They would have won the hearts and fixed the sceptical faith of all the wandering soldiers of fortune who came across them; and they would probably have forestalled that method of rapidity, and concentration of speed and force which Bonaparte introduced, and which they so cordially and liberally admired when he, their enemy, afforded them the spectacle. They would have been leading warriors in any age, and under any method. As it happened, they were born under a system which renders the power and habit of instant and exact obedience the only opening to eminent individual enterprise and distinction in the field. These brothers, each endowed with as strong a power of will as ever existed in man, turned that power in the direction of military obedience, and, in days when armies have become a machine, showed how much dignity there may be in the thorough subordination which renders every man a sound element in the working of the machine. Their fiery spirits flamed up on the kindling of the strife, as if they had been at Platæa or at Crécy; but they manifested the true military spirit no less by their obedience to the requirements of a method by which the antagonism is more abstract, as it were,—when the slaughter is impersonally conducted, for the most part, and there is more to do in managing men and arms than in seeking out a hand-to-hand foe. They were soldiers made for any times, and for all time.
There were five brothers of them, three of whom were soldiers, and one a sailor. All were accomplished men—knights of the pen as well as of the sword—skilled in civil administration, and thoroughly fitted for the business and pleasures of private and domestic life. Of the three soldiers, William was ruling the Channel Islands, George the Cape colony, and Charles ruled Scinde, at the same time. William has immortalised himself in literature by his “History of the Peninsular War,” and Henry, the sailor, produced a full and complete “History of Florence.” All readers of good biography know the charm of Charles’s letters from India, as given in the Life and Correspondence published by William. William was an honorary member of the Royal Academy, on account of his statue of the dying Alcibiades; and he was a painter. In manners, their match was hardly to be found in their day and generation. High-born and high-bred they were, it is true; but no advantages of position and training could have given that charm of gentleness with heroism breathing through, and of sleepless yet tranquil intelligence which made their conversation and bearing winning and imposing beyond that of any other men.
When they lost self-command, and showed how they could be stirred by passion, it was always through some moral disgust. They fired up at the remotest scent of any deed of oppression or of meanness. If the strong encroached upon the weak, or self-interest induced cant or slyness, the spectacle might be seen of the Napiers incensed—and it was a sight never to be forgotten. In these qualities and attributes, in their clannish attachments, and in their relations with servants—domestic servants being settled in Napier households to the third and fourth generation—they were like the ornaments of chivalry in the Middle Ages; and yet in their military service there was nothing old-fashioned. They were up to all the impulses of their time, and foremost in the recognition of all professional improvements. “My colonels” Wellington loved to call them. They were his comrades as well as his aids and instruments. But he was so shocked at the amount of wounds—grave wounds—which they sustained that he gave his opinion that they had had enough, and should remain at home. In that particular case his opinion did not prevail with them, and as soon as they were fit for duty they were again in his train. In 1811 Charles had ridden ninety miles to an expected battle-field, his head bandaged for a dreadful wound in the face, received at Busaco, when, on nearing the scene of conflict, he met soldiers bearing a litter of branches covered with a blanket. It was George with a broken limb. Presently he met another litter. It was William, declared to be mortally hurt. Charles looked after them, but rode on into the fight. William’s wound was not mortal, but the pain of it remained for life. He was wounded four times in the Peninsular War, received seven decorations for that service, and was made K.C.B. We all remember how Charles was sent for when India was in a critical condition, as the only man who could retrieve the military rule; and how “all the young men were chafing to go out with him,” as was said at the time; and what he did to enable us to survive the mutiny which he would have prevented if he had had the whole power in his own hands. We all probably remember Wellington’s letter to Lady Sarah Napier, announcing that George had lost an arm at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo. Most of us, it is to be hoped, know William’s “History of the Peninsular War,” which, read aloud by firelight, kept our soldiers awake and happy in the trenches before Sebastopol. We are all aware that we have always regarded the Napiers as soldiers for England to be proud of. In contemplating Representative Soldiers of various ages it is well to gather up and put together what we have known of this group of brothers, to substantiate to ourselves the pride and satisfaction of having seen in our own country the model soldiers of our time.
One characteristic trait in Sir William Napier was, that he never let pass among his intimates such expressions as “the lower orders” and “common soldiers.” When assured that the expression “lower orders” referred not at all to quality, but only to social arrangement, he was pacified; but in the other case he stood his ground. He insisted that there is no such thing as a common soldier in England; we have “privates,” but we have no “common soldiers.” This lofty and vigilant military spirit, appearing in daily discourse, is the same which manifested itself in an admiration of his enemy too chivalrous for his age to comprehend. We certainly dissent, one and all, now from his estimate of the first Napoleon; but it was an error on the right side at the time; and to honour and learn from the genius of the foe always has been, and always will be, regarded as a