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GENERAL ADYE has added to our national war story _Recollections of a
Military Life_ (SMITH, ELDER & CO.). Sir JOHN has not been in a hurry.
He began fighting more than forty years ago, and has since filled up
opportunity as it presented itself. These particular recollections are
chiefly occupied with the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, though
the old soldier has something to say about the Afghan War of 1878-9,
and the Egyptian War of 1882. My Baronite finds most interesting the
chapters about the Crimean War, certain incidents and episodes of
which are narrated with soldierlike directness and simplicity.
The story of the Balaclava Charge has been told in verse and prose
innumerable times. General ADYE did not actually see it, "a ridge of
intervening hills intercepting the view" as he rode back to the camp
from Balaclava. But he manages in a sentence or two vividly to impress
the scene on the mind of the reader. Among many good stories is one
about General HARRY JONES. PELISSIER, with a Frenchman's scorn of
any language but his own, got as near as he could to ordinary
pronunciation when he called him "General HAIRY-JOZE." He did better
when the gallant General was knighted, and was alluded to respectfully
by the French Commander-in-Chief as "SAIREY-JOZE" (Sir HARRY JONES).