unit of strength which walks the modern earth where empire is brought into question. But a little while, and then the sickness which had clung to the army began to make it seen that the columns in all their pride were things built with the bodies of suffering mortals." Such fervent language will receive deserved welcome. The intensity of view which spread this glowing picture before us, is, however, the historian's bane when applied to the men and transactions producing it. The keen individual becomes not only fervent, but peremptory, derisive, and rapacious of extremes. This is instanced in his treatment of Sir Richard Airey. Intending well to this officer, how is it that he has only procured for him some ridicule? Mr. Kinglake's version of Crimean events embraces some truth, and amid it the fact that Sir Richard Airey was one of the most valuable men we had in the Crimea. Mr. Kinglake is not content with declaring and endeavouring to prove this, but he must needs fall into heroics about him, extol his private life, dilate on his antecedents, admire his very features. This foolish extreme, assumed derisively in the face of a nation that has been taught to believe in its just cause for exasperation with the subject of eulogy, has of course destroyed all chance of benefit to Sir Richard Airey. The sudden somersault is indifferently watched as a mere feat of personal friendship, and the portion of truth that led to the performance is entirely disbelieved. It is to be hoped Sir Richard Airey will yet recover the effect of this ill-advised advocacy. No man has been more abused, and few have deserved it less. Upon Lord Raglan's death, he was clearly the man to have commanded the army, but the evil genius of the Times governed the hour, and that excellent and unassuming man, General Simpson, received a trust that he was himself averse to, and his nature totally unadapted for; after whom came a smart brigadier-general, who proved that the qualities of an adjutant are not sufficient to fill the post of commander-in-chief, and between these two the British army sank into the position of a mere contingent to the French, while all the time the firstrate qualities of Sir Richard Airey were shelved in a subordinate position. Mr. Russell's story eliminated from the gloomier class of subalterns, may be opposed to this view, but it equally opposes the testimony of all Crimean men who met Sir Richard Airey at work, watched him in an emergency (especially if such an emergency were in battle), or were in the way to feel his activity. When the time arrives for the publication of private papers belonging to Crimean authorities, probably some tardy justice will be paid to a meritorious servant, but in the mean time Mr. Kinglake's caricature will avail him little. The author's dissertation upon a "movable column," as applying to the sixty-three thousand men who, on the morning of the 19th, began their advance south, is hardly called for, however happily handled. The allied armies were by no means a movable column, unless for the one short night later, when the flank march was made to Balaklava. The fleet constituted a thorough base of operations, and was by the side of the army the whole way, commanding with its guns the beach representing the "line of operations," or communication with base. If Mentschikoff had been strong enough, by attacking them in flank, to cause the allied armies to fight a battle with their back to the sea, they would have fought, as Mr. Kinglake observes, "upon ground where defeat would be ruin:" ruin as regards the enterprise, but not amounting to the annihilation of the armies, who would have recovered a landingplace within shelter of the guns of the fleet. It was a strange spectacle the ships thus steaming slowly by the side of the moving masses of men, in the way that Julian's legions, fifteen hundred years since, were accompanied by his fleet along the Euphrates; though indeed the similar incident only serves to recal the vivid contrast between ancient and modern warfare. Julian could destroy his fleet, and yet hope to subsist and wage war in the heart of a hostile country: divested of the cumbersome train of artillery and waggons, which clogs our present armies, there was little thought of a "base" or a "line" of operations; when an army took the field it plunged into unknown territory, traversed thousands of miles, and perhaps emerged on a strange sea to build a fleet wherewith to return home: but here was the very flower of European troops, equipped with the summed science of modern times, and manoeuvred upon the experience of ages, unable without hazard to lose sight of the flotilla which conveyed it, and some months later brought to a state of destitution, by the intervention of five miles between the point and object of supply! In describing the order of march, Mr. Kinglake has missed the technical terms which would give a military man any notion of its nature, and indeed from his outline seems hardly to have understood it. He speaks of the infantry divisions being "massed in close column," and of the disposal of divisions in such a way that "the whole body had both a front and a depth of two divisions:" this misinterprets the real characteristic of the order of march, which was in two great double columns of companies formed at half distance on the centres of the leading divisions, the Second and Light. The Quarterly Review of April has rectified this passage in a manner difficult to improve on, and at the same time gives the obvious reason for the English being placed on the left, or inner side-viz. that they were possessed of cavalry; the author having spent a couple of pages to mock our allies for so readily entrusting us with the duty and danger of defending the left flank. But a thousand sabres would have been of little use by the seaside, and any other disposition would have been eccentric. If the French * "After providing in the usual manner advanced guards of cavalry and riflemen, with flank patrols, Lord Raglan ordered that the mass of the infantry should move in such order as would afford ready means of deploying to the front, while at the same time a line, four deep, could be formed rapidly to the left, should danger threaten from that quarter. The nature of the ground, an open undulating plain, with the known superiority of the Russians in cavalry, suggested these precautions, and the army was accordingly disposed into two great double columns of companies. These double columns were formed at half distance on the centres of the second and light divisions, the third division following the second, and the first following the light, in the same order: while the fourth division followed the first in single column of companies, covering the convoy of reserve ammunition, and the small quantity of provisions which the army carried in its train. Had Lord Raglan disposed his army, as Mr. Kinglake tells us that he did, in close columns, a rapid formation to the flank, at least, would have been impossible. But by arranging his double columns at half distance, the wheeling up of the sub-divisions of the left brigade, and the prolongation of the line, by the successive formation on its right of the other brigade, would have given him a few minutes a formation combining the solidity of the square, with such a front of fire as neither cavalry nor infantry attacking in column could have long withstood."-Quarterly Review for April. at this time claimed the right side as that of precedence, it is certain they did not hold to it at Chersonese, where they again closed to the sea (though the left), leaving the English inland, to communicate across their rear with the port of Balaklava, which fact may be further submitted for Mr. Kinglake's indignation. But the idea of any position of precedence in all likelihood originated with himself: he forgets that the French having landed south (nearest the enemy), were placed in the first instance naturally on our right. By two P.M. only (so slow and trailing is the progress of a large force), the armies reached the stream of the Bulganak, where the men broke from their ranks, and rushed forward to slake their thirst.* Here was opened the first gun of the campaign. The little affair of Bulganak, in which there were but three or four casualties, rings a chord in the memory of those present, perhaps more impressive than the formidable struggles it heralded. For the first time, the thousands collected saw the white puff of smoke, hitherto associated with the salute at Portsmouth or review at Chobham, flinging its iron ball straight in the face with the avowed purpose of killing: it seemed hardly possible that this was war, as six and nine-pounder balls skipped and whirled along the plain in a harmless, billiard-like fashion; but it was so, a few saddles were what is called "emptied," and two or three horses tumbled down dead, there was no doubt about what was taking place, and the vast audience stood fascinated over the spectacle, with a quickening impulse to share it. For what took place was a simple play at long balls, varied by some coquetry of cavalry, in which four squadrons of our own found themselves abruptly and precariously close to a larger Russian force, and impudently held their ground, till supports arrived from Lord Raglan; a mere bagatelle it would have seemed later, but at this moment it was as the unravelling of a mystery, and pregnant with battle, glory, and drunken death. The first prisoner of war was made in this affair-Colonel Lagondie, attached as French commissioner to the English head-quarter staff, who, upon his return from a message to Prince Napoleon, rode into a squadron of Russian hussars, which he had mistaken for our own people. An incident of some comedy, bordering though on the reverse, occurred at this time on the enemy's side. It appears that these hussars, dressed in white jackets, had been sent out the previous night on a reconnoitring expedition. General Kiriakoff had ordered a battery to open fire as soon as the allied cavalry showed itself above the hills. By some accident these white-jacketed hussars showed themselves last over the hill at some distance from the others. The commander of the battery, LieutenantColonel Kondratieff, mistaking them for the allies (all the rest of the Russian cavalry wearing the grey over-coat), immediately opened fire with eight guns, killing and wounding seven. The impetuous Pole in command of the troops thus victimised-General Chaletzky-in a fit of ungovernable fury, straightway drew his sword, and rushed upon the * While encamped at "Old Fort," the army had been principally supplied in water by the fleet. The country yielded but little. Those troops that were more inland got water from the different small villages, as did the cavalry and artillery after the first morning. Some of the horses were taken to a pond, and drank freely of brackish water, but others would not touch it. The wells which Sir Richard Airey caused to be sunk were for the most part failures. offender, Colonel Kondratieff. "We fully," says Captain Hodasevich,* who gives this anecdote, "expected to see a tragic end to this affair when General Kiriakoff galloped up from the other side, and arrived just in time to prevent mischief: he endeavoured to pacify the hussar-at least, he saved the life of the commander of the battery." Upon the arrival of our supports, the Russians retired: it seems to have been a reconnaissance in some force that our cavalry had thus encountered, consisting, say the same authority, of a brigade of the seventeenth division, two batteries of artillery, besides a number of cavalry. These had advanced from the main body of the Russian army, intrenched on the south side of the Alma, and thither now retreated, while the allies disposed themselves in bivouac on the south side of the refreshing stream of Bulganak; the English army, exposed to attack in front and flank and rear, being careful to do so in order of battle. Mr. Kinglake bestows a chapter and a plan to describe this; and he, moreover, lays so much stress upon the peril the English were in throughout the days previous to the Alma, and on the distance (at most one mile) the French were from us, that while intending alone to disparage the French, he in a certain way excites astonishment, if not ridicule, towards his own countrymen, who might seem to be desiring commiseration. As dusk closed in, the watch-fires of the respective armies spread along the land, those of the Russians crowning the heights of the Alma, while the allies covered the ridges of the Bulganak, being betwixt this stream and the Alma river, the latter four miles south. The fleets covered the sea in-shore, and communications were passed between the commanders on the subject of the battle that was imminent next day. There were some opinions that the Russians, leaving their watch-fires burning, would have vanished by morning. But the position seemed too strong to permit this notion, and from the account of Captain Hodasevich, the Russian soldiery were far too benighted to be aware what sort of power was about to attack them. When marching out of Sebastopol to meet the allies, "everybody had said that it was useless to overburden ourselves, as we should beat the enemy out of the Crimea and return in a day or two." Even General Kiriakoff had told one of his colonels three days previous that but eight thousand men had disembarked, and that he had asked permission of Prince Mentschikoff to drive them into the sea with his brigade. With this tendency on the part of the Russians to underestimate their enemy, and with, perhaps, a reverse feeling on the part of the allies, the two armies watched or slept through the summer night almost side by side. What the day brought forth-in its grand outline -the world well knows, but we are still disputing the detail. A paper on the "Battle of Alma" will appear in a later number. * A Voice from within the Walls of Sebastopol. By Captain R. Hodasevich, late of the Tarontine Regiment of Chasseurs, in the Russian Service. John Murray. 154 ROSSINI AND THE LAZZARONE. A SKETCH FROM LIFE. BY DR. MICHELSEN. ON a fine morning in May, 1815, a young lazzarone was basking in the sun at the quay Santa Luna in Naples, when a passer-by, whistling a lively melody, stopped before him, and poking him with the foot, said: 66 Would you, friend sluggard, like to earn a coin?" "Corpo di Christo! that I would." And jumping up, he added, "What do you command, excellency?" "Do you know Mr. Barbaja, the lessee of the San Carlo Theatre ?" "He lives not far from here." "I am a stranger here, and want you to guide me thither." "With a thousand pleasures, excellency." "Then come along." The barefooted cicerone put his cap proudly over his right ear, and led the way to the Toledo-street. "What is your name?" asked the stranger, on the way. "Of that I know as little as of your own; but my comrade, Master Peperolla (peppercorn), calls me Hellebore." "And why that?” "Because he maintains that whenever he sees me he is always seized with a fit of sneezing." "Your mother was, perhaps, looking intently at a snuff-box when in an interesting condition ?" "Not unlikely. But what is it to me?" "How old are you, fellow?" "To pray, and be idle." "Do you like it?" "Better than anything." "I like you, boy. Where do you live ?" "Nowhere." "But where do you pass the night?" "Sometimes at the side of a garden, and not unfrequently on the steps of a church." "And you are fresh and healthy ?" "As a fish in the Gulf." "Enviable beggar! If I was not my mother's only child, I should not mind being a second Torquato." "But who are you, then, excellency? Only look at the curious rascal! What may be your name ?'' veterinary surgeon by profession, so that if you should happen to be ill' 1 |