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m ^ titfJm o ^ oui ? national . danger was totttogk * upon us by the feeble administe&tiiM of the Indian Government . Jts recurretf < se * can only be prevented bjra real and Jarge improvement of that administration . Herd' iff the interest which the English taxpayer kas in- the India Government Bill .
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IKE MUSTER-ROLL OF INDIAN HEROISM . "Wb wait for the names of every English man and woman engaged in the terrible defence of Imcknow , and every one will belong to our muster-roll of Indian heroism . That list should be engraven on a vast tablet , and placed where generations might read it . Scarcely does it seem that one was braver
than another j who , indeed , can withhold the palm from any of the noble band cut off amidst that howling wilderness of war in the depths of India ? During eighty-seven days and nights officers and men were upon duty ; they snatched short intervals of sleep at their guns ; they forgot all distinctions of rank ; they thought only of the trust that events had confided to them . Dearer than the blood
of life was the duty of standing between the helpless and innocent , and the dreadful enemy without , that thirsted , not for victory alone , but for pollution and massacre . They were not fighting for a fortress , but for the Eves and honour of nineteen hundred women and children , and of the sick and wounded * at whom tie Sepoy tulwar would have struck as fiercely as on the field of battle . Thus the conflict was literally mortal , between combatants who could never
be reconciled ; no traee or parley could be sounded , not the most solemn engagements , on the part of the besiegers , could be trusted . There was nothing left but to repel them or die ; and , looking calmly in the face of death , our countrymen stood in the breach until their agony became a triumph , and their determination invincible . Women know not what they can be until these trials come . The troops were harassed by no shrieks of terror ; young English matrons
and girls did not cower while the fire searched every corner of the Residency . Instead of disheartening their defenders , they animated them , and that garrison might have been imagined one family . Soldiers and officers of ail ranks descended into the mines , laboured at the removal of putrid carcases , stood on sentry with , shouldered muskets , manned the guns , and handled the bayonets that tore such bloody chasms in the columns of the ) enemy whenever they assaulted the walls . But these assaults were of a kind
Unprecedented in the history of war . Lucknow was not a fort in possession of the English , besieged by an army in entrenchments . It was one fort enoirled by many , a Malakoff amid a cluster of Redans , and these sheltered batteries were within pistol - shot . Thirty to one was the proportion between the hostile and the beleaguered . 3 Tive times they swept up to the works in immense multitudes , after opening breaches
and springing mines , and five times they were hurled back by the email battalions ranged at the points of attack , as if giants had recoiled before magicians . Four times the garrison ( sallied , and left a deadly imprint on the maBBeiT ~ thW ~ h ~ einm ^ l ^^ — Thus nine hard-fought battles were won within eighty-seven days by those exhausted soldiers . But , within their walls , a dismal mortality spread * Three fatal diseases simultaneously Consumed 'them ; not even their hospital was out , of gun-range 5 every building in the Betrideney was liable to be crushed by the fceeiegero' fire , and gallant men saw the bullets they had escaped now striking some
undaunted woman , now adding to the funeral roll of the war some unweaned child . Human nature ma de its hig hest effort in that frail fortress , and something of divine fortitude made those English men and women so calm and patient . Shot and shell smote the roofs from the houses ; gradually the ruin , as it spread , drove the inmates together ; their losses multiplied ; for weeks they knew not whether they might not have been left alone in India ; still , they fought for life and the flag upon their tower so nobly
that cynicism itself , regarding these warriors and their wards , must melt into patriotic love , and bless them for the dangers they have passed , the valour with which they bore up under their long anguish , and the glory that beams from Lucknow on the English name . " We wait for the muster-roll ; yet some names there are too brilliant not to be signalized . First , Lawrence , a paladin , a glorious old soldier . Then Banks , who died in action , ' without a groan , ' after cheering the whole garrison by his masculine example . Next , Ingklis , a true Knight of the Tower and Sword . The nation prays that he at least may be spared from that ravaged field , to
wear the honours he has won , and which opinion now claims for him from Parliament and the Crown . With him ranks James , who , wounded in the knee , would not lay down his arms for a day . Aiikes led the native troops , and proved to them what an Englishman can be in battle . The enemy , rushing in thousands to the attack , met IiOTTGHN-ANy with a few gentlemen of the uncovenanted staff , a handful of European soldiers , and a few faithful Sepoys , and , retreating , broke before his deadly onset . Obb , Mecham , and Soppitt , regaining their feet after having been blown into the air , rushed at once into the engagement .
These , then , are the names of heroes . Of Outbam we need not now speak . Of Have-1 . 00 K we have spoken already , and if there be in any soldier ' s heart a pure ambition , we say that to . be in history the peer of Havelock : would be a nobler aspiration than that of emulating the stained and tyrannous glory of Bonapabte . Comn Campbell must now be added to the splendid roll . He has performed two magnificent achievements : —the final relief of the Lucknow garrison , and the defeat of the G-walior army . He has yet a
vast work before him , but his reward should not be delayed . The example of Havelock warns us not to postpone the duty of gratitude . WELiiESiiEZ was raised many steps in the peerage while absent , and upon resuming his seat in the House of Lords , heard four patents read , creating him successively Baron , Earl , Marquis , and Duke—Noble , MostNoble , and His Grace . With Campbell ' s name is associated that of Gbant , who pursued the Gwalior fugitives , and that of Willowy who fell at Cawnpore . Wind ham has preserved his reputation for audacity , and he never had any other reputation to lose . Here we break off , leaving the roll incomplete . There is something in this glow of
martial virtue that reachea the heart , and forces every man to feel that he has * some brother there . ' Scarcely can family affection yearn more deeply to the dearest friend , than English national sympathy has yearned to place a wreath on HwvEiiOOK ' s Roman head . Allourconaolation-is ^ thatj-of thebrave ,-inanyyet live to receive our award , and that , of the dead , there are widows and orphans whom the commonwealth may cherish- —the mother of Nicholson , the widows of Neill and Havblook , the orphans of Havelock and Lawrence , And when this tyranny is overpast over the graves of Lucknow ahall rise a monument to symbolize our gratitude , and record their glory .
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M . GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC . Some twenty years ago M . Granier db Gassagnac aimed at reputation in the character of a ifo . tnantique of the most extravagant colour ; and with happy impertinence applied to Racine the epithet of polisson . Since that time his name , surrounded by a sort of noisy notoriety , has always been found among the adherents of triumphant causes . He has written with some power , but always in the same hard , aggressive style- —for his talent is less versatile than nis opinions—on an infinite variety
of topics . His services were early secured by the present Emperor when he was meditating the coup d'ttat ; and , without knowing or caring what was the object of the conspiracy , he undertook to insult and vituperate all friends of Parliamentary government , and to prepare a portion of the public by his naturally coarse and artificially vehement style for the catastrophe that was to make his fortune . After the victory , as might have been ejected , his language became more aggressive and- ferocious still ; and no one can remember that disastrous
period without remembering also the vulgar Io Pseans of M . Granier de Cassag-nac over the defeat of the lettered and enlightened classes , his glorification of matter , his audacious conclusion that Prance had thought too much , and should now feed and stupify itself , and cover its round belly with good cloth , protect its feet with good shoes , and be thankful to Napoleon III . for his resolve to take all matters political , moral , and religious , under his own special care ^ Well , six years have passed ; and M . GranieKi de Cassagnac , pensioned in various ways > but perfectly forgotten by the world—except when , like a bad swimmer in a public bath , he chose to make an awkward splash to attract attention away from more scientific and eleeant performers—is pleased
to come out as a Reformer in Literature . A reformer of course describes what he pretends to reform ; and we shall be able , therefore , to learn from M . Granier , who always signs himself 'Deputy to the Legislative Corps / what is the state of taste under the Empire whioh he boasts of having assisted to establish : " Perpetual soldier , of order , after having helped to conquer the old enemy , we shall advance to meet the new one ; and shall wage against bad literature the war we have waged against bad politics . " He begins by boasting of the degraded state of the political press in Prance : " When the political press is strong , power is feeble ; when writers pick up questions ,
Ministers have let them fall ; " and so on . M . Granier always speaks with lordly contempt of the literature that attempts to treat of public affairs ; and certainly his own experience is not of a nature to persuade him that it places a man very high in opinion . Without trenching too far on personal ground , it is necessary to inform the English public that whatever influence M . Granier ' s pea may exert is purely due to his talent , and entirely . unadulterated by esteem for his character . We may notice , by the way , that M . Granier indulges with more than usual extravagance in
laudation of his country ' s literature at the expense ot all others ; mentions that " Italy , England , Spain , and Germany have had their great men , whilst Prance has had great ages ; " that " elsewhere good books have been an accident , whilst in France they arc a tradition ; " and that " the admiration of all nations has conferred on Prance the royalty of knowledge and of the lyre . " This seems to be a claim of preeminence for Prance in the matter of poetry 3 " so , it has at least the merit of novelty . All the rest is the inevitable trash with which writers who wish to be popular in Franco gorge their readers ; and we should not notice it were it not that M . GrankB declares , without explaining the reason , that what he says only refers to the past , and that now " sucn
is the forgetfulncss of art and of themselves into which Prenoh writers have fallen , that letters cannot long remain in their present track without arriving at an irremediable decay and a comp lete ruin . " Ho repeats this testimony in various foril 1 j j r "There is abundance of workmen and complete lack-of-worka ; " —Again-: —" Our-workB-r-aro-PQJJfc , , posed by writers who have not the timo to w 1 ™*? tot a public which has not the timo to read ; mm » tho imprudent author , who cannot oomposo wnon ho does not abuse , goes on to point out tho nbsouce of " observation , wit , and orthography , " and to tou us that under tho Empire people skim through books whilst in the hands of the barber or the shoeblack , and would refuse to the poot tho two aoufl they would givo to tho waiter . What other reaun oould wo expoot , M . Granibr , from the contemp 1
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 16, 1858, page 62, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2226/page/14/
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