By William Edward Kilburn (1818–91), from the Royal Collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source
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General Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) photographed in 1849, ten years after the events related here, and six after his celebrated conquest of Sindh in modern-day Pakistan, in 1843. As a young man, he was given a Spanish sword by his father which was engraved with the motto: ‘Draw me not without cause, put me not up without honour.’ Charles was true to that promise on that day in Manchester, and declared when he retired that he had remained true to it all his life. The city of Napier in New Zealand is named after him.
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By William Edward Kilburn (1818–91), from the Royal Collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
General Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) photographed in 1849, ten years after the events related here, and six after his celebrated conquest of Sindh in modern-day Pakistan, in 1843. As a young man, he was given a Spanish sword by his father which was engraved with the motto: ‘Draw me not without cause, put me not up without honour.’ Charles was true to that promise on that day in Manchester, and declared when he retired that he had remained true to it all his life. The city of Napier in New Zealand is named after him.
HE at once secretly invites a leading
Chartist chief to visit with him the artillery-barrack while the
gunners are at work. The battery is drawn up, the command is given to
dismount the guns, remount them and come into action. It is done in
the usual brilliant and rapid manner, and the Chartist chief goes away
from the parade not quite so confident that the five old brass
carronades which are hidden away under some backyard rubbish will be
equal to meet in action these perfectly served guns.
When civil war is trembling in the balance, when the magistrates
and many of the Government officials are calling out for vigorous
measures, when Whigs and Tories are jointly agreed that stern
repression is to be the rule of politics, we find the real soldier
anxious only to avoid spilling the blood of his countrymen.*
Chartist unrest grew with riots, talk of a general strike, and arrests for conspiracy and treason. Another petition of over 5 million signatures was collected and a mass rally planned for Kennington Common in London on April 10th, 1848, but in the event rain dampened the occasion, and the petition was delivered not by marching crowds but by cab. The fractured movement and poisonous rhetoric, and an upturn in economic prosperity fuelled by industrialisation and The Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, left the public with as little appetite for bloodshed and revolution as Major-General Napier had.
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author
aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that
strike you. How do they help the author communicate his
ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you?
How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939)
by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at
Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn,
Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University,
USA.
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1Mean.No.Take.
2Gun.Magistrate.Parliament.
3Arrive.Remount.Rule.
Variations:1.include direct and indirect speech2.include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who3.use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Many words can serve as noun or verb depending on context: see if you can prove this with the examples below. Nouns go well with words such as the/a, or his/her; verbs go well after I/you/he etc..
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
Variations:
1.if possible, use your noun in the plural, e.g. cat → cats.2.use your verb in a past form, e.g. go → went.3.use your noun in a sentence with one of these words: any, enough, fewer, less, no, some.
Each of the words below may be followed by one or more prepositions. Compose your own sentences to show which they might be. Some prepositions are given underneath.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
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Keep It Short
ByPlutarch
Plutarch argues that it when it comes to strong speech, less is always more.
