Captain Sword and Captain Pen A Poem

Excerpt

The author intends no more offence to any one than can be helped: he feels due admiration for that courage and energy, the supposed[50] misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection, but a necessity—but he believes that the time is come when, by encouraging the disposition to question it, its services and its sufferings may be no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder the veil from the sore places of war,—would show what has been hitherto kept concealed, or not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,—would prove, at all events, that the time has come for putting an end to those phrases in the narratives of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything has been done to excite his admiration of war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital of its miseries—that "a veil" is drawn over them—a "truce" given to descriptions which only "harrow up the soul," [51]&c.