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This young Wolfe was evidently an original military genius, and must be pushed forward. He was immediately promoted to the rank of Colonel, and was soon to receive still higher promotion. The incompetency of the superior officers in the British army had of late become painfully manifest on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the way across Siberia, I met with many Russians, some of whom were army officers, and one and all bitterly criticized the government for its mismanagement of the war, for the betrayal of Russia as they called it, for its incompetency, and general worthlessness.

During the year which followed, that testy old campaigner had indulged himself in many petty feuds with all around him, but had effected, as we have seen, very little to maintain the king's authority either in the obedient or disobedient provinces. His utter incompetency soon became most painfully apparent.

The subsequent failure of his efforts and the abrupt ending of his diplomatic career have so reacted upon his reputation that associations of boastful arrogance and reckless incompetency cling to his name. This estimate holds him too lightly and underrates the peril to which the United States was then exposed.

If the editors, therefore, did their work ill, it was partly no doubt from incompetency, but partly from its inherent difficulty, and from the fact that being so near to Pascal they could hardly appreciate the feelings of the modern critic as to the sacredness of his style, and of all that came from his pen. The edition of 1669 continued to be reprinted with little alteration for a century.

These admirers held him blameless throughout for the blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency at Perryville, where McCook's corps was so badly crippled while nearly 30,000 Union troops were idle on the field, or within striking distance.

The fact that those charges were preferred by Pope, and that Porter had been allowed to retain his command through the campaign in Maryland, were hardly calculated to inspire the army with confidence in either the wisdom or the justice of its rulers; and it was the general opinion that his intimate friendship with McClellan had more to say to his trial than his alleged incompetency.

The memoirs of great men are filled with anecdotes of their incompetency for commonplace duties, their want of observation, their indifference to details: you may observe, however, that such men were great in learning alone; they never exhibited that union of action and thought which is essential to constitute a heroic character.

We may, however, take this opportunity of expressing our opinion, that there is not a shadow of foundation for the charges of blundering and incompetency which have been so liberally brought against the Irish Attorney-General. He certainly appears, in the earlier stages of the proceedings, to have evinced some little irritability but, only consider, under what unprecedented provocation!

They all, alas! knew that the service had been disgraced in other quarters by idleness, incompetency, and, he feared he must say, dishonesty; till incompetency and dishonesty had become, not the exception, but the rule.