Forty years' peace succeeded the great battle. Forty years of prosperity, during which he himself went honored to his tomb, rewarded the constant brave look and tongue which answered his men, when he saw the whole side of a square blown in, with "Hard work, gentlemen! They are pounding away! We must see who can pound the longest." It is not too much to say that the constant cheerfulness of the Duke of Wellington was one great element of success in the greatest battle ever fought, one of the fifteen decisive battles in the world, great in the number engaged, greater in the slaughter, greatest in the results. But all commanders ought to be cheerful. Gloomy looks do not do in the army. A set of filibusters or pirates may wear looks and brows as black as the sticking-plasters boots that their representatives are dressed in at the minor theaters; but a soldier or a sailor should be, and as a rule is, the most cheerful of fellows, doing his duty in the trench or the storm, dying when the bullet comes, but living like a hero the while. Look, for instance, at the whole-hearted cheerfulness of Raleigh, when with his small English ships he cast himself against the navies of Spain; or at Xenophon, conducting back from an inhospitable and hostile country, and through unknown paths, his ten thousand Greeks; or Cæsar, riding up and down the banks of the Rubicon, sad enough belike when alone, but at the head of his men cheerful, joyous, well dressed, rather foppish, in fact, his face shining with good humor as with oil. Again, Nelson, in the worst of dangers, was as cheerful as the day. He had even a rough but quiet humor in him just as he carried his coxswain behind him to bundle the swords of the Spanish and French captains under his arm. He could clap his telescope to his blind eye, and say, "Gentlemen, I can not make out the signal," when the signal was adverse to his wishes, and then go in and win, in spite of recall. Fancy the dry laughs which many an old sea-dog has had over that cheerful incident. How the story lights up the dark page of history! Then there was Henry of Navarre, lion in war, winner of hearts, bravest of the brave, who rode down the ranks at Ivry when Papist and Protestant were face to face, when more than his own life and kingdom were at stake, and all the horrors of religious war were loosened and unbound, ready to ravage poor, unhappy France. That beaming, hopeful countenance won the battle, and is a parallel to the brave looks of Queen Elizabeth when she cheered her Englishmen at Tilbury.