[Footnote 108: My informant in this matter was the late General Sir Arthur Ellis. Since the above was written, the Duke of Wellington has informed me that there is at Apsley House a watch, not made by Bréguet but by another Paris watchmaker, on which is inscribed, "Ordered by Napoleon for his brother Joseph." The cover is ornamented not with a diamond J, but with a map of the Peninsula. Inside is the portrait of a lady. I do not doubt that this is the watch to which Sir Arthur Ellis alluded.] XXVIII SONGS, PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL _"The Spectator," September 13, 1913_ All historians are agreed that contemporary ballads and broadsheets constitute a priceless storehouse from which to draw a picture of the society existing at the period whose history they seek to relate. Some of those which have survived to become generally known to later ages show such poverty of imagination and such total absence of literary merit as to evoke the surprise of posterity at the ephemeral success which they unquestionably achieved. An instance in point is the celebrated poem "Lillibullero," or, as it is sometimes written, "Lilli Burlero." Here is the final stanza of the pitiful doggerel with which Wharton boasted that he had "sung a king out of three kingdoms": There was an old prophecy found in a bog: Ireland shall be ruled by an ass and a dog; And now this prophecy is come to pass, For Talbot's the dog, and James is the ass. Lillibullero, Bullen-a-la. Doggerel as this was, it survived the special occasion for which it was written. When Queen Anne's reign was well advanced balladmongers were singing: So God bless the Queen and the House of Hanover, And never may Pope or Pretender come over. Lillibullero, Bullen-a-la. If the song is still remembered by other than historical students, it is probably more because Uncle Toby, when he was hard pressed in argument, "had accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle Lillibullero," than for any other reason.