The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-07 00:00:00

I of opinion, after a careful examination, that " never was siege undertaken under more un favorable conditions," but that the Mala koff ought to be attacked and the place in vez-ted. And so the siege continued its weary way. On the 9th March General Canrobert officially informed Lord Raglan that on the 13th all his batteries, old and new, would be ready to open their fire. But— Unfortunately our allies were not ready, and to this declaration, to which events impossible to foresee might from one moment to another give great gravity, Lord Raglan replied :—" Your excellency knows that the Eng• lish engineers have undertaken new batteries which will not be without importance in the operations against the town These batteries are greatly advanced, but they will not be terminated by the day you indicate, and I cannot at this moment tix that on which they and the other Eng. lish batteries can open their lire." THE PRESS. General Canrobert waited on Lord Raglan, anti told him that in consequence of that order he must recal the expedition : Lord Raglan strongly insisted that the expedition should b 3 allowed to continue its course, hut General Canrohert I nought right, after the receipt of such precise instructions, to recal General d'Autecuarre and Vice•Adtniral Bruat. And here the author remarks : It was from this moment, and in consequence of this re• solution adopted in spite of the resistance of the English general•in-chief, that a certain degree of coldness arose in the relations, which tilt then had been completely cordial, between the two generals of the allied armies. A French steamer being despatched to bring back the French part of the expedition, Lord Raglan had no other alternative than to recut the English part of it. By this time the Piedmontese army arrived, and the English army had arisen from its ruins, and was about to become what it was at the beginning of the campaign—brilliant and superb. Here the author places the plan of campaign drawn up by the Emperor ; and he gives the details of what subsequently took place be- tween General Canrobert and Lord Raglan. The result, it will be remembered, was that the two generals not being able to agree, General Canrobert threw up the command in chief of the French army, and was succeeded by General Pelissier. The ntot d'ordre given to General Pelissier was, it appears, this'— SATURDAY, Conform as much as possible to the instructions given. If it be necessary to modify them, let it be in accord with Lurd Raglan. Act in concert. eyes is, that it shows the views which the Vrer,ch Government takes—(the work, re member, is written under its dictation, a n d from documents and inform 'Lion supplied by it)—of the share which the English army aid tue leading English generals had in the famous expedition to the Crimea; and that it throws light on the real relations between the French and English commanders, and on the manner in which the former were dependent on the Emperor at Paris —matters on which, though much has been guessed, little has hitherto been known. Poetical Works of Ben Jonson. Edited by Robert Bell. London : J. W. Parker and Pelissier forthwith gave up the idea of ex ternal operations, and modified the system of attack on Sebastopol. The expedition to Kertch was also resolved on and executed. Thus we see that in all the matters which led to coolness between Canrobert arid Raglan— excepting only the delays in the execution of the English works during the winter—it was Lord Raglan who was right. The admission of this fact by the French must be very consola tory, not only to the friends of the cruelly traduced nobleman, but to all Englishmen. The rest of the hook, devoted to details of the attacks on different positions before Sebas topol, in May and June ; of the battle of the Tschernaya, and of the grand assault on Se bastopol of the Bth of September, contains nothing of special interest to the English. We must, however, translate what the author says of the English attack on the Great Redan, in the grand assault; it is very brief indeed:— General M`Mahon maintaining himself definitively in the Malakoff, the moment had arrived for commencing the attack on the Great Redan, confided to the valour of our allies. General Pelissier gave General Simpson the signal, which consisted in displaying the national flag at a given spot. It was not then two o'clock. The division of light troops formed the head of the column—the troops of the second division designed fur the assault followed imme diately. All the arrangements for the attack had been set tled hetween Generals Markham and Codrington. As soon as the signal was perceived, our allies, who were devoured with impatience to combat., advanced under a terrible fire towivds the salient of the Redan, where the artillery had made a breach. The English column had nearly two hun dred yards to cross. Soon the earth was strewed with dead, but the march of the intrepid column was not stopped for an instant. As soon as it had reached the fosse the ladders were put up, and our allies, energetically climbing up the parapet of the Redan, penetrated into the salient angle. But there they only found a vast apace, swept by the guns of the enemy, who were under shelter. For more than an hour did the English, indefatigable in death, struggle to maintain themselves against this murderous hurricane which assailed them from all parts ; those who arrived scarcely replaced those who fell. It was not until after a desperate resistance, after useless and sanguinary efforts, that they determined to evacuate the Redan. Son. IT has always been our opinion that Ben Jonson's fame has unjustly suffered from the overpowering genius of Shakespeare. To the crowd of general readers Ben Jonson is known only as a dramatist, and many are not aware of the rich mine of intellect exhibited in his minor poems. No one can be said to understand the measure of Jonson's powers without studying the "Epigrams" and " Underwoods." Well, indeed, does he deserve to be called " rare Ben Jonson." Mr Bell judiciously observes of the minor poems which he has edited: — Here his express qualities are fully brought out ; his close study of the classics ; his piety, sound principles, and profound knowledge of mankind ; his accurate observation of social modes and habits ; and that strong common tense, taking the most nervous and direct forms of expression, in which we may trace the germs of Dryden more clesrly than in any other writer. Here, too, and here alone, we find him surrounded by the accomplished society in the midst of which he lived, and of whose principal celebrities he has transmitted to us a gallery of imperishable portraits. We cannot accept, however, without qualifi• cation, the concluding paragraph of Mr. Bell's estimate of these poems. The accomplished editor writes : Want of space has compelled us to confine our notice of this book to the portions in which the English figure, or which particu larly concern them ; brit, as the reader will naturally suppose, the far greater part of it is devoted to the French and their exploits. The same reason prevents us from disputing the correctness of certain statements, as we might easily do ; a. - td also from criticising in detail the author's bombastic style, his terrible efforts to be always dramatic, his occasional Hibernian similes, his frequent negligences of language, his bad grouping of facts, his awk ward transitions from one subject to another, his lack of precision in details of considerable imoortanee—in a word, his neglect or in• ability to make a more effective use of the excellent materials provided for hint. But what makes the book valuable in English The predominant merit of his poems lies in their prac tical wisdom. Making reasonable allowances for the aber rations of flattery in an age of patronage, he is everywhere the inflexible advocate of truth and virtue, the scorner of false pretensions, and the scourger of vice and meanness. His lines are pregnant with thought applicable to the con duct of life ; and without any of the affectation of apho risms, multitudes of his couplets might be separated from the text, and preserved apart for their axiomatic com pleteness. Mr. Bell says, " might be separated." True ; but Jonson's posterity have not done so. His verses want the polish necessary for popular currency in an " axiomatic " fashion. His thoughts and sentiments are preserved in books, and admired by every one who knows how to wield a pen, but they do not run trir pingly off the tongue, or linger lovingly in the memory. There was too much of scho lastic cultivation, as opposed to poetical art, in all his writings. Though we soon grow weary of the smooth-shaven verdure trodden by the poets of later times, Jonson too often took us into moorlands, where the wastes were not always elevated by the sublime, and where the ruggedness was without graceful contrast. Mr. Bell is correct (note, p. 17) in saying that " Gifford's denunciation of Drummond of " Hawthornden was merely a rabid misrepre " sentation of facts." We have our doubts as to whether Gifford was right in " construct ing a romance " out of tile three elegies in the " Uziderwoods." Mr. Bell inserts a note on the " Epistle to Sir Ed w a r d Sackvile," men tioning, on Gifford's authority, how Horne Tooke had that particular poem by heart, and that "it was his (Horne Tooke's) favorite poem." The thinking of the poem is calcu lated to please a vig orous m i n d like Tooke's, baulked of fame and celebrity, and fully con scious of its superiority to many contemporary intellects. The following passage, with its poetry not devoid of an unt:onscious spleen, must have specially pleased Horne Tooke : Such notes are virtuous men ! they live as fast As they are high ; are rooted, and will last ; They need no stilts, nor rise upon their toes, As if they would belie their stature : those Are dwarfs of honour, and have neither weight Nor fashion ; if they chance aspire to height, 'Tie like light canes, that first rise big and brave, Shoot forth in smooth and comely spaces, have But few and fair divisions, but being got Aloft, grow less and straightened, full of knot, And, last, go out in nothing. The author then proceeds to say : It was impossible not to see that all these delays were fatal and permitted the defence a development which doubled obstacles and multiplied dangers General Canrobert insisted every day with the general.in•chief of the English army to cause him to open fire. He wrote to the Minister on the 17th :—" Our batteries present the enormous number of nearly five hundred guns ready to act, and I have been waiting since the 14th for the Eng lish. I press them as much as I know both officially and privately, for I feel the imperative necessity of attacking the front of Sebastopol, which it is possible to take: but 1 also feel that it is interdicted to me to act without the co operation of our allies." On the 20th he wrote :—" The English cannot yet tell me when they will be ready. This delay is the mote fatal as the enemy hum advantage of it to increase every day the strength of their works, and with very remarkable ability to add new ones." The situation became every day more delicate (plus !endue). " Yester day," wrote General Canrobert on the 23rd, " I pressed Lord Raglan as strongly as circumstances permitted, but 1 could not obtain any positive reply." And during all this time incessant dangers menaced our attack on the Malakoff. At length, however, the English were in a position to promise that their fire should be opened on the 9th of April ; and on the 9th a tremendous fire against the devoted town was commenced both by English and French. The details of this new bombardment need not be given, being familiar to the reader; but about a fortnight later the situation is thus described : In presence of the obstacles which arose at every step, of the forced delays and innumerable difficulties which sprung up, doubts began to be entertained as to the success of the direct siege. General NW declared that under es• isting conditions the siege was impossible; and he had to support his views science, precedents of all sieges, and the formidable aspect of the works of the enemy. Still with a valiant army impossible things very often succeed; and it would hive been weak and cruel, after so many sacrifices, after so much bloodshed, in presence of so many works, to give way to discouragement. And here is the greatest glory of General Canrobert—it is, that he incessantly bore up against discouragement, and maintained confidence in his army. The approaching arrival of the Emperor to take command of an army to act at the exterior now began to be talked of, and, says our author. " prevented any decisive action against the place " from being attempted." Besides, General Canrobert had " secret instructions " which " tied his hands." These instructions were : If the assault on Sebastopol be impossible, or should cost too many men without occasioning the total capture of the place, you mist keep on the defensive, and arrange in such a way that it will be possible for you to take two divisions of infantry, the Imperial Guard, and all the cavalty, together with eight batteries, to be joined to an army of 40,000 men assembled at :Wasiak, near Constanti nople, in order to be ready at the first signal to act ester. nally against the enemy. A council was held, and— Lord Raglan declared strongly for an assault, and strongly combated the project for an external expedition. The council, taking into consideration the wish of the soldiers of the two armies, also declared for the assault, and General Canro bert then " thought that it was his duty to " adopt their views." But as, shortly after, the arrival of reinforcements was announced, it was deemed prudent to postpone it until they should come. About this time the idea of an expedition to Kertch sprang up. Lord Raglan and Admirals Lyons and Brunt were strongly in favour of it ; General Canrobert did not approve of it. but he yielded " to the pressing solicitations of " Lord Raglan," and of the admirals. On the 30th of April, accordingly, the expedition set sail, but the next morning General Canrobert received the following telegraphic despatch from Paris, from the Emperor himself: — On the receipt of this despatch unite all your means to prepare to attack the enemy externally ; concentrate imme diately all your forces, even thou of Maslak II