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October 11,1856] THE lEADEB. 979
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LATTER-DAY POET11Y. Ouit table once more...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Last Days Of The War. The War. By "W...
Simpson , who felt and declared his incompetence , according to JNIr . Russell . Thence , every episode of the long conflict is pictured in its turn , until the announcement of the Treaty of Paris allowed Russians , French , English , Turks , Sardinians , and Tartars to roam at will along the Crimean coast , and to revisit the battle-field of the Alma . The tenor of the narrative is somewhat different from that contained in the . first volume . It is no longer the recital of -woes and miseries endured by a forsaken and half-iamished army , no longer an Iliad of inglorious disasters— -the horrors of war without its epic action . There is less about the Commissariat , and more about the batteries ; less about the departments at home , and more about the Walakhoff" and Redun— -names already grooving dim . We now see a well-appointud army , a railroad , a commodious landing-place , regular arrivals of stores , troojDS really engaged with the enemy , and not devoting their heroism to the endurance of hungex' that ue-ed never have been endured , disease that need never have been propagated , or fatigues that need never have been borne . Accordingly , 1 \ Ir . liussell writes in a gayer vein ; but his criticisms are more confident than before ; his eye has become almost military ; he discourses of officers and their grievances as though he were a slighted captain , and of men and their deserts as though
he were a British grenadier . Thus it is that his relation touches so many sympathies ; .. he enters the circle and faces eyery individual , class , department , alternately , occupying himself with the most complex personal details , at the same time that he is preparing bright colours for his panoramic ¦ correspondence . - We do not think this correspondence , brightly coloured as it is , deserves to be satirized as pyrotechnic or gaudy . It presents a series of tableaux of the day and for the day , -which the artist may afterwards soften down , when the entire series lias to be grouped and frescoed historically , but-which certainly carried the English public , in imagination , to the seat of war , and inspired it with an enthusiasm as great as would have been inspired , in a ruder age , by the ballads of an heroic minstrel . Mr . Hussell is bold in the use of language , ^ , like most very bold writers , occasionally overstrains his license , and passes the climax of metaphor . But even in the violence of his style there is originality and power ; in this description of the llussian ships on lire after the last bombardment there is even beauty sit the same time that there is exaggeration : —
About 2 ' 30 in the morning , when she had been an hour or so in her novel berth , a broad light was perceived in her fore ¦ hatchway . . ' The leading steamer on the opposite side in a second afterwards exhibited gleams of equal brightness , and then one ! two ! three ! four ! five!—as though . from signal guns—the remaining steamers , with one exception , emitted jets of fire from their bows . The jets soon became columns of flame and smoke—the wind blew fresh , and strong , and the night was dark , that the fire spread with rapidity along the vessels , and soon lighted up the whole of the northern heavens . The masts were speedily licked and warmed into a fiery- glow , and the rigging burst out into fitful wavering lines of light struggling with the wind for life ; the yards shed lambent showers of sparks and burning splinters upon the watex . The northern works could be readily traced by the light of the conflagration , and the faces of the Russian soldiers and sailors who were scattered about on the face
of the cliff shone out now and then and justified Rembrandt . The work of destruction sped rapidly . The vessels were soon nothing but huge arks of blinding light , which hissed and crackled fiercely , and threw up clouds of sparks and embers , and the guns , -as they became hot , exploded , and shook the crazy hull to atoms . One after another they went down into the seething waters . And this , a retrospect on the Alma , is -very effective : — I could recal that narrow road filled with dead and dying—poor young Burgoyrio going past on his litter , crying out cheerily , It ' s all right—it ' s only my foot ;" " Billy Fitzgerald" shot through both legs , lying up against the wall , and chatting away as if he had just sat down after a quadrille ; a white-haired field-officer ( of the 55 th ) , whose name I don't know , badly wounded through the body , who could only moan bitterly , " Oh , my poor men ! oh , my poor men ! they hadn ' t a chance ; " then the river stained here and there with blood , still flowing from the dead and dying
who lay on the shallows and the banks , lined nevertheless by hundreds , who drank its waters eagerly ; the horrid procession of the dripping litters going to the rear of the Tight ; the solid mass of Adams' brigade , halted by Lord Itnglan ' s orders as it emerged from the smoke of Bourlioult : the Staff itself and the Commander-in-Chief , gathered on the rising ground close by ; that ghastly battle-field where so many lay in so small a place putrescent with , heat and wounds ; the grey blocks of Russians molting away like clouds , and drifted off by the fierce "breath of battle ; the shriek and rush of the shells from the brass howitzers in the battery , the patter of the rifle , Hie rattling roll of the musketry , the frantic cheers of our men as they stood victors on the heights , drowning the groans and cries which for a moment succeeded the roar of battle ; the shrill flourish of the French bugles , and the joyous clamour of their drums from the other side of the ravine , —all came back upon the ear again , and the eye renewed its pleasure as it gazed from the ridge upon the plain where it had before seen the Russians flying in disorder , with their rear still covered by the threatening
squadrons of their cavalry . Then one recalled the sjiot where one had seen sonic friend , lying dead , or sonic one—friend or foe—whom it were no mercy to strivo to keep alive—Wntkin "Wynn , stretched on the ground in front of the trench , with a smile on his face—Colonel Chester , with a scornful frown , and his sword clenched in the death grasp—Monck , with the anger of battle fixed on every feature—these and many another friend in the peaceful camp of Almlyn or Devno rose up as they lived in the memory . The scowling Russians Avho glared so fiercely on their conquerors and seemed to lmto them even as they supplied thoir wants , then seen for the iirst time , loft an impression respecting- the type of tho Muscovite character which has scarcely been cfl ' aced now that they have ceased to he enemies . I recalled tho two days passed aa no army ought to pass two days—on the field of battle , amid the dead —the horrid labours of those hours of despondency and grief where all should have been triumph and rejoicing , and the awakened vigoiir with which the army broke from its bivouac on tho Alma .
Mr . Russell has revised and corrected the letters in this volume , a nameless artist having added the author ' s portrait , which , we should say , is not from a photograph by Fcnton .
October 11,1856] The Leadeb. 979
October 11 , 1856 ] THE lEADEB . 979
Latter-Day Poet11y. Ouit Table Once More...
LATTER-DAY POET 11 Y . Ouit table once more presents a motley gathering of young singing birds — feeble little fledglings whom we would fain take to our bosoms und cherish with something of vital warmth , but whose chirping is so pertinaciously foolish—so full of ' very affectations' and ridiculous self-assertion—that we are compelled to discharge our fowling-piece among them , and bring down a few for awful warning . Here , now , for instance , is a sky-lark with
the pastoral name of Combe , who has trilled forth some JPoems : Lyrical ^ AJective , mid Dramatic . ( Edward Baines and Sons , Leeds . )—This little bird has a most conceited idea of himself ; and , previous to giving vent to his feelings in song , has clapped his wings , by "way of preface , after this prodigious fashion : —~ The extreme abundance of verses of a quality of more or less respectable mediocrity precludes the authors of such verses from any pressing necessity that they should publish their productions . But the very same fact is a continual and urgent reason why the true poet [ that is , why /] , drawing from sources of a deeper and more genial inspiration , ought by all means to bring forward his \ jny ~ \ revelations for the solace and refreshment of the world . The great difficulty is for the author of a Volume of Verses to distinguish truly of himself whether he is a mere dabbler in the shallow waters , or whether he has had access given to him to the fountains of a profounder and more pregnant truth .
Various portions of the present volume having existed as manuscript for the space of seven , ten > twelve , and fourteen years , the author has at least this to say for him self , that he has not been hasty in coming to the conclusion that it was liis duty to publish . And now in recording the deliberate act of his most matured consideration , lie is not without a , conviction , that to some readers , this little wor / c mayreveal tones of a diviner and more melodious wisdom , and ylimpses of a deeper and more significant truthsuchasmayto some extent have justified him in the act of its publication . And he is not without a belief , that , in the very extravagance which distinguishes the concluding portion of the volume there may be something ; which the age will welcome , even as a rocky and fantastic bluff might be welcomed in the midst of prairie-gardens of wearisome and interminable luxuriance .
I he first division of the volume thus triumphantly sent into the world is called " Passion ' s Progress : a Series of Lyrics , in Three Parts . " All these lyrics have a , connecting chain of obscure story ; but the author , recollecting the unfortunate fate of Tennyson ' s Maud , tlie story of which was similarly indicated by snatches of song , and fearing that he may not get a Dr . Mann to ' vindicate' or explain liis recondite intentions , has undertaken that task for himself , and has prefixed a " Biographic Narrative , " in which he benignly criticizes and elucidates his own production . After this fashion chirps our little bird about himself : — In the fourth lyric ,, we ' -have .. an . utterance from the passionate and unfathomable depths of the poet ' s heart , full of the most profound and tender significance . . . . . Every verse as it flows seems burdened with the inexpressible and tender sympathy which the grief of our heroine has awakened in the heart of our hero .
The same tone of complacent self-admiration is continued through nearly fifteen pages , post octavo . We are told that , " in the fifth lyric ( Part II . ) , our poet bursts forth into a strain of the most impassioned and intoxicated gladness ; " that , in the seventh , he . .. " seems to sob out the very breath of his existence in a parting strain of the most unbending and sorrow-stricken resignation ; " that he " wins upon our sympathies ; " that he relieves his feelings " with a redundant fluency of illustration ; " tjhat he gives " a powerful and poetical illustration" of something ; that he proclaims the truths of religion " to the globe-encompassing Principalities and Powers" "in a strain of sublime and prophetic warning , " , " full of ineffable and holy ardour , hurls down the vain dignities of earth ; " with a great deal more to the same effect . But Mr . Combe does not seem , to be quite aware of his own intentions ; for he says" it would appear" from the concluding stanza of one of his lyrics that something or other is the case . In the sixth lyric of Part II ., we are " floated away seemingly to the South Seas , " with a lovely but unapproachable island in the distance :-
—But suddenly the dreamy image is swept from our perceptions by the blackness of a tropical tornado , the prolonged and ceaseless tumult cf the ocean roars echoing on our senses , and wo are left to imagine what new and tragical catastrophe has burst on our unhappy hero . However , it all ends pleasantly ; for , in the last lyric , "heaven seems to open on the enraptured imagination of the poet , " who is presented to our gaze as victor over Death and Sin , " in " the hallowed mansions of ineffable and eternal peace . " This is surely plagiarised from the conclusion of the pantomime playbills . But the reader shall have , as a specimen , the lyric alluded to as being " full of the most profound and tender significance : "If thou wert drest in splendour , And t were by thy side ; And we stood before the altar , As bridegroom and as bride ; Oh , wouldst thou then be happy , My own , my chosen child ; And smile upon me yet again , As once , in youth , thou smiled ? ( Little bird , chirp good grammar , if you please . ) Oh , would thy heart awaken , " With long-forgotten gleams Of youth , and love , and rupture , liemembered but in drowns ? Oh , wouldst thou seek in fondness , And find in me at lust , A rcfugo and a haven From all the weary past ? Oil , speak it not in words , love , But look it with thine eyes : Or if a tear should dim them , Oh , breathe it then in sighs . But if thy heart should tremble , Ere yet that sigh be free , Oh , weep it on my "breast love , And 1 will weep on theo . " The Fate of Claribol , " in the same volumo , is a piece of dulness and morbid gloom , setting forth how a young lady goes mad because the hero marries her twin sister instead of herself ; how both young ladies die sympathetically about tho same time ; and how tho hero , who has always found hiinsolf sorely perplexed by ' t ' other dear charmer , ' feels greatly relieved in his mind now both of them are ' away . ' The last poem of the volume" Tho Buttle of the Bridges : a Poetical Extravaganza "—is a cumbrous attempt at a mock heroic story , descriptive of the commotion supposed to bo
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 11, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11101856/page/19/
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