The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-05 00:00:00

1 8 5 6.

us a family again." It was fated that this happy,
hopeful youth, the pride of his mother, the expec-
tation of his father, should be a perpetual blight
to the course of their latter life. He was to return
after two years' absence, when his brother's mar-
riage would have removed the awkwardness of his
position at home, but on that day other tidings
came. He had fallen into evil company abroad,
and in consequence of a quarrel had to hasten to
America. This was another blow to his parents ;
and they had to resign themselves, instead of rejoic-
ing at his return, to the prospect of a long exile. By
degrees the first sorrow faded and theygrew calmer.
John Halifax seemed to pass over the stirring cares
and excitement of his business life back to the
days of his youth. He had a reason for com-
posing himself from unnecessary strife, that the
others knew not of. They were trusting to yet
more tranquil time for the future ; he was looking
back on the past as those only look who expect no
future below. "Happy, happy time—sunshiny
summer, peaceful winter, we marked neither as
they passed ; but now we hold both in a sacredness
inexpressible, a foretaste of that land where there
is neither summer nor winter, neither days nor
years." The calm was broken by a new distress
concerning their wanderer. Guy was to have re-
turned, but no news could be obtained of the vessel
in which he had sailed. A season of dreary watch-
ing followed, during which the mother's health
failed entirely. At last, without any warning, the
absent returned, the lost was found. He did not
come to a home of peace, however, for the strength
of Ursula had been too severely taxed for her to
rally. It was while contemplating this awful fact.
and wondering how it was that her husband did
not see it, that Phineas was informed by her hus-
band that his only fear was lest he should go first
himself. It is not possible to exaggerate the agony
thus caused to the faithful friend, who had looked
up to him as to a superior spirit all his life, and
who had always hoped to meet his kindness till the
last. John Halifax saw that he had supposed
truly that such intelligence would darken his
friend's course, and that he had done wisely in
withholding the news while possible. It would
have cast a shade over what had been a happy
time. He endeavoured, not to console him, but
rouse him. "Phineas, we have known ono
another these forty years, Is our love, our faith so
small that either of us, for himself or his brother,
need be afraid of death ?" It was- well that the
secret had been disclosed, for it was soon
after this that one evening, as the friends sat to-
gether, watching the sun set, as was their usual
custom, the "Master called away His faithful ser-
vant while he slept." This last conversation with
his long-tried companion and attached friend had
not been without avail, and Phineas Fletcher could
be calm, even while he gazed upon the corpse of
him who had been everything to him in life, and
whose death left him alone, in the sad evening of
existence, to mourn over one who had been the
only sunshine its morning had ever known, and
whose protecting strength and gentle kindness had
been as the shadow of a rock in the burden and
hetoo!iif thile AIL er"i Ma a afre—Aile."
The sacred tie of friendship was tried by the last
test, and the affection that, notwitstanding some
clouds and tempests, was indelibly impressed on
the character of the family, underwent what is
here termed the " crowning consecration." It is
this solemnity and sadness, that redeems the narra-
tive, from being fanciful or imaginary in its feelings
and sentiments. The brilliancy of the hues of
romance are surpassed by the light of reason,
and the illuminated scroll of the ideal is put
aside, for a record with the superscription and sign-
manual of reality. In the page of life unfolded
before us half appears in shade and half in sun ;
there is nothing morbid nor exaggerated in sorrow
or joy, but the aim and end of human efforts are
made to appear in a natural light. Whatever
motives may influence or inspire it is not possible
that miracles can be effected, and so after his long
life of toil, and his many plans for the future,
John Halifax did not find all smooth and straight-
forward. This idea is explained elsewhere by the
same author as " the toiling of spirit against flesh,
the sort of work which, if anything could be counted
acceptable, will be so counted when, thank God,
the long day of life with all its labour is over for
eternity." In the present instance this struggle is
in a humble sphere of society, although John Hali-
fax rises comparatively high by his exertions at a
later period, but the principle is not for one class
or rank. The high sense of honour, the stern
spirit of self-control, the kind heart, the daring
nature, were all displayed in his character, and the
same qualities and attributes would have rendered
him, in a higher station, a bulwark to his
country in the hour of need, and a glory to
her annals in the records of history. The foun-
dations once laid of the pure and perfect, the
structure must be strong and lasting ; in the build-
ings not made with hands, which are designed in
the spirit and fashioned by the actions, the result
is the same. The formation of the character is a
work which has no limits, it is an endeavour that
can never be fully appreciated, and it contains
results of which no one can estimate the importance.
Hence it is not a mean or trivial subject brought
under notice, that of a noble nature fighting its
upward and onward way, from the snares of adver-
sity, through the curse of prosperity, to the van-
tage-ground that commands respect and admira-
tion. If the delineation of the grand in character,
the glorious in action, the tender in feeling, the
pure in heart, can confer merit, and bestow emi-
nence on a production, this one must take its place
among the standard, and the excellent. It appeals
to the mind of the reader, in language that is ren-
dered sublime by the eloquence of truth, and that
worships the beautiful in the homage it pays to
virtue. It presents characters in its chronicles
who are powerful to instruct and edify. If they
succeed, it is in a cause for which men will not
give them honour ; and if they fail they know that
their efforts were not directed in vain, as they
were planned in the spirit of heroism, and their
mission was to benefit themselves, by being a bless-
ing to others.

The Transcaucasian Campaign, of the Turkish
Army under Omer Pasha. A Personal Narra-
tive. By Laurence Oliphant. Blackwood and
Sons.

The author of this timely narrative of a rather
memorable episode in the late confused aud dis-
astrous war between the Allies and Russia—is
really indefatigable. Indefatigable both as an
author, and as a traveller. He writes evidently
currente calamo—and that, moreover, in a different
sense from the one ordinarilyattached to the old school
phrase—in a twofold sense. Precisely as the moon
has a double motion (though Mr. Jeliuger Symons
either can't or won't see it) revolving round the
sun all the while it is waltzing about the earth
with its face ever earthwards, as befits the cour-
tesy of so faithful a satellite [thereby producing obvi-
ously, and by necessity, out of those same two
movements an inevitable revolution upon its own
axis]—precisely, we say, as the moon has this wonder-
ful double motion about the sun and about the earth,
and consequently (because of its faithfulness to the
sun and its fickleness to the earth, about its
own axis—precisely we say as the moon has this
twofold motion, so has the industrious grey goose
quill of Mr. Laurence Oliphant, a twofold agility,
flying over the paper as the wielder of it flies
hither and thither over sea and land. Currente
calamo therefore—with a duplex significance writes
the author of the " Journey to Nepaul," of the
" Russian Shores of the Euxine," of "Minnesota
and the Far West," and, " last but not least" of
all, of this timely personal narrative of the " Trans-
caucasian campaign of the Turkish army under
Omer Pacha." Timely—appearing as it has done
just after the laying of the papers relative
to the Defence and Capitulation of Kars
before Parliament, and just before the com-
mencement of the debates now agitating the
House of Commons, consequent upon the
somewhat memorable motion of the honourable
member for Enniskillen. The value of this im-
portant volume, appearing as it does at a period so
singularly opportune, lies mainly in the circum-
stance that it is penned by an eyewitness of the
various notable occurrences recounted in it. Au
eye-witness, too, as sagacious in judgment and as
vigilant in observation as the late Civil Secretary
and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs in
Canada—a literary traveller who has latterly as-
sumed a high place as an authority among Roving
Englishmen in anage which has given birth to a
Kinglake, a Lazard, a Ruston, a Walpole, and a
Warburton ! Very acceptable, therefore, we say
at once, is this personal narrative, by Mr. Laurence
Oliphant, of the Transcaucasian Campaign
of the Turkish Army, going forth too late
to prevent the Fall of Kars, and arriv-
ing only in time to witness from afar off
the lamentable catastrophe of its Capitulation ! A
sad, woeful, deplorable tale—the tale of mismanage-
ment here told with a pen of inexorable truth !
The greatest crime among all the great crimes,
making up the grief of our remembrance of the
Russian war—the war begun so tardily and closed
so precipitately The conflict commenced in con-
'.

fusion, and terminated in confusion worso con-
founded ! Kars—the ono word of remorse to that
laborious and, up to this point, eminently success-
ful, gifted, and energetic public servant, Stratford.
Canning, first Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, dur-
ing fifteen years past her Britannic Majesty's Am-
bassador at Constantinople. Fortunately, during
these memorable fifteen years past, English Envoy
Extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte—fortu-
nately, we say, until this miserable and irre-
i parable incident of the little of Kars
Ito its evil fate—v, fete which by P reesonablo

_ _____....................1
precaution might so readily have been avoided,
thereby sparing a handful of brave men the anguish
of a series of appalling, and doubly appalling, be-
cause entirely futile sufferings : saving the heroic
Williams from the heart-breaking anxieties of a siege destined, after all, to end so very deplorably
with a capitulation. Kars—there is the " vanish-
ing point" in the historic and tragic picture drawn
with a masterly hand, iu a few bold touches by
that Miami of travelled litterateurc, Mr. Laurence
Oliphant. The pen-and-ink sketches comprised
within the fifteen chapters constituting our author's
latest production, are further embellished, it may be
remarked, than by the vivid light and the sombre
shade thrown upon them alternately by the poig-
nancy of his regrets, and the liveliness of his ima-
gination. Illustrated as the really pictorial letter..
press is by the graphic peucillings of Omer Pasha's
own Artist-Companion, fierr Zuther—partly wood-
cuts, partly tinted lithographs. Woodcuts com-
prising a vignette profile of the great
alaTmuorieckis,hB
Generalissimo, an accurate limning of an bkhasian
Buffalo Cart, an outline view of Capt. ny
Grave, and a characteristic portraiture of M.
Oliphant's Circassian servant, Hadji Mustapha.
Lithographs numbering amongst them the
frontispiece delineative of the Battle of Ingour,
a representation of the Head-quarters of Omer
Pasha near the Skeniscal, a full page like-
ness of Hamid Boy, otherwise Prince Michael
of Abkhasia, and the picturesque commemoration
of an interview which took place between Omar
Pacha and a Circassian Lady at the Choloni Read-
quarters. Besides all which, there are useful adddi-
tions to thesesame artistic adornments of the volume
under review, in the form of a plan of the action on,
and of the Passage of, the Ingour by the Turks,
under Omer Pacha, on the Gth November, 1855 ;
as well as a comprehensive Map of the Trans-
caucasian Provinces—from Kars to Kertch, and
from Derbend to Sinope. Starting from Sebasto-
pol, our author-traveller sets forth with his reader
in the first of these fifteen chapters of animated de-
scription, by way of Kertch and Yenikale. There
they—writer and reader—wend their way to
Anapa, and so onward by way of Circassia
further and further into those memorable and pic-
turesque regions of the Caucasus. Arrived at
Soukhoum aleh, we are introduced to Hahmid
Bey. Arrived at Trebizond, we renew our ac-
quaintance with Omer Pacha. Thence it was that
the Turkish Commander-in-Chief proceeded to
Batoum, there to await the arrival of his troops
according to the plan duly organised with a view
to their ultimate, but alas ! tardy concentration.
Reading Mr. Oliphant's narrative we come in no
way surprised upon the record by him of Omer
Pacha's bitterly expressed complaints against Mar-
shal (then General) Pelissier, for refusing to comply
with his (Omer Pacha's) proposal to conduct a Turk-
ish army into Asia as early as the 15th July instead
of two months later, namely, the middle of Sep..
tember ! Not his, not Omer Pacha's was the
fault of the Turkish expedition being
,r,ein.ndlearsetd,
In
nu-
gatory by its dilatoriness ! Not his, not Lord Strat-
ford's the crime exclusively of leaving Kars then,
, • , ,
7tlclied till the fatal hour had struck for 't'
capitulation. The fault of the oetsy zi,sB,knenisaada
vance of the Turkish army across the Euxine was
(in truth be it said) not Omer Pasha's, BIT Mar-
shal Pelissier's ! The crime of reserving all assist-
ance from the devoted garrison of Kars was (in
simple justice be it added) not so much Lord Strat-
ford de Redcliffe's As—that of Her Britannic Ma-
jesty's Government. Reflection only helps to
convince us of this more and more implicitly and
confidently. A shameless Cabinet at home is willing
enough we perceive to make a stalking horse of a petu-
lant and irritable, but until nowa.hardworking and
for the most part an eminently successfulambassador.
It were a cruelty, however, for the English public
to shut their eyes after the last fifteen years' me-
morable and honourable sojourn of Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe in the exquisitely delicate and in some
respects the wonderfully perilous post (diplomati-
cally speaking) of Ambassador at Constantinople,
and so shutting their eyes to those five lustres of
an illustrious career, to consent hastily, and with-
out all duo deliberation, to treat an eminent ser-
vant of the Crown and of the Country (such as
Lord Stratford has proved himself to be until the
date of this wretched affair about Kars) as a hur-
riedly selected scapegoat, upon which to wreak
vengeance for the aggravated sins of a most crimi-
nal Administration. As dispassionate observers of
the powers that be, and of the things that are, we
say—Beware ! We say at lea St— after these
last fifteen years of his diplomatic career,
as her Majesty's representative at the Ottoman
Porte—let us hear Lord Stratford's own defence
before pronouncing judgment upon him definitively!
It is his due. He has earned a right to this much
by the sagacity and the patriotism he has displayed
hitherto. As far as appearances go at present he
has unquestionably in a political sense acted most
criminally inleaving Kars to its fate and in turning
a deaf ear so long to the earnest supplications for
aid addressed through him to the British Govern-
ment at home by the heroic General Williams.
Apparently we say Lord Stratford in regard to
Kars and its devoted garrison has acted most cri-
minally. But before judging him—lot us hear at
any rate what it is he has to say in his own justifi-
cation Nine hundred and ninety-nine times he
has acted nobly—if (oven supposing everything to
be proved as facts at present seem to threaten they
will be proved by an inevitable deduction) if on
the thousandth occasion lie has acted basely—must
the 1 outnumber, and outweigh, and eclipse, and
annihilate the 999 ? It is a question, this, we can-
not but think worthy at least of some brief conside-
ration ! Particularly—when in other things we alt
of us know perfectly well that higher powers than
this ambassador have acted in regard to the late
war most basely, most infamously, most treacher-
ously. Therefore wo say—Beware ! Be not pre-
cipitate in pronouncing condemnation ! Hear what
the British Envoy to the Ottoman Porte has to say
in extenuation of his own conduct in regard to
Kars and its garrison ! Remember the grievou
shortcomings in other matters of our great
Government Departments ! Above all, con-
sider for a moment—(and this is the crown-
ing or culminating reflection forced upon us
by recent events, aria recently published docu-
ments bearing in any way upon these recent events,
in regard to the War, and in regard to the Peace,
including among these same documents, writings
as widely diversified in their general character as
Mr. Oliphant's last volume, and the long-winded
Treaty of Peace concocted article by article at the
Paris Conferences !]—Above all, we say, consider,
just for one mement consider, whether a deep
game may not have been played in all these late
lamentable transactions? Whether (among other
things) Kars, after all, may not have been wilfully
and criminally abandoned to the evil destiny of
Capitulation—for the purpose of enabling Russia
thereby to have in it a loophole for escape with
apparent " honour ?" For—examining this fatal
and ignominious Treaty it is a glaringly undeniable
fact that Kars is the one " set off" for Russia to
whatever partial successes were achieved by the
Allies elsewhere. England and France, and
Turkey, and Sardinia will give up to Russia—
Sebastopol (as much at least as we have got of it)
and Kertch, and Balaklava, and Eupatoria ! Rus-
sia will give up to Turkey for the sake of these, and
in the name of England, and France, and Turkey
aforesaid, and Sardinia—what ?—linits I Therei
is the balance of the compromise ! The peculiarity
of it is at any rate most—suspicious !
In other., May
it nott
aafternd aas l
wel h ahvaeve been
alreadypre-arrangedo
s l I
expressed it, plainly,
Williams, bluntly, and directly tothe purpose, may
they not Kars
and our own heroic i
saocfrifiKceadrs'? have
been wilfully and most garrisonios usly
devoted and chivalrouseh