*

Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street-Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward-Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomata sauce and warming-pans-Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemenheavy damages, is the only punishment with

which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen."

With this beautiful peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. Justice Stareleigh woke up.

AT THE ALMA.

[From "The Adventures of Dr. Brady." By WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.] HERE must be a great change wrought in man's nature before he ceases to revel in war-not always in the heat of battle, which may find dross where the metal seemed purest - but in the enterprise and adventure of campaigning. It is a new sensation to find you are in danger from men you have never seen-who owe you no ill-will, whom you are bound to kill if you can-and to know that you will be honoured by all your fellows for doing the work. Most men must have the backs of their heads removed and some other matter put in place of the present grouting ere they cease to delight in such homicide; and we may despair, I fear, of ever welcoming the advent of the day when a nation shall be brought to the bar of public opinion and condemned for murder because it has waged war-above all, successful war.

love and pride of kings! Did I think of my vocation then? Not one bit! I longed to ride with that whirling cavalry, or to march at the head of an obedient column. Why am I obliged to attend to the miserable driver whose leg has just been crushed by the wheel of a gun, and who will never mount horse again or join his comrades of the R.H.A.? It is a descent from Pegasus, and it does me good to touch the hard ground of matter-of-fact duty again. And when at last my turn came to move off with my dear old Tigers, all my enthusiasm was nigh smothered in the heat of the sweltering ranks; for after many days of sea-carriage, the noblest heroes, packed close in ships, and destitute of water, will in tight cloth clothes swelter, to say the least of it, under a Crimean September sun. I had acquired th right to purchase a horse. The cavalry swept in some wretched creatures one morning, and a Tartar whose mind was much perturbed by fear respecting the genuineness of British sovereigns— he tested them, in British fashion, with his teeth

age and muscular imbecility but for hard spurring and the excitement around him. The Brighton downs (not quite so sharply accentuated) with a bluer sea and flowers springing in the grass in greater profusion than at home-this is what we are marching over in that ordered array from which the blaze of the sun is flashed back at every step in rays innumerable. But before us, and away towards the broad bands of rising ground purpled in the distance, and gradually heaping tier over tier till they are lost in the blue peak of

I stood on a sand-hill, and saw the army move from the beach towards the enemy. It was a sight which filled one's throat and made the heart swell-mine, although I had been working among the sick, and had sent off my last boatful of hope--sold me a soliped which certainly had died of less sufferers to the ships. The freshness of the morning air, the life and animation of the march, the swarming transports, and their fluttering signals and flapping canvas; the stately procession of the line-of-battle ships and frigates, as they moved on with their advance-guard of swift steamers; the perfect order in which each scarlet oblong took up its place, as brigade after brigade formed, and the divisions extended and spread out over the rolling downs, fragrant with flowers and deep with pasture; the galloping aides, riding from one bright patch of horsemen to the other--the Tchatir Dagh, there ascend, reddening at the the dark masses of the artillery, the black fringe of the Rifles rolling before the wave as it swept over the plain; on our left the cavalry moving in the light of their own helmets, sabres, and lancepoints, the dun-coloured crowd of camp-followers, and the scanty arabas-all formed a picture-ah, no-formed a real body and soul of war, which was beautiful and terrible enough to justify the

base, pillars of smoke in the still air-now blacknow whitening as they die out. The Cossack has been busy with the torch, and he is preparing our welcome of fire and ashes!

Hour after hour we move on. It is a slow march, for the men must halt now and then to rest; and it is needful to keep the order of our advance. During one of these breaks, v.

army is resolved into myriads of units, when arms are piled, packs shifted, pipes lighted, and a hum which is the laughter and shouting of thousands all together swells over the plain, I rode on with Major Hood towards our cavalry, which was covering our front very prettily with its Light Brigade. We came to a narrow, sluggish, ditchlike stream groping through a fat meadow on its way to the sea. By the side of the road close to the bridge were the remains of a whitewashed farmhouse blackened by the smoke of the hayricks and outhouses, and charred by the heat so that the planks of the roof had crumpled up and broken away from the eaves. The major was a man of forethought. "The cavalry can't have had time to rummage this place. Let us go in and see if the Cossacks have left anything."

skirmishers answered, and in their ranks too was equal commotion, and much gambadoing, buckjumping, and rearing; but no one was hurt, and the result of the spattering of small-arms was, now and then a little dust knocked up from the dry ground, or a singing in the air as a bullet wandered on its errand.

"It's a capital illustration of the value of cavalry fire," said Hood. "But look, there they are in earnest!"

He pointed to the hill in front, and there indeed rose in sight a forest of lances. Next there appeared a dense mass of horse, which halted on the sky-line in three divisions; the centre dark blue, the right white, and the left a light grey.

"Ho! ho! my lads, I thought so," continued the major. "There is my Lord Cardigan and his Brigade, but where are his guns? These fellows will soon let us have a taste of their iron."

Our skirmishers were falling back. The Cossack

the centre square of dark blue on the ridge shook itself out, and opening right and left uncovered eight black specks on the hill. Out flew from one of them a fat puff of white smoke, and ere one could count twice a sharp swishing sound heralded but an instant in advance the visit of the round shot, which pitched right under my pony and covered the major and Standish with a violent shower of earth, small stones, and dust.

We dismounted, hitched up our horses at the door of the Post Station of Buljanak, and entered the house. Room after room-it was all the same -furniture broken-drawers open and empty-line followed them with derisive cheers. Suddenly scattered articles of clothing-every mark of hasty flight. As we opened one door, a cat charged furiously between our legs and was followed by a kid, but in an instant a shot from Hood's revolver rolled the latter over. "There's our dinner for a couple of days, my lad! I'm not sure we ought to have let pussy go, for cat's meat may be a delicacy if the Cossacks have their way. Now I'll just make our kid portable, and do you go on and try your luck. Don't spare anything eatable." I descended into the court just as Standish bounded round the corner in pursuit of a wounded guineafowl, with a smoking pistol in his hand, and ran it to death in the embers of a hay-rick.

"There," he exclaimed, "a few turns more and it would be roasted, feathers and all. Campaigning makes a fellow very hungry and dreadfully unprincipled. What a joke we think all this is but how savage we'd be if the French were potting our domestic animals about Clapham Common!"

And we three marauders pricked along the plain with our plunder in our wallets till we got nigh the line of the cavalry skirmishers which had just halted in a hollow. On the ridge in front of them there was a dotted line of horsemen, which advanced towards us. As they came nearer, the long flagless lances and the round bullet-like heads of the Cossack horse were made manifest.

"The canaille have got something behind them," said Hood, “as we shall see presently."

The Cossacks came on bravely waving their lances, and their lively little horses curvetted prettily down the slope. Then came a tiny puff of smoke from one, and then another popped off his carbine, and the fire ran from one to the other along their line, and their horses pranced and kicked about more friskily than ever. Our

"We are right in the line of their fire on the cavalry! They take us for the staff, perhaps, owing to this gentleman's splendid gold band. Come over to the left flank," advised our Mentor, who never stopped puffing his cigar for a moment. And as he spoke a shell burst over us, and I heard the singing of the fragments; and swish came another shot! and whizz! whizz! whizz! shot after shot all around us! But Hood was imperative against any rapid movement. "No cantering! No galloping! A quiet trot to the flank, if you please, gentlemen."

It was now a very pretty sight indeed. The cavalry was slowly falling back, wheeling in alternate squadrons, with face to the enemy as they retired, whilst the Russians pressed forward with their guns as if to come down on us ere the Brigade could reach the cover of its artillery and the advancing army. In the distance behind us appeared the British, moving on like Atlantic rollers, and tracing the green plains with bands of scarlet and white; and through the dust-clouds which came up from the tramp of horses and the wheels of bounding gun-carriages we could make out the artillery hastening to the rescue. The Russian guns ceased not to ply the cavalry, and here and there a horse fell or the ranks shook for a little as the missile found a victim. But the tables were soon turned on the enemy-a British

dragging a broken leg behind him,-to see a body stand for a second ere it fell, without a head, or the trunk and head lying legless,-to see in the line of a rush of grape a track of dead and dying, just as small birds are cut down in winter-time by boys in a farm-yard-this was in a few minutes quite familiar to me, and was far less terrible than one glimpse of some terror-stricken wretch as, in fear of being trodden to death, he sought to creep away to a quiet place to die; or the mute imploring faces of the wounded who all at once, felt their part in the day was over. I was going I knew not where, for my orders had been of the vaguest. I was to place myself wherever the divisional medical officer might appoint. But he was not visible anywhere. And as to "wherever my services were needed," why, there was a fair field anywhere. But it was quite evident I was not on the right track at present, as I was too much in the way of glory, and had no right to its favours. Old Bagshaw (he used to be so civil) shouted, "What are you doing here, sir? Go back to the rear at once, sir!" as, waving his sword and mounted on a weak-legged Turkish pony, he led the Bengal Tigers over the broken-ground. Major | Savage, a grey-haired, melancholy veteran, who was much oppressed by Mrs. Savage and many tyrannical children, was quite another being. He curvetted about on a lumbering commissariat carthorse, roaring, "Now then, that 'ere number one company, whatever's the reason you don't close hup, Captain Wilmot? Forerds, number one company-forerds! Hineline your left a little forrerder, number two. That's it, my lads!"—and so passed on. I saw the Tigers halt in an irregular line and open fire fiercely to check a grey block of helmeted infantry which came gravitating down the slope of the hill. In another second a lumbering commissariat-horse came plunging past me, flinging up its great heels and making for the river. Bagshaw was quite right-I could be no use where I was. There was no one to help me to dress a wound or to carry away a wounded man, and I turned down towards the Alma, skirting the flaming village, and threading my way amongst the bodies, or avoiding the advancing battalions. The din was loud as ever, but a word of command, or a cry of pain can be heard through all the uproar of battle. To the right of the burning houses De Lacy Evans, with a small staff, was scanning the progress of the action on our left through his glass. He saw that the Light Division, though they had drawn the teeth of the Russians, were broken and overmatched. "Steele," he exclaimed, “ride over to his Royal Highness, and say I think the First Division should advance at once." Down, pouring solidly towards the stream, came the granite-like columns of the Muscovite; and then through the eddying smoke the bear

!

skins of the Guards drew in sight, amid the foliage of the vineyards, and the river was dammed by that living wall. They arrested and gathered up the stubborn débris of the gallant Light Division. Soon the gentle slope was seamed by black and scarlet bands, belted with musket flashes and bayonets. On the left of the Guards we could just catch through the trees the bonnets of the Highlanders; behind them, motionless, part of the Light Division in square. Further on the left, out on the plain, were all our cavalry. Behind us, in splendid order, was advancing the Third Division. A group of officers has just passed down to the river close by; a onearmed man, in blue frock-coat and cocked hat with white plume--we all know who he iscantering gallantly and gaily, straight for the banks crested with Russians, as if he were at a review, leading his staff to do battle. On our right, the French are clustering on the hills and knolls, and fight under the thick vapour of their ever-rolling musketry. The general of the Second Division has galloped with his staff by the burning village to his men, who are engaged in desperate conflict with the enemy on the right of the Guards. Wherever I turn there is work for me.

Strange enough, but true! In the midst of all the clamour and smoke, the swallows were swooping about in the most unconcerned manner possible, rejoicing may be in the great embarrassment of the flies! Once, indeed, a very large bird of that description, as I thought, took off a piece of my hat; and I learned that bits of shell may be mistaken for swallows when there is much smoke about.

Everywhere cries for help, or mute looks of entreaty-lint and bandage! and tourniquet! And for ever that roar incessant, and with all the monotony of death in its tone! Is it never to end?

Presently there came a break in the storm-a few fitful outbursts as violent as the intensest roll of musketry- then a booming of cannon-it rolls further and further, then dies out-then come dropping shots-another rolling fire, and—“What is that ?" A ringing cheer! Oh, such a cheer! It is the wild hurrah of ten thousand men as they stand victorious in the sloppy grass, amid the dying and the dead, on the ridge of the Alma. And far away in the distance we hear the fanfare of the trumpets and the triumphant rattle of the drums of the French, whose dark masses crown the summits of the cliffs as the declining sun falls on the sheen of arms, and touches eyelids which will never open to its rays again.

When the soldier's work is done the surgeon's begins. Let me spare my readers that night of horrors. I feared every moment to behold the face of some old friend. I dreaded lest I should encounter the look of Gerald Desmond, as the