Retrospect of a long life - 1883 Author:Samuel Carter Hall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS. The Giants In Doth Houses.—At the time to which I take tny readers back, there were giants in both Houses—st... more »atesmen whose names are the glories of their country, and will be so when many generations have been numbered with the Past. It is not my purpose to treat of any of them at length. There are those who can better estimate and portray the character of each ; in nearly all the cases under notice that has, indeed, been done. My object is little more than this: to bring, as nearly as I can, before the reader the person I shall picture, depending mainly upon my own memory. The strong and lasting impression produced, though it may have lain dormant for half a century, can not, I think, fail in leading to accuracy of portraiture; for the great men I shall paint, or rather sketch, are such as stamp an indelible remembrance on the minds of all by whom they have been seen and heard. The Duke Of Wellington.—Thousands are able to recall to memory the Duke of Wellington in his decline ; few can remember him in his prime—the soldier-statesman—"the Iron Duke"—the man of iron head, iron hand, iron heelj and iron heart. Of those who conquered with him at Waterloo nearly all are gone, though there remain many who, when the body that had " tabernacled " the great soul was conveyed from Apsley House, in 1852, to the Cathedral of St. Paul's, stood in the streets or watched from windows— witnesses of the homage paid to the great man who was the pride and glory of his country and his age, and who will, for ever and ever, remain the pride and the glory of both, notwithstanding that the Irish poet writes of him as of one on whom " Fame unwillingly shines " ; and " the Liberator " handed him down to posterity as " the stunted corporal" to whom I...« less