The Press.
London, England, 1855-05-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

From sea and shore there came a sound
Like thunder rolling underground,
'Till light with golden radiance crowned
The Eastern mountains hoary ;
And then was seen the grand array
Of legions, stretching far away,
Whose steel out•flashed the beam of day,
Shedding a dreadful glory.
Wolfe and Campbell tread the mazes of the
verse in shadowy indistinctness ; and it is
clear at a glance that the Alma is not the foun-
tain from whence Mr. Stokes drew his inspira-
tion. The actual meaning of the first stanza
we confess our inability to penetrate, but we
apprehend it might be thus converted into
prose :—No military music was heard, yet, not-
withstanding the general silence, the woods,
which became fresh as morning advanced, gave
them a lively warning ; who they were does
not signify to the reader; it is enough for him
to know that every one of them sprang from
the heather as gaily as a mower springs to his
scythe when the lark is singing in the sky.
There is no harm in all this. The muse, if
she be an unmeaning muse, is very gentle and
low-voiced; and it must be admitted that if
she has nothing to say, she says it in a tone
appropriate to its value.
Mr. Stokes depends so much on the tune,
and so little on the sense, that we should do
him an injustice if we did not make room for
another specimen of his music without ideas.
Here are some snatches of a lyric on the
Nurses

O'er the sea a rumour came
That our men neglected die;
And stern voices murmured—shame
And would know the reason why:
Then a lady of the land
Meekly said, I'll go and see,
I will help with my weak hand,
And a soldier's nurse 111 he."

This is Miss Nightingale. Other maidens
" kindly" join her, and the " lovely tram"
take their departure :

So they went, and with them took
All the blessings of the land,
And each held a little book,
For protection, in her hand :
Robed in stainless innocence
Went that gentle embassy ;
And they met with no offence
Who would soldiers' nurses be.

As on the former occasion Wolfe and Campbell
supplied the key-note, so here it is struck by
Moore. Mr. Stokes, however, appears to be
utterly oblivious of his obligations, and sings
a voluntary upon other composers' melodies
without being apparently conscious of its
origin. This curious psychological hallucina-
tion, under which the mind supposes itself to
be thinking and creating when it is only giving
vent to echoes, bears a close analogy to the
wonderful things that are done in dreams by
people who, in their waking senses, would be
utterly incapable even of conceiving them.

Mr. James Hain Friswell augments the
stream of patriotic verse by a number of little
rills which he has discovered running in the
columns of the newspapers. His collection is
called Songs of the War (5); and he tells us in
his preface that it consists for the better part
of " a rechauffi of those songs which have ap-
" peared in, or have been going the round of
" the press." A. rechauffti is generally under-
stood to be something warmed up to be eaten;
and in offering up his little anthology for that
purpose Mr. Friswell, we presume, is specu-
lating upon a famine. But we are not come
to such a terrible extremity yet as to be com-
pelled to dine upon our books. Should such a
dire necessity arise, it will then be time enough
to enter upon an examination of these songs,
considered as a condiment. In the meanwhile,
regarding them in their less interesting aspect
as food for the mind, we may observe that they
are derived principally from Punch and the
Morning Chronicle, and that the editor has en-
riched the collection by adding, here and there,
short explanatory notes or introductions. As
may be inferred from the specimen we have
given of the preface, the notes form the most
amusing part of the whole. The titlepage assures
us that the songs are written by the " best
" writers ;" but it appears from the editorial
observations that Mr. Friswell is not at all
sure of the authorship. One song we are told
is " most probably from the pen of Tom Tay.

(5) Songs of the War. By the Best Writers. Edited, with
Original Songs, by James Hain Eriewell. London: Ward and
Lock.

SATURDAY,

" lor, Esq.;" of another, says Mr. Friswell, t. we
" know not whether we be light in our conjeo.
" jecture, but we believe that the following
" beautiful verses are from the pen of Thacke-
" ray;" and a third is " probably," as before'
from the pen of Professor Tom Taylor.
Another is said to be from the pen of the Rev.
Chenevix French, a blunder which may be
consigned to the same limbo with the imagi-
nary professorship conferred on Tom Taylor,
who has long ceased to rejoice in academic
titles. The " pen " is a strong point with Mr.
Friswell. " Surely'," he exclaims, " the pre-
" sent is a war of the sword and pen;" and he
claims for the heroes who have rushed into
print " on the occasion" statues and columns
side by side with the heroes of the Crimea.
" Surely," he reiterates, " the literary men of
" this country who have come so nobly for-
" ward in her cause, are worthy of as much
" honour as the soldiers who have fought he-
" roically, belonging to a profession which, if
" it gains not so much of the applause of the
" world, is exposed to so patent and great
" danger, yet to be pursued nobly requires the
" patience of the martyr, and the courage of
" the hero." What the patent dangers may be
to which Mr. Friswell alludes we are entirely
ignorant of, but we apprehend that, in refer-
ence to the grand qualities with which he
winds up the eulogium, he has not kept in
view the • admonition of the proverb, " A
" cheque saint sa chandelle," or, as we should
say in the vernacular, he has not put the
saddle on the right horse. Surely, to adopt
his own form of adjuration, the poets of the
war are not the persons who have exhibited
the " patience of the martyr and the courage
" of the hero ;" these fine elements of en-
durance awl resolution are the rightful pro-
perty of their readers. We cannot better
llustrate and enforce the truth of this position
than by an extract from a song written by Mr.
Friswell himself, entitled " Here and There,"
with the minor title of " England and the
" Crimea ":
Where the stormy Black Sea billows
Forwards, backwards, hoarsely swing;
By the side of Alma's river,
Waiting for the icy spring—
Where the bleak north•east brows, freezing
Limb and body stark and stare,
Perils every day increasing—
England's sons are waiting there.
Here! hurrah, who dares to threaten
Albion's white and sacred shore.
Here, peace reigns all joys begetting]
E'en though winter chill and hoar
Comes, he bringeth Christmas with him,
Gladness, mirth, and jolly cheer.
Roar the fires up the chimnies,—
Oh ! how different here and there.
We need not pursue the parallel between " here'
and " there " carried on thtough half a dozen
stanzas. This sample will be sufficient to
determine whether it is the poet or the reader
who is better entitled to lay claim to the
" patience of the martyr and the courage of
" the hero."

Peace (6), a poem dedicated by permission
to Lord Palmerston, and occupying about
seven pages, printed with great liberality of
space between the lines, implies on the part
of the Minister as indifferent a judgment in
poetry as in statesmanship. The principal
merit of this work is its brevity ; and for that
we are thankful. It is written in Alexandrines
with rhymes, which are cast so far asunder by
the length of the measure that the harmonica)
succession of sounds which Mr. Stirling has
been at much pains to produce is hardly per-
ceptible. The echo of the last line fairly dies
out of the ear before we have arrived at the
end of the next. Former poets who have used
this measure, aware of the difficulty presented
by the long interval between the rhymes, con-
trived to sustain the melody of the verse so as
to keep up the vibration to the close. But
Mr. Stirling does not construct his versifica-
tion on this principle. Having procured the
proper number of syllables, he considers he
has discharged his responsibility. The rhyth-
mical disposition of them never enters into
his calculations. He places his syli►bles in
much the same order as chessmen are placed
on the board, and his rows of words succeed
each other with the same mechanical regu-

(6) Peace. A Poem. Dedicated, by permission, to the Right
Hon. Viscount Palmerston. By Thomas Henry Stirling, Eaci.,
Barrister•at•Law. London : Hall, Virtue, and Co.

MAY 19, 1855.

larity. The poem, therefore, is distinguished
by a flatness and monotony that may be com-
pared to the kind of effect that would be
brought out by a piece of music—if music it
could be called—in which the notation, instead
of being scattered over the staff, should be
oonfined to a single line.

.
Philosophical, religious, and philanthropic,
the composition is intended to celebrate the
blessings of peace. Its moral and metrical
pretensions may be simultaneously exhibited
in the following passages. The opening dis-
courses of the marvels of creation, subjectto eon
tain ellipses in the argument; and it censures
man for misunderstanding what Mr. Stirling
acknowledges to be a " mystery profound" :
To us, 'tie true, the world's a mystery profound,
We see that sun, and moon, and stars, the world surround;
But how the mystic circle formed, the radiant zone,

His ignorance the most enlightened man must own !
The whole world created, " God saw that it was good,"
Is it, ought it, by man to be misunderstood?
And shall a system, perfect thus in every part,
Be subjected to man's frail reason, pride of heart ?

Wars came into the world at the Fall, and we
learn that wars will continue till we shall suc-
ceed in establishing peace :
War—yes, 'twas war, that fell enemy, first began,
When from his high estate fell disobedient man :
And wars the heart within itself, and ever will,
Unless we seek with peace the vacancy to fill.
The general statement is undeniable ; but the
particular application is obscure. If we are to
fill a vacancy with peace, we should have some
clue by which we are to find out the vacancy.
The present war Mr. Stirling seems to con-
sider a war of mere pride and vainglory, an
odd opinion to dedicate to the Prime
Minister:—
And war, dire war, now rages o'er the prostrate world ;
And sudden, friends or foeruen, to destruction hurled;

And but for pride, vain of glory, or that want of case
Only that healthful peace can give, would all this please?
If Lord Palmerston approves of this kind of
verse, as we must assume he does, he is
amenable to the charge of carrying into
literature the error by which his departmental
arrangements are disfigured. In this instance
he certainly has not put the right man in the
right place, and his poet is as unfortunate an
appointment as his First Lord of the Admiralty,
or his last Under• Secretaryship.

On the other side of the question comes
Nemo, who attacks the late Administration
under the title of The Seven-Mile Cabinet (7),
in a satirical poem, heavily laden with copious
notes. Whatever we may think of the justice
of Nemo's accusations against the Govern-
ment by whose culpable neglect and incapacity
so much blood and treasure has been profli-
gately sacrificed, we cannot extend to his
Irregular cantos the same measure of approba
tion. His theme demanded more powerful
treatment, and a subtler wit. He writes like a
man in a passion, which is not the true temper
of satire ; and in his eagerness to expose the
weak points on the other side, he betrays his
own. The edge of his sarcasm is too coarse
to cut deeply; and, like voluble people who
think that success in scolding consists in the
quantity of words, rather than their force and
fitness, he overwhelms his opponents with
rant instead of argument. Nor is he in other
respects a master of his weapons. His style
is totally unformed, and whatever telling
effects he occasionally produces may be
reckoned amongst the happy accidents that
wait upon earnestness. He has poured into
the notes a multitude of matters that might
have been advantageously spared—extracts
from letters and speeches, which weary and
distract the attention. The disproportion
between the poem and the annotations is in-
jurious to both. The text is buried under the
commentary. You cannot see the tree for the
leaves.
A part of his sketch of the Aberdeen Cabinet
may be selected as a favorable specimen of
his general manner :

Old A—bd--n is wearing very fast;
We do not think he could much longer last,
And he has got so terrible a cough,
The judge believes he soon must let him off.
He keeps three doctors, who must all declare
How much they think that every man can bear.
He don't intend to kill them—but to make
ksamples of them for the nation's sake.
This anile sinner, when his cough will cease,
Keeps growling out—" tak' the wan ! "

(7) The Seven.' I ile cabinet; or, the Doleful Story
War. By Nemo. London; Slum.

THE PRESS.

A wag remarked in fun "he'd look much smarter,
If decorated with the vacant Garter."
The judge replied, he thought that " it would be
Much fitter for his neck than for his knee."
But of Church patronage, for upright care
The judge says he may claim indulgence fair,
And he will let him, ere he is released—
Send to St. Olave's—for the parish priest.
The Ch—no—1—r, compelled to wear his wig,
Looks in his bright costume a wondrous prig;
The flowing wig, sans w—ls—k, ro—b—s, or s—L,
A curious contrast with the duck reveals;
lie swears " It is not equity that he
For N—we—le's neglects should punished be,"
Forgetting the whole Cabinet should share
The wisdom of each councillor that's there,
And that the nation thus should reap the gains
(What harvest !) of their whole collective brains ;
And thus to each department there should fat
Suggestions gathered from the minds of all.
The substitution of blanks for names which
the reader cannot fail to detect, unnecessarily
deforms the verse. The age of that kind of
open inuendo is gone by.
Last in our catalogue of war poets, we find
Mr. Westland Marston, who, leaving for awidle
the stage of mimic oe, comes out with the
Death-Ride (8) into the field of real tragedy.
The subject of his short poem is the fatal
charge at Balaklava, which he describes in a
few striking and picturesque verses, not always
very clear in their purport, and somewhat
affected in their phraseology, but spirited and
energetic. The scene is supposed to be de-
scribed by one of the cavalry engaged in it, who,
first briefly noting the preliminary situation,
thus proceeds after the order to advance has
been received .
We ride our last march—let each crest be borne high !
We raise our last cheer—let it startle the sky
And the land with our brave farewell ;
For soon never more to our voice shall reply
Rock, hollow, fringed river, or dell.•

Let our trump ring the loudest ; in closest array,
Hoof for hoof, let us ride ; for the chief who today
Reviews us—is Death the Victorious;
Let him look up to Fame, as we perish, and say,
" Enrol them, the fallen are the glorious !"
We spur to the gorge; from the channel of ire
Livid light bursts like surf, its spray leaps iu fire;
As the spars of some vessel staunch,
Bold hearts crack and fall ; we nor swerve nor retire,
Bat in the wind•tempest we launch.
We clear the smoke•billows, as wild waves the prow ;
The flash of our sabres gleams straight like the glow
Which a ploughing keel will break
From the grim seas around, with light on her bow,
And light in her surging wake.
One of the first conditions in a piece of this
nature is that it shall tell its story clearly ; but
it would be difficult to extricate an intelligible
incident from these verses. They might apply
to any wild nr€l6e in which a troop of horse be-
came involved in a sanguinary conflict. This
defect seems to arise from the peculiar quality
of Mr. Marston's mind, which leads him
rather to " darken council " than to simplify
details. The versification is indifferent, and
has something in it of the broken utterance of
the drama—which may be referred also, pro-
bably, to the poetical habits of the writer.

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.

Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe.
Edited by John William Kaye. London :
Smith, Elder, and Co.

THE appearance of this volume, containing
select extracts from the official papers of the
late Lord Metcalfe, is a seasonable publication.
For some time to come " Administrative
Reform " (the term belongs to Mr. Disraeli)
must continue to occupy public attention.
Under our system of government there may
be observed two distinct classes of public
administrators, viz., the purely political and
the official. Leaders of parties, in or out, of
office, are administrators of a particular kind.
They are compelled to watch opportunities,
study circumspectly the public interests, and
to organise their followers. In that class
of '•' administrators " our Government since
the Revolution has been peculiarly opulent.
If the social interests of the whole community
had been as carefully provided for as the in-
terests of great party connections, there would
not be that aching sense of deficiency in
official aptitude which now prevails in the pub-
lie mind. Parliamentary abilities have been
developed in England to an extraordinary
degree ; but when people talk of "Adanaistra-

(8) The Death-Ride. A Tale of the Light
Westland Marston. London: Mitchell.

477

tire Reform" it is clear that they do not refer
to the leaders of senates, but to the men who
can deal with solid realities and establish
true routine devised with skill and based upon
science. The consideration, then, arises how
are such minds to be developed, and where
shall we seek for them ?
Profound knowledge and untiring energy
aro the indispensable marks of first-class ad-
ministrative abilities. Unless the head of a
department thoroughly understands the habi-
tual working of' all the functionaries employed
under him, the command over the subordi-
nates will be lost, and the chiefship of the
office become only titular. Thus in commer-
cial enterprises nothing requires more tho-
rough knowledge of subordinate parts than to
manage satisfactorily the complicated affairs
of a great factory. Ist, the things made;
2nd, the raw material from which they are
produced, and the mode of procuring them;
3rd, the various methods of manufacturing
them; 4th, the training of the artisans,
engineers, &c., employed; sth, the work-
shop department, in which the tools and
engines are sometimes made, and generally
repaired ; Bth, the counting-house, with its
cofinplicated " debits " and " credits "—all
these departments must be quite familiar to
the mind's eye of the master of the concern.
There are instances in which gifted indivi-
duals, with extraordinary powers of calcula-
tion, are enabled in a brief time to direct such
complicated affairs. But in general nothing
but training of a systematic kind, and long
continued, can enable men to manage a vast
manufactory. "He was a bad man of busi-
ness," is often alleged as the reason why, in
a few years, a capitalist, expecting a flourishing
concern, has finished in the Gazette. Igno-
rance of his affairs, or want of energy in
applying his knowledge, has destroyed many
a millionaire.

If such be the case in private speculations,
the rule requiring knowledge and energy is,
a fortiori, more imperative in the chiefship of
a public department. The lachee of subordi-
nates in the public service do not become ad
visible to the heads of a political office as the
faults of the analogous class in private under-
takings. The extent of view, also, over which
a public chief must range will often prevent
him from noticing the serious errors of petty
officials ; and a knowledge not only of what
should be done, but of how it should be ac-
complished, is therefore of the last importance
in our leading functionaries. It is in this
respect that grievous mistakes have been
often made by many of our British adminis-
trators. In several instances they have had
great energy and the power of acquiring know-
ledge, but they have allowed themselves to he
put into the wrong offices. They have been
placed in authority when they did not under-
stand the every-day working of the various
functionaries under them. The principles on
which any department is worked, and the
details incident to its action, should be as
familiar to a chief of a department as medical
details to a physician, or legal forms to a bar-
rister. Nor is it asking too much to expect
this exactness of knowledge from administra-
tors. In the daily life of members of Parlia-
ment we see numerous examples of gentlemen
who, after ten years' experience, really be-
come " administrators " of no ordinary energy
and ability. To represent with practical
effect an important shire, or a populous city,
really requires no common degree of energy
and knowledge. Few men go through more
multifarious toil than a hardworking M.P.;
and in one sense the lower branch of the
Legislature is a House of Administrators. In
a hundred different ways a leading member of
Parliament has to encounter " men and mea-
sures." He has to sit on committees, take the
charge of public or private bills, attend to the
affairs of his constituents, and keep his own
personal followers together. In doing all that
there is much more labour and discretion
required than are commonly•supposed.
Thus of the raw material out of which ad-
ministrative talent is extracted there is a large
supply in Parliament. But from certain
reasons its aptitude is not specialised. In ob-
taining the maximum of efficiency for any
department it is necessary to regard " appro-
priate aptitude," and on this point the remarks