The Press.
London, England, 1855-07-21 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of the road and the heroic processions to Ty-
burn, we will conclude with a lyric which may
fairly claim to take rank with the most spirited
productions of its class in our language :

BLACK BESS.
Let the lover his mistress's beauty rehearse,
And laud her attractions in languishing verse ;
Be it mine in rude strains, but with truth, to express
The love that I bear to my bonny Black Bess.

From the West was her dam, from the East was her sire,
From the ono came her swiftness, the other her lire;
No peer of the realm better blood can possess
Than flows in the veins of my bonny Black Bess.
Look, look ! how that eyeball glows, bright as a brand !
That neck proudly arches, those nostrils expand !
Mark that wide-flowing mane, of which each silky tress
Might adorn prouder beauties, though none like Black Bess.
Mark that akin sleek as velvet, and dusky as night,
With its jet undistigured by one lock of white;
That throat branched with veins, prompt to charge or
caress:
Now is she not beautiful—bonny Black Bess?

Over highway and byway, in rough and smooth weather,
Some thousand of miles have we journeyed together ;
Our couch the same straw, and our meal the same mess,
No couple more content than I and Black Bess.
By moonlight, in darkness, by night, or by day,
Her headlong career there is nothing can stay ;
She cares not for distance, she knows not distress :
Can you show me a courser to match with Black Bess?
Once it happened in Cheshire, near Dunbar, I popped
On a horseman alone, when I suddenly stopped;
That I lightened his pockets you'll readily guess—
Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess.
Now it seems the man knew me. " Dick Turpin," said he,
" You shall swing for this job, as you live, d'ye see;"
I laughed at his threats and his vows of redress,
I was slue of an alibi then with Black Bess.

The road was a hollow, a sunken ravine,
Overshadowed completely by wood, like a screen;
I clambered the back, and I needs must confess
That one touch of the spur grazed the side of Black Bess.
Brake, brook, meadow, and ploughed field Bess fleetly

bestrode, -
As the crow wings her flight we selected our road ; I
We arrived at Bough Green in five minutes or less—
My neck it was saved by the speed of Black Bess.
Stepping carelessly forward, I lounge on the green,
Taking excellent care that by all I am seen ;
Some remarks on Time's flight to the squires I address,
But I say not a word of the flight of Black Bess.
I mention the hour—it was just about four--
Play a rubber at bowls—think the danger is o'er;
When athwart my next game, like a checkmate at chess,
Come the horsemen in search of the rider of Bess.

What matter details? Off with triumph J came;
He swears to the hour, and the squires swear the same.
I had robbed him at four, while at four they profess
I was quietly bowling—all thanks to Black Bess !

Then one hallos, boys, one loud cheering halloo!
To the swiftest of coursers, the gallant, the true 1
For the sportsman unborn shall the memory bless
Of the horse of the highwayman—bonny Black Bess !

The horse of the highwayman !—but a song
which a horse of nobler inheritance might fill
with less lustre. It would be a false direction
of criticism to enter an objection to the praises
of Black Bess because they chronicle the ad-
ventures of a gentleman of the road. Were
the grand fellows of chivalry much better in
their day ? We have nothing to say on behalf
of Dick Turpin, but a great deal against him
in reference to this same Black Bess. Yet we
suspect that Dick Turpin, after this breathless
five minutes' ride, will show to greater advan-
tage in the bowling-green than Du Guesclin
in the tent of the Spanish king he betrayed to
death After all is there net a little affecta-
tion, or, at least, some inconsiderateness, in
the indiscriminate protest againt the choice of
such subjects ? There is hardly a chapter in
our romantic literature more popular than the
escapades of Robin Hood, the humours of
Little John, and the beauty of the fair ac-
complice, Maid Marian. And who was Robin
Hood ? What was his life, that he should
monopolise all the glories of song and chro-
nicle ? Assuredly Dick Turpin, in his line,
was as gallant a spirit as Robin Hood, although
he had the misfortune to live in a less pic-
turesque age. True it is only the poetical side
of the old legend we preserve so preciously;
but who will deny that there is a poetical side
to Dick Turpin ?—or that it is only the poetical
side, with all its modern disadvantages, that
is attempted to be expressed in this capital
song ?

SATURDAY,

Journal of a Tour in the Principalities, Crimea,
and Countries adjacent to the Black Sea, in
the Years 1835-36. By Lord De Ros.
London : J. W. Parker and Son.
Tilts private journal, now first made public,
was kept under peculiar circumstances. In
the years 1834-6 a strong suspicion of the
ultimate designs of Russia against the Porte
existed in this country ; and rumours of the
preparations of Russia in the Black Sea
having reached the ears of the Government,
they decided upon " fathoming the truth " of
these reports by despatching a military and a
naval officer upon a toui through the Crimea,
in order to ascertain, by personal observation,
whether any, and what, preparations for war
the Russians really were making. Lord Dur-
ham was at that time upon the point of
starting upon his mission to St. Petersburg,
by way of Odessa, and advantage was taken of
the opportunity to include Lord De Ros and
Captain Drinkwater, R.N., in his suite, special
instructions being given them to ascertain
whether " unusual preparations were perceiv-
" able in fortresses, military stations, ports,
" and arsenals." In July, 1835, Lord Durham
sailed from England, making a long tour to
St. Petersburg, by way of Malta, the Pincus,
and Constantinople, being joined en route
by the two Commissioners. From the superior
opportunities which Lord De Ros enjoyed kr
observation and record he might have been
expected to collect much curious detail, but
we are bound to say that, however full of
valuable information his secret reports to the
Government might have been, his lordship
has carefully expunged everything from the
leaves of his journal in the shape of novel or
exclusive information.
Odessa was the first port which the Embassy
reached in the Black Sea ; and the country in
the neighbourhood is described thus :
This steppe is an endless plain, thinly covered with a
sort of herbage spread over a sandy soil, which causes a
quantity of dust in summer, and after twelve hours rain in
winter becomes a sea of mud, defying man and beast to
exceed a :•ertain pace through it. Yet some parts in the
interior are highly cultivated, and every year immense
cargoes of corn are shipped at Odessa, unless in seasons
when these regions have been infested with locusts, which
has lately happened, and done incredible mischief.
The peasantry bring their corn to the coast in long
trains of carts, which at first starting consists, perhaps, of
fifty or sixty ; but as they advance, their number is in-
creased by additions from all the villages on the steppe
near which their track lies ; so, by the time they reach
Odessa, there are many hundreds of these carts marching
in exact order.
This is a curious fact worth noticing, and in
all field operations of the army, and especially
with regard to the supplies now afforded to
the Russian army, it must be borne in mind.
There is in those provinces a most extensive
system of civil land carriage ready at hand,
which our military critics seem always so dis-
posed to ignore when speaking of difficul-
ties of transport as affecting the tactics of the
Russians.
Lord De Ros tells us that the people of
Odessa are singularly quiet and orderly; but
he finds a most efficient reason for the
fact :
Justice is well administered, but in a summary way.
Caning is for the male sex. Whipping with birchen rods
is reserved for the women, and is so generally received a
custom that in great estates the steward sets one morning
apart in the week for causing this punishment to be admin-
istered by a matron, with as much decorum as the case
will allow; nor from the peasant to the head housemaid
is there any exception.
After leaving Odessa the suite proceeded to
Nicolaief, the great dockyard of the Black Sea
fleet. And here we hoped to find some in-
formation upon the resources or defences of
so important a place, but Lord Do Ros merely
tells us that the dockyard officers spoke Eng-
lish and were very civil, and that from the
main street there are many lovely views !
Kiew, a military town of some importance
on the right bank of the Dnieper, was next
visited, and even so far back as 1835 was being
strongly fortified :
There are some new fortifications of vast extent now in
progress at Kiew, and a number of troops employed in
working upon them.
The plan, it seems, is to strengthen the whole fortress
round the south by advanced works, and, commencing
from the fortress, to carry a permanent line round the
upper town, and so return to the river about a mile to th
northward. The portion of the fortification most complete
is a huge battery, four hundred paces in length, which,

JULY 21, 1855.

beginning at the glacis of the fortress, terminates in a two-
story martello tower, about eighty feet in diameter.
The probable object of fortifying this inland city is to
establish a good place of assembly for troops and reserves,
in event of any disturbance among the military colonies,
or from the side of Gallicia. Kiew is the seat of govern-
Inent of the province of " Little Russia," and is always
provided with a large garrison.
The navigation of the Dnieper down to
Kherson, and from thence to the Black Sea, is
practicable. While at Kiew, the late Emperor
Nicholas arrived, on a tour through the pro-
vinces, and, after having been duly presented,
Lord De Ros was invited by his Majesty to
attend a review of forty thousand infantry, ten
thousand cavalry, and one hundred and thirty
guns:—

It was a magnificent spectacle. The Emperor's
manner in giving °friers and in speaking to his principal
officers appeared to me extremely suited to his own posi-
tion, and such as to insure attention and respect, without
assumed pomp or haughtiness. He was very clear and
short in his explanations of what was to be dune, and
quick at perceiving and remedying mistakes. Every
message was repeated by the officer charged with it
before he started, and was immediately afterwards written
in pencil on a card by a staff officer, and forwarded by
an orderly sergeant, so that any accident to the officer
(if before the enemy) would not cause much delay, as
the duplicate in writing always followed the verbal
order within one or two minutes. A Circassian trumpeter,
in a splendid national dress, accompanied the Emperor,
and gave the few signal sounds occasionally used in the
loudest and clearest tones I ever heard produced by a
trumpet.

_
• • * • • •
The Emperor talked to me a good deal about the
troops. I admired one squadron extremely as it passed,
upon which he said " bites a mon ami Lord Palmerston
que j'ai troll' cents parells."

- -
A slight trait of the military system of Rus-
sia is given here in the description of the
cavalry colonies which are formed in Southern
Russia:—

They are on a different footing from those attempted for
the infantry near Petersburg, nor do they resemble the
military colonies of the Austrians, because in the Russian
cavalry colonies the soldier actually serving has no con•
cern with the agriculture of the colony, but is simply
quartered upon the peasantry.

The peasantry of the colonies are exempt from every
taxation, and their eldest sons are free from military con-
scription, but their younger sons are liable, not to general
service, but to whatever extent of conscription is requisite
for keeping up to its establishment the regiment of their
own district. Boys of low stature, or other unfitness for
the ranks, are not on this plea exempted, but are taught
trades, and attached to the troops as artisans. It must be
observed that this regimental conscription does not remove
the peasantry from their homes and families, except when
those actually in the ranks march on foreign service, those
who are artisans remaining and exercising their usual
trades and occupations. From the intermarriage of the
original soldier with the peasantry, a large proportion of
the soldiers at present quartered on the peasants are their
own brothers•in-law, or relations who have been recruited
into the corps; and in the next generation the military
will be all the sons and kinsmen of the peasantry upon
whom they are quartered.

Each regiment has a stud, which must at first have
been very curtly, but the object seems to have been fully
answered, and they are supplied with horses of a superior
description, and of a hardy nature from being suffered to
run almost wild upon the steppe till nearly of sufficient
age for service. To prevent any danger of want of corn or
forage, there is now always a provision in hand for two
years. The conscription falls annually lighter by the in-
crease of the population, which has quite stopped those
discontents which arose at first, and there is every reason
to conclude that the cavalry colonies have proved a success-
ful measure. The troops are in very fine order, the
horses large, strong, and active, and their equipment,
rather serviceable than showy, is of a capital description.
There mustered at each colony about nine thousand effec-
tives, in all twenty-seven thousand heavy cavalry, a
prodigious force.
Speaking of the regimental schools, Lord
De Ros remarks the peculiar aptitude for
acquiring whatever is taught theM, either
theoretically or practically, as a distinct fea-
ture of the Russian peasantry. In another
place, mentioning Madame Woronzow's superb
mansion at Aloupka, he tells us that the
cutting of the stone was executed by native
masons, under the instruction of some of Blore's
foremen sent from London, and that they
were in astonishment at the readiness with
which the Russian workmen acquired what
they wished to learn. In the present war the
Russians have at least proved that in the de-
fensive art of warfare they not only rapidly
acquired all that the art could teach, but, like
the fable of the boy at chess, they have already
taught their teachers more than one important
leMon.
We have extracted all that possesses any in-
t crest or novelty in the book, and must con•

THE PRESS.

dude by merely stating, that, after a hasty
cruise round the south coast of the Crimea, a
visit to Kertch, and a return to Sebastopol,
Lord De Boa once more started for Odessa,
and from thence, by Yassy and Silistria, passed
through Bucharest to the Austrian frontier,
Vienna, and home.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century. fly Mar-

garet Fuller Ossoli. London : Triibner

and Co.
Tins is a work in which the Countess Ossoli
" goes in" for the rights of woman with a
strong-mindedness worthy of her country.
There is, to be sure, little that is new and less
that is true in her 'remarks ; but the danger of
a bad theory is not alway s in proportion to the
ability with which it is urged ; and it strikes
us that the sooner we have some resolute ex-
posure of the absurdities of this one the
better. If we do not wish to see our house-
holds gradually penetrated with a taste for
public life, and our wives and maidservants
invading the platform, or haranguing their op.
pressed sisters from the inverted washing-tub;
if we would not have them come to regard
marriage as a yoke imposed by their tyrants,
and rob even vice itselfof the little grace which
is left to it; if this ugly-looking millennium be
a consummation we care to avert, sure we are
that some serious castigation must at once be
administered to its apostles. They themselves
would doubtless reject with scorn any foolish
indulgence to their sex, but as we are still in
bondage to our old-world notions of decorum
we recommend nothing stronger than the pen
As long as this movement confined itself
within the limits of pink trousers, short skirts,
and large straw hats, to laugh at it was
enough ; but a grave countess and a smirking
barmaid are mighty different things. When the
former gets into her " altitudes " she is a
troublesome customer indeed, and taxes all
our knowledge of the English language to
sustain us in bearing her company. Such
passages, however, are less objectionable than
those iu which she condescends to be intelli-
gible, and to inform us that women must no
longer be given in marriage, hut must give
themselves, and extend, we sups ose, the pri
vilege of leap-year through the entire cycle ;
That they must not shrink from knowing all
that men know, and that if they occasionally
trip in the pursuit of this desirable lore they
are but martyrs in the cause of truth. We
subjoin a few extracts, in order that our
readers may judge for themselves of the style
in which these views are propagated :

Mary Wolstencroft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly
known as George Sand) in our day, waa a woman whose
existence better proved the necessity of some new inter-
pretation of woman's rights than anything she wrote. Such
beings as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies,
capable of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not
to find themselves by birth in a place so narrow that in
breaking bonds they become outlaws.

Again :
But as to the transgressions against custom which have
caused such outcry against those of noble intention, it
may be observed that the resolve of Eloise to be only the
mistress of Abelard was that of one who saw in practice
around her the oontract of marriage made the seal of de-
gradation. Shelley feared not to be fettered, unless so to
be was to be false. Wherever abuses are seen the timid
will suffer, the bold will protest. But society has a right
to outlaw the m till she has revised her law ; and this she
must be tau ght to do by one who speaks with authority,
not in angel • or haste.
As to who this coming woman may be the
Countess gives us no information. We pro-
ceed to our third specimen :
It is the tendency now to endeavour to help the erring
by showim ; them the physical law. This is wise and ex-
cellent ; but forget not the better half. Cold bathing and
exercise w ill not suffice to keep a lite pure without an in-
ward baptism and noble exhilarating employment for
the thout;bte and passions.
We moy cry out against certain newspaper
advertisements, but the innate grossness of
mind tvhich has gone to the composition of
this last passage is such as no pomp of lan-
guage can disguise ; and we appeal to the
English public whether all three do not
hetok en such an utter laxity of principle as
shoul d exclude the volume from every decent
house in the kingdom.
On r authoress's view of woman in the
antis nt world is a very favorable one. Were
she ;lot so very strongminded, we might, per-

haps, on the prhiciple that ignoranie is bliss,
refrain from enlightening her as to the classic
idea of feminity. She speaks with raptures of
Iphigenia and Antigone. Yet both were ac-
tuated by the honest womanly ambition of
marriage and children, and the performance
of household duties for the men of their
choice. The speech of Antigone to Creon is
much more like the simple pleading of
Jeannie Deans than of any such transcen-
dental heroine as Madame ()atoll or her Mend
Miranda would imagine. Iphigenia, again,
of all the characters to be found itt Grecian
literature, one of the most elegant, tender,
and loveable—the light of her father's eyes
as she sung to him at the banquet, the gloty
of her mother as she led the dance and looked
more than worthy of her royal lover. That
little touch of nature which /Bodging has in-
troduced is worth a thousand dissertations;
and if the Countess wishes to see a perfect
picture of the character and the sacrifice ,of
Iphigenia we recommend to her perusal the
beautiful Latin ode of Dr. Wordsworth.
An age, indeed, which has produced Mrs.
Chisholm, Miss Nightingale, and Miss Sellon,
need not turn to antiquity for its heroihes,
even did the latter in any way support
Madame Ossoli's theory. But the joyous and
graceful revellers who poured the libation to
Lentrus, or hung garlands on the altars of
Paphos, had little in common with her repul
sive ideals. The judgment of Paris was the
judgment of all Greece ; nor did her poets
attante the woes that followed it nearly so
much to the guilt of Helen as to the invete-
rate wrath of the gods

inclementia Divum
Hos evertit open, eternitque a culmine Trojam.
Horice *rites much to the same purpose, and
whatever is wanting to complete our apprehen-
sion of the classic view is supplied by Hofiifr.
In the " Odyssey" we have Helen restored to
her former position—bright, beautifill, and
queenly—unconscious of the slightest degra-
dation, and receiving the guests of Menelaus
with the dignity of an unblemished matron.
The injured but forgiving husband is per-
fectly satisfied : his wifu, it is true, ran away
for a season; but has she not come back?
There she is—ad mensam et thorum—and what
more can he want? The idea of her spiritual
pollution does not seem to enter his head ; he
has recovered her person, and all is well. Sp
much of Greece with its elevation and purity !
and if Madame Ossoli is not satisfied with
this let her turn to her favorite Euripides,
and read, what, in spite of her schooling we
dare not transcribe, the famous speech of
Jason to Medea.

What is good in the book—and we do not
assert that it is wholly bad or false—is still
tainted by the same coarseness. dish
may not be unwholesome, but the odour is
abominable. This may be the fastidiousness
of weakness; but if we are intellectual invalids
we must not have our calve's-foot jelly
flavoured with a red herring. The advice
given to young ladies strongly reminds us of
this kind of condiment. London ie termed
a sty of sensuality." They are warned
against acquiring a taste for " satyr society,"
like the nymphs and bacchanals, and so
forth. Now, with all possible respect for con-
jugalfidelity and male purity, we take Madame
Ossoli's remedy to be almost worse than
the disease, and we make bold to offer some
remarks of our own to the young ladies of
England as a kind of corrective to the savoury
advice accorded them from pp. 132-40 of this
work. When a gentleman pays yon some
attentions, do not let your first thought be—ls
the man a satyr? When you are married let
your highest claim on your husband's respect
be your innocence, not your cunning. Be
assured that your best safeguard is in that
old European courtesy which the disciples of
the new creed affect to despise. The throne
on which you now sit is one based on Chris-
tianity and defended by chivalry. Fling away
your crowns of flowers, unrobe yourselves of
your graces, disband your soldiers, and retire
to the cold summits of philosophy, if you will,
but cease to expect that man will follow you
the instincts of the heart are sure ; he will
still sing the same song, laid *6O you in the
same words ;