The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-07 00:00:00

If that account in the papers be. true ! A vast
deal more than " that" was true in regard to the
unparalleled romance of the " Return from Elba"
—a deed of surpassing glory which made Byron
write (much about the same time) in one of
his letters (dated March, 1815)—" I can forgive
the rogue for utterly falsifying every line of
mine Ode which I take to be the last and
uttermost stretch of human magnanimity." No
wonder, Tom Moore years before, in a note to his
mother, dated November 2, 1805, alluding to the
then recent death of Nelson, could exclaim—
" those two men (Bonaparte and he) divided the
world between them—the land and the water. We
lave lost ours"—meaning our Napoleon.
It is amusing, while we turn over these gossiping
nemoranda jotted down from day to day currente
calamo by the Poet-Fribble, to note with what a
lexterous touch of the pencil- he dashes down on
the instant the most life-like portraiture of all sorts
>f remarkable characters. Do we not at once re-
Cognise the haughty carriage of that head of Grecian
beauty, the insolent curl of those exquisitely chi-
selled lips, the flash of those cold grey eyes, the
pride of the noble contour making up the glory of
the face of Byron, in that astounding revelation
made to the Irish Melolist one day in 1819, when
Lord Byron. suddenly exclaimed " What do you
think of Shakspeare, Moore ? I THINK Him A
DAMNED HUMBUG." There is the man instantane-
ously before us—with all his pride, all his daring,
all his vanity, all his folly, all his arrogant and
audacious impulsiveness. Wordsworth again—what
a wonderfully truthful peep we hare of him in that
brief but all-sufficient note in Moore's Diary, Oct.
25th, 1820, " Wordsworth rather dull 1" The
very max—to a T ! A portrait, in three words,
full length, living and breathing—a speaking
.like-
ness ! " Wordsworth rather dull !" " I see, " adds
Moore (and the italics are his own), " he is a man
to hold forth ; and who does not understand the
give and take of conversation." Two-days later,
Oct. 27th, he touches the dull fellow up again, thus:
" Wordsworth came at half-past eight, and stopped
to breakfast. Talked a good deal [about himself,.
always]. Spoke of Byron's plagiarisms from him ;
the whole third-canto of 4Childe Harold' founded
on his style and sentiments." Ha ! Ha ! the im-
pudent varlet—the miserable prig—Fancy Byron
(Ye Gods !) plagiarising from Wordsworth ! Fancy.
Phoebus borrowing new sunbeams from a cucum-
ber-bed ! Verily, as Dogberry Lath it, " bab-
ble " like this is—" very tolerable and not to
be endured." Turning to features more pleasant
to look upon with " the mind's eye" than those of
our dun friend who—

" . . . . paints so well the Idiot in his glory
One thinks the bard the hero of the story"—
turning from the dull solemn egotism of William
Wordsworth—it is agreeable to meet with really
attractive beings, such, fur example, as Washington
Irving or General Lafayette. Lafayette, Moore
describes, in so many words, as "a fine interesting
old mau"—and Irving he speaks of as " good-look-
ing and intelligent-mannered." In- Madame de
Geniis he finds " a lively little old woman, but by
no means so fantastic a person :as Lady Morgan
makes her." Schlegel he speaks of as appearing
to him "full of literary coxcombry." Lavalotte he
mentions as "a very gentle, interesting little man."
Boissy d'Anglas shines upon us from his note-book
" with his white hair spread out upon his shoul-:
ders' a most extraordinary figure." Beresford, the
author of about the drollest book ever penned by
mortal,:viz., "The Miseries of Human Life," he
speaks of, just exactly as we should expect him to
he spoken of—i.e., as " a grotesque-minded person,
very amusing." Hear, to ), how it is he talks of
Charles Lamb, dear, old, quaint, delightful, incor-
rigible Charles Lamb—Elia to the life ! coutez
Charles Lamb, a clever fellow certainly ;
but full of villainous and abortive puns
which he Miscarries of every minute." C. Lamb,
he informs us, s)on aterwards told him he had got
1701. for his two years' contributions ("Essays of
Elia") to the London, Magazine. Glancing over
a few more pages, of the Diary, what a very odd
little memento we come upon about Bryan Waller
Proctor, better known by his nom de plume of
" Barry Corn wall"—of whom Moore writes, April
12th, 1823—" a gentle, amiable-mannered person
in very ill health [Barry Corn wall still living, April,
1.856, a grey-headed but hale Commissioner de
Lunatico Inquirendo, notwithstanding his 33 years'
bygone very ill health], which has delayed his mar-
riage with a person he has long been in love with ;
she, too, an invalid ; and somebody, the other day,
described the twodovers S-uppiug together at nine
o'clock on water gruel." A very different
picture to that 'robust one (not to say that
picture of rude health) delineative of James
Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who " yelled
out savagely two or three Scotch songs, and
accompanied the burden of one of them by labour-
ing away on-the bare shoulders of the ladies who
sat on each side of him !" Wonderfully miscella-
neous, indeed, is the company to which we are in-
troduced by Moore, as we follow him through all
the vagaries and whimsicalities commemorated in
his amusing Diary—one while going behind the
scenes of Drury-lane Theatre, where he has "some
talk with Kean" then and there playing Sir Giles
Overreach—Edmund Kean already spoken of in an
earlier volume as .‘‘ this extraordinary phenomenon."
At another moment (in 1818) being caught by the
button-hole =rin the street by Taylor, Editor of
The San, who, thereupon, tells him this very
characteristic anecdote of Sheridan :

"When some mevere charges against him (relating, Tay
for said, to his affair with Matthews) appeared in the Ba'le
Chronicle, he called upon Woodfall, the printer of the
ahronicle, d requested him to insert them, in order
that they might gain universal circulation, and that his
answer, which he meant soon to prepare, might be un-
derstood as universagy. Woodfall complied with bis,
request, but the refutation never was written ; so that
tl4e rumour was by this means spread, and his indolence
prevented him from ever supplying the antidote."
As most happily illustrative of the kind of life
led by Moore in his best drys, when in London,
take this record of the 23d of May, 1828, when he
was intat. forty-nine, a date he signalises, by the
way, as "not a bad day altogether." Here it is :
—" Waltei Scott, Rogers, and Chantrey at break-
fast ; music and Miss Bailey at luncheon ; dinner
at Lansdowne House, with the Venus of Canova
before m3i. eyes [remember, he had kissed the hand
and felt the foot of >the original !), and Sontag in
the evenino•• " To which ha adds, " Taking it with
.
all its et te;`eras of genius; beauty, feeling, and
magnificence; no other country but England could
furnish out stiCh a day." So that our dear little
Patlander, after; all, was very John-Bullish in his
prejudices f; And so too, again, in his instance, the
divine ilivxri of the Poet, roving from flower to
.flower, from sweet to sweet, sipping the honey of
adulation, and basking in the sunshine of popu-
larity, lived thegay life of the butterfly.

Journal of Adventures with the British Army. By
G. Cavendish Taylor, late 95th Regiment.
2 Vols. Hurst and Blackett.
This work possesses many qualifications which
should cause it to be widely circulated and generally
popular. It is remarkable as being the production
of a military amateur ; that is to say, of an officer
who had recently quitted the army, and who went
to the Crimea simply to obtain information. The
volumes before us chiefly consist of a diary written
on the spot from
.time to time. Ho has tried, he
tells us, to write of things as they are, and has not
distorted facts in order to make his information
more agreeable. This book is written in a fair and
open spirit, without any of that Prejudice and par-
tiality which so often mars the effect of works of
this kind. He makes no attacks upon indivi-
duals, though- he totally condemns the culpable
mismanagement which produced such deplorable
results. From the very commencement the same
want of method was observed :
" For the reception of the troops soon to arrive some
competent general should have boen out there, at least
two months before, so as to give him time to become 4'7•
quainted with the locality, the country, and the people he
had to deal with; and with full power and authority to
make every requisite provision for the reception of our
army.
" As it was, one cold, snowy morning, the 14th of April,
beinc, Good Friday, a large steamer was unexpectedly
seen enter the Bosphorus, no one knew what she was,
or where from ; but her decks were covered with wonder-
ing soldiers, fur whieh no barrack accommodation or com-
missariat arrangements had yet been made. It was the
Himalaya, with General Adams and staff; and the 33d
and 41st Regiments on board. When the general sent on
shore to know where he was to go, or what to do, some
time elapsed before any responsible person could be
found. The large barracks at Scutari had been assigned
to us by the Turks, but they were still full of Turkish
soldiers.'
The same story which aroused so much indignation
two winters ago, the same old story of suffering
and neglect is reiterated here in all its chief fea-
tures, chronicled on the spot itself on the authority
of an eye-witness. Thus, writing on November
3d, 1854, he says of the clothing of the troops :
"There is a great falling off in the appearance of our sol-
diers. The French exhibit a great contrast to us. Of course
their clothing shows wear and tear, but they look nearly as
well, and quite as well as when they first landed in Turkey.
Even the Turks are better clothed for rough work than
our men. Their great coats are thick, warm, and service.
able; while Ours are thin, made of most rotten materials,
and qaite inadequate for keeping men warm in snow or
winter weather."
Again on Jan. 2d :
" From every one coming down from Balaklava one
hears different accounts as to what is going on; but all
agree in saying that ..the army is in as wretched
a condition as it can be, and the daily average of
sick is fast increasing. At Balaklava there is plenty
of warm clothing and some huts; but from wrong
management they have not yet gOt them up to the camp.
The French, on the other band? are partially hutted and
Snug, with abundance cf provisions. A French conntes,
was staying at Missarie's, and she said the other day—
'ln England you are vary rich, and you buy expensive
luxuries and send them out to your troops, but they do j