The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" cises." Desiring a holiday one day, he pre-
sented to his schoolmaster (his uncle) a paper
apparently in his father's hand—" Give Tom a
" holiday." The holiday granted, he went,
according to his wont, into the woods, and
employed the day in making numberless
drawings. On his return home, his exact
imitation of his father's hand was discovered;
on which the worthy man (he was a respect.
able clothier of Sudbury) exclaimed, in horror
at his son's clever forgery, " Tom will be
" hanged !" But, when the boy showed the
drawings which had been the produce of his
day's holiday, the father changed his tone, and
said, " Torn will be a genius." Tom was one
morning early out sketching when he observed
a rogue looking wistfully at the ripe pears in
his father's orchard. Tom transferred the
features of the wistful gazer to his paper
The fellow afterwards climbed the tree, stole
some of the fruit, and decamped before Tom
could give the alarm. But his likeness was
preserved, and, when apprehended, it was
vain for him to deny his own features.
Gainsborough's evidences of talent were so
strong that his father decided on allowing him to
follow his inclination. He went to Loudon to
study in his fifteenth year, and two or three
years afterwards set up for himself, selling
landscapes to the dealers for what they would
give, and painting portraits of any persons
who would honour him with a sitting, at from
three to five guineas each. Patronage, how-
ever, was slow, and the young artist was com-
pelled to return to his native place. Here he
painted the portrait of a young lady of the
place, of extraordinary beauty. She was
charmed with the picture, and Gainsborough
still more charmed with the original. She
seems to have been the natural daughter of
some person of quality, as Tom received with
her an annual income of 2001. At the time of
their marriage Gainsborough was only nine-
teen, and the lady a year younger.

They commenced housekeeping on a frugal
scale, dwelling in a house of six pounds a
year. While Gainsborough was awaiting
patronage, he became acquainted with Mr
Thicknesse, one of the most eccentric per
sonages of the last century, excessively petu-
lant and quarrelsome, yet not wanting in good-
nature. The " Memoir" is unduly harsh
towards him, and underrates the benefits
which there is no reason to doubt he conferred
on the young painter at the commencement of
his career. The commencement of their
acquaintance may be told in Mr. Thieknesse's
own words :

" Soon after Mr. Gainaborough's removal to Ipswich,"
says Thicknesse, " I was appointed Lieut. Governor of
Landgnard Fort, not far distant, and-while I was walking
with the then printer and editor of the Ipswich Journal, in
a very pretty town garden of his, I perceived a melancholy-
faced countryman, with his arms locked together, leaning
over the garden wall. I pointed Fitn out to the printer,
who was a very ingenious man, and he, with great gravity
of face, said the man had been there all day, that he pitied
him, believing he was either mad or miserable. I then
stepped forward with an intention to speak to the mad-
man, and did not perceive, till I was close up, that it was
a wooden man painted upon a shaped board. Mr.
Creighton ( I think that was the printers name) told me
that I hail not been the only person this inimitable decep-
tion had imposed upon, for that many of his acquaintance
had been led even to speak to it, before they perceived it
to be a piece of art ; and upon finding the artist himself
lived in that town, I immediately procured his address,
visited Mr. Gainaborough, and told him 1 came to chide
him for having imposed a shadow instead of a substance
upon me, Mr. Gainsborough received me in his painting-
room, in which stood several portraits, truly drawn, per-
fectly like, but stiffly painted, and worse coloured, among
them was the late Admiral Vernon's, for it was not many
years after ho had taken Porto Bello, with six ships only ;
but when I turned my eyes to his little landscapes and
drawings, I was charmed, these were the works of fancy,
and gave him infinite delight."

" Soon after my introduction to Mr. Gainaborough,"
continues Thicknesse, " the late King passed by the garri-
sons under my command, and as I wanted a subject to
employ Mr. Gainsborough's pencil in the landscape way, I
desired him to come and eat a dinner with me, and to
take down in his pocket•book the particulars of the fort,
the adjacent hills, and the distant view of Harwich, in
order to form a landscape of the yachts passing the garri-
sons under the salute of the guns, of the size of a panel
over my chimney piece ; he accordingly came, and in a
short time after brought the picture. I was much pleased
with the performance, and asking him the price, he
modestly said, lie hoped I would not think fifteen guineas
too much. I assured him that in my opinion it would (if
offered to be sold in Loudon) produce double that sum,
and accordingly paid him, thanked him, and lent him an
excellent fiddle; for I found that he had as mach taste for

SATURDAY,

music as he had for painting, though he had then never
touched a musical instrument, for at that time he seemed
to envy even my poor talents as a fiddler, but before got
my fiddle home again, he had made such a proficiency in
m•isic, that I would as soon have painted against h►m as
to have attempted to fiddle against him. I believe, how.
ever, it was what I hal said about the landscape, and
Thomas Peartree's head, which first induced Mr. Gains.
borough to suspect ,for he only suspected it) that he had
something more in him, which might be fetched out ;
he found he could fetch a good tone out of my fiddle, and
wby not out of his own palate. The following wi►►t.
went to London, and I suspected, tor, like Mr. Gains.
borough, I only suspected, that my landscape had un-
common merit, I therefore took it with me, and as Mr.
Major, the engraver, was then just returned from Paris,
and esteemed the first artist in London in his way, I
showed it to him ; he admired it so much, that I urged
him, for both their sakes ss well as mine, to engrave a
plate from it, which he seemed very willing to undertake,
but doubted whether it would by its sale (as it was only a
perspective view of the fort) answer the expense; to üb-
viate which, I offered to take ten guineas' worth of im-
pressions myself : he then instantly agreed to it. The im-
pression will show the merit of both artists ; but, alas!
the picture, being left against a wall which had been made
with salt-water mortar, is perished and gone. That en-
graving made Mr. Gainaborough's name known beyond the
circle of his country residence."

Not long after, Thicknesse persuaded the
painter to go to Bath, where he established
himself in handsome rooms, but so expensive
that his faithful, loving wife trembled for her
2001. a year. The result disproved her fears.
Orders poured in upon Gainsborough more
rapidly than he could execute them. At first
he charged five guineas fora head, then eight;
and so went on advancing till his prices were
fixed at forty guineas for a half, and a hundred
guineas for a whole length. His fortune was
now made. When he removed to London he
took part of what bad been Duke Schornberg's
house in Pall-mall. His rent was 2001. a year,
and he wrote himself that he lived at the rate
of full a thousand pounds a year. His income
was made up wholly by portraits. He
painted landscapes only for amusement, and
they served but to line his staircase and
passages. Not until near his death was his
great merit as a landscape-painter recognised.
Though excessively generous, he was not
free front the irritability which painters, above
all men, seem most susceptible to in what
concerns their art. One of his most famous
pictures was hung at the Academy in a
different line from that which he desired; he
accordingly withdrew his works, and would
never exhibit there more.

His fertility was wonderful. He resem-
bled in this respect the greatest masters of
the pencil. He seems, in his way, to have
painted as freely as Rubeus himself, and, hi
Rubens, was in the habit of making presents
of Iris masterpieces, so little store did he set
by them. The list of his works at the end of
this volume (though imperfect) excites aston-
ishment at its number. He knew no enjoy-
ment equal to the exercise of his art.
There had been some coldness between
him and Reynolds, but it was happily re-
moved na the life of Gainsborough drew near
its close :

Towards the close of July, Gainsborongh became
rapidly worse. There was one whom he felt he had not
treated with courtesy—it was Sir Joshua Reynolds. The
president's unfinished portrait seemed to look reproach-
fully upun him ; and the feeling that there was between
them, the relationship of genius, induced him to write to
Sir Joshua, desiring to see him once more before he
died. "If any little jealousies had subsisted between
us," says Reynolds, " they were forgotten in those moments
of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was
engrossed by the tame pursuits, and who deserved his good
opinion, by being sensible of his excellence." It is a
solemn scene, that death•chamber—the two great painters,
side by side, forgetful of the past, but not unmindful of
the future. Gainsbnrough says that he fears not death ;
that his regret at losing life is principally the regret of
leaving his art., more especially as he now began to see
what his deficiencies were, which he thought in his last
works were in some measure supplied. The wave of life
heaves to and fro. Reynolds bends his dull ear to catch
Gainsborough's failing words: "We are all going to
Heaven—and Vandyke is of the company." A few days
after, at about two o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of
August, 1788, in the sixtysecond year of his age, Gains-
borough died.

Some curious particulars are given of his
family. Two of his brothers manifested great
mechanical ability. One of them " Scheming
Jack," was continually on the eve of great
discoveries, but had not perseverance to per-
fect his inventions. Always poor, and Always
scheming, he was indebted to his brother
Thomas fur relief. In his old age, he would
occupy himself with drawing figures on tho

JULY 19, 185 g.

sanded floor with his stick. When he died I
his house was found full of all kinds of un-
finished models. He was one of the world's
great failures. Another brother, Humphry,
was scarcely less inventive, but more prudent.
it is supposed here that he had good claims
to be considered the author of that main
principle of the steam-vessel which consisted
in condensing the steam in a separate vessel.
We cannot think there is the slightest reason
to suppose that Watt did not invent this prin-
ciple himself, yet it is probable that two
minds might have struck out the same idea at
nearly the same periods. Mr. Thicknesse
says :
Mr. Gaineborough (the painter) gave me, after the
death of his clergyman brother, the model of his steam-
engine : that engine alone would have furnished a fortune
to all .:he Gainahoroughs and their descendants, had not
that unsuspicious, good-hearted man, let a cunning de-
signing artist see it, and who surreptitiously carried it off
in his mind's eye. Watt obtained his first patent for per-
forming condensation in a separate vessel from the cylinder
in 1769; it was renewed in 1775. Humphry Gainsborough
died in 1776.
The story of Gainsborough's life, not-
withstanding the scantiness of the mate-
rials, is well and agreeably brought out.
No man's mind and works were more plainly
stamped with the impress of native genius.
Nature was almost his only master. The
marvellous part of his career is, that he
should so readily have penetrated the secrets
of his art, and have so easily formed a man-
ner of his own, eminently remarkable for
freedom, grace, and facility.

A Voice from Within the Walls of Sebastopol.
By Captain R. Hodasevich, late of the
Taroutine Regiment of Chasseurs in the
Russian Service. London : Murray.
Ir is not for the sake of any novel informa-
tion on the subject of the Crimean campaign
that we should recommend our readers to
glance at the contents of the work before us.
Its interest is of a different character. It is
from the pen of a Polish officer in the Russian
service who, in the spring of 1855, deserted
with one of his brother officers to the English
lines. It contains therefore, as might be sup-
posed, a good deal of new and curious matter
on the internal organisation of the Russian
army ; and were not the animus of the writer
so conspicuous in every page, we should wel-
come it as a valuable addition to our limited
stock of knowledge upon a subject which has
hitherto been enveloped in secrecy.
If we are to believe Captain Hodasevich,
whose narrative extends from the 13th of
September, 1854, to the sth of March, 1855.
the Russian army is characterised by almost
every fault which it is possible for an army to
exhibit. There is not, he tells us, a single
Russian general, except Liprandi, who is fit
for any thing on the field of battle. Of the
battle of the Alma, he says :
During the five hours that the battle went on we neither
saw nor heard of our general of division, or brigadier, or
colonel : we did not during the whole time receive any
orders from them either to advance or to retire ; and when
we retired, nobody knew whether we ought to go to the right
or left. In the centre of the line it was the same ; and if
the men fought, it was solely on the responsibility of the
colonels of regiments, but certainly not from any
orders of Prince Gortschakoff I. ; for who would have
thought of sending a regiment to the charge without its
being supported by artillery, when there were pleuty of
guns in reserve?

The same was the case, according to this
author, at Inkerman, where officers were left
without generals, and regiments without
officers, and every one did that which was
right in his own eyes. His story of the battle
is, however, too long to be extracted, and an
adequate idea of the scene he describes can
only be gained by reading the whole of it.
In his accounts of both these actions, it is to
be observed that Captain Hodasevich states the
force of the Russians to have been consider-
ably smaller than we have been in the habit
of supposing. At the Alma, he gives 36,000
men instead of between 45,000 and 50,000; and
at Inkerman 40,000 instead of 47,000 or
49,000.
A very ill-feeling, he informs us, exists oe-
tw•een the officers and men, owing to which
the former are afraid to use any severity
towards the soldiers when engaged ou active
service even for the most heinous breaches
of discipline

THE PRESS.

The most unbounded licence existed then in the
Russian army, as the officers were afraid to curb the men
in the field. An incident that serves as an illustration to
this occurred while we were on the Katcha. Ono of my
men, during the plundering of a village, insulted an old
woman who had remained to defend her property, and
would not allow him to take it. This was brought to my
notice, and I informed the commander of the battalion of
it, and asked his permission to punish the man. He
answered that, as we were in the field, any punishment in-
flicted might create an ill-feeling among the men that
would eventually prove dangerous. What he meant by
this will be seen in the account of the battle of
Inkerman.

At Inkerman, Captain Hodasevich tried to
prevent one regiment from firing into another
by mistake:—

On my asking them what they were firing at, they said
they were firing over our heads. " How can you be firing
over our heads when you are killing our men?" I tried
to reason with them, and persuade them, if they would not
advance, at least to cease firing, when a man stepped out
and fired close to me. I could contain myself no longer,
but began to belabour him with the flat of my sword, when
I saw a major coming up to me, and I rushed to meet him.
" What on earth are you about? Why don't you look to
your men? Why don't you advance? If you won't ad.
wince, at least order your men to cease firing, for they are
killing us !" The major said in a plaintive voice, What
can I do when they have killed more than half of us ?"
Thinking he meant the enemy, I said, " And is that a
reason why you should now kill your own people ?" "No,"
said he, "it is they," pointing to the men, who have shot
us ; I am the only field officer left, and what can I do with
such ruffians?" "Itis a shame, Mr. Major," said I, "to
fear your own men."
A large proportion of the Russian officers, he
leads us to suppose, are cowards : slight
wounds were frequently made an excuse for
shirking duty, and certificates of illness could
be purchased for 400 roubles :

There were some, however, who did recover, but
they were for the most part those who merely pretended to
be wounded that they might be out of harm's way. After
the battle of the Alma we bad some instances of this prac-
tice, and Captain Volkhoff. who then reported himself. did
the same now, saying, " Why should I remain to be killed,
when I have a wife and children ?" But it must not be
forgotten, as I said before, that he was the son of the colo-
nel, who, when there were any rewards to be distributed,
found no one among the officers so deserving as his son.

While we were in the town we lost twelve officers out of
fifty, not by the shot or shell of the allies, for I do not in-
clude those in the twelve, but by Rickness. These were all
sent to Simphempol. If the proportion was equal in all
the regiments, and I see no reason why it should not be so,
the loss in officers must have been very considerable. If
to these are added those who were actually killed or
wounded, the number would he very large indeed. I am
really ashamed to write such things of the men with whom
I previously served ; but, if I have undertaken to make
the British public acquainted with what took place in the
Russian army at the beginning of the Crimean cam-
paign, I cannot, in justice to myself, omit so important a
fact.
And much more to the same effect is to be
found scattered through the volume.
The peculation practised among the
higher officers is, he asserts, boundless. The
regimental allowances for transport horses
and waggons are more than half pocketed by
the colonels. These net considerable sums
for the repair of tools, which, upon trial, are
usually found worthless. Their gunpowder is
dyed millet-seed, and their cartridges often
filled up with sand.
The cruel treatment and neglect of the
wounded is also a constant theme of declama-
tion with our author
I afterwards went into the assembly-rooms that served
as the principal field hospital for the western part of the
town. The filth in this place was disgusting. While I
was here a soldier of the regiment of Ekatherinenburg
came up to me, and, pointing to a surgeon, said, "Is
possible they do such things in your regiment ?" I aske
him what was the matter. Why," said he, " you see, w
had brought in a poor wounded comrade ; he was wounded
in the knee by a splinter from a shell; the doctor, having
examined the wound, began to cut the leg of the wounded
man, who cried out, when the doctor struck him in the
face for making a noise. It must have hurt him, having
his leg cut. I only wish I had my firelock here, I'd pay
the doctor out; but he may fall into my hands yet."

Our readers will now be able to judge for
themselves of Captain Hodasevich's narrative
We have, of course, no means at hand of
checking his statements. We have nothing
to guide us in estimating his veracity but the
knowledge that he deserted his colours. If
his facts be true, they at once demolish the
theory lately so prevalent among us that a
despotism invariably puts the " right man in
" the right place," and that English mis-
management is unknown in the continental
armies. If false, what are we to think of the
Polish patriots who vamp up such stories to
justify desertion? The Poles, says the
editor :

I'ar from attaching any idea of disgrace to desertion
from the Russian ranks, looked upon their escape from
the hated yoke as nothing more than a continuation of
that emigration which will never cease as long as the
tyranny which now oppresses Poland continues to weigh
upon the country.
This raises a question which, independent
of all incidental considerations, is not so
easy to determine. On the one hand,
it does not perhaps seem unreasonable
that a man should prefer exile to what he
believes to be slavery. Omne whoa forti
patria est is a maxim which found favour
with ancient writers; and the conduct of the
Phocceans, who fled from their city in a body
rather than submit to the dominion of Cyrus,
is often mentioned with approbation. Yet
such was not the conduct of the Romans
themselves, who, ever at the worst of times,
spite of Gaul, Etruscan, or Carthaginian, stood
manfully by the old country, and preserved it
to be mistress of them all. In modern times
there are even stronger instances in favour of
the same determination. The Saxons clung
to their soil, bided their time, and by the in.
domitable energy of their character at length
reconquered the conquerers, and imposed
their laws, language, and institutions, on the
victorious Normans. Had the vanquished Cava-
liers emigrated in a body, she would have lost
that free aristocratic constitution which has
made her what she now is. Had those brave
Irish gentlemen who fled from the yoke of a
foreigner but exercised in the service of their
own country one half of those brilliant qualities
which adorned the Courts anti camps of the
Bourbons and Hapsburgs, Ireland had
perhaps been spared half a century of degra
dation, and a century and a half of mis-
government. Had the French noblesse
boldly confronted the revolution, it is at least
probable that much blood would have been
spared, many ancient and useful institutions
been reformed instead of being destroyed, and
the continuity of the national life been pre•
served and strengthened instead of being vio-
lently broken asunder.
The question is, whether in the ease cf Po-
land it is not the truest patriotism to forward
the work of amalgamation. We cannot agree
with the editor that this volume affords im-
portant proof that the Polish nationality is not
destroyed, or that the proof is of any value,
even if it does. Is that nationality strong
enough to reconstitute the nation? Doubt-
less, round the watch-fires of Fontenoy, among
Clare's "wild geese," was to be heard sufficient
evidence of Irish nationality. But did this
enable the exiles to resuscitate an Ireland of
their own ? On the whole, we think the doc-
trine which turns so many men into soldiers
of fortune, rather than submit to a regime they
hate in their own country, is pernicious to
society, and, in the words of Lord Chat-
ham, writing to his nephew on this very sub-
ject, " Lig with fatal casuistry." We believe
that the truest patriotism is, in sailors' phrase,
to " stand by the ship," or, at all events, if
that be impracticable, to migrate, and found a
new country elsewhere, like the Pilgrim
Fathers in America, but not to cling to the
phantom of nationality when the substance
has departed, and to invoke the names of
liberty and patriotism in aid of an agitation
which must retard internal progress, while it
cannot bring nearer by a single moment the
day of independence. What will this poor
Captain Hodasevich be in England hereafter?
Those who have known as many poor Poles as
ourselves,and have experienced the inevitable
result of the acquaintanceship, will have little
difficulty in answering the question.

F,Jusir.