The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Story of the Campaign of Sebastopol. Written
in the Camp. By Lieutenant-Colonel E. Bruce
Hamley, Captain, Royal Artillery. William
Blackwood and Sons.

In this picturesque narrative of the memorable
story of the " Campaign of Sebastopol" will be
recognised the collective reprint of the very admi-
rable series of papers published during the past
twelve months in Blackwood's Magazine. As we
had conjectured almost from the period of its com-
mencement, anonymously, in Maga, the authorship
of this narrative proves to have been correctly
fathered by us upon the gallant and gifted writer
of the popular romance of " Lady Lee's Widow-
hood." Having accompanied the expeditionary army
to the East when the war with Russia first broke
out, Captain Hamley, afterwards Major, and ulti-
mately (by brevet) Lieutenant-Colonel—during the
earlier period of the campaign in the Crimea,
Adjutant to the first division of the Field Bat-
teries, and during the latter, Aide-de-Camp to
Major-General Sir Richard Dacres, K.C.B.—
availed himself from the very outset of what in his
hands has turned out to be a priceless opportunity.
An opportunity which, aided by remarkable in-
dustry and extraordinary intelligence, has at length
revealed his name upon this goodly title-page as
that of the self-constituted historian of the won-
Iderfully arduous, but, as it happens, the no less
wonderfully successful, campaign of Sebastopol.
Fulfilling with scrupulous exactitude his various
regimental duties in connection with the Staff of
the Artillery, now as Adjutant and now as Aide-
de-camp, Colonel Hamley contrived tojot down
periodically those authentic notes upon the great
events transpiring in the Crimea under his own
immediate observation, notes which were recog-
nised from month to month as among the con-
spicuous attractions of Blackwood's Magazine, and
which have ultimately expanded into this admirably
succinct and reliable epitome of contemporary oc-
currences. It is assuredly something very sur-
prising, to say the least of it, that the writer of
these apparently precipitate and notoriously piece-
meal'descriptions should, on the completion of his
narrative, find that the course of events has in no
case "rendered it necessary"—these are his own
words—" to recant an opinion, or alter a state-
ment." This deliberate avowal being penned, re-
member I in a simple and manly preface, dated
Sebastopol, October sth, 1855—in reference to a
work extending over some thirty-two chapters, or
340 pages octavo I A work written originally
in camp in the intervals of military duty—
at first in a tent, and after Christmas in.
a hut !" A work comprising within its li-
mits a record of occurrences as important
as the rendezvous at Scutari and afterwards at
Varna ; the invasion of the Crimea by the disem-
barkation at Eupatoria ; the inauguration of the
Crimean war by the skirmish on the Bulganak ;
the opening up of success to the banners of the
Allies by the bloody triumph won upon the heights
of the "Alma ; the advance of the conquerors suc-
cessively upon the banks of the Katcha and upon
those of the Belbek ; the disorganisation of the
whole of the elaborately-planned tactics of the Rus-
sian Commander-in-Chief, by reason of that me-
morable flank march in the direction of the Tcher-
naya, which suddenly conducted the legions of
France to the bay of Kamiesh, and those of Eng-
land to that of Balaklava, and so enabled them
together to commence upon the south side of Sebas-
topol that wonderful siege, beginning on the 17th
of October, 1854, and ending on the Bth of Sep-
tember, 1855, with the glorious capture of the
Malakhoff by our heroic Allies. Hurriedly writing
this " Story of the Campaign," during the inter-
vals of military duty, first of all in his tent and
afterwards in his hut, Colonel Hamley has never-
theless contrived to write, from the earliest to the
latest chapter, with such uniform accuracy that,
as we have already learnt from him through
his "Preface," he has_ in no case found the
course of events render it necessary "to recant an
opinion or alter a statement." He has studiously
endeavoured, he tells us, to deliver only a round
unvarnished tale—stringing together historical
events and memorable scenes, upon the thread of a
personal narrative. In this object he has succeeded
—to admiration. Among all the various records
which have already appeared, descriptive of the
great struggle in the Crimea, this picturesque and
authentic " Story of the Campaign," by Colonel
Hamley, is the most reliable, because it is through-
out the most scrupulously calm, sedate, and unim-
passioned. Participating himself in this struggle
personally, Colonel Hamley nevertheless viewed it,
from first to last, dispassionately, as though he had
been there merely as some chance spectator. It is
in his character as a witness thus gifted with an
almost unparalleled self-possession under circum-
stances calculated to disturb any ordinary man's
equanimity, that we find our author coolly essay-
ing his pencil as well as his pen in the midst of the
smoke and uproar of a protracted and murderous
bombardment. The ten beautifully elaborated draw-
ings suabtolvdcsuivug ttho letterpress of the handsome
volume here under our notice—drawings including
a sketch-map of Sebastopol and the siege works
the produce, each and all of them, of the artistic
skill of the writer of the companion narrative—
assist not merely as illustrations of the scenes de-
scribed, but, be it observed, also very distinctly as
illustrations no less obvious of the coolness with
which those scenes were examined at the time with
a view to their being ultimately so described. The
coloured frontispiece affords us in this way a most
acceptable glimpse of the modus operandi, as far as
the camp work in hut is concerned—opening to
view a very Robinson-Crusoe-like interior, snug
and primitive, sociable and jovial enough even, for
that matter, with a brother aide-de-camp in
" mufti," calmly plying his goosequill at the board-
on-tressels called a table ; while Sir Richard Dacres,
lounging on an American chair, leisurely runs his
eye down the columns of a newspaper ; Colonel
Hamley himself, seated upon a camp stool, luring
to him a sort of half-naturalised and wholly do-
mesticated Crim-Tartary cat—puss, nothing loath
to be so petted, with her tail in the air and her
comfortable purr all but audible—answering it
seems to the name of Mrs. Stowe's queer little
comical capital Topsy. Another coloured litho-
graph, quite a companion picture to this
frontispiece, presents to view the " exterior " of
the same hut, into the interior of which the other
has enabled us to pry so very complacently—com-
prising portraits no less authentic, those we mean
of our author's stud, surrounded by livestock, in-
cluding sheep, cocks, hens, geese, and turkeys.
The sketch-map of Sebastopol and the siege works
will be found by all the readers (in its present
collective shape) of this same enthralling " Story
of the Campaign of Sebastopol " singularly ac-
ceptable, as elucidatory of the various complicated
events herein recounted. Besides the valuable
drawings already particularised, our author's illus-
trations comprise, among their number, a view of
the Field of Alma, another of the Monastery of St.
George, another of the cliffs at the same monastery,
another of Balaklava in the winter, besides a
sketch of Sebastopol taken from the look-out place,
a peep at the valley of Tchergoum, and another of a
group of Zouaves busily occupied in rubbing and
scrubbing at a washing-place, each like the veriest
blanchisseur. It is important to remember in as far
as relates to this story of the campaign, penned
by Colonel Hamley, of the Artillery, that
the gallant author in no instance writes upon mere
hearsay. "In all the actions, small and great, of
the campaign," says he, " I was enabled to be
spectator as well as actor"—acquainted, as he tells
us immediately afterwards, necessarily, of course,
with our own trenches ; but, besides this, scarcely
less so with the siege works of the French, scarcely
any one of which he appears to have left unvisited.
" Besides these opportunities," observes Colonel
Hamley, " a residence at head-quarters has neces-
sarily placed me in the focus of information of all
kinds not confidential." Empowered thus admir-
ably by his position in the camp to write an accu-
rate and reliable narrative of the Campaign before
Sebastopol, Colonel Haniley, as the book before
us testifies so very brilliantly, has well employed
his singular abilities in " working up" into an
authentic record of events the valuable materials of
history placed within his reach by this rare and
inestimable combination of really golden oppor-
tunities.

Passages Selected from
.the Works of Thomas
Carlyle. With a Biographical Memoir by
Thomas Ballantyne. Chapman and. Hall.

The remarkable and original genius of Thomas
Carlyle has long been recognised by the more dis-
cerning of his contemporaries. Of this recognition
there have recently been two somewhat notable
indications. It is particularly observable, for ex-
ample, as one of these, that Charles Dickens in-
scribed his last work of fiction, " Hard Times," to
Mr. Carlyle—as perhaps the most marked tribute
he could possibly have given of his earnest sense
of the humanising tendency of the writings of that
eminent man in his character as a practical philan-
thropist. Since then—indeed only within the fevr
days last past—Mr. G. H. Lewes has formally de-
dicated the two volumes of his biography of
Goethe to Thomas Carlyle, "as a memorial of
gratitude for intellectual guidance and of esteem
for rare and noble qualities." Precisely at what
may be termed without anything like exaggera-
tion (speaking of so great,
original, and philo-
sophic a Thinker) this notable epoch inthe career of
Thomas Carlyle—there appears this, singularly well
timed and acceptable volume of ‘ Passages" se-
lected from his writings, together with a memoir of
the author from the hand of Mr. Ballantyne.
Enough said in regard both to the Memoirs
and to the Selected Passages, if we observe