The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-19 00:00:00

LITERAT URE.

WE STMIA STER RE VIEW. No. LXXXVIII.
Considering our precarious, or, perhaps, we should
say, our doubtful position at the present moment, as far
as the continuation of peace is concerned—looking at
the belligerent attitude assumed by a certain class of
Americans, and beholding the strife now raging in the
Soikh territories—a more felicitous juncture could
scarcely have been selected for the publication of those
inquiries into the " racial, moral, and intellectual con-
dion of the army," which constitute the opening paper
in this number cf the We,tminster Review. Nothing is
of such vital and supreme importance to a great nation
as the inculcation of a healthy tone into the system of its
protective force, and, consequently, nothing is so incum-
bent upn the Legislature as to suppress anythtng con-
ducive to the demoralisation of its standing armies. In
remote ages this truth was acknowledged, and upon it
was erected the stern bulk of the Spartan commonwealth.
Even when the ancestral barbarians were exposed to the
incursions of other predatory hordes, a certain rugged
morale was deemed requisite for the perpetuation, and
even for preservation of their power ; a morale founded
upon activity, upon a development of muscular energy—
upon
a oneness of feeling—upon a continuous subjection '
to diseipline—and upon that peculiar valour which
sustains a man under the most severe privations.
But, as civilisation advanced, more refinement and
symmetry were instilled into the military as well as
into the intellectual and political codes. And, as civili-
sation ever strives to extract an increase of advantage
from whatever is submitted to its influence, the hitherto
inactive cohorts, which were maintained by consular
and imperial Rome as the safeguards of its authority,
where rendered subservient to the interests of its em-
ployers. In this manner, during the intervals of
peace, the sword was thrown aside for the mattock ; and
the veterans, whose courage in battle had incited them
to the spoliation of their enemies, rendered themselves of
double benefit to their country by strewing it with the
embellishments of their industry—a policy which that
mighty warrior, the Emperor Napoleon, did not regard
as unworthy of imitation. With reference to these par-
ticulars, our own troops are utterly beneath comparison;
beside the legions of France and Italy they are as gaudy
drones. Instead of their peaceful exertions being de-
voted to the adornment or improvement of our cities, or
our rural districts, they are restricted to pipeclay and
sand-paper. Upon this miserable fact we cannot do
better than transcribe a few sentences from our re-

viewer:—
" Surely the British soldier has no claim to take a higher
rank than the Roman and yet look at the Roman works
—the roads which remaia to this day—the Thames em-
bankments, than which Britain cannot even now boast a
snore important work—these, and other works equally great
were performed, too, let it be recollected, by men under
arms and constantly liable to surprise—almost con-
stantly in fact, engaged in actual warfare. What works
would such soldiers as these have performed in thirty years
of unbroken peace? Or, to come to times and to a people
twarer to us, look at that magnificent Gallic work, the
Route du Simplon, executed during a fiercer war, and sub-
ject to all the rigours of an Alpine climate. But it is use-
less to multiply instances which are familiar to every well-
read per ou. Wbv, also, should not the British soldier be
employed in uat•ful public works—roads, canals, and bridges,
for instance?"

As inculcating by the manner of their jurisdiction a
perseverance in their idle and useless habits, the military
authorities of Great Britain have been most culpable ;
while, by abandoning the soldiery to inaction, they
have placed incitements to viciousness, and opportunities
for the cultivation of debauchery in the way of an igno-
rant and naturally dissolute class of men. It is against
this ignorance, and against this dissoluteness of the
English army that the pre- ent strictures in the
Westminster Review are especially directed. Yet, agree-
ing as we undoubtedly do in the generality of the
writer's views upon the subject, we must take leave to
protest against the acerbity and almost rancourous ill-
nature nhich pervades the article. Conscious of the
existence of very great abuses, the writer directs atten-
tion to them in tones of passionate indignation, insomuch
that he occasionally descends to a virulence of scorn, quite
incompatible with the office of a Public Censor.
Thus while inveighing against the gross and murky
ignorance of the " privates," and sometimes indeed of
the ()Slicers themselves, he attaches this stigma of in-
competency to the nines of brevet-majors and colonels,
and even higher up in the scale of promotion: and again,
when taunting tke army for its immorality, he gene-
ralises the imputation of licentiousness ; he brands
with one sweeping accusation the whole military esta-
blishment. Granted that a vast number of our so-
called defenders—granted even that a huge majority
of them—are worthy of reprobation as a most vicious
and unprincipled class—(and we are compelled, alas
from all rationsl experience to acquiesce in the justice of
such a deduction)—still, it is beyond all precedent—it is
beyond all human candour to implicate, as equally vile,
men of undoubted honour, men of undoubted purity,
men of undoubted acquirements, men, in fine, of un-
impeachable and elevated character, and men there are
of this description in the British army. Of soldiers
in the ranks what does the reviewer remark ? Why,
this:
No unprotected woman can pass them, of whatever con-
dition in life, that is not rudely stared in the face, with some
gross audible remark to create a blush; and the ernbarass•
meat into which she is thrown mostly gives rise to a repeti-
tion of some ' standing joke of the barracks' and its conse-
quent chorus of a horse-laugh.' We hare seen it often, and
with deep indignation."
We would undertake to vouch that this latter assertion
is merely a very wide stretch of that very elastic article,
the imagination; or if the writer really has "seen it
awn," it has been simply like Hamlet, "in my mind's
eye, Horatio!" Altogether, we cannot but regard the
forgoing peragraph as little better than cant—as a very
fustian effort after effect—as a mere straining after a
most morbid species of humanity. It is nothing but irrate
gessip—iedderdasb, in short; and, but that other por-
tens of the disquisition are really of a high order of
merit, would tend to deteriorate the contributor as one
utterly unworthy of joining in the corps of the !Vest-
hiomter Review. We have said that the paper has por-
tiene of high merit, and this we could undertake to de-
monstrate tlid our columns permit ; a reference, however,
to the article itself, will be an ample corro-
boration of the remark, while at the present momentous
crisis its perusal cannot but prove interesting even to
the most phlegmatic. Some of the recommendations
incorporated in :the review demand the deepest con-
sideration, as likely to produce, by trial, a very
decided improvement in the organisation of our
military. Among these we would particularise,
as ebeet the most feasible and the most judicious,
the pr,po,al that our raw recruits—drawn gene-
rally funi the lowest dregs of the population—
should ho submitted to a system of rational tuition, that
their faculties for observation and reflection should
unaergo a wholesome culture, whereby they would be-
come mere opened to an appreciation of their position as
sentient heiogs ; while their bodies should be drilled by
a succession of more bracing and invigorating ma-
noeuvres than are witnessed now-a-days in the
Rio r,gish discipline of the barrack-yards. For
the officers, nothing can be more requisite than a
thorough course of instruction in the mysteries
of military tactics—a necessity which is now
almost entirely overlooked. Fredericks, and Cromwells,
and Marlboroughs, and Massenas were not fostered in the
purlieus of such scenes as Arthur's, or in the atmosphere
of fribbles and sentimental young ladies. A great re-
organisation is demanded among our soldiery, from the
staff officer downwards to the sutler; that reorganisation
may be arranged with all decorum if the authorities will
he afoot upon the matter ; otherwise, public opinion will
drive the change to its accomplishment, as it ultimately
does all other neglected abuses. Before relinquishing
the subject of this first article, we must utter our fullest
condemnation of the subjoined paragraph:—
s' We see France armed to the very teeth, and increasing
her ansnaments with unparalleled rapidity and energy—half
her popuLition are frantic for an English war, to avenge her
former defeats. * * * We see, again, America,
headed by a reckless President, intoxicated with the
prospect of irritating England on the Oregon or
any other question which should give him a
pretext for the annexation' of the Canadas to the republic.
On the other side Wt: see, the dark and insidious barbarian
Czar, whose hatred of fill liberal principles and of the gene-
ral diffusion of intelligence fenders England peculiarly odious
to him, crouching like a wolf to seize the first favourable
chance for blotting out England, as he has done Poland,
from the map- of Europe. We see, moreover, the Pope,
his vassal and semi-vassal—Austria and Prussia—and his
spiritual serfs in the Peninsula, in Belgium, in Germany, and
indeed throughout Christendom, gloating with all the ani-
mosity of theological hate to renew their autos upon the he-
retic and the infidel in Smithfield. We even see Ireland, itself
an integral portion of the British empire, in a state of general
disaffection, under the dictation of one who inspires, till it
becomes almost instinctive, an unrelenting and interminable
hatred of the " Saxon race.' And, in addition to all this,
we see the unexampled fruits of our national industry, manu.
facturing ingenuity, and commercial enterprise, exposed to
the cupidity of the world, and holding out the most ravish-
ing prospects of plunder that can lure the foreign bandit on
to superhuman isereism
These are most vicious sentiments most viciously ex-
pressed ; they are to us a strange anomaly in the
!Vest niiister Review —they are vicious, as searching
after the incitement of a feeling of panic. Besides
which they form an accumulation of very novel historical
discoveries. For example, it is something really bold to
imply that Nicholas the First " blotted Poland from the
neap of Europe!" and as to the announcement that
i'russits with its " orthodox" monarch is the semi-vassal
of the sovereign Pontiff ; it is one for which we confess
unprepared. The insinuation about
ourselves totally
/Connell and the stirring up of Irish bile against the
" Saxon race" is surely too obsolete, so long subsequent
to the " Liberator's" exit from the Richmond Peniten-
tiary. Far is it from our intention to lull one single
.English mind into a delusive confidence ; nevertheless,
we must reprobate such unchallenged and gratuitous
libels upon a peaceful authority like that of the Papal
States, with a revival of the old bugbear cry of.
" loat;na teeth all the aninio,ity th renew
hate to en.tem
• .
their • autos' upon the heretic and the infidel S'int h•
field sentence which contains the very quintessence
of bigotry and illiberality. With this observation we
shall teseehele our notice of the " Social, Moral, and In-
telketual Condition of the Army." Mr. Thornton
Hunt, as the author of the " Foster-Brother," is dis-
sected with much spirit in a paper on historical romance;
nor does the writer of Whitehall come off without some
few bitter stripes. The " Life of Dalton" is a passage
of philosophic biography, most instructiv as an example. '
A stringent analysis of "The Medical Police of the
United Kingdom" is striking the iron while it is hot, and
striking some heavy sledge-hammer blows to boot.
" The Registration of Larded Property" will command
a very general perusal, and will amply repay curiosity.
To the survey of the " Present State of Parties" we
:titan possikly take an opportunity of referring shortly,
ea a sensible and terse series of thoughts. And with a
perfect encyclop*dia respecting the "Affairs of New
Zealand" the catalogue of contents is completed. The
number in all essential particulars is valuable eels
well-
tiumed.