As the generals and admirals of
the allied forces stand round the dead hero's form, as the palled
bier, draped in the flag of England, is carried from headquarters
to the port, as the "Caradoc," steaming away with her honoured
freight, flies out her "Farewell" signal, the narrative abruptly
ends. The months of the siege which still remained might be left
to other hands or lapse untold. Troy had still to be taken when
Hector died; but with his funeral dirge the Iliad closed, the blind
bard's task was over:
"Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade."
If the framework of the narrative is epic, its treatment is
frequently dramatic. The "Usage of Europe" in the opening pages is
not so much a record as a personification of unwritten Law: the
Great Eltchi tramps the stage with a majesty sometimes bordering on
fustian. Dramatic is the story of the sleeping Cabinet. "It was
evening--a summer evening"--one thinks of a world-famous passage in
the "De Corona"--when the Duke of Newcastle carried to Richmond
Lodge the fateful despatch committing England to the war.
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