The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

Obituarg.

LORD DE FREYNE, better known in the House of
Commons as Mr. Arthur French, of French-park,
county Roscommon, died last week. His lordship re•
presented his native county in Parliament for many
years, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Mr.
Fitzstephen French. The Rev. John French, it is
understood, inherits the family honours. The late
peer's father and grandfather both declined to accept
peerages which were proffered to them.
COLONEL SHEWELL, C. 8., of the Bth Hussars, died
on Wednesday, the Ist instant, near Guildford.
Colonel Showell bad been thirty years in the service,
commanded the Bth Hussars at the famous Balaklava
charge, where he brought a portion of the brigade
out of action, and subsequently held the rank of
brigadier general in the Crimea, was made a C. 8.,
and awarded a pension for distinguished services.
Colonel Shewell was in every sense of the word a
good officer, and was high in the esteem of all who
knew him. He was forty-seven years of age.
M. FARTSCH, the eminent German geologist, and
member of the Academy of Sciences, and inspector
of the Mineralogical Museum at Vienna, died last
week.

The Brompton Hospital for Consumption is at
length fully completed. The whole of the wards are
now thrown open, and patients can be admitted in a
few days. To sustain this magnificent institution,
one of the noblest charitable institutions in the
country, the most careful economy cannot contract
the expenditure within 8,0001. a year. This is a heavy
responsibility, but the charity of Englishmen and
Englishwomen never refuses an appeal in favour of
such an object. The committee are making an ap-
peal for support at present : we feel confident that
when known it will not be made in vain.

A new candidate to the Shrewsbury propel ty it is
anticipated will shortly appear in the person of Prince
Borghese, who is inclined to advance claims in favour
of his daughter by his first wife, the Lady Geraldine
Talbot.

OCTOBER 11, 1856.

Nitcratur.

The War. From the Death of Lord Raglan to
the Evacuation of the Crimea. By W. H.
Russell (the Times Correspondent). With
Additions and Corrections. London: Rout-
ledge.

THE examination of this second portion of
Mr. W. H Russell's correspondence confirms
us in the estimate which we formed when
reviewing his previous volume. He is, un-
doubtedly, a gentleman with many personal
resources for active literary life. He has
great bodily and constitutional strength. He
is a practised reporter, trained in the rough
school of " the gallery " to hard work and late
hours. He writes with ease, and is a profi-
cient in the art of panoramic description.
Whatever is external, vivid, or salient can be
apprehended by him with intuitive ease, and
described with graphic force. But along with
these merits there are serious drawbacks,
which make one often wish that the Times had
a more solid, though less sparkling, corre-
spondent at the seat of war. We shall par
ticularise some of these defects, and in doing
so we shall not lend ourselves to the sorry
work of invidious detraction.

For we must frankly say that we cannot
concur with the extreme views advanced from
opposite sides on the merits or demerits of
Mr. Russell. One class of persons affect to
deride him, saying in substance, "He is a
" clever man, undoubtedly, but, after all, he
" is nothing better than a reporter on stilts.
4. He records only what seems to have been the
" case, and, in short, he is not a good man on
" facts." The other, and vastly more nume-
rous, class talk in ruptures about his talents.
They say " That man, sir, if he had only leisure
" enough, would be one of the grandest his-
" torians that ever wrote." And thus they go
into frantic panegyrics on the great news-
paper Thucydides of the Times. We hold the
first class are unjust, and that the second are
ridiculous. We shall, with the help of this
volume, endeavour to strike a balance of Mr.
Russell's shortcomings and successes.
In the first place, we must say that Mr.
Russell may feel satisfaction that his writings
have been so effective as to challenge literary
criticism at all : it is something novel that
" the style " of a newspaper correspondent
should be a subject for discussion. And,
secondly, he may plume himself on the fact
that he went through his work without break-
ing down, when it is notorious that several
other newspaper correspondents had to retire
from the Crimea. He certainly showed much
personal vigour and sustained ability from
first to last. But, on the other hand, we must
recollect that never before had a newspaper
correspondent such an opportunity, and we
cannot forget (without disrespect to any of our
daily contemporaries, or the many clever
officials connected with them) that the posi-
tion of the Times correspondent had superior
advantages, that it was stimulating from the
myriads of its readers (independently of the
special merits of the correspondent himself),
and that the rewards of every kind were mare
copious than those assigned to other repre-
sentatives of the public press.
It is, we affirm, as an external describer that
Mr. Russell is to be praised, and even ad
mired. " Mr. Boz " has found himself over-
matched iu a walk which he supposed was
his own. We are sure that " Pictures from
Italy," or " Notes from America," by Mr.
Russell would be far more brilliant and va-
luable than the flimsy and grotesque books of
that kind which proceeded from Mr. Dickens.
But a scene-painter cannot be accepted as
an historical painter, nor a playwright as a
dramatist; nor can an eloquent reporter,
though as positive as Dr. Johnson, and as
vaggering as Mr. Macaulay, be confounded
with a historian. Indeed, it would be pre-
posterous to suppose that the most gifted
author that can put pen to paper could become
an extempore historian. Mr. Russell wrote
for effect, though we are sure that he wished
to be as accurate as time would allow. To
write for effect with full leisure is productive