was this fraudulent, .feculent fool who presumed to pit himself against Napoleon's generals m Holland, .when he commanded the calamitous Waleheren expedition, m which Britain, under this -right royal "rotter," reaped such a rich harvest of disaster and disgrace. Was it any wonder that, when such a fool could command and control it, the British army was what it was, and, to a large extent, has been ever sincedown to the last disastrous and disgraceful Boer war— the refuge for the incompetent and important relations of German royalty, and for the curled darlings, scented swells and. carpet knights of a degenerate aristocracy and parvenu plutocracy, bossed by boodling Jews of the Barney Barnato breed, and Jingo Jews like Ben Disraeli ? Not at all; • Wonder would have been had it been otherwise. The English-bred br imported gang of German ghouls, of whom York Waa on©, had even a tighter grip

then than their successors have now of England and her destinies. GERMANY'S GI_FT TO ENGLAND, The Court and the sister services, -especially the army. then, as now,, swarmed with German penniless princelings and dimeless dukelets, who fastened like a pest of plaguebreeding, substance-devouring patasites on the English people. Byron, the scarifying scourger oi the servile subserviency of Britons to . Brunswickers, makes mordant mention of this disgraceful deference m "The Waltz," a satire ori that form of dancing then but newly imported from Germany :•— Oh, Germany 1 how* much to thee we. owe, As heayen-born Pitt can testify below. Ere cursed confederation made thee France's, "'.''■.' And only left us thy d — d debts and 'dances ! • Of subsidies and Hanover bereft, We bless the still— for George the Third is left! Of ICings the best — and- last,, not least m worth, For graoiously begetting George the Fourth. To Germany, and highnesses serene, Who owe us millions — don't we owe the. queen? t To Germany, what owe we not huskies ? So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides ; Who paid for vulgar, with her royal blood, Drawn from the* stem of each' Teutonic stud; Who sent vs — so be pardon'd all bei* faults — A dozen dukes, some kings, a queen — and Waltz • • • ' DEPENDENCE ON GERMANY BRED BRITISH DEGENERACY. It was this degrading and damnable dependancy on Germany that placed the British army practically under the control of a prostitute like Anne Clark, the Duke of York's faithless paramour, who cuckolded Mm, 'With all ahd sundry— from colonels down to corporals, from diplomatists to domestics. . Then were sown these seeds of national decay and dissolution, the signs of which manifested themselves m so melancholy a manner during the late mjlitaivy .mismanagement and malversation . m ! South Africa. Then it was, in' order to provide for the moral and monetary profligacy p!f a physically and policically putrid German princeling, and his bawdy, boodling paramour, that the British 'army was placed m pawn to a prostitute, wh 0 sold its promotions and commissions at graduated prices, according to a fixed tarifi drawn up' by .this dirty, desperate drab herself. A century has not sufficed to rid the British army of .the awful consequences of the sysItem set up by the Duke oi York and this heartless harlot. Some oi these I consequences were lately seen m the recent reverses m South Africa, and m the . still more recent revelations concerning the wholesale bribery and corruption shown to be rampant m connection with South African , airmy contracts", regarding which colonels and general officers were proved to have received hdgj secret commissions. The sycophancy of the days ot The Four Georges, oispeoially . • that of the Rege&it (George IV.), caused, nay, compelled, . the toleration of the monstrous maladministration m military affairs, similar to that which the sycophancy of these psteudo-democrat but degenerate days extends 'to Crimean War .muddles and Boer War blunders. • « • A SYCOPHANTIC SCRIBBLER SCACIFIED. The loyal lickspittleism on George IV. and his brother "Silly Billy" was ' very much, like that lavished on that rod-headed wanton " virgin," Queen Bess, or the servile slobber with which the late Widow W-ettiti of Windsor was wont to be solaced by Britons for 'full solid forty years for the loss of her husband., specially imported for heir from her native Yarmany. Byron, m "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," badly biffed m the buttocks these biathersome blighters of his day, m the person or an Irish bounder of a bard- named Fitzgerald, who was always and. inevitable to the fore at loyal functions and patriotic banquets with a speech or a poem of his own composing. Cobbett christened him "the Small Beer Poet." and Byron ailudes to him! m ihe opening lines of "Engji^h Bards and Scotch Reviewers" thusStill must I hear ? — shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets m a tavern hall, And I not sing, lest, haply Scotch reviews Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse? Prepare for rhyme — I'll publish, right or wrong :- Fools are my thorne, let satire be my song. In John Murray's 1854 edition of. Bryon's works, to "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" there is the following footnote :— Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett tbe " Small Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Literary Fund. Not content with writing, he spoutsin person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad port to enable them to sustain the operation.— -NOTE BY BYRON. For the long period of thirty-two years this harmless poetaster was an attendant at the anniversary dinners of the Literary Fund, and constantly honored the occasion with an ode whioh he himself recited with

most comical dignity of emphasis. . .. ,.. Of his numerous loyal^t_fiusio*tts "only %__ single' line"; has /survived its author ; but" • the characteristics of his style have been so happily hit oil m •' Rejected Addresses"— (a work which Lord Byron has pronounced . to be "by far 'the best thing of its kind since the Eolliad "—that we cannot resist the temptation of an extract :— " Who burnt (confound his soul 1) the houses' twain, Of Oovent Garden and of Drury Lane ? Who> while the British Squadron' lay off Cork, (God .bless the Regent and the Duke of ' York!) With ia foul earthquake ravaged the Carac- ' cas > : '. 'v.,. And raised the p'tice of dry goods aud tobaccos? Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise? Who fills the butchers' shops with large • blue flies ? r Who thought, m flames, St. James's Court to pinch? .'•''.. ■Who burnqd the wardrobe of poor LadyFinch?—'* ' Why he, who,, forging for this isle a.yoke, Reminds me,of a line I lately spoke — ' The tree of freedom is the British Oak.' Bless evory man possess' d of aught to give !'• Long may long Tilney Wellesley Long Pole live ! God bless the army, bless their coats of scarlet! God bless the navy, bless the Princess Charlotte! God bless the Guards, though worsted Gallia scoff! God bless their pigtails, though- they're now . cutoffl i And, oh 1 m Downing-street should Old Nick revel, England's prime minister then bless tho devil.' * ■**'„-*•■ IMMORTAL INFAMY, Thus was a poor, paltry, puerile poetaster made immortal— damned to everlasting' fame through being parodied m ''Rejected Addresses" by Smith Brothers, pilloried by Byron, and sneered at by Cobbett. Had he not been singled but as a typical tbadeater and symbolical spouting snob of that degenerate day, this ""small ;. beer poet"- -would long ago have sunk ; into the oblivion of. the swipes for which he sang, or • rather squawked. This breed of bobzy bards still survives and Australasia has its own sycophantic squad of swipe-^nspir cd ' 'singers , ' ' whose ' '' singing" is as tuneful as the grunting of hogs at the pig-trough . It was m the midst of this anticlimax of. royal rascality and milij tary maladministration and fulsome [flattery of monarchical malversators iof public money by pothouse poets, I pensioned politicians and subsidised! \ sheets, that Wellington appeared, and] forged his way to the front. Though much . overrated as a general, Wellington was a man and a Briton, with a hearty hatred of the German brood which polluted and prostituted the English throne. He ,was a manly man, an honest gentliathah m the rough, who despised flattery, and damned flatterers to their faces. His disgust and distrust of cads, snobs, and toadeaters was so strong and deep, that it could only find adequate expression m downright decent blasphemy— as we are about to see. • '« •• WELLINGTON'S "TWOPENNY DAMN." Wellington's well-known favourite form of expressing irritation and annoyance at the persistency of the parasitical push m. plaguing him, as Commander-in-Chief and as Prime Minister, for places,' promotions and pensions for themselves, relatives or friends, was to tell them to "Go to. hell." His most ' common curse upon them was that he didn't care : a "twopenny damn" for them or their friends. There' is not the slightest doubt that, as long as he lived, he did much by his. curt cursing and blunt blasphemy to counteract and check the crowd of cormorants who . claimed to batten on. tlie body politic of Britain. Some of his comminatory sayings are as amusing as they are adjuratory. Here are some of them, preserved by the anonymous writer of "Collections and Recollections," already cited:— In spite of profound differences of political opinion, Lord John Russell had a highregard for the memory of the Duke of Wellington, and had been- much m his society m early life. Travelling m the Spanish Peninsula m 1812, he visited Lord Wellington m his headquarters near Burgos. . On tho morning after the arrival, he rode out with his host and an aide-de-camp, and surveyed tbe position of the French army. Lord Wellington, peering through his field-glasses, suddenly exclaimed, ".By God! they've changed their damned position !" and said no niore. When they returned from their ride, the aide-de-camp said to Lord John, " You had better get away as quick as you can. lam confident that Lord Wellington means to make a move !" Lord John took tbe hint, made his excuses, and went on his way. That evening the British army were m full retreat ; and Lord Russell used to tell tbe story as illustrating the old Duke's extreme reticence when there was a chance of a military secret leaking out. The incident is reminiscent of another great Englishman, whose taciturnity and emphasis of expression m the field were quite Wellingtonian, barring the blasphemy, which, m ■ Cromwell's case,, took a more piacular though quite as pithy a formas at Dunbar, when, through the

grey .mists of the morning, , he per- _ ceiyed ihe. Scot's;, ..under^Leslie, .{nov* ing- .down from ; the .-heights,., at the prompting of the 1 inspired parsonica!' fools who worried and fretted him. Cromwell simply explained, "The Lord hath delivered them into our hands!" and gave Monk and Lambert the order of battle, commanded the charge, and routed the enemy whose scattered remnants were pursued and slaughtered right up to the gates of Edinburgh. WELLINGTON'S GRIM HUMOUR ■ AND COMMON SENSE.The Government of the day contemplating despatching an expedition to' Burmah, for the purpose of capturing' Rangoon. . The- question, arose as to who would be the best general to send m Command. . The Cabinet consulted Wellington, and he .at ;-once replied, "Send Lord Combcrmere." ' "But we always understood that Your Grace considered Lord Combermere to be a fool?" "So he is a fool— and a damned fool 1 ; but he can take Rangoon." During the trial of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV., whom that dirty dastard wanted to divorce on fcrumped-up charges, the mob sympathised with the wronged Queen, and -the Duke's adhesion to the cause of the King— rather from State reasons than from sincere sympathy —made Wellington very unpopular with the mob. Riding towards Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, one day, he was stopped by a gang of navvies who were mending the road. With shouldered pickaxes and shovels they drew up across the road m front of the Duke, and swore that they would not let him pass until he had shouted "God Save the Queen." Undismayed, and with the utmost coolness, Wellington said— " Well, gentlemen, since you will have it so, 'God save the Queen,' and may all your wives he like her-" The grim humor of this reply .lies m the fact that Queen; Caroline was accused by her, rotten roue; of a r royal'husband of being; a. common pros 1 * titute to numerous prominent public men, including a Court physician; Lawrence, the painter ; and numerous English and Italian servants, and with having given birth to a bastard. It jalso recalls tlie cool courage of the late ' Sir George Dabbs, who could, and also did, "swear like a trooper," m confronting an excited crowd* of seamen and wharf laborers on Circular Quay, Sydney, during the strike of the Australian Steam \ \ Navigation Company's employees, oil which concern. . Sir George was chair- ' man or managing director at the time. * * « WELLINGTON'S. CONTEMPTUOUS CURSING, When Queen Victoria came tb the throne her first public act was to go into State to St. James's Palace'to be proclaimed. From adolescence to age, the "Widow of Windsor" was always a wilful woman — always wanting her own way, and getting it too, except when, iate m life, she happened to be opposed to Gladstone, whom she hated but feared ; or by John Brown, whom she wisely trusted and blindly obeyed. On this particular occasion, prompted by the German gang about her— who always "ran" her when Dizzy, the Jew, was not "running" her— she wished to have m the State coach with her the Duchess of Kent, her mother, aud one of the ladies of "-the household, another German. But Lord Albermarle, as Master of "the Horse, insisted, ,as a matter of Court etiquette and official right, that he had the privilege bf travelling with the Sovereign m the State coach on the occasion of the formal proclamation of her accession, as he had done with ■ her uncle, William IV., on the occasion of his accession. The matter was submitted by Lord Albermarle by the Duke of Wellington, who was regarded as an impartial and 'universal referee on all points of precedence^ and usage governing Court and other Ste.te 'ceremonies.. Wdlington wasted no words or compli- . ments m conveying his opinion to the outraged Peer. It was so damnably frank and blasphemously blunt that it would have delighted the heart of the late "Damn Chicago" Dibbs : ■ ' " The Queen can make you go inside the coach, or outside the coach, or run behind the coach like a damned tinker's dog." • • • WELLINGTON'S WAY WITH WO- . MEN. Like his great contemporary, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington was much pestered, and often worried, by, women. On one occasion he was reported to have said : "I have ,no small talk, and Peel has no manners." But it must be said that Wellington somewhat modified his maledictions when speaking or writ- i ing to the softer sex. For instance, j when declining the dedication of a I song written by Mrs Norton, the ; granddaughter of that brilliant I drunkard, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, . the "Iron Duke" became quite debon- ; nair, and politely informed the lady— ' "1 have made it a rule to have nothing dedicated to me, and have

'kept it in-every instance, though J have been Chancellor -of the University of- Oxford, . and. in-• other situa- ' Vtioffs' much 'exposed tb authors." So, too, Wellington was as sauve toward a woman as a warrior could reasonably be expected to be, when he, an ardent anti-Catholic, having been written to by as ardent a Catholic, lady of title, who informed him that she was deeply interested m a Catholic charity, ahd, knowing his wide benevolence, had ventured to put his name down for £l*oO, replied ,— "Dear Lady,— lt is a curious coincidence that, just before I got your letter, ' I had ; put down your name for a like sum to the English Mission for. Converting Irish Catholics ; so no money need pass between us." For >tact m covering a retreat from a female foe, this reply is worthy of the great general whose skilful tactics m • covering his' retreat before the French, foe saved , the British army from total capture or annihilation oh more than one memorable occasion.; ■ - . m ■ '_ "iT""-"*" WELLINGTON AND WOMEN WOOERS. If the defender of the lines of Torres Vedas showed somewhat less suavity m defending himself against women wooers than he did m replying to women who did not try to snare him with sentiment, he may, perhaps, be pardoned on account of, the peculiar peril of "a pair of sparkling eyes," harder for an old soldier to withstand, even when possessed by a silly or stupid 'woman than a battery of artillery or a charge of cavalry. A certain Miss J- — much annoyed the, Duke by her persistent ■ pesterings by post. Miss J wanted to know from Wellington what was the proper course for her to . pursue m the presence of a fellow-passenger m the stage coach who was constantly swearing. The DUke replied— "I don't consider with you that it is necessary to enter into a disputation wiith eyery wandering Blasphemer." .Much- must depehd upon the circumstances." This reply is really rich and racy, when it is recollected what a beautiful blasphemer Wellington himself was. And when the same Miss J- — persisted m pursuing the Duke' with her pen, and modestly mixed flirtation with piety, and flavored both with a strong dash of personal p-ijofue the >"Iron Duke" cruelly crushed the aspiriaig affection of this corresponding cooing-dove m the following ierw hut f r ank words— "The' Duke oi Wellington presents His Compliments to Miss J . She is quite mistaken. He has no Lock of Hair of Hers. He never had one. "^ It is said m sundry ways by various poets, notably by Dryden, Pope and Byron, that women, lovely woman, can draw iman, obdurate man, by a single hair. Wellington must ' have been an exception : .Not a whole lock, or coil, or hawser of hair could draw him. t The wife of the Duke's private secretary was fond of parading her intimacy with the Duke before miscellaneous company. One day, m a large party, she said to him— '•'Duke, I know you won't mind my asking you, hut is it true that you were so much surprised when you found you had won the Battle of Waterloo?" "By God ! not half so much surprised as I am nbw, mum." ■• • ■•■• * WELLINGTON'S METHOD WITH MERE MEN. The Duke is Said to have replied to every one of the myriads of letters he received during the course of his long and active life. His replies to his meddlesome masculine- correspondents do" not seem to have heen always framed with the intention of pleasing them : on the contrary, their cool curtness, not to say savage severity, seem devices designed to '"choke off" scribbling meddlers. Thus, when' a somewhat well-adver-tised so-called philanthropist named Stevens worried Wellington to present some petitions to the House of Lords on behalf of the little chimney sweeps, or "climbing boys," the Duke replied— "Mr Stevens has thought fit to leave some petitions at Apsley House. They will be found with the porter." Just one other instance of Wellington's blasphemous bluntness, or damnation drollery, and Wellington may be left at rest With all the honors of a hard swearer thick upon him. When the late Queen was lying-in of the present Duke of Connaught, .Wellington was asked of what sex he would like the expected infant to be. He is reported to have replied— "I don't care a twopenny damn whether it be a boy or girl. One duke or duohess more or less won't i make much difference; though, if it's i a boy, he might be able to do some- | thing to earn his own damned liv|ing." . I Such blasphemy, even m a great ! man like the Duke of Wellington, al- | most sounds like disloyalty. Thackeray refers to this particular incident m the following doggerel, m which he describes the Court page-

ant and the demeanour of the chief participating „. personages on the occasion of the birth of the present Duke of -Connaught— . Lord John he next alights, And who comes here m haste ? The Hero of a Hundred Fights The caudle for to taste. Then Mrs. Lily, the miss, * Towards them steps with joy ; Says the brave old Duke, " Come, tell to us, Is ifc a gal or boy ?" Says Mrs. L. to the Duke, - " Your (Jrace, ifc is a ' Prince.' n ■ And at that ( nurse's bold rebuke, He did both laugh and wince. Perth, W.A. ..;■ Tuesday, March 5, 1907* ■ " : '