The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

a liberal hand. The streets had been fresh painted, and
those of the merchants were lined with the most beautiful
silks of various patterns. The tops of the houses (with
which we were brought to a level by our elephants) were
covered with musicians and dancing-girls ; the streets
under our feet crowded with millions anxious to see so
grand a procession. Everything recalled to my memory
the Arabian Nights," for every description of any such
procession which I ever met with in history, even the
celebrated Triumph of Aurelian (I think it was the
Emperor), when he led Zenobia and Tiridates captives, of
which Gibbon gives an account, was completely beggared
by it. I am aware that any attempt of mine to give an
idea of what I saw will be very vain. We were received at
the Nabob's at breakfast under a salute. There were some
inconveniences, as there always will be in a thing of this
kind,—such as the noise of the music, the cries of the
scramblers, the crush of elephants, which was sometimes

truly alarming.
But Wellesley could rise with the exigency
of great occasions, and amongst his greatest
gifts was his power of animating other men to
the exertion of their abilities. Rapid in the
perception of talent, he was always generous
in rewarding it, and opening up a career for
men marked by ability. Mr. Kaye thus
sketches a night in Government-house during
the Mahratta war:—
-

So it happened that when intelligence reached Calcutta
that the anticipated rupture had actually taken place, and
that Colonel Collins had quitted Scindiah's Court, Met-
calfe and his associates were thrown into a state of excite-
ment in which there was no great intermixture of pain. It
was, indeed, a memorable day. There are men still living
who, after the lapse of half a century, remember all the
circumstances of that evening as vividly as though they
had occurred in the present reign. For some days the
" glorious little man," as his disciples affectionately called
Lord Wellesley, had been pacing one of the halls of
Government-house, girding himself up for the approaching
crisis ; and now he was prepared to meet it. Aided by
Edmonstone, the political secretary, whose knowledge was
as ready as it was extensive, he now dictated instructions
to Colonel Collins, now to General Lake, now to Arthur
Wellesley, now to John Malcolm, and now to Close and
Kirkpatrick, the residents at the courts of the Peishwah
and the Nizam. All day long these weighty despatches
grew beneath the hands of the young scribes. The brief
twilight of the Indian evening passed and left the work
only half done. But still by the bright lamplight the young
writers resolutely plied their pens as hour after hour the
Governor-General continued to dictate the despatches
upon which the fate of principalities depended. 'Words of
encouragement little needed came freely from him as he
directed this great work. And still, as Adam, Bayley,
Jenkins, Metcalfe, Cole, Monckton, and others wrote and
wrote these weighty despatches, upon which the events of
the great war were to turn, he told them ever and anon
that their work would soon be done, and that there was a
table spread for them in the banquet-room at which they
might presently drink success to the campaign. Though
it was now the exhausting month of August, and rest and
food were deniedto them throughout many long hours,there
was not one of them who flagged at his desk. Sustained
by their youthful enthusiasm, they continued at their
work till past midnight; then, we try, hungry, and athirst,
they were conducted to the table which had been spread
sumptuously for their entertainment. It was a festival not
soon to be forgotten. A special message from Lord
Wellesley instructed them to give full vent to their
hilarity—to use his cellar as though it were their own, and
not to think that they were bound to be quiet because they
were in Government house. So they drank success to
the campaign in good earnest ; toasted the glorious
Wellealey and his glorious brother; toasted General Lake
and Colonel Stevenson ; toasted the British soldier and
Jack Sepoy ; and finally toasted one another. And the
Governor-General did not complain that next day his
" office " was not very efficient.
Incidents of this nature were surely calculated to
bind such warm-hearted earnest youths as Charles Met-
calfe by the strongest feelings of personal attachment and
fidelity to Lord Wellesley. They not only worked for him,
they worked with him. And the endearment thus engen-
dered was reciprocal.
That is the best passage in the volume, and
we could wish for many more of the same
merit. The obligations of young Metcalfe to
the " glorious little man " are thus emphati-
cally recorded in 1805 :
Yet, if ever I perform any services which may deserve to
be approved, I shall regret that Lord Wellesley is not here
to approve them, for his approbation would be more
precious Ito me than that of any other Governor-General
ever can be. His lordship's favour first distinguished me,
brought me out of the beaten track of the service, and
placed me in situations from which prospects of future
eminence and success opened upon me. If ever these
prospects are realised I shall owe their fulfilment to Lord
Wellesley, and 1 shall carry with me through life the firm
conviction of an endless obligation.
Unlike other Indian officials, it will thus be
seen that Metcalfe had the vast advantage of
being immediately brought under the notice
of the influential ruling powers. The lowest
rung of the ladder is often the hardest to place
the foot upon for him who would ascend to
the dizzy height of power; but Metcalfe went
out to India with a ready-made ladder that
would have secured elevation to a less able
and less worthy character. His progress was

,!,!!•.

SATURDAY,

just what might have been expected from one
of his accomplishments and character. He
won to himself the respect and regards of all
the eminent officials with whom he was

brought into contact. In the twenty sixth
year of his age he was appointed to the
onerous post of Delhi Resident. That was
one of the prizes of ambition ; yet let us see
what the successful young statesman felt at
the time. He thus wrote to his aunt, the Hon.

Mrs. Monson
So far am I from condemning you for resigning William's
intended appointment to this country that I decidedly
think you have done that which is best calculated to pro-
mote his happiness and your own, by keeping him at
home. My father, I conclude, will blame you; fur he
thinks nothing equal to an appointment to this country.
I confess that my ideas are different. Why should you
make yourself and William miserable by parting never
perhaps to meet again? Why doom him to transportation
from everything dear to him? What is there in India to
recompense for such sufferings? Fortunes, as you justly
observe, are not made rapidly. Take my situation. I
have been more than eleven years from England; and it
will be certainly more than eleven years before I can
return. In these twenty-two or twenty-four years the best
part of my life will have passed away—that part in which
all my feelings will have been most alive to the different
sensations of happiness and misery arising out of different
circumstances. 1 left my father and mother just as I be-
came acquainted with them as a man. I have not once
bad their cheering smile to encourage my labours in my
profession. When I return, should they both be alive—
which I pray to God that they may be-1 shall, indeed,
have the happiness of attending on their declining years ;
but, alas ! how much cause shall I have to lament that I
was doomed by my fate not to see them from the days of
boyhood to those of their extreme old age? But suppose
that they should not be alive, and, when one considers
that my father must live to be eighty to allow me to see
him again, it is enough to make one tremble, though I
still hope. Suppose, I say, that they should not be alive,
what will then be my situation? The thought is too
horrible to dwell upon. See my sisters? I left them
children. I shall find them old women—married, perhaps,
into families which will not care one farthing about me,
and whose habits it will not suit me to associate with.
Take the worst, and what a melancholy situation I may Le
in when I return to England ! Where will be my connec-
tions, my friendships, and even my acquaintance? Un-
known in society, and even shunned as being an Indian, I
certainly will never push my way into the society of fine
lords and ladies, who may turn up their noses and think
me highly honoured by being in their presence.
And subsequently, in 1813, he wrote again, in
a depressed tone, about the drawbacks on an
Indian career
I cannot say that I approve of the plan of sending
children out to India for all their lives. There is no
other service in which a man does not see his friends
sometimes. Here it is perpetual banishment. There was
a good reason for sending sons to India when fortunes
were made rapidiy, and they returned home. But if a man
is to slave all his life, he had better do so, in my opinion,
in his own country,where he may enjoy the society of his
friends, which I call enjoying life Do not
suppose that I am discontented, and make myself unhappy.
It is my fate, and lam reconciled to it. The time may
come, if ever I am able to set myself down at home with a
comfortable fortune, when I shall confess that my,d es tiny was
a favourable one, and shall be able to look back to past
annoyances with composure. But can anything be a recom-
pense to me in this world for not seeing my dear and
honoured father, from the days of my boyhood to the day of
his death—and, perhaps, the same with regard to my
mother? I think not—decidedly not. At present, not-
withstanding my uncommon good fortune, I am not con-
vinced that it is conducive to a man's happiness to send
him to seek his fortune in India.
And there is much more of the same tone of
thought in other letters He does not, how-
ever, appear to have ever sunk into the slough
of despond, and, like other intellectual beings,
he found in the occupation of his higher
faculties a constant resource against that
unsatisfied yearning which haunts most Indian
officials. Trained in the great school of Lord
Wellesley, he studied the character of the
country in which his lot was cast, and applied
his sagacity and knowledge to the organisation
of measures calculated to support the authority
of the British power with the least burden
to the natives. His plan for the government
of Central India, though open to political
criticism, displayed grasp of thought and a
happy mixture of large and liberal designs
with the practical knowledge often wanted in
projectors of bold measures. It attracted to
him the special notice of Lord Hastings, who
adopted the plans of Metcalfe, though the
home authorities offered opposition. Met-
calfe became political secretary to Lord
Hastings—a situation in which there was a
balance of happiness and discomfort. Mr.
Kaye thus sketches his position fiti.that
time :
I have spoken of the airy castles of Metcalfe's earAtiya•
Be was always a castle-builder. And now the political

t

SEPTEMBER 2, 1854.

secretary differed not at all from the eager schoolboy in the
Eton cloisters, or the " little stormer " in Lord Lake's
camp. His position at the Presidency bad brought him
again into familiar correspondence with his old friend and
teacher John Malcolm, who now wrote to him from Mhow :
I recognise in all your letters the unaltered Charles
Metcalfe with whom I used to pace the tent at Muttrs and
build castles ; our expenditure on which was neither sub-
ject to the laws of estimate nor the rules of audit." Miles
counted by the hundreds now lay between them ; but they
could still build castles together. There was one magni-
ficent edifice which at this' time they were intent upon
constructing—but it took fifteen years to convert the airy
fiction into a substantial fact.
With such dreams of a brilliant future Metcalfe was wont
to solace himself amidst the discontents of a dreary pre-
sent. Before he had been a year in Calcutta he had grown
weary of the place and of the office. There were many
reasons for this ; but none which it is very easy to explain.
His services were greatly appreciated by Lord Hastings.
There were seldom any differences between them on points
of vital importance. Both in principle and in practice
they seemed to agree. The Governor-General was con-
tinually commending the executive aptitude of his secretary;
and when he had altered any of Metcalfe's drafts always
apologised or explained in such a manner as to give a com-
plimentary turn to such assertions of superiority. His un-
deviating kindness was, indeed, thankfully acknowledged.
Metcalfe was not only political secretary, he was private
secretary at the same time; and therefore, though he did not
reside in Government-house, he was one of the "family." It
does not appear that in this capacity any derogatory duties
were entailed upon him—that in any sense he was con-
verted into a lacquey. Six years before. Lord Moira had
arrived in India with very magnificent ideas of vice-regal
state, and had drawn up a schedule of the various duties
of the household, by which the private secretary was
degraded into a sort of chamberlain, or maitre d'hotel. But
he had arrived with a " private secretary" in his train, ap-
pointed under rather peculiar circumstances, who was
perhaps not ill-suited to the kind of work that had been
assigned to him ; an-I a " principal private secretary " was
appointed as he Governor-General's confidential assistant
in matters of a more public nature. But before Metcalfe's
assumption of office the Governor-General's ideas of vice-
regal proprieties had toned down, and the household secre-
tary had returned to England. There was now but one
private secretary, and his functions were mainly of a publio
character. The duties as a member of the family were few ;
and if he were occasionally requested to invite some dis-
tinguished stranger to take up his quarters in Government-
house, or if he were instructed to issue orders about court
mourning, or if some delegated members of society
solicited him to request the honour of the Governor-Gene-
ral's and Lady Hastings' attendance at a bachelors' ball,
or other public entertainment, these were small matters of
business which no man of sense would conceive himself to
be humiliated by executing. Lord Hastings was an old
courtier ; and Metcalfe had every reason to he satisfied with
the personal courtesy and urbanity of his lordship. Butfor
all this he was not contented with his position. The husk
may have been pleasant to look upon ; but there was some-
thing rotten in the kernel.
The first of these volumes finishes with the
oordial expression of Lord Hastings' opinions
on the talent of Metcalfe. And here we must
close for the present, deferring to another day
our notice of the second volume, in which the
remaining and more important parts of Met-
calfe's career are recorded.

The Present State of the Turkish Empire. By
Marshal Marmont. Translated, with Notes,
by Colonel Sir Frederic Smith, K.H., F.R.S
London : Harrison.
WE take up this book ont of due season, from
the connection of some of its passages with the
exciting events of the war. Let us first say
that the title is a misnomer, as it is nearly
twenty years since Marshal Marmont made
his tour of observation. Its first edition was
published so long since as 1839, and much of
Sir F. Smith's portion is an analysis rather
than a translation of the French marshal's
text. I'o this new edition there is prefixed a
long statement of the editor's own sentiments
on the whole of the Eastern question. On
exclusively military matters Marshal Marmont
is a good authority, and we suppose that his
assertion is correct of what soldiers cost Russia
as compared with other European powers.
After stating that Marshal Marmont puts down
the Russian infantry at five hundred thousand
men, Sir F. Smith proceeds
Judging from the expenses incurred in maintaining the
armies of the other great powers of Europe, it might natu-
rally be concluded that the finances of the Russian empire
would be seriously crippled in having to hear the expense
of an army of the magnitude above stated ; but the cost of
a soldier in any other European country is so much greater
than it is in Russia, that she has no real cause for appre•
hension on this account.
The following statement, which is founded on data
aff riled by Marshal Marmont, will show the relative
expense to their respective countries of the English, French,
Prussian, Austrian, and Russian soldier, viz. :-
120 English soldiers cost as much as 539 Russian.
120 French 840 „
190 Prussian If 240 11
120 Austrian 212 "
3.9

THE PRESS.

The French marshal had good opportunities
of arriving at his conclusions. Amongst other
high personages to whom he was introduced
was the cousin of our present Secretary at War.
The marshal describes him as a patriot of the
Russian school of nationality :

Marshal Marmont arrived at Odessa, where he had the
gratification of meeting Count Woronzow, the Governor
General of Southern Russia. The marshal expresses that
high esteem which he himself feels, and which indeed is
universally entertained, for this distinguished nobleman,
who is no less remarkable for his great intelligence than
for his engaging and highly-polished manners; and it is
justly observed that the eount is warmly attached to his
country, and makes the most generous and noble use of
his princely fortune.
Count Woronzow has a general superintendence over the
governors of the provinces ; but although they report their
proceedings to him, as well as to the Minister of the In-
terior at St. Petersburg, it is entirely from the latter that
the orders for their guidance emanate.

There is often considerable ability in Marshal
Marmont's observations, but in nautical matters
he is flippantly dogmatic, and as often wrong
as right. At the period of his visit the army
cantoned in the Crimea consisted of 16,000
men. What is its strength now ? According
to a paper in Fraser of this month (September),
there marched from Moscow to the Crimea at
the commencement of the present year the
17th division of infantry, with two regiments
of cavalry, and a complement of artillery.
Including all the reserves, there would appear
to be in the Crimea at present an army of 40,000
regular troops. The sea-soldiers and others
may be 20,000 more. To this date there has
not been time for reinforcements to reach the
Crimea from Prince Gortachakoff's main army.
From the Pruth to Sebastopol is six weeks or
two months' march, but the delay in the depar-
ture of the allied expedition, more especially
after its destination became known. must prove
favourable to the Russians, by enabling them
to concentrate their forces, and make better pre
parations for the attack. If any considerable
portion of Gortschakotf 's main army (roughly
estimated at 150,000 etteetives) enuld reach the
Crimea before Sebastopol is taken, the allies
would have to face a superior force.
Sir Frederic Smith gives some extracts to
show how mistaken the late Marquis (Charles
William) of Londonderry was in his work on
Russia respecting the policy of the Czar. But
Sir Frederic has not made sufficient allow-
ance for the influence which Lord Aberdeen
had in foreign affairs over the mind of that
gallant nobleman. Our present Prime Minis-
ter would be aghast at the propositions hero
made by Sir F. Smith. Alluding to the Czar,
he says :
The means of again disturbing the peace of Europe, for
merely selfish objects, must be taken from him ; and the
sword, which he has compelled us to draw, must not be
sheathed until we have entitled ourselves to sufficient
material guarantees from a Government from whom no
other guarantee can with reliance be accepted. We must
have no half measures ; and the most fatal course for the
Governments of the allies to adopt, and the most deplorable
in its results for their countries, would be, for the sake of
present peace, to patch up this quarrel, which has been
brought on by the despotic will of one man.
On the great question of wooden versus
stone walls the practical opinion of Sir F.
Smith, who stands high in the Corps of En-
gineers, may be cited :
But while we recommend energetic operations ashore
we would give the opposite advice afloat.
Let us in the Baltic blockade the ports of the enemy,
and. if it be wished, bombard his towns; but do not let us
attack his formidable coast defences, unless a certainty of
success presents itself, and some great object is to be
effected.
In some few instances we may silence shore batteries by
the tire of our fleet, but if those of Cronstadt be as solidly
constructed as we have reason to believe they have been,
and have been armed, as is supposed, with heavy shell•guma,
and lastly, if they he well manned, then any success *Ube
dearly purchased by our fleets, unless our ships can get
within three hundred yards of the forts.
We must not calculate upon the success of wooden walls
against stone walls by our good fortune at Algiers and
Acre. These are instances of which we shall probably find
no parallel in the present war, for at Algiers we were
allowed almost to run our shins' sides against the enemy's
works ; and at Acre, whatever damage was done by the fire
of the fleet was to a wall in an exceedingly bad state of

repair.
In encounters where our ships-of-war are brought into
action against well-constructed forts and batteries, unless we
succeed after silencing these works in making some capture
of much value to us, or in destroying some docks, aroma',
or work of great importance to the enemy, we must esti-
mate our gain by looking at the relative cost of the repairs
to our ships on the one side and of the repairs to the
coast defences on the other. In short, irrespective of the
oomideration of the loss of life, it becomes a commercial

833

question ; and we shall be much surprised if we do not find
that the object that may be gained has been purchased et
too heavy a cost.
The easy capture of Bomarsund has led the
public to conclude that too much weight may
have been accorded to considerations like these ;
but in the case of Bomarsund we must recollect
that the ships were not engaged with the forts at
all. It is conceded that no fortifications can
resist the broadside of a line of-battle ship.
The whole fire may be concentrated on a apace
of six feet square; and against such a weight
of metal nothing can stand. But the difficulty
would be to get the ships into position with-
out sustaining much previous damage. On
one point we have yet had no derisive expe-
rience, and that is as to the capacity of our
ships, by their guns of longer range, to destroy
the works of the enemy while keeping at
safe distance. The bombardment of Odessa
tends to the conclusion that this may be
effected ; and one wonders why—at least as
an experiment—the trial was not made when
our ships were off lielsingfors and Croustadt.
The volume is accompanied by an excellent
map ; but, as the events which have occurred
since Marshal Marmont wrote have superseded
the worth of its speculations, it must now be
referred to for its historical and geographical
details rather than as any authority on the
momentous event now pending.

Alpine Lyrics. London : Longmans.
THERE is more than average promise in this
little volume of strong thoughts and rough
verses. It is a pity that its writer did not
take more pains to polish his lines, which are
frequently rugged and unmusical. Lyrical
poetry should approach more to the harmo-
nious utterances of the vocalist than any other
kind of verse, and we think that this youth-
ful writer has more talent for meditative
poetry than the passionate. He selects his
points of view with more judgment than he
shows in their artistic treatment, and he has
not paid sufficient attention to the particular
kinds of metre suitable for each of his themes.
His merits and faults are very visible in the
" First Sight of the Alps from the Jura," a
noble subject for a lyric :
It was in Summer's silent eve
We journeyed through the cliffs of Jura—
The thick black pines with bristled leaf
Had streaked the soul with shades of sorrow:
Dumb reverie in deeper night
Was nursing her own words of wonder—
When from a sudden pointed height
Glanced out a plain of sunny splendour!
And, in horizon, far away,
Long white light clouds were softly sleeping,
That seemed to bar the southern day,
As with a mound of silver heaping.
They stir not in that highest sir—
Still as the deepest. rock-girt fountain—
Halt ! halt! yea! yea! they are, they are,
The snowy Alps, lands of the mountain!
The opening passage here is well conceived,
but the ear is disappointed in finding the
word "are" rhyming to " air ;" and it is a
rule of verse that when monosyllables are
reiterated to express joy they should be deep-
toned, and fit for strung accentuation. In the
next piece, " The First Walk," near Zurich,
we are constantly offended with the roughness
of the execution, though we have proofs that
the writer's mind was at work. The legends
and traditions of the Alps furnish him with
several subjects for ballads, which often are
true to the local colour, but they are deficient
in resonance and rapidity of movement.
" Florelle " is one of the best pieces in the
volume, and contains some capital sketches of
"Alpine scenery." Amongst them we select
the following for its truth of painting :
Began the wary war again—
At first, •)'er wide and placid plain,
With rock and wreck besprinkled o'er—
Then on a broken billowed floor—
The waving waves were wet with rifle--
The rounded troughs were blue and bright
The gurgling waters of the mills
Went down to deep unfathomed night.
They bounded, both, from wave to wave
Upon the crumbling crusted rave—
Now lost within the channelled deep,
Now climbing up some slipping steep,
Or on the billows' crested ridge,
Or by the ribboned ice cliff edgi.—
A moment seen, then gone again,—
The hunter's aim was brief and vain—
And, now, had closed the rocky shores
The sluggish snow stream in its oases,

834

i...
,0..—...—•

INIIIIIIMOM

And waves of wildest strife and storm
Were frozen fast iu frenzied form—
Wide•staring gulph, and cave, and chasm,
Of wrench, and thrust, and split, and spasm,
And pinnacle with deep abyss,—
And cliffs of crythal precipice
That shut the way, as with a wall,
And closed the curtains of the vale.
There are many other single passages nearly
as good. " The Alpine Eagle " (though occa
sionally too spasmodic in its diction) shows
the highest power of any piece in the volume.
The eagle is thus described in a thunderstorm
in the Alps :
All reckless where he wheels,
Now stemming sturdily the torrent gales
That bend the boisterous pines against the rocks,
And now engulpheil within the whirling wind
That hurls him headlong through the sultry fight,—
With orbs that still flash fierce defiance back,
And feathers bristling like the shaken spears ;
Or, resting balanced o'er the black abyss,
His tawny neck low curving carelessly,
And listing listlessly to shattered rocks,
Or to the hissing flash on crimson snow,
Or to the bursting words that shake all seats
But his on ocean air, or to the rains
That beat upon the brows like breaking waves,—
And marks immoveably the stroke that slays
The forest with one swing of flaming sword,—
but the poet then gives us some forced lines,
reminding us of the Keats school, and he
interposes passages of mere verbiage. The
following description, however, of the eagle in
his summer wanderings is really very fine, and
reminds us of those few but vigorous pieces
of blank verse left by the late Thomas Camp
bell
Invisible to mariner that marks
The darchange, or as shifting speck of sky,—
Winging his way through ether's shoreless sea,
With blue abyss above and blank below,—
A wandering waif through all.surrounding space,—
And voyaging by night through vacuous dome
By lamps illumined to the deep dim floor,—
Fearing nor Cross nor fierce Orion's sword ;
On, ever ou, until his hungry eye •
Descries afar the snowy Andes' crests,—
Tracking the wide streams to their Alpine springs,
O'er Orinoco's moonlight revelry
Of birds and beasts in forest's corded cage,
Until he rests upon the Incas' seat,
Another bold usurper of their throne.
Free, when he wills, to circumnavigate
The sphere,—make royal progress o'er the earth,—
Now hovering o'er the city's silver strand,
Now o'er the cell that spouts its sulphurous fires,—
Earth's great discoverer,—he only knows
All springs of Nile and Niger, and the wastes
Of torrid zones, and Australasian sands,—
And land or waves about the spinning poles,—
And all unmeasured Himalaya heights,—
Forgotten islets of Pacific Sea.
In spite 3f the inequality and want of finish
in these "Alpine Lyrics," we have read them
with much pleasure, on account of their fresh
ness, and with more labour in polishing his
compositions the author may succeed in dis-
tinguishing himself as a poet.

Hard Times. For these Times. By Charles
Dickens. London : Bradbury and Evans.

Ma. DICKENS has very appropriately inscribed
his new story to Thomas Carlyle. In it he
has developed a fragment of the Carlylian
philosophy, which he advocates and enforces
with even more than Carlylian onesidedness.
Carlyle believes that the age is given over to
materialism—that the present generation are
wrapped up in material luxuries, proud of
material virtues, labouring only for material
successes. He accordingly insists upon our
cultivating a spiritual life, and what (for wan
of a better term) we must call the senti-
mental virtues, with an earnestness which
does not allow him to perceive that, by over-
straining his definitions, he has counted
as "material" everything that is certain, defi-
nite, exact, or practical, leaving for " spiri-
tuality " only what is vague, visionary, and
unrealisable. To take a homely illustration,
and carefully omitting all reference to the deca-
logue, Mr. Carlyle drowns in floods of disdain
the adage that " honesty is the best policy."
But, if we inquire how our gaols are to be kept
empty, he gives us no other precepts than such
as can be drawn from a man's relationship
with the Spheres and the Eternities. Still
there was a half-truth in these utterances, and
the world owes much to the sage whose pre-
scriptions—though poisonous (like all medica-
ments) when taken alone—are wholesome and
tonic if used us an alterative.
The author of " Hard Times," however,

THE PRESS.

takes the half-truth and cuts it up into frac-
tions. His theory is, that the world is too
matter-of-fact. His remedy is to make it as
fanciful as possible. When we inquire more
particularly into his meaning we find that
" fact," in his acceptance of the term, includes
every conclusion and every occurrence which
we can look upon as veritable, and " fancy "
everything else. Mr. Dickens evidently does
not believe that " truth is stranger than fic-
tion." For him there is no Romance of His-
tory. Sufficeth that an event is real to ensure
its expurgation from his children's books. If
you offer such to the young pupils of some
" model school," immediately they become
" little pitchers to be filled full of facts."
" Facts," indeed, are so dangerous and indi-
gestible that, if administered at all, they
should be made into a sandwich with two
slices of fancy. History, astronomy, or geo
logy, may perhaps. be swallowed with impunity
between layers of " Jack the Giant-killer" and
"Little Red Riding Hood." We wonder, by
the way, whether ho accepts any of the disco-
veries of modern historical research—whether,
for example, Niebuhr can persuade him to lethis
scholars read about Romulus, Remus, and the
wolf, as belonging to the domain of fancy
rather than of fact? Or does he believe in
Walpole sufficiently to tell them the story of
Crook-back Richard?
We do Mr. Dickens no injustice by treating
his story-book as the exponent of a creed.
His condemnation of " facts," his persuasion
that the world is deluged, that the minds of
men, women, and children are stunted and
stifled by " facts," are impressed upon every
page of the.volume as recurringly, not to say as
wearyingly, as the Q. E. D.'s of that detestable
work, " Euclid's Elements." His plot, his
scenes, his characters, are designed, of set
purpose, to enforce this conclusion. His
" puppets' dally ings " are susceptible of no
other interpretation.
There is not much story in " Hard Times.""
Ever since he began to write with " a purpose
Mr. Dickens has allowed his old propensity
for caricature to run into absolute riot. The
end evidently justifies the means. He has a
doctrine, a wrong, or an anomaly to elucidate or
to crush; and the ideal operators to whom he
entrusts the work must be made of steel or
wood, if ordinary flesh and blood will not
serve the turn. In the present volume his
characters are not men or women, but indi
vidualities. They are lay-figures, made to
" strike an attitude" in the first chapter and
preserve it rigidly to the last—or, at all events,
the last but oue. His localities are not scenes
from nature, but something between Laputa
and a Chinese perspective. In all persons
and places he selects some feature which he
exaggerates beyond measure, and obtrudes at
all times and angles, whether in or out of
drawing, and presents the result as a picture
that may be studied with pleasure and profit.
Previous works have shown this tenden"y
in prograis, but " Hard Times" has given it a
full deveropment. The book is filled with
figures of one attitude and one characteristic,
with incidents to match, being all designed to
establish one moral. There is Torn Gradgrind
incessantly demanding " facts," and recog-
nising nothing else, who will not let his
children read poetry, or see playacting, or
wonder at anything. There is Mr. Bounderby,
who never opens his lips without telling us
that he was educated in the kennel, and
has become a millionaire. There is Mrs.
Gradgrind, who is nothing but an invalid.
There are Tom Gradgrind's children—the girl,
with her " fanciful ' propensities crushed,
becoming an automaton wife, and narrowly
escaping the abyss opened before her by a gay
seducer; the boy, hating "facts " from a surfeit,
taking refuge in low dissipation, and robbing
a hank. Lastly, there is Bitzer, the model boy
of the model school, who has digested innu-
merable " facts," and grown up naturally into a
spy and hypocrite. On the other side we have
" Sissy " Jupe, daughter of a circus-rider, and the
only one of the characters who comes to a happy
end, because she can never understand " facts ;"
and a whole corps of equestrian performers,
male and female, whose lives, being vagabond
and spent in " fanciful " exercises, are of
course everything that is simple, honest, and
affectionate. It is the old story with a slight

SATURDAY,

difference. " Fact" is the bad boy who comes
to a bad end. Fancy, or such distant relation
thereto as can be contrived by the clowns and
tumblers in a circus, lives well and dies
happily.
The locality where these figures perform is
consistently unreal, a town of " one idea" such
as England never saw yet :

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have
been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it : but, as
matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black
like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of ma-
chinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable ser-
pents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and
never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river
that rau purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of
building full of windows where there was a rattling and a
trembling all day lung, and where the piston of the steam-
engine worked monotonously up and down like the head
of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It con-
tained several large streets, all very like one another,
and many small streets, still more like one another, in-
habited by pe-Tle equally like one another, who all went in
and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the
same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every
day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every
year the counterpart of the last and the next.
This town, which he calls Coketown, living
by its manufactures, contains a population
dependent upon the men of " fact " like Grad-
grind, or the men who have raised themselves
like Bounderby. Very miserable, accordingly,
they must be. In the first place, they are
lumped up in the term " Hands," which of
course implies that " they would have found
" more favour with some people if Providence
" had seen fit to make them only hands ; or,
" like the lower creatures of the sea-shore,
" only hands and stomachs." Then the em-
ployers never dream of considering them in
any other character than that of hands, never
attempt to know, improve, or elevate them.
They are
something to be worked so much and paid so much,
and there ended ; something to be infallibly settled by laws
of supply and demand ; something that blundered against
those laws, and floundered into difficulty ; something that
was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and over-ate
itself when wheat was cheap ; something that increased at
such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another per-
centage of crime, and such another percentage of pail.
perism ; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes
were made ; something that occasionally rose like a sea,
' and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell

again.
Accepting this description as the rule—
which it is not—rather than the exception, let
us inquire what practical steps Mr. Dickens
can suggest to the best•intentioned or most
" fanciful' employers for the benefit of the
employed. Clearly it is worse than useless to
build schools or engage schoolmasters for them,
as schools present only
an inclined plane of little vessels arranged in order ready
to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until
they were full to the brim.
The schoolmaster, together with
some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters,
had been lately turned at the same time, in the same fac-
tory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs.
He had been put through an immense variety of paces,
and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions.
Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography,
astronomy, geography, and general costme°naphy, the
sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-sumeying
and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were
all at the ends of his teu•chilled fingers. He had worked
his stony way into her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy
Council's Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the
higher branches of mathematics and physical science,
French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about
all the Water Sheds of all the world ( whatever they are),
and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the, names
of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions,
manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their
boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of
the compass. Ah, rather overdone, Mr. M'Clioakuinchild.
If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he
might have taught much more !
He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike
Morgiana in " The Forty Thieves :" looking into all the
vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what
they contained. Say, good M'Clioakunichild. When from
thy boiling store thou shalt fill each jar brim full by and
by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the
robber Fancy lurking within—or sometimes only maim
him and distort him !
Places of worship are no better :
If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel in
Coketown—as the members of eighteen religious persua-
sions had done—they made it a pious warehouse of red brick,
with sometimes (lint this only in highly-ornamented
examples) a bell in a bird cage on the top of it. The soli-
tary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice
with a square steeple over the door, terminating M four
short pinnacles like florid wooden legs.
•
• • • •
The eighteen denominations incessantly ierstched env

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