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

THE PRESS.

Christie daily at Balaklava, and from his observations,
and what he heard from others, concluded him to be
an old man, and unfit for his duties. He had not
felt called upon to reply to contradictions couched
in unseemly language, and besides published in the
newspapers. [lle asserted that he had said nothing
which could not morally be justified.]
Sir J. PALLNOTON complained of this loose mode of
making attacks upon public servants.
Mr. BRIGHT defended Mr. Layard, who was justi-
fied in saying that Captain Christie was unfit for
his duties, and might easily have been mistaken as
to his age.
Sir J. GRAHAM feared that he had himself yielded
too much to clamour on this occasion. In appoint-
ing a court-martial his object was to remove Captain
Christie from the judgment of the Sebastopol com-
mittee to that of his brother officers.

Mr. ROEBUCK could not call Mr. Layard's state-
ments charges. The dealt' of Captain Christie bad
been caused b) his being superseded, and sttbjected
to a court-martial, which was done on grounds not
mentioned by Mr. Layard, and wag the work of Sir
J. Graham. He defended Mr. Layard's conduct
throughout.
Admiral BERKELEY said that the court-martial was
demanded by Captain Christie himself.
Mr. OTwAY asked why Sir J. Graham had shrunk
from defending Captain Christie when he was first
attacked. He had, on the contrary, taken credit to
himself for the appointment of the court-martial.
The adjourned debate on the Scotch Education
Bill was resumed by the Earl of Dalkeith, who
opposed it, as interfering with a system which had
worked so well.

Mr. COWAN urged the introduction of some test of
the moral and religious character of the teachers in
the place of the present sectkrian testa. The pro-
posed plan had worked well in Canada.
Sir GRAHAM MONTGOMERY and Mr. MACKIE op-
posed the details of the bill as applied to the rural
districts.

Lord DUNCAN protested against adopting a different
system for town and country.
Sir ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL would maintain the
parochial schools in their present hands.
Mr. POLLARD URQUHART supported the

Mr. SMOLLETT opposed it, on the ground that no
provision was made to secure the religious opinions
of the schoolmasters.
Mr. BowyEa apprehended that the measure would
operate injuriously to the interests of the Roman
Catholic inhabitants of Scotland. In other respects
he considered the bill highly satisfactory.
Mr. SCOTT advocated the maintenance of the pre-
sent parochial system.
Lord Ems° advocated the bill, as a system of
united rather than denominational education, which
would, he believed, lead to a better religious union in
the nation at large.
Mr. BLACKBURN having spoken in support of the
amendment, and Mr. LAISG in support of the bill,
The LORD ADVOCATE replied, vindicating his mea-
sure from the censures that had been pronounced
on different sides.

Mr. H.U)FIELD tried to speak against the measure,
but failing to obtain a hearing moved the adjourn-
ment of the house.

Mr. SERGEANT Slat, as a Roman Catholic mem-
ber, declared that he could not vote for the bill
unless he received a distinct answer from the Go-
vernment that the interests of his coreligionists
would not be prejudiced by its operation.
Lord JOHN MANNERS having spoken,
Lord PALmEits-roN stated that the bill would in no
way change the position of the Roman Catholic
population.
On a division, the motion for going into committee
on the bill was carried by a majority of 149 to
142-7.

The Speaker left the chair, but progress was vs-
ported immediately, the further consideration of the
measure being postponed until after the Whitsun
holidays.
The Militia (No. 2) Bill went through committee.
Some other bills were advanced a stage, and the
house adjourned at one o'clock.

THE ANNUAL BALL in aid of the British Charitable
Fund took place on Tuesday night at the Jardin
&Myer, and was of a most brilliant description,
nearly all the English rank and fashion now in Paris
being present.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS have voted
to Captain M'Clure, R.N., the gold medal, for his
discovery of the North-West Passage; to Captain
Inglefield, R.N., a silver medal, for his discoveries in
the Arctic regions ; and to Mr. Francis Galton, a
silver medal, for his explorations in the Namaqua,
Damara, and Orampo countries, northward of the
Orange River, in South Western Africa.
THE screw transport Simla, Captain Brooks, arrived
at Spithead on Sunday from the Crimea with 250
Russian prisoners on board. She left Constantinople
on the 27th of April, and Malta on the 2nd of May.

SATUAbAY

RESIGNATION OF GENERAL CANROBERT.
Yesterday's Moniteur announces that his Majesty
the Emperor has received the following despatch
from General Canrobert
Caiwxi, May 16, H
My shattered health no longer allowing me to continue
in the chief command, my duty towards my Sovereign and
my country compels me to ask you to transfer the com-
mand to General Pelissier, a skilful and experienced
leader.
The army which I leave him is intact, hardened to war,
full of ardOur and confidence. I beseech the Emperor to
leave me a soldier's place (place de combatant) as coin.
mender of a simple division.
The Minister of War has addressed the following
reply to General Ctunobert:—
PARIS, May 16, 11 1.111.
The Emperor accepts your resignation. He regrets
that your health has suffered; he congratulates you upon
the sentiment which makes you ask to remain with the
army, where you shall have the command, not of a divi-
sion, but of the corps of General Pelissier.
Hand over the chief command to that general.

The positive announcement that Count Nesselrode
had resigned has been published by the Morning
Herald, on the authority of a despatch from Vienna,
but the intelligence requires confirmation.
Other despatches from Vienna state that "Austria
has agreed with the Western Powers on an ultima.
tissimum to be presented to Russia. If this decidedly
final attempt for peace should fail, Austria promises
that she really will assume a decided attitude."

Count de Buol, Baron de Bourqueney, and Lord
Westmorland have met several times to hold final
conferences upon the answers received from Paris
and London.

Letters from Berlin state that, although the Bing
is free from fever, he has not regained his former
health, and has been counselled by his physicians to
repair to Ermannsdorff for the benefit of the moun-
tain air.

A letter in the Frankfort Journal estimates the
allied forces in the Crimea at 150,000 efficient men.
The writer allots 20,000 to defend the works before
Sebastopol and the positions at nalaklava and
the Kamiesh, 20,000 at Eupatoria, and 15,000 sent
on an expedition to Kertch. This would leave
nearly 100,000 men to carry on a campaign in the
field.

A private letter from St. Petersburg, dated the
10th, received from a high mercantile house, gives a
deplorable Recount of the pressure on all classes in
that capital, business being comparatively at an
end, and the continuance of the present state of
things regarded with the greatest dread in all
qtiarters.

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE.
Tuesday, May 15.

BANKRUPTS.—PATRICX FENN, Brecknock-plaee, Camden.
town, linendraper—WAL SHELDRAKE FRANCIS SPARKS, New
Bond-street, waterproofer—HENßY ADAMS, Uxbridge, mealman
—WM. JARMAN, Gloucester-terrace, Hyde-park, boarding house-
keeper—Rosser Ns.u., Wandsworth-common, carman—WM.
HARRIS PAUL, late of Laurence-lane, Clieapeide, sack and
clothing manufacturer, now of Cornhill, share dealer—THomAs
JOHN LATIMER., Brighton, clothier—GLOßOE ANDERSON, Upper-
street, Islington, stationer—Thomas BOOKER, Reading, tailor
and outfitter—JOHN VATAS SIMPSON, St. Swithill'a-lane, City,
bill broker—Entvaan ParrEasom, Birmingham, draper—JAMES
Sims, Blakeney, Gloucestershire, taiIor—SAMUEL MAYER, and
ELIJAH and SPENCER BOULTON, Bristol, Nailsea, and City
Basin. potters—JoHN Krremiso (and not Bitching, as in last
Friday's Gazette), Clayton, Yorkshire, manufacturer end grocer
—.loam and Wm. CARVER, Halifax, machine makers—HENßY
WATSON, Sheffield, brewer and victualler—JoHN GEORGE CLAUS
(and not Clans, as in former Gazette), Liverpool, merchant mid
shipowner—Jumus WEICHBRODT, Liverpool, merchant—Fmta•
cis NORBURY, Ardwick, Manchester, builder.
SCOTCH SEQUESTRATIONS.—HENRT MOONEY, Glasgow,
apirit dealer—JAmss WALTER LYON, Edinburgh, stockbroker—,
WM. ROBERT, and JAMES M'INTYRE,JOHN and ROBERT HARROW,
and Wm. BACHOP, Paisley, calico printers—CHAßLES STEWART,
Dundee, boot and shoe merchant—AL-Ex. Law, Govan, near
Glasgow, grocer.
Friday, May Is.
BANKRUPTCY ANNULLE D.—SPENCER PERCEVAL PLUMER
New City Chambers, City, merchant.
BANKRUPTS.— ELIZABETH WarrAsEa, Romford, Essex,
plumber—JsmEs TOMLINSON, Nottingham, timber merchant—
HARRIET TOWNSEND, Chandos-street, St. James's, poulterer—
WILLIAM TOSIKVS, Wolverhampton, plumber—WlLLlAM PETER
GRANT, Cambridge, bookseller—JOHN WALKER CASH, Man-
chester, fancy stationer—Jomm BIDDLE, Leicester, glove menu-
facturer—JoHN Lows, Northampton-place, Holloway-road,
fishmonger—TiromAs Firm Exeter, currier and leather cutter
—THOMAS JOHN, Aberdare, Glamorgan, butcher, grocer, and
draper—GEOßGE CAMPION POSTANS, Newmarket, grocer--
SARAH FRAMPTON, Wimborne Minster, Dorsetshire, butcher--
THOMAS EVANS PARTRIDGE and SAMUEL PARTRIDGE, Darlaston,
Stafford, screw bolt manufacturers—JOHN ETHERIDGE and
GEORGE MONCK BERKLEY MicitieLL, Liverpool, insurance
brokers Joint NOBLE, Liverpool, shipwright GEORGE
HEALEY, Preston, timber merchant.
SCOTCH SEQUESTRATIONS.—JAMES H. JOHNSON, Ler-
wick, merchant—Davin MACDONALD, lAssintulloch, Rannoch,
Perthshire, farmer, cattle dealer, and grazier—ANDßEW
GALLOWAY, Glasgow, cabinetmaker and upholsterer.

A SERIES OF ITALIAN OPERAS, with Madame
Alboni, Signor Lorenzo, and Herr Reichert, the
principal performers, commenced on Monday night
at the Dublin theatre. The Lord Lieutenant occn•
pied his private box, and the audience was crowded
and brilliant.

MAY 19, 1855.

Sittraturt.

CONTEMPORARY POETRY.

Wz are not out of the War Department yet.
The military poets bear a striking resemblance
to the military executive in one particular—
the genius they exhibit for spilling a great
deal of ink, just as the others have spilled a
great deal of blood, to no purpose. The
bards are well suited by the fortunate acci-
dents of nature to the epoch and the
authorities they celebrate; and show as con-
spicuous a faculty for prolonging the campaign
in verse, as Ministers have developed for pro-
longing it in the field. While sitting in judg-
ment upon their productions, however, we
must not emulate the example of Mr. Roe-
buck's committee, but hasten at once to lay
our report before the reader.
The first witness we shall call to testify to
the present condition of the poetical mind on
the subject of the war is a gentleman who
signs himself Melanter. The title of his
volume is The Bugle of the Black Sea ; or, the
British in the East (1). We know there are
British in the East; but we are not so sure
about the bugles in the Black Sea. If there
be any bugles to spare they ought to be at
Sebastopol. The bugle is generally under-
stood to be one of the musical accompani-
ments of the land service ; and it looks like a
diversion of its legitimate functions to send it
amongst the sailors. But stranger incon-
gruities have happened of late in those waters,
and Melanter may fairly plead a hundred
illustrious precedents. There are many blasts
on his bugle, each of which carries its own
special theme—such as " The Battle of the
Alma," " The Trenches," " The Sea Attack,"
&c., and few bugles have displayed such a
variety of style as that of Melanter. Some-
times the verse is as dreary as a requiem;
sometimes as uproarious and perplexing as
one of those stunning variations on a familiar
air, in the thunder of which you cannot
connect two successive notes ; and sometimes
as quaint and merry under circumstances of
peculiar horror as Mephistophiles would
probably be if he undertook to play the
character of Puck. We cannot exemplify all
the varieties by specimens; but we may in-
dicate generally that singular mixture of the
lurid and the humorous which specially
distinguish these fantasias. The following
is the opening of a descriptive piece called
" The Fleet in the Black Sea "

We lay upon a torpid sea,
Was like a deadened foil,
A water-Quaker, or, may be,
A cup of castor-oil.
It had a bleary undercast,
A sort of slimy blue ;
I have seen the same in old mens' eyes,
When light cannot get through.
No smile was on the ocean face,
No more than on a corpse ;
But something like the spasm grimace
Whereto a ranter warps
His face as slimy and as flat as where the slow-
worms race.
This disguised leaf out of the " Ancient
Mariner" is preparatory to the approach of
scurvy, and a certain state of the atmosphere
in which the sky is " neither blue nor grey,
" nor yet a mix between." The captain of the
vessel is indignant at being kept idly out at
sea under such pestilential influences, and he
spins a " bitter yarn" on the subject to the
sailors, who look at him

as there he stood,
So straight, and lithe, and manly,
Six feet without his stockings, and
His swelling breast so swanly.
Presently a " stagnant cloud, with spongy
" brink, " leaps on board," and the three-
decker is " wrapped ere she can reel"; a
nautical catastrophe which appears to have
been attended by some remarkable pheno-
mena. From that moment the sailors saw
the moon and stars no more, nor even the
sea, while the light in the binnacle turned the
colour of sulphur, the pipe of the narrator
burned blue, the shrouds took a ghostly ap-
pearance, the union-jack ran down, the deck

(1) The Bugk of the Black Sea; or, the British in the Last.
By blots:nor. London: liardwicke.

THE PRESS.

" grouted," and the eyes of the seamen began
to leer The upshot was that six of the men
became " soil," and the mizentopman dropped
into a "writhing coil"; after which the
narrator fell into a swoon, and when he awoke
he found the ship close to a bright shore very
much resembling the Undercliff of the Isle of
Wight. 4
Having shown the quality of the marine
music, we will now follow the summons of the
bugle on land ; for the discursive instrument
carries us over the sea into the battles of the
Alma and Inkermann, the charge at Balaklava,
and the trenches at Sebastopol. Here is
part of a description, given by a wounded
English soldier, of the scenes in the
trenches :

We have tried all we could do,
We have met the Russian tricks
With solid English thew ;
Each man would fain be six,
But was only cut in two.
This playful observation, in the manner of the
pleasant humour interspersed through the
grand military spectacles at the amphitheatre,
is intended to show how lively an English
soldier can be under the worst circumstances.
We venture to submit, however, that the point
would have told more effectively if the joke
had been directed against the enemy :

We have set us back to back,
Like props that hold a mark ;
We have met the fierce attack,
Through daylight and through dark,
'Till the ground itself was stark.
How the ground became " stark"—that is,
stiff—does not appear. A man is said to be
stark when he is dead. Thus Shakspeare,
piling up the idea, says " Many a nobleman
" lies stark and stiff."
We have stood so long to arms,
Through true and false alarms,
Or squatted in the trench,
With heavy rain to quench
The fire of Glory's charms ;
We have had such eyelid•ache,
In the weary, weary keep,
That drowsiness so deep
Forgot the way to sleep,
And yawned itself awake.
As this is a function—yawning itself awake—
which drowsiness seldom performs, it is
properly reserved for the uncommon situation
described in the stanzas.

One specimen more—a picture of the on-
slaught at Inkermann—the Russians coming
up in such multitudes as, apparently, to render
all resistance useless. The reader is requested
to pay attention to the images :

They come, they throng with numbers packed
As close as figs in a grocer's drum ;
They reel, they fall, thrust through and hacked,
They yell, they die, but still they come,
Thousands by thousands backed ;
The dead weight bends our bayonet points,
The onslaught strains our agued joints,
'Tis harder work to stand than kill—

But more sacks still upon the mill!
The images come crushing upon us almost as
overwhelmingly as the Russians. It is a canon
of high poetical art that when a writer desires
to degrade the subject of a description he
compares it to mean and trivial objects ; as,
on the other hand, when he intends to exalt
it, he institutes a comparison with objects
more elevated than itself. Melanter is master
of his craft; and nothing can be more in
accordance with the demands of English
patriotic poetry than to represent the hosts of
Russians at Inkermann as resembling figs
packed in a grocer's drum, and coming to be
thrust through and hacked like more sacks
upon a mill
By this time, the peculiar merits of Me-
lanter's verse must be tolerably obvious. Its
predominant characteristic is bold and original
fancy pervading the diction and the images,
and bringing home the calamities of war to
men's business and bosoms by the use of
surprising forms of expression. There is a
stock of astonishing metaphors and words
presented under new aspects in this little
book that would set up half a dozen ordinary
poets. The wealth of Melanter's fancy may
be in some degree estimated from a few isolated
specimens. Thus, we have daisies on the lip
of a river represented telling their beads ; the
moon is said to come lolling, like a man's
tongue white and bitten through, and a pair
of planets are compared to " two dead eyes
" gone askew " ; the English at Eupatoria are

475

like stranded fish, in pursuance of which
metaphor they appropriately " shake their fins
" and rise " ; when a prize is made of Russian
stores, it is compared to the Lowther or Bur-
lington arcades poured into the streets, for
everybody to take what they please, and
" nothing to pay " ; then we have " crenelled
edges" and " hurtled Alps," the " swirl of
boiling lava " and " spouts from thunder's
sluice," the " enchancelled sky," the " gar-
dened moon." " fillip'd flies," and " flaky
faces." If this be not a " well of English un-
" defiled," it is, at least, a well of very pecu-
liar English.
Next appears Mr. George Small, a gunner
in the Royal Artillery, who publishes a poem
on Inkermann (2). This pieco is in blank
verse, very regular in its ebb and flow, and
not only free from meretricious conceits in the
treatment, but marked by good sense and
sobriety of taste. There are passages in this
poem that rise superior to the highest flights
of Mr. Small's brother minstrels. Passing
over the preliminary matter, we come to the
following picture of the allies on the heights
on that dismal Sabbath morning appointed by
the Russians for the surprise at Inkermann :
Now look we on the face of bloody war.
Deep down the vale they watch the wary foe,
Lest negligence should bring the peril nigh.
The morning opens like a sullen grave,
And seems almost as gloomy as the night.
But hark ! some rushing murmur rings below.
They listen ; all is still again ; 'twas but
The sentries' challenge, as they pus their rounds,
That woke an echo from those rocks beneath.
The incidents of the description are judi-
ciously selected, and clearly stated. In the
next extract Mr. Small's power is shown in a
graver point of view :

The ship may founder, but its name is known
E'en by the wreck that's scattered on the shore :
The pieces of our fame way float above
When life hath sunk below the sea of death !
Wars make the soldier brace; struggles, the man.
A checquered fate has yielded more renown
Than the fixed fortunes of nobility.
Greatness comes not by mere inheritance,
But builds itself. True heroes are like statues
Of the antique world—eternal mysteries
Of Genius, and of high, creative Art.
There is evidence of reflection and earnest-
ness in this passage, and the lines we have
marked in italics have pith and purpose in
them ; but the poem is not sustained through•
out at an equal elevation. The measure is not
always filled out with sufficient force, and
sometimes drops into feebleness, and falls in
flat prose on the ear. Here is an example .
They hear the sharp salute of angry foes,
And grow alarmed at its continuance.
This is mere drivel. Mr. Small errs in the op-
posit° extreme to Melanter. Preferring, with
excellent judgment, his own natural strength
to that false spasmodic energy which may he
described as " great cry and little wool," he is
not energetic enough in the employment of
such power as he possesses. He does not care
to overtax his capacity, and sets about his
work with a certain air of indulgent languor,
out of which, we know, great verse never was,
and never can be, built up. Blank verse de-
mands a picturesque and vigorous diction ; it
should not sink into commonplace, nor be
frittered away by prettiness; and the materials
of which it is composed should be as solid as
the structure itself is lofty and imposing.
Under the title of War Waits (3), Gerald
Massey contributes a sheaf of lyrics to the li-
terature of battle. Their• character is cor-
rectly described in an introductory note.
" These rough-and-ready war rhymes," says
the writer, " cau scarcely be looked upon as
" poetic fruit maturely ripened, but rather as
" windfalls, shook down in this wild blast of
" war." As it happens amongst windfalls that
you find one here and there nearly ripe, and
others that had come out of the bud in a con-
dition to defy the ripening process, so it is
with these rhymes. You could hardly suppose,
so striking ar•e the difl'er•ent degrees of maturity
amongst them, and so unlike each other are
they in complexion, that they were shaken
down at the same time, or from the same tree.
They were all apparently written in a hurry,
and the best of them are slurred with traces of
haste and negligence. We take a couple of

(V) Inkermann. A Poem. Py George Pins)), Gunner, }loyal
Artillery. London: Hope and Co.
(3) War Watt.. Tly Gerald If assay. London i Bops.