7S ilA.TOR-GEXEKAL <IR GEOKGE K. SCOTT-MOXCRIEFF OX THE 



their day and generation : men like Havelock and Charles G-ordon, 

 ready to risk rlieir lives with small forces against overwhelming 

 odds; men like Sronewall Jackson, who without desire for 

 personal glory were actuated by a faith which gave to their 

 characters strength and beauty, and left behind them the 

 fragrance of noble example. 



Discussiox. 



The Chaikmax (Prof. P. Ker) said : The subject of Sir G^oree 

 Scott -Moncrie5's lecture, and his treatment of it as well, make one 

 wish for more of the same sort. Lately I have been reading the 

 essays cf 3Ir. George Wyndham, a statesman who was some time 

 a soldier, an officer in the Coldstream Guards. One of those essays 

 is on Phitarch^s Lives, and Alexander of Macedon of course has his 

 place there. Why should not Sir George write the hfe of Gustavus 

 Adolphus on something like Plutarch's scale ? There are other 

 commanders, too, who might have their stories told — Turenne, for 

 example, a famous name, whose life and achievements are too 

 vaguelv known to most of us. 



What's Fame ? A fancied life in others' breath." Pope, in 

 his splendid, possibly not quite sincere, discourse on Fame, in the 

 r - Man, speaks of heroes and in particular of two : " The 



n madman and the Swede.'* The Swede here is not 

 Gustavus but Charles XII, who more than Gustavus Adolphus, I 

 think, is the hero of his nation. One of my early recollections in 

 Swedish is the description of the old soldier in Bishop Tegner's poem 

 of AxeJ : He had two treasures, his Bible, and his old sword with 

 Charles XII's name on it." Might not Sir George give us a life of 

 Charles XII of Sweden ? He would be competing with Toltaire, 

 but there is room for another version of the story. Here I cannot 

 help observing how rich the history of Sweden is in great commanders 

 bravely followed and obeyed and honoured. There is Engelbrekt in 

 the fifteenth century.who raised the country, like Wallace in Scotland, 

 to drive out the ahens : there is Gustavus Yasa, another hero with 

 the same patriotic task, and Charles Gusta\'us, a general as adven- 

 turous and daring as his more famous grandson, Charles XII. 



May I put in one small piece of carping criticism ? Why did 

 Sir George, in speaking of the lion of the Xorth, omit the name 



