The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1869-01-07

aSclnatl0g as q larry Iales 10
the unpremeditated exclamation of
all who lay down Kinglake's volumes,
after having been absorbed for hours
in reading their glowing pages. Yet
one cannot altogether resist another
feeling that, like a fairy tale, they
have cheated him into devoting hours
to the perusal of details that might
have been acquired in so many min
nutes. In these days of steam and
telegraph, when the world seems rush
ing onward with increased velocity and
time appears so parsimonious; when
there are so many books to be read,
and so much other work to be done,
one can hardly avoid feeling of regret
If not actual loss of self-respect-
when he ascertains that the incidents,
to which he has been devoting two or
three hours of valuable time, were in
reality only, six or eight minutes in
being performed. We have one hun
dred and seventy-seven pages of Mr..
KINGLAKE's first volume devoted to
the battle of the Alma, which was
fought in few hours, and about one
hundred of the second volume to the
charge of the Light Brigade, which
did not occupy much over eight min
utes. AS specimens of word painting
these descriptions are beautiful and
powerful. But they are too diffuse. if
not diluted, to be recommended az
history, although no exception may
be taken to the facts which form the
basis for such magnificent specimens
Of rhetoric.
Mr.. KINGLAKE is evidently a man
of strong feeling and prejudice. What
he likes he loves, and what he dis
likes he hates. He is apparently an
conscious of any defects in his favor
ites, and rarely discovers any excel
lencies 10 those he dislikes. With a
simplicity calculated to excite smile
be uarrates plumbers on the part of
his military beau ideal, Lord RAG
Lam, that would disgrace the com
mander of a brigade of Western
militia; while every act of ST.. AR
MAUD, formerly LIE Roy" is criti-
cised with an unsparing prejudice, if
not downright malevolence. There
can be little question that ST. AR
Maud is good subject for criticism,
by reason of the acts of cruelty by
which he first acquired notoriety and
position, as well as for the part he
took in the corp d 'etat with which
NAPOLEON subverted the Republic
Of France and established his Empire
upon its ruins. But the impartial
historian should, nevertheless, so
far forget the past as to be
able to speak of military actions
under his immediate observation with
fairness. Mr.. KINGLAKE may have
done so; yet he is so unable to re-
strain the manifestation of his own
feelings, that he necessarily arouses
suspicion in the minds of his readers
that the French commander is being
badly treated in his hands. Lord
STRATFoRD, another of Mr.. KING
LAKES idols-if we accept his testi-
mony as conclusive on the subject
was one of the most successful and
unexceptional diplomatists the world
ever saw. He always said the right
word and did the right thing exactly
at the right time, while Gar NIcH.
oLAs and his Ambassador, MENTs
CHIKoFF, were as unexceptionally al
ways wrong. This, too, may be his
tory, but we confess it is of that kline
that must be accepted with much
hesitation, and only after careful in
vestigation.
Mr.. KINGLAKE evidently studied
the causes of the Crimean war as
partisan, he went to the scene 0
combat as a partisan, and he writes
as a partisan. To his credit it ma
be said that he does not pretend tt
assume any other position.
Chapter " in the first volume
which is devoted exclusively to dis
cussing the condition OF France pre-
vious to NAPoLEoN's usurpation, an
giving the details of the celebrated
coup d'etat by which the Republi
was overthrow and the Napoleoni
Empire re. established, is graphic AM
valuable Few people living at tn
time of the overthrow OF the Repub
lie had any conception of the scene
of bloodshed by which that event wa
accomplished. Mr.. KINeLAKE place
the particulars before his readers in
, light so strong that they will nc
, easily forget them. The recent con
troversy in Paris, because of tn
! subscription started among the news
| papers to erect a monument to on
I | of NAPoLEoN's victims, who fell q
a one of the barbados, and for sub
: scribing to which several editors hav
Z been severely fined and their paper
suppressed, is calculated to direC
a public attention afresh to these events
All who are DESTROYS of obtainin
very valuable information with regar
to the founding of the Second Frenc
! Empire, will find it in the fourteent
chapter of Mr.. KINeLAKE's frat vol
e ume.
! We make no pretensions to an ana
f lytical criticism of the book. w