Yesterday week Lord Curzon unveiled the mural tablet which has
been set up in the great hall of Merchant Taylors' School to the memory of Lord Clive. He was "one of the master spirits of the English race " of whom Browning had rightly said,-
" In my eyes, your eyes, all the world's eyes, Clive was a man." The evidences of his genius were incontestable. In nine years he had risen from being a poor and unknown clerk to be one of the most famous captains of his own or any other age. Lord Curzon dwelt specially, amongst his other great qualities as a commander, on the affection he inspired in his native troops. It was given to but very few men in the world's history to be great soldiers and great statesmen, but it was difficult to say in which sphere Clive the more excelled. He not only laid the foundation of the British Empire in India, but also of that great Civil Service "which for a hundred and fifty years has ruled those hundreds of millions with a self-effacement and absolute integrity and a devotion to duty that is an inspiration to Englishmen and is without parallel in the history of the world."
Previous page
