Like Nelson, he loved his men, and his men loved him. According to the old story, when the Duke of Newcastle told the King that Wolfe was mad, the King expressed a wish that he would bite his other generals. This was precisely what Wolfe did. He infected to some extent those above him, to a great extent those under his command. He was a man after Pitt's own heart; wherever he was, he made himself felt, giving a living fire and force to the army. Coupled with this vitality was a thorough knowledge of his profession, gained not only on actual battlefields and {291} training-grounds, but also from voluminous reading.[4] Nature gave him a hot temper and fearless independence of spirit; he was in consequence impatient, and perhaps unduly critical, of the mistakes of those above him; but he was the soul of honour and chivalry, and his private life was marked by tender love for his mother, stanch attachment to his friends, and kindness to all dependent upon him, including dumb animals. In his lifetime he enjoyed 'a large share of the friendship and almost the universal goodwill of mankind.'[5] In a word, English history has produced no truer type of hero than James Wolfe. [Footnote 4: In Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, pp. 342-5, is given a letter of Wolfe's, dated July, 1756, recommending a long list of books for a young soldier to read. Reference is made at the beginning of the letter to a French book recently published (Turpin's _Essai sur l'art de la guerre_), and it is interesting to find that Forbes, in a letter to Pitt from Raestown, dated Oct. 20, 1758, stated that in his march on Fort Duquesne he was acting on the principles laid down in that book.] [Footnote 5: From the 'Character of General Wolfe' in the _Annual Register_ for 1759, p. 282.] [Sidenote: _Wolfe's brigadiers. Monckton. Murray. George Townshend. Carleton. Howe. Admiral Saunders._]