246 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP. IX. its language not meant quite in earnest ; but abroad t-aken lit- ?rally. and trials such as those endured by our troops, its prowess must always be owing to the quali- ties of the commander and the officers under him no less than to those of his men. If the outcry thus wildly transcended the bounds of moderation and truth, what is there to be said of its policy ? We may all well believe that, though eager to overstrengthen strong words, the writers and speakers thus erring did not really deceive them- selves much, still less wish to lead others astray; and that, as one man will resort to ' italics,' and another to gesticulation, and another to a volley of oaths, they indeed used sentences cast in the shape of actual assertions, yet designed them, all the time, for no more definite purpose than that of intensification or emphasis. So that when, for example, they shrieked in loud condolence with England for having undergone the ' disaster ' of a ' hideous collapse,' and being in the nether ' abyss,' they only meant in reality to make her curse the ' green coffee ' or some other hapless miscarriage with increased and increasing rage ; but the mischief was that by many, above all by foreign observers, the out- cries meant only as growls would be mistaken for what, after all, they in form really purported to be — that is, grave declarations asserting the incapacity of our country to carry on the busi- ness of war. Notwithstanding the wild excesses we have seen the great journal committing, there re- mained, after all, in its columns so large a
