sued in all directions, flying in broken parties over the country, having lost all hope, courage, and possibility of existence.

"On the 23d May, we followed up the enemy across the hills, and came to some ground dabbled with pools of blood, where wounded men had been struggling on; and farther on discovered two of the rebels in a state of hopeless exhaustion, dying from their

wounds and from starvation. It was

sad to see many of the poor wives of the Sepoys who had accompanied their husbands, deserted and left to die on the bare ground. One of these wretched women was lying in the last stage of exhaustion, and sinking fast, with her long black hair hanging dishevelled about her face,—one child at her breast, and another standing by her side. I told one of my staff to fetch a doolie for her and her children. When she heard the order, she roused herself up and gave a look of wild and unutterable joy, thinking in all probability that her poor starving babies would be saved; but the effort was too much for her, and she again sank back into her previous position. The sight was truly touching. Poor creature, she was put into a doolie and taken care of. She ultimately recovered."

A more remarkable contrast could scarcely be the rebel sepoy's wife taken up tenderly in the arms of charity and brought back from the very edge of death to life and safety -the English officer's wife, shot in a tragic passion of despair and love, to save her from a worse fate, by her husband. It is good to be able to believe that the avenging English paused, while they carried fire and flame through the country, to do many such acts of Christian charity, though we fear it is impossible to doubt that many wild deeds, unmodified by any exercise of Christian feeling, might find a place in the chronicles of that swift and sudden re-establishment of power. There is scarcely, however, any trace of these cruelties and fierce reprisals in Sir Hope Grant's narrative. The

only case in which anything of the kind is recorded is immediately after the siege of Delhi, when a too zealous officer found out the hidingplace of three grandsons of the old Mogul, supposed to have taken a part in the massacre of the English in Delhi.

"They tried to exculpate themselves from blame, and denied the guilt; but Hodson charged them with having killed the ladies and gentlemen who had taken refuge in the palace, or had been made prisoners; and taking a revolver from his belt, with his own hand he shot the three unhappy wretches dead on the spot. This sad act," writes Sir Hope, most uncalled for." It is almost the only instance of lawless vengeance recorded here, though we are afraid there can be little doubt that many other such fierce revenges were taken, when the civilised man, still wild with the thrill of indignant passion, had at length reprisal in his power.

was

It will be seen from the quotations we have made that there is no attempt at fine writing in Sir Hope Grant's manly journal. It is the daily record of his career, as modest, and as little thoughtful of self as it is possible to be, and is as good an instance of the power of soldierly simplicity and straightforwardness to take all fanfaronade of heroism out of actions truly heroic, as we remember to have seen. This is not an art cultivated much, so far as we know, out of the British dominions, but it is a curious art in its way; for the process of toning down all the excitement of danger, and the stir and glow of blood which must accompany the terrible emergencies of war, into something that looks as matter-of-fact as a surveyor's diary, is more delicate than the process of heightening the colours, and bringing out the higher lights, of which military records in other quarters furnish us with many examples.

And the struggle recorded with such brief and plain simplicity was no ordinary campaign. It was was neither more nor less than the reconquest of the most important part of India, the richest and most populous portion of our eastern possessions, and indeed the re-establishment throughout the entire continent of our menaced power; for there can be little doubt that had the insurrection succeeded in Bengal, as at first it seemed likely to do, the fire would soon have spread to the other Presidencies, in both of which there were slight and quickly suppressed stirrings of excitement. What the handful of Europeans had to do, accordingly, in the climate so fatal to them, at a season when every effort is generally made to shelter them from the terrible splendour of the tropical sun, was to take back out of the hands of myriads of natives the vast country to which by nature those natives had the best right, in which they were perfectly at home, and which was no more noxious to them in its fiery heat and tropical storms than the blasts of a Scotch hillside to the plumed and plaided Highlander, who tramped across the burning plains to Lucknow at the hourly hazard of his life. Even the natives were utterly changed since the days of their first subjugation-they were trained and disciplined soldiers, taught by Englishmen, armed by Englishmen with the most deadly weapons that modern skill had framed; they ought to have known how to fight as well as their opponents; and they were inspired by all the strongest of human excitements, patriotism (so far as they knew the meaning of the word) and that overwrought excitement of religious feeling which we call fanaticism; and the fierce opposition of race against race, the slave against the master, not always personally considerate of

him. All these conjoined to make "the mild Hindoo a most formidable enemy-not to speak of the last and most urgent peril of all, the desperation of inevitable death and ruin should they fail. They fought, as we say, with halters round their necks, victory being their only chance. Yet with all these inspirations in their favour, with the climate and their congenial habits as against the beef-eating, strong-drinkconsuming European, and with an overwhelming superiority in point of numbers, the Eastern failed to hold his own. In May 1857 the wild and sudden storm broke forth upon us, sweeping into destruction many a little centre of English society, and destroying entire families, innocent sacrifices for their country's supremacy. For all that tremendous summer the fate of India hung in the balance; but before the year was over, the handful of invaders had regained the half-lost power, and the greatest and richest alien country that ever was subject to a foreign race fell once more, worn out and abject, under the British sway. It is almost impossible to believe that so many great events and so many overwhelming emotions could be possible within so short a cycle of time, or that England should have fumed and fretted with impatience, as she did, over so enormous a piece of work completed so soon. We said that if it were possible that the British power had entered upon that period of decadence which seems to come to all great powers in their time, the Indian mutiny would probably appear to the historian the first menace of failure: but when we look at this extraordinary event from its other side-when we contemplate its end rather than its beginning, we doubt whether the facts would bear that interpretation. The momentary catastrophe was terrible; but the

recovery, the stand at bay, the swift and tremendous reaction were more wonderful still; and strength cannot have begun to fail in the arms, which in a year's time recovered India from her own hordes, and placed the yoke again upon her mighty shoulders.

It is far from a pleasant reflection, however, that we hold in our hands so vast an empire with so very little understanding of the mind, and thoughts, and meaning of its inhabitants as to be thus betrayed in a moment, without, up to this time, any very clear ideas why we were betrayed. From whence came the mysterious impulse which set all these myriads-so crafty yet so primitive, so wonderfully capable of conspiracy, and so strangely incapacitated (as it would seem) for any vigorous and persevering action-into motion? We cannot tell; nor can we be sure that some strange inexplainable fiery cross, chupatty, or other incomprehensible communication, may not pass through them like the wind to-morrow, arousing another and another outburst. Captain Knollys points out this strange and dangerous ignorance in some telling pages of his introduction. We have books enough about India, missionaries, teachers, professors, innumerable apparatus of investigation; yet we seem to know less about the Hindoo than Clive and Warren Hastings did. We had the gratification to hear not long ago an eloquent and vehement invective from Mr Ruskin upon the learned foolishness of the physiologist, who could tell him all about the anatomy of the bird he was studying, but nothing about its life or habits. This peculiarity of modern science is perhaps rather a perilous one; for, after all, the irrigation of India, or its taxation, or even its Government, are less important than its inhabitants, who have it in them,

as we have seen, to slay our children, and torture them, and thereby carry misery and horror even into English houses far removed from the scene of conflict. Might it not be worth our while to study a little the millions of our fellow-creatures who possess this tremendous power, and to impress upon the minds of the young "competition wallahs," who now stream out to India full of every kind of unnecessary knowledge, the extreme expediency of understanding the races among whom they have to live, and at the same time the impossibility of ever understanding or coming to any human relationship with races whom they despise ?

There are some pleasant glimpses throughout Sir Hope Grant's book of the still greater soldier who completed the reconquest of India, and of whom the journalist speaks with that delightful mixture of manly devotion and fresh schoolboy feeling, as to a more genial master than ever master was, which are very agreeable to the reader. It seems almost a pity that the common forms of honour inevitable among us should have obliterated the familiar name of Sir Colin Campbell, friendliest and most characteristically English of all titles, under the disguise of Lord Clyde-a name which he seems himself to have adopted with some reluctance, coming as it did at the close of his life, and untransmissible, as he had no direct heir. Some of his letters which are printed in the Appendix give us a touching glimpse of the weariness and home-longing which had come upon the good soldier, before he had risen to anything beyond that professional reputation which is the forerunner of other glory. He was tired of India and tired of monotonous undistinguished work in those dull days before the Crimea and before the Mutiny, which stir

ring times dispersed all tedium and developed his abilities and his fame. "If they will only give us one year -not less-of batta," he writes in 1849, "I shall be able to think of leaving this country. I neither care, nor do I desire, for anything else but the little money in the shape of batta, to make the road between the camp and the grave a little smoother than I could otherwise make it out of the profession; for I long to have the little time that may remain to me to myself, away from barracks and regimental or professional life, with the duties that belong to it in a time of peace." They have made me a K.C.B.," he writes again a little later. "I may confess to you that I would much rather have got a year's batta, because the latter would enable me to leave this country a year sooner and to join some friends of my early days, whom I love very much, and in whose society I would like to spend the period which may yet remain to me to live between the camp and the grave."

Touching words,-full of weariness and a sense of the fruitlessness of the camp life, with its routine duties of peace, and its blank of monotonous existence. "The day I leave this country will terminate my military career," he adds, emphatically, not foreseeing the Alma and Inkerman, nor the march to Lucknow, and the recovery of India. Before these great events

had come, the weary soldier was justified in his longing to escape to the friends he loved; but when danger arose, these longings were quickly put aside. Perhaps there never were two more notable instances of the sudden blossoming out into heroic use and work, of lives long held captive in the husk, unable to show what was in them

than we have in Havelock and Sir Colin Campbell, both of them almost old men before the moment came in which their powers could be revealed. Had they died only a few years earlier, no one would have known, beyond at least their immediate circle, that these two unobtrusive officers carried metaphorically the marshal's baton in their knapsacks; yet in dying, these true and honest soldiers would have left no murmur or discontent; nothing worse than perhaps a sigh of weariness behind them. Fortunately they lived long enough to serve their country as brilliantly in full light of day as they had served her faithfully in the shade. Such men must always be the very highest and noblest distinction of British arms; and so long as we retain the race of them, we may, in all emergencies, defy the world. But, notwithstanding, it will always be hard upon our heroes that emergencies come but seldom, and that in ordinary times England is rarely wise enough or bright enough to find them out.

IF Rip van Winkle or any other celebrated sleeper had finished a nap in the course of last autumn, there would have been a world of strange things to explain to him; but there are certain truths which his own observation might have made abundantly clear, albeit he would know nothing of how they had come to pass. For instance, he could have had no doubt about the period of existence to which the Ministry had attained, any more than he would about the age of a horse, born during his slumber, whose mouth he could inspect. Individuals, we know, have modes of thought and feeling and utterance proper to their times of life. In youth the imagination stretches forward to overtake the future, the mind is engrossed with expectation and design, the tongue is eloquent with the promises prompted by life and vigour. In manhood and middle age, although it may be pleasant to look upon something already achieved as an earnest of power, yet the regard is still forward, the desire is to complete the programme, and the tone, though tempered to caution by the rubs of life, is hopeful still, more decided perhaps now that the objects to which labour is directed are plainly seen. It is not until "the lean and slippered pantaloon" stage has been reached that there is a gradual closing of all prospect, and the soul which has done its work of good or evil is fain to ruminate upon the past, in fancy living over again, with a difference, its finished career, and endeavour ing to illuminate with brilliant colours its passages and adventures. The fairy colouring of which these retrospects are susceptible is familiar to us all. The scenes of a

commonplace, an unscrupulous, a fecble, or even a vicious life, thought over again in mellow age, and described by a voice no longer big and manly, but which "pipes and whistles in the sound," are often so transformed as to seem epic, or pathetic, or exciting. Poor old Shallow's reminiscences, one remembers, drew from Sir John Falstaff the reflection, "Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!" Much excuse is made for this romancing in the aged and effete, seeing that they have little else to console themselves with; and indeed this highly-coloured retrospection is commonly regarded as a characteristic of senility. Now it is by this characteristic that Rip van Winkle might determine that the Ministry has gone some way past its meridian. For many months Ministers have done nothing but boast of their past achievements, as Shallow did of the mad pranks he had done about Turnbull Street. They have not said in words that they have made the enemies of England tremble, or caused treaties to be respected, or maintained the national honourinviolate. They have not quite said that they have made Ireland tranquil and happy, that they have decreased our public expenses, or that the Army and Navy are the better for their Administration; but they have certainly implied some things of the kind, and wished us to believe that they have been men of astounding exploits, else what means this endless chorus of self-praise? While we excuse the tumid stuff, we must recollect the ground on which we excuse it, namely, that it is the recreation of men who have acted their part, who can do no more, and who de