The charge of senility might be brought with far more appropriateness

against the drama in its present state, although, even as applied to the

drama, one cannot choose but indulge the belief that it is too severe.

If we detect at one and the same time a tendency to excessive realism in

the drama, and in the pictorial and plastic arts, it is difficult to

believe that what, with all its extravagance, is symptomatic of youth

and progress in the one, should be symptomatic only of decrepitude and

ruin in the other. These arts are so nearly allied that one might almost

say they rise and fall together. At all events, their history is the

same, and runs the same cycles. We have spoken of the realism out of

which painting and sculpture spring. Like painting and sculpture, the

drama springs out of realism the most extreme: it springs out of

lyricism. The lyric, strictly speaking, and in its fundamental idea, is

an expression of the real feelings of the singer himself: he is not a

lyrist, but a dramatist, who gives expression to the supposed feelings

of other people. The true lyrist sings because he cannot help singing—a

dirge because he is sad, an elegy because he mourns the loss of a

friend, pœans because he is joyful, sapphics because he is in love,

anacreontics because he has tasted the pleasures of wine. And so with

every lyrical art; it is the irrepressible ebullition of a genuine

feeling. Take dancing, for example. The ballet, as every one

understands, is not natural dancing; the ballet-dancers are not true

children of Terpsichore (she is their step-mother, if you like). Every

one understands that in its central idea dancing is the expression of a

real, not an assumed feeling on the part of the dancer: he dances for

joy—he dances because the music excites him to motion. Music is, in

fact, the redeeming principle of dancing on the stage and for show:

without music it would be meaningless. The orchestra furnishes to the

apprehension of every spectator a sufficient reason for the evolutions

of the dancer, so that the dancing is but the visible incarnation of the

melody. And music in this way preserves, to a certain extent, the

lyrical character of the ballet, all the gyrations and saltations of

which appear to be the natural consequences of a _genuine_ feeling,

which has been created by the music, and which the spectators have in

common with the _corps de ballet_, and therefore know to be real. Thus,

even when it mounts the stage, the lyrical art must authenticate itself;

even in assuming a dramatic form, the lyric must attempt to establish

its own veracity in the highest and strictest sense—its own reality.

Now it is out of such realism that the drama by every natural process

arises. And we are not theorising when we say this. It is a well-known

fact, that the Greek drama—the tragedy not less than the comedy—sprung

out of the Dionysiac festivals, and the drunken dithyrambic revelry of

its songs and dances; and there is no theory in the world that can half

so well illustrate the relation of the lyric proper to the drama proper,

as the history of the rise of the histrionic art in Greece. There the

ancient worshippers sang their choral odes to the great

Dionysus—Dionysus, not merely the god of wine, but the very vital

principle of nature. They hymned his praises with extraordinary

fervour—with such enthusiasm, in fact, that they passed beyond the

merely lyrical expression of admiration and devotion into the dramatic

imitation of his traditional exploits. As the god of Nature, he was the

god of endless transformations, and these enthusiastic revellers not

only sang the glories and the eclipses of the changing year, but in the

height of the inflamed zeal which carried them away, enacted in their

own persons, and according to certain typical traditions of Satyrs and

Fauns, Dryads and Hamadryads, the stupendous mysteries of physical

mutation. They assumed the goatlike appearance of Satyrs; they dashed

about like woodland nymphs; Pan became innumerable; Silenus appeared in

a thousand reflections. It is utterly prosaic to speak of these hirsute

appendages, multitudinous horns, leaves covering the face, the manifold

strange disguises assumed by the populace, as if they were the mere

masks and dominoes of a modern revel. They were much more than masks and

dominoes. They were the poetical costume of the characters with which,

in all the heat and flush of wine, the worshippers identified

themselves. It was an extravagant fanaticism by which, in celebrating

the joys and the sorrows of Dionysus, they passed out of themselves,

ceased to sing of the god as far away, and of his history as belonging

to the olden time, and suddenly became there and then that which they

celebrated;—an extravagance to which a parallel may be found even in

some of the phases of the Christian religion, as amongst not a few of

the extremer Protestant fanatics, and notably in Catholic countries

amongst the mystics—the Estatica, rising beyond the lyrical mood of

adoration and enraptured gazing, suddenly stretching forth her arms and

limbs until they become cruciform, and so standing entranced and

dramatised, until actually, by a peculiarly subtle sympathy, which the

physiologists regard as not inexplicable, the stigmata may be traced on

the hands and feet. And so it ever happens that the dramatic is evolved

out of the lyrical—the assumed out of the real—the representative

impersonation out of the genuine sentiment. It is an historic fact that

the drama, with its myriad personalities, is generated from the lyric,

as the colours of the prism form a ray of pure light; and that, as for

example in the Greek Æschylus, and the English Marlowe, it is in its

earliest development imbued with lyricism. In other words, it is at

first essentially Realistic.

But here arises a question to which we have already referred. If the

imitative arts begin with realisation, and end in realisation, what is

the difference between the beginning and the end? What is the difference

between the child looking up in your face, and saying, “But is it true?”

and the old man asking, “Is it a fact?” We must beg pardon if we attempt

to answer that question by help of a little psychology.

The Scottish philosophers talk a great deal about the fundamental

beliefs of the human mind, one of the most important of these being our

belief in the uniformity of nature. Granted—that we have a general

belief in the constancy of nature, and in this faith expect that the

future shall be as the past. But with the usual meagreness of the elder

Scottish psychologists, and with an absence of scientific precision that

is also too frequent, they stated the law very loosely: they stated the

law, not as we find it aboriginal in the human mind, but as we find it

corrected by experience. In its aboriginal form, the belief may be

stated thus: whatever is, must be, and could not have been

otherwise—whatever happens, happens of necessity. A child accepts every

event in this simple faith, and it is often exceedingly difficult to

convince the little soul that what has happened once, may not and will

not happen again. Experience comes with years, and corrects the

stringency of the law; the idea of accident enters, and while a general

belief in the constancy of nature still remains, it no longer usurps the

throne of absolute law. Perhaps the process goes even further, until at

length, in the mind’s dotage, certainty is banished from our

expectations, the muse of history becomes the most incredible of

Cassandras, and the whole world lies dead before us and around us, with

men and women rattling over it like dice from a dice-box. And here we

detect precisely the difference between the realism of childhood and

poetry, and the realism of dotage and prose. The child in everything

perceives the element of necessity; the old man perceives only the

element of contingency. In particulars, the child perceives the

universal; the old man perceives in particulars only the particular.

This makes all the difference between prose and poetry. In the

intermediate space between infancy and dotage, dissatisfied with the

real, we create an ideal world, where all is necessary and universal.

There is nothing true in history, says Horace Walpole, save the names

and the dates; and so we pass into fiction, where the names and the

dates are the only things that are not true. But at the two poles the

ideal is forgotten. At the one—namely, in the youth of men or of

nations—the real supplies its place, being viewed in that generality,

necessity, eternity—call it what you will—which is the condition of the

ideal. At the other—namely, in the decline of individuals or of

nations—the real is all in all; and it is nothing but the real, just as

in the case of Peter Bell,—

“A primrose by the river’s brim,

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.”

It will be observed that, in contrasting the two poles of realism, we

have not made any allusion to the absence or the presence of

imagination; and this because the word is so liable to misconception.

But if we are correct in distinguishing the realism of youth from the

realism of senility, by saying that in the one case every circumstance

is recognised as a necessity, every detail is viewed as eternally and

universally true, while in the other all is more or less regarded as

chance-work, which might or might not have been—what is this but saying,

that in the one case facts appeal to the imagination, in the other

merely to sense? It is the imagination that magnifies insular facts into

continental truths, and immortalises momentary feelings by raising them

into eternal laws. The Imagination is, _par excellence_, the faculty of

generalisation—a fact which the psychologists commonly overlook. It

indeed always regards the concrete, always regards the individual; and

that is the great fact which the psychologists are accustomed to dwell

upon, while at the same time they overlook the principal characteristic

of imagination, which is this, that it never regards the individual

merely as an individual, nor the concrete merely as a concrete; it

regards the individual as representative of a species, and the concrete

as a type of something more general. The imagination is to our other

faculties what Cuvier or Owen is to other men. Give to Professor Owen a

single bone—even the single bone of an extinct animal, and he will

determine the size and position of every other bone, and the entire

structure of the bird or beast. Give to the imagination a single fact,

and it has the same marvellous significance, and myriads of other facts

link on to it by the most inevitable obligation. And it is because in

this temper the youthful mind seizes upon facts, that even when it

clings to them far more tenaciously, and dwells upon them far more

minutely than superannuated minds do, its realism has a worth and a

hopefulness to which any other kind of realism can make no pretensions.

The realism of dotage is gossip—merest gossip. The lace in a Dutch

portrait—every thread and loop painted, what is it but old wives’

gossip? Compare this uninteresting imitation of point lace, velvets, and

silks and satins, with the young Titian painting in the eye of one of

his figures the reflection of a window. This is the realism of a boy,

that is the realism of old women.

The drift of our argument will now be apparent. We have shown that the

distinguishing feature of the modern drama is its tendency to Realism,

and that it exhibits this tendency at present in common with the other

imitative arts. We have also shown that the tendency to realism is

characteristic of art in two periods of its history—namely, its rise and

its decline; and we have endeavoured to explain the difference between

the realism that characterises the rise of art, and the realism that

marks its decadence. Then here arises the question of questions: To

which period does the realism that signalises at present the imitative

arts in general, and the dramatic art in particular, belong? Is it the

realism of progress, or the realism of decay? It is the most difficult

question of all; at least, it is the question to which it is most

difficult in our present circumstances to give a very decided answer.

Having stated the law and summed up the evidence, we should certainly be

glad to shift to a jury the responsibility of pronouncing an absolute

verdict as to the question of fact. The difficulty of pronouncing such a

verdict is easily accounted for. In a period which is one of revival and

not of imitation, it is most natural that we should find the two kinds

of realism more or less blending together—the literalness of an

exhausted epoch, and the faithfulness of a regenerated life. And amid

all the pre-Raphaelitism of the stage and of the picture-galleries, it

is nothing wonderful that we should find much to condemn, much of that

literalness which is unworthy and imbecile. When, to quote an extreme

instance—when Thurtell’s gig, with “some of the real water from the

pond,” is exhibited on the boards of the Surrey Theatre, it is such

another exhibition as we find in the degradation of the Roman drama—a

degradation, by the way, which old Thomas Heywood describes as amongst

the highest honours of the drama. There is so much naïveté in his

description that we shall quote it:—

“Julius Cæsar himself, for his pleasure, became an actor, being in

shape, state, voice, judgment, and all other occurrents, exterior and

interior, excellent. Amongst many other parts acted by him in person,

it is recorded of him that, with general applause in his own theatre,

he played Hercules Furens; and, amongst many other arguments of his

completeness, excellence, and extraordinary care in his action, it is

thus reported of him: Being in the depth of a passion, one of his

servants (as his part then fell out) presenting Lychas, who before had

from Dejanira brought him the poisoned shirt, dipt in the blood of the

centaur Nessus, he, in the middest of his torture and fury, finding

this Lychas hid in a remote corner (appointed him to creep into of

purpose), although he was, as our tragedians use, but seemingly to

kill him by some false imagined wound, yet was Cæsar so carried away

with the violence of his practised fury, and by the perfect shape of

the madness of Hercules to which he had fashioned all his active

spirits, that he slew him dead at his foot, and after swung him,

_terque quaterque_ (as the poet says) about his head. It was the

manner of their emperors in those days, in their public tragedies, to

choose out the fittest amongst such as for capital offences were

condemned to die, and employ them in such parts as were to be killed

in the tragedy, who of themselves would make suit rather to die with

resolution, and by the hands of such princely actors, than otherwise

to suffer a shameful and most detestable end.”

And this, which honest old Heywood is willing to commend because done by

an emperor, is in fact, _parvis componere magna_, the exact parallel to

the incident already mentioned—the rat-killing in the pantomime of

_Whittington and his Cat_. It is parallel also, in a certain degree, to

one of Mr Phelps’s early extravagances, who, in his determination to

adhere to the text of Shakespeare, actually ended _Macbeth_ by the

exhibition of the traitor’s head—“Reenter Macduff, with Macbeth’s head

on a pole.” One is inclined to believe that had he not been himself the

Macbeth of the evening, he would have made arrangements to exhibit the

veritable head of the actor who performed the part.

But while it is impossible to deny the existence of such a baneful

realism, is this all? and does there not predominate at the same time a

far more healthy tendency? Are not Mr Charles Kean’s revivals of _King

John_ and _Macbeth_—are not Mr Phelps’s revivals, notwithstanding his

early vagary—of this kind? Is not, for example, the historic fidelity

with which _Macbeth_ is represented in the Princess’s Theatre, something

entirely different in kind from that species of realism which in the

soliloquy,

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle towards my hand?”

actually exhibited a dagger hanging in the air? There can be very little

doubt of it; and it may be said generally that the realism displayed is

most frequently of the earnest and healthy sort. If any misgiving should

arise with regard to this in the case of the drama, one has a right to

refer to the realism manifested at the very same time in the kindred art

of painting, and if not entirely to interpret the one by the other,

still to regard the analogy as of great importance. There are many of us

who cannot admire pre-Raphaelitism, with all its extravagance and

presumption, but at all events we do not regard its faults as the

results of mental paralysis. They are the faults of youth, not of age—of

the pleasant springtime which the pre-Raphaelites love to paint, when

the leaves come forth in all their delicacy, almost diaphonous against

the light, so that we trace the tender veins and fibres in all their

minute windings—not of the yellowing autumn, when again all nature comes

before us with excessive minuteness of detail, but the detail of faded

leaves and the curious reticulation of their skeletons.

Right or wrong, it is at least more pleasant to look thus hopefully on

the future of the drama than to fold one’s hands, shrug one’s shoulders,

and give up all as lost. The drama! they say—fiddlesticks! the drama has

all gone to the opera. Very well: and why should not the drama go to the

opera? the music will do it no harm—on the contrary, a great deal of

good. It is quite true that the opera, or, to speak more generally, the

musical tendencies of the present time, act to the hurt of the existing

theatres; but pity the man who ventures to dream that the fortunes of

the British drama are to be identified with the fortunes of the present

theatres, as at present conducted. On the contrary, it would probably be

no great misfortune to the British drama, if, with one or two

exceptions, they were all burnt to the ground; and however adverse to

the drama the present musical taste may appear to be, it is not so

really, but full of promise, if the dramatists would only see and use

the opportunity. What is the use of running down illustration, dioramas,

and concerts? Would it not be better for the dramatists to write up to

them? The British drama has at the present moment two special haunts—the

theatre and the concert-hall. It is needless for the dramatic authors to

complain that their pieces are damned. Who cares for their pieces? All

they have to say has no relation to our present habitudes and thoughts.

If they will write for the theatres, let them write something worthy of

illustration, and be as realistic in their writing as Mr Kean is in his

acting, and in his stage appointments. And let them invade the

concert-halls, where a new drama is springing up for the amusement of

those who cannot away with the theatre.

Their position in the theatre at present is not good, is not creditable

to them as a body, although we are far from looking on it with despair,

and are far from saying that Othello’s occupation is gone. It may be

worth our while to recognise clearly the position which the drama has

always occupied in this country.

“Shikspur? Shikspur? who wrote it?” says Kitty, in _High Life below

Stairs_, when the worshipful Lady Bab asks her if she had never read

Shikspur. There are perhaps not many Mrs Kitties of the present day who

would give a similar answer. But although the name of the great

dramatist has become a household word amongst us, and his works are

perhaps better known than those of any other writer in the language, he

is known rather as an author to be read than as a dramatist whose plays

are to be witnessed. It is not to be denied that upon the great majority

of the British people, and especially of the middle classes, the theatre

has had little or no influence. It is utterly ignored by them. From the

days of Elizabeth and James, when the mayor and aldermen of London did

what they could to discountenance the drama, and to oust Shakespeare and

Burbage from the Blackfriars’ Theatre, up to this present hour, the

playhouses, frequented by the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy

of education, and the players honoured as “His Majesty’s Servants,” or,

“The Lord Chamberlain’s Company,” have been regarded with suspicion by

the sober citizens of the middle class. When the theatres rose into

importance, the Puritans rose into importance, and the former have never

recovered from the denunciations of the latter. These denunciations, it

is true, were often most intemperate, and based on the most ridiculous

grounds (as when Gosson denounced the acting of women’s parts by boys as

the sin which brought the fiery judgment of heaven upon Sodom and

Gomorrah), yet when in so many of the plays of the period, and still

more of the profligate reign of the second Charles, we find profanity,

obscenity, and hardness of heart presented as the most brilliant of

qualities, it is nothing wonderful that the commonalty should have been

estranged. From the memory of those impurities the theatre has never

entirely recovered, and there are multitudes among us nowadays who

regard it as little better than a lazaretto. It has indeed been very

much altered, so that in every respectable theatre he must be nearly as

squeamish as those Americans who are said by Sam Slick to have put

trousers on the legs of their pianofortes, who is offended with what he

sees or hears: and yet still the old repugnance remains; as if, like the

man who had the devil cast out of him, the people regard it as a house

swept and garnished only to receive seven other devils worse than

before. The fact is, that it is not enough to introduce a negative

morality into the theatres: it is not enough that the old devil should

have been smoked out, and the house swept and garnished, if we find no

positive substitute. It is a genuine and noble substitute that is

wanted, not electroplate, nor nickel silver. The most offensive part of

stage morality at present is its hypocrisy. We should infinitely prefer

seeing the downright licentiousness of Etherege and Sedley to the sham

sentiment and the canting virtues that sometimes take the place of it on

the modern stage—we mean especially in the afterpieces. The former is an

open enemy, the other a disguised one. And until we have true poetry in

the sentiment, and true chivalry in the action, and that reverence which

is implied in poetry and chivalry, it is not likely that the English

people, as a whole, will ever look to the theatres. At present, the

greater number of dramatic writers seem to expend their energies in the

most ephemeral manner. The burlesques and pantomimes, we have said, are

about the best things produced on the British stage. They are often very

amusing, and display a strange prodigality of power—but power all run to

seed. The wit consists of punning; the humour consists of practical

jokes, horrible grimace, and elaborate buffoonery; the dialogue is in

the vernacular of the London taverns and caves of harmony;[14] the plot

is not simply improbable, it is impossible and incomprehensible; the

characters are little better than marionettes, and their sentiments the

sentiments of puppets. Of course there are exceptions, and brilliant

ones they are. Bulwer Lytton, Sheridan Knowles, Douglas Jerrold, Charles

Reade, and a few others, have shown what they can do in a more serious

vein. But, as a whole, the dramatic literature of the day is, as it has

ever been since the Restoration, more remarkable for quantity than

quality. Few persons out of London, and not many even in London, are

well acquainted with that literature, the extent of its surface, the

multiplicity of its currents, its utter shallowness, and the incredible

mud that lies at the bottom of it; and were we to attempt a very slight

analysis of its contents, run up a few statistics, give one or two

extracts, and, in a word, describe it in its proper colours, a tale

would probably be unfolded which would not only somewhat astonish those

who, living in the provinces, seldom or never enter a theatre, and are

thus blessedly ignorant of the carrion fare on which metropolitan

playgoers fatten at half-price, but would also make some of those who

frequent the dramatic temple not a little ashamed that afterpieces which

are unreadable for their insipidity,[15] disgusting for their bad taste,

and still worse, contemptible, although not so much for their

licentiousness as for the cant and tremendous humbug of their

hypocritical moralities, should have power, in the hands of a clever

actor, to charm the purer sensibilities of their nature to sleep, so

that, as if glamour had been cast in their eyes, trickery and tinsel

pass for reality, falsehood appears to be true, evil good, and ugliness

beautiful. In such a state of things it is not likely that the theatre

should achieve a popularity which it has never enjoyed; and certainly

its entire spirit must be revolutionised ere it can find a large welcome

in the heart of the nation. Read the modern novelists and read the

modern dramatists, and observe the difference of tone. There is in the

common run of modern dramas—whether tragedy, comedy, or farce—such an

utter absence of noble purpose, that not a whole army of claqueurs could

ever succeed in establishing their popularity.

The fact is, the Muse of the British drama seems at this moment inclined

to vacate the theatres, and to take up her abode in the halls and

concert-rooms. Like the old fairies of the story-books, who, disgusted

with the treatment they receive in one family, go and bestow their

favours on the household next door, the dramatic Muse—a very old fairy

indeed—is tired of the position assigned to her in the theatres. What is

that? On the ceiling, gracefully gyrating round the gaselier, are the

four lightly-draped muses of the theatre, with dagger, and mask, and

harp, and castanets in hand, while certain naked amorini carry festoons

of flowers before them, and from every jutty, frieze, and coign of

vantage on the cornice, horned satyrs and ivy-crowned bacchantes leer

out with astonishment. The Muse of the British drama is tired of dancing

over the gaselier, dancing over our heads, and wishes to come down to

our hearts, and so she enters the music-halls and concert-rooms, where

she patronises two distinct classes of entertainments, the one more

strictly lyrical, the other more strictly dramatic.

With regard to the more musical kind of entertainment, it must have been

observed, that while songs and ballads, and instrumentation have a large

sphere assigned to them, the operatic airs are day by day assuming more

and more importance. It is quite true that a cavatina sung in a

concert-room is very different from the same cavatina sung on the stage.

The singing in a concert-room is like the singing of statues—so

expressionless. We would rather not look at a concert-singer—one who is

merely a concert-singer. Goethe makes the same remark with respect to

singers generally. They remind one of the ludicrous story which the

monks report of St Benedict,—that he was heard singing psalms two or

three weeks before he was born, and saw the light of day. You hear these

singers singing long before their faces are born, long before they

attain the life of expression. Exceptions of course there are

occasionally, and chiefly when a duet, a trio, or a quartette is to be

sung. And it requires only an operatic singer, whose reputation as prima

donna or primo tenore will excuse such a liberty, to throw a truly

dramatic expression into the solos, for the practice to become general.

Why should not some attempt be made by those who can, to escape from the

starched formality of the concert-room—to forget that they are in dress

boots and white gloves—and to impart somewhat of the animation of the

theatre into the pieces of music which they hold so affectionately in

their hands, because it saves their hands from even the inclination to

gesticulate? And with glee and madrigal unions in every town, why do not

the dramatists see their opportunity, and infuse somewhat more of the

dramatic element into those part songs, out of which in time a little

drama might arise? Everything has its insignificant beginnings, and,

discreetly managed, the incoherence of our concerts might gradually be

developed into the organic unity of the drama. It is coming to this, in

fact. The music-halls are becoming theatres under a new and

unobjectionable name.

With regard to the more dramatic entertainments that are so popular in

those public halls, the new life is still more apparent. We do not

simply refer to dramatic readings, although these too have a vast

influence—an influence as superior to that of the Elgin marbles in the

British Museum, to which we once heard the plays of Shakespeare

irreverently compared, as the spell of the Ladye of Branksome, who could

raise the spirits to her bidding, was to the power of William of

Deloraine, who lifted the massy tombstone, and fetched the mystic book

from the coffin of the departed wizard; an influence, too, as superior

to that of the rhapsodists who travelled through the cities of Greece

reciting the lays of Homer (for they recited these lays in detached

fragments), as the palace of Aladdin, built in a night, is superior to

the single brick that Scholasticos carried about with him as a specimen

of the house which he wanted to sell. It is needless to dwell, however,

upon this influence, important and ennobling though it be, because its

tendency is to keep alive the memory of the past; and we wish rather to

indicate the new life that is stirring. Albert Smith’s Ascent of Mont

Blanc is the best specimen of a class of entertainments that are now

very popular—perhaps the most popular of all, and which, when further

and duly developed, promise to rival the present theatres. Mr Albert

Smith goes to Mont Blanc, returns, gets Mr Beverley to paint the scenes

through which he travelled, and enlivens those scenes by the description

and impersonation of what he saw and heard. We have no doubt that Mr

Smith’s entertainment is far more amusing, far more intellectual, and

ten thousand times more artistic, than anything of the kind which

England could furnish in the thirteenth or fourteenth century; and he

will not resent the comparison if we say that he reminds us of the holy

palmers and pilgrims who, in those crusading centuries, returned from

Palestine, and with the aid of rude pictures—“the city of Jerusalem,

with towers and pinnacles,—Old Tobye’s House,—A Fyrmament with a fyry

cloud, and a double cloud,”—attempted in miracle plays and mysteries to

convey an idea of the scenes they themselves had witnessed in the Holy

Land, or of the events which in the olden time had been enacted there,

and so laid the foundations of a theatre that ultimately grew into the

fair proportions of the Elizabethan drama, as the rude earthwork which

Romulus in the Palilia founded on the Palatine, grew in greatness and in

pride, until it embraced the seven hills, a city of palaces and the

marble mistress of the world. We might have run the comparison still

more closely, if we had not forgotten for the moment Mr Smith’s Eastern

Travels and Overland Route. No matter. In these entertainments we find a

certain resemblance to the miracle plays out of which the modern drama

was developed; and do we not also find a certain nineteenth century

likeness of the ancient moralities, in these life-dramas, death-dramas,

and devil-dramas, in which our young poets delight to sow their wild

oats; giving us all manner of caprices for imagination, hysterics for

passion, revolting descriptions for the sublime, soliloquy for dialogue,

and dialogue for action? Yea, verily, and out of all these elements we

are not without hope that a drama may yet arise more worthy of fame than

that which at present exists. But again, we repeat, no more

Shakespearean imitations, and legitimate suicide; let the dramatists be

wise in their generation, accept the tendencies of the time, and think

the thoughts and wear the dress of this year 1856.

LESSONS FROM THE WAR.

The glimpse of peace just afforded us is almost as startling as the news

of battle, so general has been the impression that the war must

inevitably continue. Peace on such satisfactory grounds as are probable

will descend on the heated nation like dew. Those who, after sending

forth their sons, brothers, lovers, to the war, have been steeling

themselves in the Spartan school, scarcely daring to hope again to see

their soldier alive and unwounded, trying to believe that if they see

him no more they will lament for him only with the chastened grief due

to him who falls in arms, will have all their sternness melted in their

breasts to warm soft hope. The soldier himself, shivering on those

desolate Crimean plains before an invisible foe, and casting many a

prolonged mental glance to the homes of England, will see the red

glories of the anticipated campaign contrasted vividly with the cool

fresh tints of peace—peace, a word to him suggestive hitherto of dim and

dubious delights, once his, but perhaps to be his no more, and only to

be dwelt on for a few short moments when some echo from England had

quenched the ever-present din of arms. And, to touch on lower though yet

more wide-spreading interests, there are many to whom the sordid

thought, that they will no more be called on to contribute the share of

expense which, in one form or another, was exacted from them by the war,

will bring more pleasure than any accession of glory to England. For

ourselves, peace on the basis of unconditional acceptance by Russia of

the terms dictated by Austria, will leave us nothing to regret. But,

turning for a space from this newer topic, let us glance at the position

in which these chances of peace have found us, and speak, as it is still

sound policy to speak, as though there were certain to be war in the

coming year.

Like one who struggles in a fog through a quagmire, England has passed

through the late campaign. Advancing a few paces, plunging waist deep,

pausing in bewilderment, tenfold increased by the clamour of the

volunteer guides who throng officiously to the brink, and, if often

supported, yet also sometimes encumbered, by the companion-hand linked

in hers, she has attained a temporary halting-place. Myriad-voiced

instructions, mostly resolving themselves into the simple and valuable

injunction to “go in and win,” were, up to Russia’s acceptance of the

proposals, still echoing from all points of the compass—many a lantern,

trustworthy as an _ignis fatuus_, glimmered through the surrounding

mist. Disregarding for a time the well-meant attentions of these

numerous advisers, we may attempt to throw on the devious track of the

past some light uncoloured by the tints of party-spirit or of popular

feeling, and so try to obtain some guidance for the future.

Glancing at the past year, we see the British army in new and strange

alliance with its foe of centuries. Its leaders were either untried men,

or men from whom, as previous trial had shown, nothing very remarkable

was to be expected. Under such circumstances, the army was required to

satisfy the expectations, not merely of a sovereign or a government, but

a people. Accepting it as inevitable that the people will, in the

absence of a strong government, virtually charge themselves with the

conduct of the war, let us at least attempt to infuse into the

collective wisdom of the nation the elements of deliberation, wholesome

doubt, and self-restraint. To speak either of the pity or the scorn with

which the more thoughtful and comprehensive order of spirits view a

whole people, who claim to be the heirs of vast experience and

civilisation, blindly clamouring after some blind leader at every turn

of affairs, might answer no other purpose than to excite popular

hostility. Yet to know that many of those to whom the nation cannot

refuse its respect view with contempt, regret, or compassion the

ordinary expression of popular opinion—to know that its most positive

enunciations are held as akin to the sagacity of Dogberry and Verges—to

know that the angels may well be deemed to weep at the consequences of

its fantasies—might excite, even in the most determined advocate of the

might, majesty, and power of the people, some obscure sensation of

self-distrust and shame.

After for many years regarding their army either with indifference or

dislike, and systematically confining it within the narrowest limits

possible, the English people, at the outbreak of the war, dismissed

their troops to the scene of action with such boastful applause as would

have been unbecoming if offered by a nation which had made military

glory its chief aim, to a veteran army habituated to victory.

Anticipations were raised which it would be nearly impossible to

realise, and to fall short of which would be disgrace. Forty years

before, a small English army, composed of marvellous troops led by a

marvellous man, had stemmed the progress of Napoleon, achieving exploits

which, though meeting at the time with much detraction, eventually

raised our soldiers to the first rank in the estimation of the world.

Since then, public attention had been turned to totally different

matters with great success; and we had distinguished ourselves by so

many achievements in science and art, and had become so accustomed to

lead the way in the pursuits of peace, that for any power to presume to

dispute our supremacy was regarded as an impertinence calling for a

chastisement, the promptness and weight of which it would be absurd to

doubt.

Hitherto our object had been to attain a military establishment which

should offer no shadow of offence to the most enthusiastic admirer of

liberty, or the most ardent votary of progress. When with this object it

was found desirable to combine the totally different one of possessing

an irresistible force in war, some error was apparent in the result of

the process; and the first impulse of our philosophic and reasoning

nation was anger—at first directed on no one in particular, but after a

time on all concerned in the conduct of the war, without any other

distinction of persons than that arising from the respective shares

borne in its administration, and consequent amount of presumed

criminality. By some unknown process of logic, it was concluded that a

sweeping change in the conductors of the war would restore our credit as

a military power, and that a general and minister or two officially

buried would be as the dragon’s teeth, from whence heroes would spring.

Accordingly, some were dismissed, and some abused, _pour encourager les

autres_.

Public attention was now riveted closely on the war, to the absolute

exclusion of all other topics. Intelligence of all kinds was eagerly

demanded; and those whose business it is to supply the want, could, with

all their efforts, scarcely write up to the demand. Private

correspondence from the seat of war was eagerly sought and extensively

published, and columns set apart for “Letters from the Camp;” the

special correspondence of the daily press was copied into other

journals; leading articles in periodicals daily, weekly, and monthly,

were founded on the information thus received, and the exaggerated

statements were sometimes coloured still more highly; and popular

opinion, thus originated and formed, began to exercise so powerful a

pressure on the Parliament and the Government, that a glance at its

sources becomes especially important.

It is useless to argue the question of whether it is on the whole more

advantageous to publish or to suppress intelligence of the projected

operations, or the state of the army, since the public curiosity on

these heads will continue to be gratified at all hazards. The best means

were adopted for obtaining intelligence, and conveying it in a pleasant

form. The special correspondents of the newspapers are of course men of

great ability. No expense or trouble would be spared to secure writers

capable of satisfying the high requirements of the daily press; and

their letters from the camp display great literary power. As pictures of

life in the field, their correspondence is of the greatest value; as a

guide to public opinion on the progress of the war, we may, without

offence, consider it far less satisfactory. No one pretends that these

gentlemen possessed either any exclusive means of obtaining information,

or any aptitude for judging of the nature, progress, and success of the

operations they witnessed, beyond that which any intelligent spectator

might claim. The language in which they talk of the operations of the

campaign is rather a military slang than the technical expression of

military art, and resembles the latter only as the work of a poetaster

resembles that of a poet. Nothing would be easier than to make a

collection of leading articles founded on the information thus derived,

and show them to be a mere jumble of absurdity. Yet this was the kind of

writing which, by appealing to a circle of readers sufficiently large to

constitute the public, exercised an important effect on the

administration of the war. Very different was the style of an article

which appeared in the _Moniteur_, descriptive of the conduct of the

campaign, the facts of which were supplied apparently from public

documents, and which was evidently written by a man of military

attainments.

It would be scarcely fair to criticise closely the letters of officers,

which, intended only for the perusal of their friends at home, were

often, by the indiscretion of those friends, and to the annoyance of the

writers, made public. It is a very common and excusable weakness for a

man to avail himself, perhaps unconsciously, of a little exaggeration in

the incidents he describes, when by so doing he may become a greater

hero to the domestic circle; an exaltation which, far from doing harm to

any one, forms one of the cases where it is delightful to be imposed on.

Each family that has a member serving with the army, sees but one figure

in the foreground of every scene of the campaign. In success the figure

is a hero, in time of suffering a martyr. Every one likes to appear in

the former character; but there were some who, during the most trying

period of the campaign, too solicitous for sympathy, gave vent to

lamentations which, if fortitude under privation be a virtue, must be

considered unsoldierlike and unmanly.

Upon such correspondence were founded the lucubrations of those writers

at home who undertook to instruct us on the war; and if military science

be necessary to a right understanding of military affairs, they must be

admitted to be deficient in an important element. We put the case

hypothetically, because, if military science be necessary to a right

understanding of military affairs, many of our self-constituted teachers

must be convicted of presumptuous absurdity. Men who would never think

of interfering with the most obscure country doctor in his treatment of

their sick friend—who would trust blindly to their legal adviser in a

question threatening character or property—who employ architects to plan

their houses, and masons to build them, and, if the structure do not

answer their expectations, never think of insinuating that they could

have done it better themselves, are all ready to originate or amend the

plan of a campaign, to censure those intrusted with its conduct, and to

interfere in its most technical particulars. Clergymen, whose warfare

has hitherto been waged only with the enemy of mankind, expatiate

largely on the best mode of annoying our material foe; doctors abandon

the study of the nervous for that of the military system; and Satan’s

occupation of finding mischief for idle hands is for the present gone;

for every idler thinks himself competent to discuss and advise in a

military question. Modest men, diffident of giving opinions even on

subjects open to general discussion, may be heard in all companies,

praising and condemning with the confidence of the most accomplished

critics. All are ready to quote in support of their views the opinions

of the most celebrated generals; yet, while mentioning them with the

greatest respect, seem to think that excellence in the profession in

which they earned their reputation is attainable by the lowest capacity.

A certain degree of reserve is generally practised by those who

undertake to instruct the public on topics of popular interest, but no

man seems to doubt the genuineness of his inspiration on any present,

past, or future phase of the war; and in pamphlet, letter, or leader, he

hastens to impart his light.

While regarding the pretensions of these tacticians and strategists as

about as respectable as those of barber-surgeons in pharmacy, inspired

cobblers in religion, or gypsies in divination, we do not think that any

amount of study or previous training renders a man’s opinions really

valuable, unless he has personally visited the scene of war, and is

acquainted with the topographical features of the theatre of operations.

Such an acquaintance as we speak of, neither descriptions nor maps can

adequately afford. We have known instances where military men of great

ability or experience, whose attention had been closely riveted on the

conduct of the war, entertained ideas respecting the feasibility of

certain operations, which an hour’s glance at the ground would at once

have convinced them were erroneous, and which they relinquished after

conversing with officers from the Crimea.

Having thus glanced at the unsatisfactory nature of the grounds on which

the public form opinions on the war, we may point out some of the errors

most strongly persisted in. Up to the present time, referring to the

Russian attack on the Turkish outposts before Balaklava, it is

constantly asserted that the loss of the Woronzoff road, which the

presence of the Russians on the neighbouring ridge of hills rendered too

precarious for the transport of convoys, was a principal cause of the

subsequent disasters and sufferings of the army. Now the Woronzoff road

is nowhere less distant than between three or four miles from Balaklava;

and the intervening space is as badly adapted for the construction of a

road as any part of the plains or heights,—worse indeed than most; so

that, until it is shown that we possessed the means of uniting Balaklava

with the Woronzoff road by a practicable road, we cannot be proved to

have suffered materially by the presence of the Russians there.

Liprandi’s movement, in occupying these hills, is generally regarded as

a stroke of generalship, creditable to him, and damaging to the Allies;

but it would be difficult to point to any commensurate effect resulting

from his movement; while many officers—General Bosquet, we believe,

among the rest—considered he had laid himself open to a defeat; and on a

subsequent view of the ground, at the reconnaissance made by Omer Pasha

in April, regrets were loudly expressed by both French and English that

Liprandi should have been permitted to decamp unmolested.[16]

Another delusion which took complete possession of the public was, that

Balaklava was constantly in peril, and that the Russians could easily

attack it. The map showed a road from thence along the coast towards

Yalta, and it was supposed the enemy could approach it in that

direction. But this road, narrow, stony, and broken, was naturally very

difficult even for field-artillery, and was easily to be rendered

totally impracticable; while the right of the intrenchments surrounding

Balaklava, crossing this road, with two advanced stockades looking upon

a deep and narrow glen on one side, and the sea-cliffs on the other,

along which the path wound precariously, rendered a successful attack

impossible. Thus Balaklava could only be attacked in front directly down

the valley; on entering which, supposing the intrenchments to be won,

the enemy would have found themselves in a defile, with steep rocky

sides; in their front the harbour, and in their rear the plain

stretching to the Tchernaya, across which the Allies, descending in

superior force from the plateau, might throw themselves, and so enclose

the assailants.

More lately, the public has been persuaded that a direct advance against

the Russian position was practicable; and that, if it were deemed

unadvisable so to attack the position, it might easily be turned.

Consequently, the advance of the French to the Belbek, after the

conclusion of the siege, was watched with extreme interest at home, and

great disappointment was felt when no result was attained. Yet those on

the spot who had viewed the ground could have entertained no expectation

of any success—must rather, indeed, have felt satisfaction that the

French right, after being so extended, was withdrawn without disaster

within the range surrounding the valley of Baidar. For if the reader,

taking his map, will trace the line of heights extending from Inkermann

by Mackenzie’s Farm to the Belbek, and will then imagine them to

terminate at top in a steep perpendicular wall of chalky cliff,

supporting the large plateau extending all round to the Belbek valley,

on which the Russians were encamped—and will also observe that the one

path up the plateau is guarded by the enemy, and the few narrow defiles

which penetrate the heights are also held by them—he will have no

difficulty in perceiving that to extend the Allied right was to give the

enemy an opportunity, instantly perceived from their exalted point of

view, of concentrating at the required point a superior force, marching

through the defiles, and cutting off, or directly attacking, the French

corps operating in advance.

These errors, although mortifying, and rendering the public unreasonably

dissatisfied, produced no other ill consequences. But there have been

other delusions, as obstinately maintained, the unfortunate results of

which are but too visible. Such is the constant comparison to our

disadvantage drawn between ourselves and the French. This is obviously a

delicate subject to deal with, when an endeavour to be just to ourselves

must almost necessarily offend our allies, whose own tact and good

feeling have prevented them from adopting even the faintest echo of the

depreciatory clamour raised by our countrymen, and would be ill repaid

by invidious remarks. Yet surely we may be allowed to remind our readers

that, in all the actions in the field during the earlier stage of the

campaign, the English bore the brunt of the battle. Without offence,

too, we may point to the records of the siege to prove that the French

suffered repulses, on more than one occasion, no less sanguinary and

discouraging than ours from the Redan: such, for instance, as the attack

on the hills known afterwards as the White Works, east of Careening Bay,

where our allies were defeated with slaughter, and did not renew the

attack. Nor do we see any impolicy in asking what would have been the

feeling in England, judging from its expression since, if it had been

our batteries, instead of those of the French, which were silenced after

a few hours’ fire at the commencement of the siege on the 17th of

October? What indignation! what sarcasm! what abuse of our generals,

engineers, and artillery! what glowing caustic eulogies of our gallant

allies, depicted as maintaining the contest single-handed, and

generously continuing their own fire to save their crushed and

discomfited coadjutors from total ruin, though the ammunition, so scarce

then in the trenches, and so painfully accumulated, was thereby expended

without hope of success! Had the reverse of this picture at that time

been drawn, it would have been highly impolitic, but perfectly true. And

let us also allude to the report, which we believe to be an arrant

falsehood, of English soldiers being protected from the first rigours of

winter by French uniforms—and to the utter and apparently systematic

disregard of all aid conferred by us on our allies—to show the important

nature of which, we need only remind our readers of the number of

powerful guns, and the vast quantities of ammunition, with which we, at

various periods of the siege, furnished the French batteries. Too little

stress has also been laid on the superiority we may venture to claim for

the fire of our artillery throughout the siege: a superiority always

apparent to those who watched the practice of the batteries from

commanding points. That the services of our siege-artillery were

appreciated by the French, is evident from the published despatch of Sir

Richard Dacres, where it is stated that the assistance rendered by our

fire was often warmly acknowledged by the French commanders. But where,

in press or people, are we to expect the echoes of applause?

Again, to pass from particular instances to a wider field, let us

inquire into the grounds of the preference so invariably and strenuously

shown for the French military system, as having proved itself very

superior to our own. Where, we would ask, is the evidence of this

superiority? Has it appeared in the production of great generals? We

really believe the French army would be as much puzzled as the English

to select a man, young, enterprising, experienced, scientific, and

sagacious, to be to it a tower of strength, and an assurance of victory.

We know the English regimental officers to be younger than the French,

whose system entails the existence of old subalterns and venerable

captains: we know that ours are no less gallant than theirs: nor can an

instance be pointed out where our discipline has appeared to

disadvantage beside theirs. Let us at once record our opinion that no

troops in Europe are more subordinate, better disciplined, or better

led, than ours—and we will not do the gallant gentlemen who lead them

the wrong to suppose that a different education, or a larger infusion

from the ranks, would tend to exalt the valour or the morale of our

army.

While we at once grant that our commanders have failed to display any

great genius in the war, we think the treatment of them by the public

altogether unreasonable. Gentlemen stricken in years, who have never in

their lives been distinguished for anything in particular, and who have

spent half a century in the world without impressing their nearest

relations or most intimate friends with the idea that they possess

remarkable capacity, far less genius, are suddenly placed in a position

demanding a rare union of high qualities. This sudden elevation of

course fails to elicit what they never claimed to possess—and men who

would have passed most respectably through the more sequestered walks of

life, are suddenly covered with obloquy, because they do not exhibit, on

their giddy eminence, that mastery over men and circumstances of which

few examples are vouchsafed to the world in a century.

To point out how the public has been as indiscriminate and unreasonable

in its praise as its censure, would be a more invidious task. But it has

frequently happened, that the eulogies showered on some fortunate

individual have not been endorsed by the opinion of the army.

Reputations, beginning nobody knows how, have taken shape and substance.

The mischief of this is, that these will be the men selected for trust

in a future emergency. Where there is so little opportunity for

individuals to distinguish themselves, chance confers a small prominence

on some who, thus lifted from the level of the crowd, become marked

men—and to be marked where there is so little competition is to be

famous. To us who note this, all history grows a chapter of accidents:

we have an uneasy doubt whether Horatius really did keep the bridge, or

Leonidas the pass—how much of his fame Coriolanus may owe to

aristocratic connection, Scipio to his relation with a forgotten

war-minister, or Alcibiades to private interest at the Athenian Horse

Guards. Still, it is well to find that the public, with all its

disposition to censure, retains the desire to praise; and we are the

less disposed to except against its encomiums, because we should be

puzzled to show how they might be better directed. The campaign has been

singularly barren of opportunity for showing capacity. In most cases

some divisions of an invading army possess a certain independence of

movement, and their commanders have a field for showing their powers.

Advanced guards from these and from the main body are commanded by

officers of lower rank, who, in the attack or defence of a farm or a

village, in the passage of a difficult stream, in the surprise of a

convoy, or the collection of information, have an opportunity of

displaying their qualities. But in the advance from Old Fort, the army

marched entire across wide open plains, seeing only the retiring

skirmishers of the enemy, entering abandoned villages, and passing the

different natural obstacles unmolested, except at the Alma. None of the

sense of enterprise, and of being engaged in scientific operations,

which lends such glow and interest to civilised warfare, animated the

troops traversing these desolate regions. Extensive plains, vast fields

of coppice, or tumbled masses of hills, unbrightened by spots of culture

or signs of human habitation, almost destitute even of roads, spread

round the army, which dwindled to insignificance in the large sweep of

the monotonous horizon. Then came the eleven months’ siege, when the

prescribed daily duty of the trenches left no field open for invention,

resource, or sagacity. In such circumstances, military genius remained

latent in the army. That it exists we have no doubt; and we should

expect in the course of another campaign to see brows, now perchance

obscure, wreathed with merited laurels; but whether any truly great

general, such as Wellington, Marlborough, or Napoleon is to be found in

either army, is a point of which we may well doubt, when we remember how

rare such beings are—how happy must be the combination of circumstances

which lifts them to the point where they are recognised, and that we

live, moreover, in an age when those pre-eminent spirits, which become

landmarks for time, seem almost to have ceased their visits to earth.

Meantime it is curious to observe how the nation, uneasy at being

baulked of its desire for a leader, proposes to make good the

deficiency. Besides the somewhat arbitrary and unpromising plan already

alluded to, of seizing upon ordinary men and commanding them to become

great by virtue of their position and responsibility, other methods are

proposed for eliciting the sparks of genius. The most favourite scheme

at present is the education of our officers. Masters are appointed to

examine candidates for commissions in different branches of science and

literature; and, from the specimens we have seen of the examination

papers, we may expect, supposing a reasonable proportion of the

questions to be answered, shortly to see some very erudite men in the

army, for it appears to us that the heart of the Admirable Crichton

would have broke before he had got through a tithe of them. What shadow

of a chance would the most accomplished Russian officer have, if opposed

to a man who could, offhand, “write a short life of Milton, with dates,”

“perform the eudiometric analysis of atmospheric air,” “tell what smoky

quartz is,” “give a summary of Cousin’s argument against the philosophy

of Locke,” and “draw a map of Britain in the time of the Roman

occupation:” which are a few of the achievements demanded of the

candidates in August 1855. “What is the origin of Roman satire?” is

asked of the military aspirant by the Rev. G. Butler, one of the

examiners, who, we should think, possibly became, on the occasion, the

origin of some English satire. “Compose,” says another of them, the Rev.

C. Trench, “an essay which shall not exceed thirty lines, on the

following subject: In what way may England hope to avoid such a conflict

with her colonies as led to the American War of Independence?” We hope

Mr Labouchere will at once see the propriety of resigning his post to

the author of the prize essay on this subject, whose faculty of

compendiously settling such knotty points, in thirty lines, would be

invaluable in the colonial, or any other department of State. “What is

the object,” asks J. D. Morell, Esq., “which Kant proposed to himself in

writing the _Critick of Pure Reason_?” to point out which might possibly

have been acceptable to Kant himself. The Rev. R. W. Browne, after

demanding an explanation of the terms, “Rhapsodist,” and “Cyclian Poet,”

asks, “What are the conditions most favourable to the growth of epic

poetry?” the best answer to which we shall be happy to accept as an

article for the Magazine, as also the reply to the demand of A. H.

Clough, Esq., for “a history of translations into English,” which we

will publish in parts. Under these new conditions we are certainly

likely to get commanders such as the world never saw before. Fancy the

bewilderment of poor old Jomini, prince of strategists, at being

required to tell the Rev. G. Butler what he knew “of the military

organisation of the Samnites,”—or the perplexity of the Duke of

Wellington, when requested by the Rev. Mr Browne to “illustrate from

Homer the respect paid to the rites of hospitality.”

The fact is, we do not anticipate from the educational plan, the happy

results which seem to be generally looked for, the reasons for which

have been given fully in the well-considered article “On the State of

the British Army,” in our last Number. We fear that the best of the

candidates might still be a poor creature or a prig, perfectly

inoffensive, but no more capable of infusing confidence into an army

than his grandmother. The spell which is to evoke the coming leader has

not yet been framed—he will appear, as heretofore, when time and the

hour shall bring him. While we are seeking him with spectacles and

lantern, now in this corner, now in that, grasping what we think to be

him, but which turns out to be a post, we shall hear in the distance his

strong clear voice, dispelling doubt. And O that he were come! What

order out of chaos, what confidence out of confusion, what reverential

silence out of senseless clamour, what strength, hope, and trust, would

attend his victorious steps! Now we know what gratitude is due to him

who can wield firmly and gloriously the might of England,—now we know

that dukedoms, Strathfieldsayes, garters, and uncounted honours, are all

too little to acknowledge our debt to the bold sagacious spirit which

can animate and direct our powers, else blind, diffused, and enervate.

We choose this juncture to attempt to instil into the public mind some

doubt of its own cherished convictions, because those convictions may at

present lead to consequences we would gladly avert. There is an idea

abroad that the past campaign leaves us failures to be retrieved, glory

to be recovered, and influence to be restored, and that another is

necessary to set us once more on our accustomed pinnacle. In vain have

we written, if it be not clear that we cannot share the popular feeling

of discontent, either at the course of the war, or the prospects of

peace. While Russia was stubborn, haughty, and repellant, none raised

their voices more loudly than we, for prompt, vigorous, and sustained

efforts against the foe. Now that she is willing to treat on bases which

will insure to the Allies all the objects they took up arms to attain,

we should be false to our own policy and convictions did we desire to

continue the war upon the new ground, that fresh victory is necessary to

our reputation. There is a vile savour of defeat about the sentiment,

ill becoming a nation which has just borne its share in a great and

successful feat of arms; and we repudiate it the more scornfully,

because we can trace so clearly any loss of prestige we may have

sustained, to the false and self-depreciatory outcries of our own

ill-informed and ill-judging countrymen.

The plans of that coming campaign, if haply it is still to be, are now

being settled by the council sitting in Paris. On the alternatives which

present themselves to that council we have cast many an attentive and

eager glance. First, with regard to the present theatre of operations,

we have long considered an advance from our present position before

Sebastopol impossible, partly for reasons already given in speaking of

the expectations raised after the capture of the town. To advance from

Eupatoria in great force is also probably impracticable, from the want

of water in supply sufficiently frequent and copious to satisfy the

requirements of a large army. There remains, then, only the Kertch

peninsula as a base of operations, to which we must shift the mass of

our army. That a campaign from thence would result in the conquest of

the Crimean peninsula, we do not doubt. But two considerations arise:

First, supposing the Crimea in the hands of the Allies, will not its

disposal be a source of embarrassment, far from compensated for by the

advantage of possessing it? Secondly, with Sebastopol wrested from her,

her fleet destroyed, and her coasts blockaded, is not the Crimea already

virtually lost to Russia? As to the first question, often discussed as

we have heard it, we have never yet caught even a glimpse of a

satisfactory solution. Joint occupation, possession granted to any one

of the different powers, all expedients that present themselves, contain

difficulties which would render any advantage accruing to us from its

being so held, small in the balance. And what would that advantage be,

beyond what the footing we have there already gives us? We can maintain

a force as easily at Kamiesch as at Perekop, thus preventing Russia from

re-occupying the great prize of the campaign, the “standing menace to

Turkey;” and as to the loss to our enemy in being deprived of the

Crimea, we have frequently expressed our opinion that, in holding

territory so distant and difficult of access, she incurs loss far

heavier than that of the prestige or dominion which would fall from her

with the peninsula. The vast and ruinous efforts which she made before

the fall of the city were indeed justified rather by the importance

which the possession of Sebastopol had obtained in the negotiations than

by its real value; those efforts may have had no small effect in

inducing her present concessions; and to continue them would, in our

view, be a draining and exhaustive policy.

The war in Asia offers a more alluring field of enterprise and

achievement. None of those difficulties beset us at the outset which

render the Crimean campaign such an uphill game. To recover Kars, to

match our troops against the enemy in the open field, and to force them

struggling back upon the Caucasus, forms a brilliant and attractive

programme. But has France a sufficient interest in a campaign in Asia to

induce her to join in it? Will she not say that British interests are

mainly at stake here, and that, to her, Russian progress in Asia is

comparatively a matter of indifference? And, if she takes this view,

will it suit her to sit idly by, while the British army engrosses all

the interest and glory which have such powerful allurements for the

soldiers and people of France? But, whether our allies join us in such a

campaign, or permit us to prosecute it alone, it is worth while to

consider whether the advantages to be gained, either in the shape of

positive successes or losses suffered by our adversary, are such as to

compensate for the drain our army will suffer in a year of the most

favourable and triumphant warfare in Asia.

The third important point open to attack is the fortress of Nicolaieff,

the great naval arsenal and dockyard of Russia in the Black Sea. And if

we had a voice in the Allied councils, on no point should we speak with

more confidence and decision than in positively objecting to another

great siege, jointly undertaken. In the first place, the French will

always so far outnumber us as to be able to lay claim, and to establish

their claim, to a far greater share of the weight, the conduct, and the

glory of the enterprise. Then, as before, the English people, growing

impatient, probably, at the necessarily slow progress of siege

operations, filled, with the wildest expectations, and often doomed to

find them disappointed, will once more give vent to their chagrin, by

depreciating the exertions of their army; and they will again be

suicidally successful in lowering their own military prestige, which

this second campaign was to restore.

Having thus reviewed the possible theatres of operation, and weighed the

successes to be gained against the sacrifices in achieving them, we have

acquired the conviction that there is a method by which we shall more

damage our adversary with less injury to ourselves than by any of these

enterprises. Leaving an Allied garrison within the lines of Kamiesch,

watching and harassing the coasts of the Euxine and the Sea of Azoff

with a squadron of light vessels, and aiding the Turks with a large

contingent, we would gladly see the Allied powers agreeing to withdraw

their forces simultaneously from that distant and now unsatisfactory

scene of operations, and to convert the war into a blockade. Deprived of

all exercise for her military strength, which would then become to her

an encumbrance, debarred from commerce, and incapable of injuring her

adversaries, Russia would lie like a huge corpse rotting on the face of

Europe—or a Titan chained to a rock, unable to scare away the assailant

that rent his vitals.

Already we are beginning to lose sight of the objects with which we

commenced the war: not for territorial aggrandisement, not for glory,

not for augmentation of influence or prestige, not even for that which

seems now to be so generally regarded as desirable, the ruin or deep

injury of Russia, but for the security of Turkey against an act of

oppression. Surely a war may be carried on fully in earnest without

desiring the utter destruction of the foe; and there has been nothing in

the course of hostilities to justify such deadly exasperation. Our

object, always plain and direct, is not to destroy, but to coerce

Russia. If she is now ready to make the required concessions, we can see

no just or politic reason for continuing the war; if she be not ready to

do so, we think the course we have pointed out the best and safest for

obliging her to submit. In either case, we should welcome with joy the

gallant army of the Crimea. With such a force ready in these islands for

defence or aggression, what power would then dare to act on the

presumption that England’s prestige has diminished? Come what come may,

though fear of change should perplex the monarchs of Europe, and the

elements of discord be loosed, our power would be founded as the rock.

Girt by such a fleet as never before floated, and guarded by the best

appointed army we ever possessed, we might bid defiance to the world in

arms.

And in either case, also, we trust the sharp and heavy lessons of the

war will not be lost upon us. To speak at present with due contempt of

those advocates of peace and utility, once so loud and confident, now so

downcast and bedraggled, would be like painting the lily, or heaping

ridicule on Pantaloon. Yet let the present fever once pass, and we fear,

unless stimulants are applied, the old lethargy will return. And

therefore we say, whether there be peace, or war to obtain peace, let

our military power be not only maintained, but augmented. Let us not

again be caught asleep, and with our quiver empty. Let those who so

strongly insist on placing our army in depreciatory comparison with that

of France, study the comparative circumstances of the two armies before

the war began. They will find among our neighbours no skeleton of an

army, no weak sketch or outline of what should be a cavalry, no

neglected or half-equipped artillery, no insufficient medical staff, and

no defunct commissariat. Let men who cheerfully pay the premium of fire

insurance, to secure themselves against the chance of conflagration,

learn to regard as equally thrifty the maintenance of a safeguard

against the explosive elements so rife in Europe. Let our army be so

modelled and provided in peace, that it may readily assume the

proportions of war. And, above all, let us devise some means, more

efficient than any we now possess, for recruiting our regiments, and

rendering military service more alluring to our population.

Let us also, when peace returns, think and speak of our national

achievements during the war, in a tone equally removed from the

vainglorious outcry which heralded imaginary successes, and the sullen

whimperings which are now heard for a presumed discomfiture. “We may

find in these achievements ample reason for congratulation. That the

army was few and ill-provided, only augments the glories of Alma and

Inkermann. At three thousand miles from home we landed that army on the

territory of the greatest military power in Europe, and laid siege to

his naval stronghold. Amid the snows of winter and the heats of summer

the siege advanced: not for a day, since the army landed, have our guns

been silent; not for a day have the waters of the enemy’s coasts been

unfurrowed by our keels, bearing ammunition to the batteries and

supplies to our troops. On a spot separated from us by the Atlantic, the

Mediterranean, and the Euxine, we have maintained our army, more than

supplied its losses, poured into the country the largest ordnance and

projectiles in steady and enormous profusion. And when these had done

their work, when the town for which the Czar disputed with desperate and

exhaustive efforts was abandoned in ruins and ashes, a larger force than

England ever before possessed, rested for the winter amid those distant

regions in comfort and plenty. Such, broadly stated, are among the

marvellous exploits which England has achieved in the war.

RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE.[17]

There are few things more difficult to understand and acknowledge than

the essentially one and indivisible nature of that puzzling personage,

Man, with all his diverse occupations. An ingenious process of mental

anatomy, carefully distributing to every pursuit its little bundle of

faculties—his head to his business, his heart to his home, and to his

religion a vague ethereal principle, which, for want of a better title,

we call his soul—seems always to have been a more agreeable idea to the

philosophic and speculative, than that bolder presentment of one whole

indivisible being, which calls the man to love his Maker “with all his

heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, and with all his mind.”

We prefer, with instinctive subtilty—for human nature has wiles in its

weakness—the easier morality of division; and a hundred distinctions

straightway start up for the confusion of the one poor individual

creature, who indeed is little able to bear, in any of his occupations,

the subtraction of any of his powers. But the issue is that we cheat the

world when we only mean to cheat God, and lose the genial and joyous

privilege to “do all things heartily,” while we calculate with trembling

how much belongs to Religion, and how much to Common Life.

Not to say that Common Life has always borne somewhat of a contemptible

aspect to the philosophy of men: asceticism is more than a Romish

error—it is a natural delusion as universal as the race; and however

dubious we may be about the hermit’s cell and its mortifications, a

dainty oratory, calm and secluded, a little world of Thought or of Art,

commends itself much to the imagination of the “superior classes” even

in these progressive times. Our modern prophets appeal to a select and

refined audience, and have nothing to say to the crowd. We have abundant

missions to the _poor_, but few loving assaults upon the _common_.

Strange enough, we are all best satisfied to go out of our way in the

service of God and our neighbour—and tasks _outré_ and self-imposed are

more pleasant to our perversity at all times than those that lie direct

in our path.

Among all the vague big utterances of the day, professing so much and

profiting so little, it is pleasant to fall upon anything so manful and

truth-telling as the little book whose name stands at the head of our

page. And it startles us with a grateful and pleasant surprise to see

those magical words of authority upon the homely brown cover of Mr

Caird’s sermon, which, doubtless, despite all our independence, have

given it entrance to many a house and table where sermons are not

generally favoured reading. What is it which has been honoured by “Her

Majesty’s Command?” It is not anything addressed by special compliment

to Her Majesty; indeed—all honour to the faithful preacher and his royal

auditors—one has to turn to that same brown cover before one has the

least idea that such a rare and exceptional personage as a Queen was

seated among the Aberdeenshire lairds and peasants while Mr Caird

expounded the common way of life. A throne is the most singular and

isolated of all human positions. To us low down here in life’s protected

levels, there is no comprehending that strange, lonely, lofty, imperial

existence, which knows no superior, nor within its reach any equal; and

when the Sovereign, shut out from lesser friendships, elects into one

great friend the vast crowd of her people, one cannot refuse to be moved

by the noble simplicity of the expedient. Other monarchs have done it

before Queen Victoria, but very few with equal, and none with greater

success; and this sermon is a singular present from a Prince to a

Nation. A condescending interest in our welfare, and a certain

solicitude for public morality, are matter-of-course virtues pertaining

to the throne, whoever may be its occupant; but a very different and far

deeper sentiment lies in the heart of this distinct reference to _our_

understandings and sympathies, which is the highest testimony of

satisfaction that the Queen and her royal husband can give to an address

which moved and impressed themselves. We are sufficiently accustomed to

the pure and dignified example of our liege lady—sufficiently acquainted

with the wise exertions of the Prince for the common weal—to receive

both without much demonstration; but there is something in the quiet

humility and kindness of this united action which touches the heart of

the country.

We honour the preacher, too much absorbed with his greater errand to

take advantage of so good an opportunity of paying court to his

Sovereign; and it is still more honourable to the royal pair who

listened, that it was no disquisition upon their own exalted office—no

enthusiastic voice of loyalty, urgent upon the honours due to the

crown—nor indeed any discussion whatever of the particular relationship

between monarch and people—which moved them to this marked and emphatic

satisfaction. The Queen presents to us earnestly, an address in which

herself is not distinguished even by a complimentary inference—a lesson

unsoftened by the remotest breath of flattery, and without even a

“special application.” God save the Queen! We take our princely friend

at her word, acknowledging with what a noble honesty she shares with us,

bearing her own full part of all the daily duties of common life.

Mr Caird’s sermon strikes at the very heart and root of all our

living—it is not a recommendation of good things or good books, or any

exclusive manner of existence, but a simple laying open of that great

secret which is the very atmosphere and breath of religion. “Neither on

this mountain nor at Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth.” This

preacher is not content that anything which God has cleansed should be

called common or unclean—he will not consent that a tithe of our

faculties and emotions, like a tithe of our lands or our riches, should

be reserved for God, making careful separation between the profane and

the holy. He is willing, as Paul was, that we should have full use of

all our powers, which, Heaven knows, are small enough for all that has

to be borne and done in this laborious world. Strange argument to

quicken those dull toils which even good men call secular and

worldly!—strange charm to speed the plough, to guide the ship, to hasten

every day’s triumphant labours through its full tale of animated hours!

“Whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.”

It is on this great principle of life and labour that the author of this

able exposition founds his reasonings, as he shows us how well we may

reconcile diligence in business with fervour of spirit, and brighten

ordinary occupations with the full force and radiance of godliness. The

lesson comes with especial force in these days, when we are beguiled by

the most sweet voices of the Ritualist and the Mystic on either side of

us, and are much persuaded to a vulgar disparagement of the honest

necessary work of this earth. How it may become holy work—and how we

ourselves, surrounded by its cares, vexations, and trials, are in

reality placed in the most advantageous position for proving and

glorifying our Lord and Leader, who had share of all these labours

before us, is the burden of this message; and we do not doubt it will

show to many men, how much nearer than they suspected, even in their

very hands and households, if they will but do it, lies the work of the

Lord.

Preachers and religious writers, as a general principle, are strangely

timid of permitting to the Church any intercourse, more than necessity

compels, with the world; and we fear our good ministers would be sadly

disconcerted were they compelled to consider with Paul what it would be

right to do, “if any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and

ye be disposed to go”—a hypothesis which, however, does not much alarm

the Apostle. But Mr Caird, with a singular boldness, takes the very

“world itself—the coarse, profane, common world, with its cares and

temptations, its rivalries and competitions,” as the true “school for

learning the art” of religious living; and is no advocate for

theoretical and self-secluding Christianity. “No man,” he says, “can be

a thorough proficient in navigation who has never been at sea, though he

may learn the theory of it at home. No man can become a soldier by

studying books on military tactics in his closet; he must in actual

service acquire those habits of coolness, courage, discipline, address,

rapid combination, without which the most learned in the theory of

strategy or engineering will be but a schoolboy soldier after all....

Tell us not, then, that the man of business, the bustling tradesman, the

toil-worn labourer, has little or no time to attend to religion. As well

tell us that the pilot, amid the winds and storms, has no leisure to

attend to navigation—or the general on the field of battle to the art of

war. When _will_ he attend to it? Religion is not a perpetual moping

over good books—religion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances:

these are necessary to religion—no man can be religious without them.

But religion, I repeat, is mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid

the duties and trials of the world—the guiding our course amid the

adverse winds and currents of temptation by the starlight of duty and

the compass of Divine truth—the bearing us manfully, wisely,

courageously, for the honour of Christ, our great Leader, in the

conflict of life.”

Wise doctrine, bold as it is wise; but how strange is the popular

impression which makes cowardice, by some strange magic, a Christian

virtue, and holds “he who fights and runs away,” for the spiritual hero.

In everything else our hearts rise and swell to trace the brave man’s

progress through deaths and perils; but here we count it his best policy

to retreat into a corner, to thrust ambitions, powers, and pleasures,

tremulously away from him, and “to be religious.” To be religious!—the

word itself speaks eloquently of its true meaning—a spirit potent,

sweet, and all-pervasive, and not a thing or series of things,—yet

notwithstanding how eager we are to _do_ instead of to _be_, in this

most momentous matter. Mr Caird has finely discriminated this life and

soul of religion, and the influence which true faith exercises upon

everything around it, in his description of how the mind acts on

_latent_ principles—how an unexpressed remembrance or anticipation runs

through actions and thoughts which have no direct connection with it;

and how hopes, of which we were not even thinking, sway and move us,

invisible and silent agents in our commonest ways. We recommend this

portion of his sermon to all thoughtful readers.

It is not a very usual fortune for sermons in this day—but this one has

flashed into the heart of several vexed questions, and surprised many

minds into involuntary unanimity—and when we are told that we must fight

our battles with our religion, and not for our religion’s sake extend

the conflict, it is a great cheer and encouragement to us, heavily

labouring in the common road, and unable to choose a more exalted way.

Surely Christianity, of all things, has least need to be timid; yet we

fear that much pious and well-intentioned training has had the effect of

conferring an additional charm upon the world’s blandishments—the charm

of forbidden pleasure—rather than of encouraging the neophyte manfully

to pass them by. We have been half saddened, half amused, many a time,

by a preacher’s terrified denunciation of the irresistible attractions

of some theatre or assembly, which in truth was the dullest sham of

pleasure-making that ever wearied man; and it is sad to see often an

incompleteness and contraction in that life of unmistakable piety which

ought to be the broadest, the most genial, and the most fully furnished

of all the states of man.

Yes, we are all too apt, unconsciously and by implication—despite its

being impracticable under present circumstances, Popery having made it

dangerous—to take the life of the eremite, self-contained and

contemplative, as the true type of the religious life; and it is strange

to hear that we ourselves, astray among the noise of cities, or bearing

the burdens of the soil, should be more fit exemplars of God’s service

than any soul secluded in church or temple, and safe from the vulgar

dangers of the world. Yet no one will be bold enough to say that Mr

Caird has not established his position, and few serious minds can refuse

to respond to this serious and powerful call upon them.

This sermon is admirably clear and simple in its diction, as well as

weighty in its matter; there is little of the passion and vehemence of

oratory, but a great deal of power, subdued and held within control; and

the grave plain language of the preacher is luminous and dignified,

worthy of the theme. We are indebted to Mr Caird for a manly exposition

of what is possible to common people in everyday existence—triumphs of

faith and principle beyond the reach of those who fly from the combat

and the agony,—and grateful to his Royal hearers for sending to us all a

lesson which makes no distinctions among us, either of wise and unwise,

or of great and small.

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

-----

Footnote 1:

_Labour: its Rights, Difficulties, Dignity, and Consolations._ An

Address delivered to the Mechanics’ Institute at Hull. By SAMUEL

WARREN, D.C.L., Q.C., Recorder of Hull.

Footnote 2:

The law of France takes a different view of such labour-contracts for

life, prohibiting them on the ground that they are in reality not

conducive to, but subversive of personal liberty.

Footnote 3:

“One of those combinations,” says Mr Warren, “was bound together by

this oath (so atrocious that were it not on record in the authentic

‘debates’ of the day, I would not cite it):—‘I, A. B., do voluntarily

swear, in the awful presence of Almighty God, and before these

witnesses, that I will execute with zeal and sincerity, as far as in

me lies, every task and injunction which the majority of my brethren

shall impose on me, in furtherance of our common welfare; as,—the

chastisement of nobs, _the assassination of oppressive and tyrannical

masters_, or the demolition of shops that shall be deemed

incorrigible: and also that I will cheerfully contribute to the

support of such of my brethren as shall lose their work in consequence

of their exertions against tyranny, or shall renounce work in

resistance to a reduction of wages.’”

Footnote 4:

“To make her clergy fit ministrants of that priestcraft which is its

certain fruit, the Romish system draws after it the enforced celibacy

of their order, and so their separation from all the purifying and

humanising influences which God’s holy ordinance of marriage sheds

over a married priesthood; and, lastly, through the ever-encroaching

presence, amidst the sanctities of family life, of one thus invested

with a character of supernatural holiness, whom all are bound to make

the official depositary of every secret, and who is cognisant of every

real or suspected infirmity of his devotee, and so (unavoidably) of

those who have shared with him in the sins he has from time to time

confessed, it dissolves the most sacred ties by which God has bound

society together,—introducing another, and how often an adverse

counsel between father and child, between the mother and her daughter,

between the husband and the wife of his bosom.”—_Bishop of Oxford’s

Sermon on the 5th of November 1855._

Footnote 5:

_Numismata Hellenica._ A Catalogue of Greek Coins, collected by

WILLIAM MARTIN LEAKE, F.R.S., one of the Vice-Presidents of the Royal

Society of Literature. With Notes, a Map, and Index. London, 1854.

Footnote 6:

A peasant, driving an ass, met Octavianus as he came out of his tent

at daybreak; and being asked his name, he replied, “Eutyches”—And your

ass’s name?—“_Nicon_.”

Footnote 7:

_Childe Harold_, ii. 45.

Footnote 8:

_Irene_, Act i. scene 1.

Footnote 9:

LEAKE’S _Northern Greece_, iv. 46.

Footnote 10:

Admiral Smyth, in his _Cabinet of Roman Imperial Medals_.

Footnote 11:

_Iliad_, ii. 739.

Footnote 12:

“An Old Contributor at the Sea-side,” Nos. CCCCLXXX. and CCCCLXXXI.

Footnote 13:

Here, by the way, let us cite in a foot-note a description of statuary

from the _Golden Ass of Apuleius_. It illustrates the mode of

regarding sculpture in a very realistic period. It is a description of

the entrance-hall to Byrrhœna’s house. “Conversing in this way, we had

proceeded but a few paces ere we arrived at Byrrhœna’s house. The hall

was most beautiful, and had statues of the Goddess of Victory, raised

on pillars which stood at the four corners. The wings of the figures

were expanded; their dewy feet seemed to brush the surface of a

rolling sphere, although it moved not; and they looked not as if they

were attached to it, but hovered in the air. A statue of Diana, in

Parian marble, occupied a level space in the middle of the enclosure.

The figure was singularly beautiful: the garments of the goddess were

blown back by the wind; she seemed in the act of running directly

towards you as you entered, and awed you by the majesty of her godlike

form. Dogs supported the goddess on either side, and these too were of

marble. Their eyes were fierce and threatening, their ears erect,

their nostrils open, their jaws agape to devour; _and had any barking

been heard in the neighbourhood, you would have thought it proceeded

from their marble throats_. A thing, also, in which the excellent

sculptor had given proof of the most consummate art, was this, that

the fore-feet of the dogs, uplifted to their chests, were in the act

of running, while the hind feet pressed the ground. At the back of the

goddess stood a rock wrought to resemble a grotto, overgrown with

moss, grass, leaves, and brushwood, with vines and shrubs here and

there; and the reflection of the statue gleamed from the polished

marble within the grotto. Over the extreme edge of the rock hung

apples and grapes, most exquisitely wrought, and in which art,

rivalling nature, _had so counterfeited their originals that you would

have thought they might be gathered for eating, when fragrant autumn

had breathed upon them the tints of maturity_. And if, leaning

forward, you had beheld the streamlets, which gently rippled as they

ran beneath the feet of the goddess, you would have thought that, like

clusters of grapes which hang from the vine, _they too resembled real

life in the faculty of motion_.

Footnote 14:

It is curious to see the amount of fun which these writers extract

from every little peculiarity of Cockney speech. There is an insane

use of the relative pronoun, which is of immense service. We cannot

remember a good quotation from the play-writers, but here is one from

Thackeray:—

“Gallant gents and lovely ladies,

List a tail vich late befel,

_Vich_ I heard it, bein on duty

At the Pleace Hoffice, Clerkenwell.

Praps you know the Fondling Chapel,

Vere the little children sings:

(Lor! I likes to hear on Sundies

Them there pooty little things!)

In the street there lived a housemaid,

If you particklarly ask me where—

Vy it vas at four-and-twenty,

Guilford Street, by Brunswick Square.

_Vich_ her name was Eliza Davis,

And she went to fetch the beer:

In the street she met a party

As was quite surprised to see her.

_Vich_ he was a British sailor

For to judge him by his look:

Tarry jacket, canvass trowsies

Ha-la Mr T. P. Cooke.”

Footnote 15:

_The Corsican Brothers_ is not an afterpiece, but to show what kind of

writing is allowed to pass in even so successful a melodrama, let me

quote a single speech: “At all events, you heard what I said to my

servants; the house _as_ well _as_ they is at your command; use it,

then, _as_ if it were your own, and consider yourself _as_ sincerely

welcomed by the mother _as_ you will be by the son _as_ soon _as_ he

comes in.”

Footnote 16:

In proof that such an impression existed, we may quote an extract from

a private letter of our correspondent, Lieutenant-Colonel Hamley, to

ourselves, dated Camp, _7th December 1854_:—“I think Liprandi’s army

might have been not merely routed, but annihilated, any time during

the last month till the bad weather set in, having placed itself in a

perilous position; and of the two attacks on the fortress the French

is, or ought to be, the true one—ours merely auxiliary; but it would

be indiscreet to say so. But the campaign once finished, all such

subjects will be open to discussion.”—ED.

Footnote 17:

_Religion in Common Life: a Sermon, preached in Crathie Church, before

Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Albert._ By the Rev. JOHN CAIRD, of

Errol. Published by Her Majesty’s Command.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

2. Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last

chapter.

3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

4. Used a caret (^) to indicate superscripts, including single

characters like M^r or entire phrases like M^{ister}.