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Below is a list of all the articles and advertisements which appeared in the first issue of the Bridgnorth Beacon, dated 1st October 1852. The transcriptions can be viewed by clicking on the titles.
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The Press.
THE DUKE.
If aught can lessen this day the grief of England upon the death of her greatest son, it is the recollection that the life which has just closed leaves no duty uncomplete and no honor unbestowed. The Duke of Wellington had exhausted nature and exhausted glory. His career was one unclouded longest day, filled from dawn to nightfall with renowned actions, animated by unfailing energy in the public service, guided by unswerving principles of conduct and of statesmanship. He rose by a rapid series of achievements which none had surpassed, to a position which no other man in this nation ever enjoyed. The place occupied by the Duke of Wellington in the councils of the country can no more be filled. There is none left in the army or the Senate to act and speak with like authority. There is none with whom the valour and the worth of this nation were so incorporate. Yet, when we consider the fulness of his years and the abundance of his incessant services, we may learn to say with the Roman orator, "Satis diu vixisse dicito," since, being mortal, nothing could be added to our veneration or to his fame. Nature herself had seemed for a time to expand her inexorable limits, and the infirmities of age to lay a lighter burden on that honored head. Generations of men had passed away between the first exploits of his arms and the last counsels of his age, until, by a lot unexampled in history, the man who had played the most conspicuous part in the annals of more than half a century became the last survivor of his contemporaries, and carries with him to the grave all living memory of his own achievements. * * * * Clearness of discernment, correctness of judgment, and rectitude of action were, without doubt, the principal elements of the Duke’s brilliant a chievements in war, and of his vast authority in the councils of the country, as well as in the conferences of Europe. They gave to his determinations an originality and vigor akin to that of genius, and sometimes imparted to his language in debate a pith and significance at which more brilliant orators failed to arrive. His mind, equally careless of obstacles and of effect, travelled by the shortest road to its end; and he retained, even in his latest years, all the precision with which he was wont to handle the subjects that came before him, or had at any time engrossed his attention. This was the secret of that untaught manliness and simplicity of style that pervades the vast collection of his dispatches. * * * * When men in after times shall look back to the annals of England for examples of energy and public virtue among those who have raised this country to her station on the earth, no name will remain more conspicuous or more unsullied than that of Arthur Wellesley, the great Duke of Wellington.—Times.
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