History mentions several sovereigns who loved war, but had no taste for personal participation in its perils. Charles the Fifth, and his son, Philip the second, are amongst the number, The leading characteristic of the latter was cruelty, a disposition generally associated with cowardice. Diocletian, after he became emperor, fought more by his lieutenants than in person. Lactantius said of him that he was timid and spiritless in all situations of danger. _Erat in omni tumultu meticulosus et animi dejectus_. [Footnote 35]
[Footnote 35: Lactant. De Mortibus Persecutorum, c. ix.]
A commander should be self-collected in a battle, calm under a shower of darts or the whistling of artillery; but to prove his courage, he is not called upon to charge windmills with the chivalric madness of Don Quixote, or to slay eight hundred enemies with his own hand, as recorded of Aurelian and Richard Coeur de Lion. Charles of Sweden and Attila loved fighting for fighting's sake; for the _certaminis gaudia_, as Cassiodorus writes; "the rapture of the strife," as Lord Byron translates the passage. Yet a brave general is not obliged to be a vulture snuffing blood like the truculent king of the Huns. He can maintain his reputation for personal courage without jumping alone into the midst of an army of foes, as Alexander did from the walls of Oxydrace; or resisting a host of many thousands with three hundred men, as Charles XII. did at Bender; or of placing his foot first on the scaling ladder in emulation of the extreme daring of the Constable Bourbon, under extreme circumstances, at the storming of Rome. Charles the First lacked _moral_ courage, but he was no craven physically. His bravery in the field, and calm dignity on the scaffold, went far in atonement of his political weaknesses and shortcomings.
The mind naturally revolts from sudden or violent death. Yet it has its recommendations. It is never painful. The important consideration is lest it should be unprepared for. We mourn the loss of a friend or relative who is killed in battle more than we do that of one who dies in the course of nature, or of an incidental fever. We lament a soldier's death because it seems untimely. A sufferer who languishes of disease, ends his life with more pain but with less credit. He leaves no example to be quoted, no honor to be cherished as an heirloom by his descendants. We affect to be greatly shocked at the misfortunes or death of a friend or acquaintance, but there is something pharisaical in this exuberance of sympathy, only we are unwilling to confess the truth openly.