No More Learning

As she dropped her anchors oppo-
site the American camp, her crew gave three loud cheers in defi-
ant answer to the British. That evening the British army, in
two columns, under Keane and Gibbs, moved forward: the former
by the levee road, the latter under cover of the woods, to within
six hundred yards of the American lines, where they encamped
for the night. But there was little sleep or rest for them.
The American riflemen, with individual enterprise, bushwhacked
them without intercession, driving in their outposts and picking
off picket after picket,- a mode of warfare that the English,
fresh from Continental etiquette, indignantly branded as barba-
rous.
Jackson, with his telescope, had seen from the Macarty house
the line of Pakenham's action, and set to work to resist it, giving
his aides a busy night's work. He strengthened his battery on
the levee, added a battery to command the road, reinforced his
infantry, and cut the levee so that the rising river would flood
the road. The Mississippi proved recreant, however, and fell
instead of rising; and the road remained undamaged.
The American force now consisted of four thousand men and
twenty pieces of artillery, not counting the always formidable
guns of the Louisiana, commanding the situation from her van-
tage ground of the river. The British columns held eight thou-
sand men.
The morning was clear and frosty; the sun, breaking through
the mists, shone with irradiating splendor. The British ranks
advanced briskly, in a new elation of spirits after yesterday's
success. Keane marched his column as near the levee as possi-
ble, and under screen of the buildings of the two plantations,
Bienvenu's and Chalmette's, intervening between him and the
American line; Gibbs hugged the woods on the right. The
Ninety-fifth extended across the field, in skirmishing order, meet-
ing Keane's men on their right. Pakenham, with his staff and
a guard composed of the Fourteenth Dragoons, rode in the centre
of the line so as to command a view of both columns, Just as
Keane's column passed the Bienvenu buildings, the Chalmette
buildings were blown up; and then the general saw, through his
glasses, the mouths of Jackson's large cannon completely cover-
ing his column. And these guns, as our authority states, were
manned as guns are not often manned on land. Around one
of the twenty-four-pounders stood a band of red-shirted, bewhis-
kered, desperate-looking men, begrimed with smoke and mud:


## p. 8590 (#198) ###########################################

8590
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
they were the Baratarians, who had answered Jackson's orders
by running in all the way from their fort on Bayou St. John
that morning. The other battery was in charge of the practiced
crew of the destroyed Carolina. Preceded by a shower of rock-
ets, and covered by the fire from the artillery in front and their
battery on the levee, the British army advanced, solid, cool,
steady, beautiful in the rhythm of their step and the glitter of
their uniforms and equipments, moving as if on dress parade, -
to the Americans a display of the beauty and majesty of power
such as they had never seen.
The great guns of the Baratarians and of the crew of the
Carolina and those of the Louisiana flashed forth almost simul-
taneously, and all struck full in the scarlet ranks. The havoc
was terrible. For a time Keane held his men firm in a vain
display of valor, under the pitiless destructive fire, no shot or
bullet missing its aim or falling short. Then the Americans saw
the heaving columns change to a thin red streak, which disap-
peared from view as under the wand of an enchanter, the men
dropping into the ditches, burying head and shoulders in the
rushes on the banks. Pakenham's face grew dark and gloomy at
the sight. Never before, it is said, had a British soldier in his
presence quailed before an enemy or sought cover from a fire.
Gibbs had fared no better. He who had led the storming
party against Fort Cornelius, who had scaled the parapets of
Badajoz and the walls of St. Sebastian, could not but despise
the low levee and the narrow ditch of the American fortifica-
tions; but after one ineffectual dash at the enemy's lines, his
men could be brought to accomplish nothing, remaining inactive
in the shelter of the woods until ordered to retire. As the Amer-
ican batteries continued to sweep the field, the British troops
could be withdrawn only by breaking into small squads and
so escaping to the rear. Sir Thomas Trowbridge, dashing for-
ward with a squad of seamen to the dismounted guns, succeeded
with incredible exertion in tying ropes to them and drawing
them off.
The British army remained on the Bienvenu plantation. Pak-
enham and his staff rode back to their headquarters at Villeré's.
Another council of war was called. Pakenham's depression was
now quite evident, but the stout-hearted Cochrane again stood
indomitably firm. He showed that their failure thus far was due
to the superiority of the American artillery. They must supply
this deficiency by bringing more large guns from the fleet, and
1


## p. 8591 (#199) ###########################################

GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8591
(
equip a battery strong enough to cope with the few old guns
of the Americans. It was suggested that the Americans were
intrenched. “So must we be,” he replied promptly.
It was
determined therefore to treat the American lines as regular for-
tifications, by erecting batteries against them and so attempt-
ing to silence their guns. Three days were consumed in the
herculean labor of bringing the necessary guns from the fleet.
While the British were thus employed, Commodore Patterson
constructed a battery on the opposite side of the river, equipped
it with cannon from the Louisiana, and manned it by an impress-
ment of every nautical-looking character to be found in the sailor
boarding houses of New Orleans, gathering together as motley a
corps as ever fought under one flag: natives of all countries
except Great Britain, speaking every language except that of
their commander.
On the night of the thirty-first, one half of the British army
marched silently to within about four hundred yards of Jackson's
line, where they stacked their arms and went to work with spades
and picks under the superintendence of Sir John Burgoyne. The
night was dark; silence was rigidly enforced; officers joined in
the work. Before the dawn of New Year 1815, there faced the
American lines three solid demilunes, at nearly equal distances
a part, armed with thirty pieces of heavy ordnance, furnished with
ammunition for six hours, and served by picked gunners of the
fleet, veterans of Nelson and Collingswood.
As soon
as their
work was completed, the British infantry fell back to the rear
and awaited anxiously the beginning of operations, ready to take
advantage of the expected breach in the American works. The
sailors and artillerists stood with lighted matches behind their
redoubts. A heavy fog hung over the field, so that neither army
could see twenty yards ahead. In the American camp, a grand
parade had been ordered. At an early hour the troops were
astir, in holiday cleanliness and neatness. The different bands
sounded their bravest strains; the various standards of the regi-
ments and companies fluttered gayly in the breeze. The British
had one glance at it, as the fog rolled up, and then their cannon
crashed through the scene. For a moment the American camp
trembled; and there was confusion, not of panic, but of men
rushing to their assigned posts. By the time the British smoke
cleared, every man was in his place, and as the British batteries
came into view their answer was ready for them. Jackson strode


## p. 8592 (#200) ###########################################

8592
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
down the line, stopping at each battery, waving his cap as the
men cheered him.
During the fierce cannonade the cotton bales in the American
breastworks caught fire, and there was a moment of serious peril
to that part of the line; but they were dragged out and cast
into the trench. The English were no happier in their use of
hogsheads of sugar in their redoubts, the cannon-balls perforat-
ing them easily and demolishing them.
In an hour and a half the British fire began to slacken; and
as the smoke lifted, it was seen that their intrenchments were
beaten in, the guns exposed, and the gunners badly thinned.
Not long after, their batteries were completely silenced and their
parapets leveled with the plain. The British battery on the levee
had with their hot shot kept the Louisiana at a distance; but
now, the Americans turning their attention to it, that battery was
reduced to the same condition as the redoubts.
The English army again retired, baffled; and during the night,
such of their guns as had not been destroyed were removed.
The soldiers did not conceal their discouragement. For two
whole days and nights there had been no rest in camp, except
for those that were cool enough to sleep in a shower of cannon-
balls. From the general down to the meanest sentinel, all had
suffered in the severe strain of fatigue. They saw that they
were greatly overmatched in artillery, their provisions were scant
and coarse, they had, properly speaking, no rest at night, and
sickness was beginning to appear.
Sir Edward had one more plan, one worthy of his bold char-
acter. It was to storm the American lines on both sides of the
river, beginning with the right bank, which would enable the
British to turn the conquered batteries on Jackson's lines, and
drive him from his position and cut him off from the city.
By the 7th of January, with another heroic exertion, Villeré's
canal was prolonged two miles to the river, and the barges to
transport the troops to the other bank carried through. During
the delay a reinforcement arrived, two fine regiments: Pakenham's
own, the Seventh Fusileers, and the Forty-third under Major-
General John Lambert, also one of Wellington's apprentices.
Pakenham divided his army, now ten thousand strong, into three
brigades, under command respectively of Generals Lambert, Gibbs,
and Keane. His plan of attack was simple. Colonel Thornton,
.
with fourteen hundred men, was to cross the river during the


## p. 8593 (#201) ###########################################

GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8593
night of the seventh, and steal upon and carry the American line
before day. At a signal to be given by him, Gibbs was to storm
the American left, whilst General Keane should threaten their
right; Lambert held the reserve.
Jackson steadied himself for what he understood to be the last
round in the encounter. He also had received a reinforcement.
A few days before, the long-expected drafted militia of Ken-
tucky, twenty-two hundred men, arrived; but arrived in a con-
dition that made them a questionable addition to his strength.
Hurried from their homes without supplies, they had traveled
fifteen hundred miles without demur, under the impression that
the government would plentifully furnish and equip them in
New Orleans. Only about a third were armed, with old muskets,
and nearly all of them were in want of clothing. The poor fel-
lows had to hold their tattered garments together to hide their
nakedness as they marched through the streets. The government
of course did nothing. The citizens, acutely moved, raised a
sum of sixteen thousand dollars and expended it for blankets and
woolens. The latter were distributed among the ladies; and by
them, in a few days, made into comfortable garments for their
needy defenders.
The American force now amounted to about four thousand
men on the left bank of the river. One division of it, the right,
was commanded by General Ross; the other by General Coffee,
whose line extended so far in the swamp that his men stood in
the water during the day, and at night slept on floating logs
made fast to trees, - every man “half a horse and half an alli-
gator,” as the song says. The artillery and the fortifications
had been carefully strengthened and repaired. Another line of
defense had been prepared a mile and a half in the rear, where
were stationed all who were not well armed or were regarded
as not able-bodied. A third line, for another stand in case of
defeat, still nearer the city, was being vigorously worked upon.
Owing to the caving of the banks of the canal, Thornton could
get only enough boats launched in the river to carry seven hun-
dred of his men across; these the current of the Mississippi bore
a mile and a half below the landing-place selected, and it was
daylight before they reached there.
Gibbs and Keane marched their divisions to within sight of
the dark line of the American breastworks, and waited impatiently
for the signal of Thornton's guns. Not a sound could be heard
XV-538


## p. 8594 (#202) ###########################################

8594
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
from him. In fact, he had not yet landed his men. Although
sensible that concert of action with the troops on the right
bank had failed, and that his movement was hopelessly crippled,
Pakenham, obstinate, gallant, and reckless, would nevertheless
not rescind his first orders. When the morning mists lifted, his
columns were in motion across the field.
Gibbs was leading his division coolly and steadily through the
grape-shot pouring upon it, when it began to be whispered among
the men that the Forty-fourth, who were detailed for the duty,
had not brought the ladders and fascines, Pakenham, riding to
the front and finding it was true, ordered Colonel Mullen and the
delinquent regiment back for them. In the confusion and delay,
with his brave men falling all around him, the indignant Gibbs
exclaimed furiously: "Let me live until to-morrow, and I'll hang
him to the highest tree in that swamp! ” Rather than stand ex-
posed to the terrible fire, he ordered his men forward. “On they
went,” says Walker (who got his description from eye-witnesses),
“in solid, compact order, the men hurrahing and the rocketers
covering their front with a blaze of combustibles. The American
batteries played upon them with awful effect, cutting great lanes
through the column from front to rear, opening huge gaps in
their flanks.
Still the column advanced without pause
or recoil, steadily; then all the batteries in the American line,
including Patterson's marine battery on the right bank, joined in
hurling a tornado of iron missiles into that serried scarlet column,
which shook and oscillated as if tossed on an angry sea. (Stand
to your guns! ' cried Jackson; 'don't waste your ammunition, see
that every shot tells;' and again, Give it to them, boys! Let
us finish the business to-day. ”
On the summit of the parapet stood the corps of Tennessee
sharpshooters, with their rifles sighted; and behind them, two
lines of Kentuckians to take their places as soon as they had
fired. The redcoats were now within two hundred yards of the
ditch. “Fire! Fire! » Carroll's order rang through the lines. It
was obeyed, not hurriedly, not excitedly, not confusedly, but
calmly and deliberately, the men calculating the range of their
guns.
Not a shot was thrown away. Nor was it one or several
discharges, followed by pauses and interruptions: it was continu-
ous; the men firing, falling back, and advancing, with mechanical
precision. The British column began to melt away under it
like snow before a torrent; but Gibbs still led it on, and the
1
> >>


## p. 8595 (#203) ###########################################

GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8595
1
(C
gallant Peninsula officers, throwing themselves in front, incited
and aroused their men by every appeal and by the most brilliant
examples of courage. «Where are the Forty-fourth,” called the
men, “with the fascines and ladders ? When we get to the ditch
we cannot scale the lines ! » "Here come the Forty-fourth! ”
shouted Gibbs; "here come the Forty-fourth! ” There came at
least a detachment of the Forty-fourth, with Pakenham himself
at the head, rallying and inspiring them, invoking their heroism
in the past, reminding them of their glory in Egypt and else-
where, calling them his countrymen, leading them forward, until
they breasted the storm of bullets with the rest of the column.
At this moment Pakenham's arm was struck by one ball, his
horse killed by another. He mounted the small black Creole
pony of his aide, and pressed forward. But the column had now
reached the physical limit of daring. Most of the officers were
cut down; there were not enough left to command. The column
broke. Some rushed forward to the ditch; the rest fell back to
the swamp. There they rallied, re-formed, and throwing off their
knapsacks advanced again, and again were beaten back; their
colonel scaling the breastworks and falling dead inside the lines.
Keane, judging the moment had come for him to act, now
wheeled his line into column and pushed forward with the
Ninety-third in front. The gallant, stalwart Highlanders, with
their heavy, solid, massive front of a hundred men, their mus-
kets glittering in the morning sun, their tartans waving in the
air, strode across the field and into the hell of bullets and can-
non-balls. “Hurrah! brave Highlanders! ” Pakenham cried to
them, waving his cap in his left hand. Fired by their intrepid-
.
ity, the remnant of Gibbs's brigade once more came up to the
charge, with Pakenham on the left and Gibbs on the right.
A shot from one of the American big guns crashed into them,
killing and wounding all around. Pakenham's horse fell; he rolled
into the arms of an officer who sprang forward to receive him;
a grape-shot had passed through his thigh; another ball struck
him in the groin.
He was borne to the rear, and in a few
moments breathed his last under an oak The bent and twisted
venerable old tree still stands; Pakenham's oak, it is called.
Gibbs, desperately wounded, lingered in agony until the next
day. Keane was carried bleeding off the field. There were no
field officers now left to command or rally. Major Wilkinson,
however, — we like to remember his name,- shouting to his men
-
>


## p. 8596 (#204) ###########################################

!
1
8596
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
to follow, passed the ditch, climbed up the breastworks, and was
raising his head and shoulders over the parapet, when a dozen
guns pointed against him riddled him with bullets. His muti-
lated body was carried through the American lines, followed by
murmurs of sympathy and regret from the Tennesseans and
Kentuckians.
“Bear up, my dear fellow, you are too brave to
die,” bade a kind-hearted Kentucky major. "I thank you from
my heart,” faintly murmured the young officer; “it is all over
with me.
You can render me a favor. It is to communicate to
my commander that I fell on your parapet, and died like a sol
dier and true Englishman. "
The British troops at last broke, disorganized; each regiment
leaving two-thirds dead or wounded on the field. The Ninety-
third, which had gone into the charge nine hundred men strong,
mustered after the retreat one hundred and thirty-nine. The
fight had lasted twenty-five minutes.
Hearing of the death of Pakenham and the wounding of Gibbs
and Keane, General Lambert advanced with the reserve. Just
before he received his last wound, Pakenham had ordered one of
his staff to call up the reserve; but as the bugler was about to
sound the advance, his arm was struck with a ball and his bugle
fell to the ground. The order, therefore, was never given; and
the reserve marched up only to cover the retreat of the two
other brigades.
At eight o'clock the firing ceased from the American lines;
and Jackson, with his staff, slowly walked along his fortifications,
stopping at each command to make a short address. As he
passed, the bands struck up Hail Columbia'; and the line of
men, turning to face him, burst into loud hurrahs.
But the cries of exultation died away into exclamations of
pity and horror as the smoke ascended from the field. A thin,
fine red line in the distance, discovered by glasses, indicated the
position of General Lambert and the reserve. Upon the field,
save the crawling, agonizing wounded, not a living foe was to be
From the American ditch, one could have walked a quarter
of a mile on the killed and disabled. The course of the column
could be distinctly traced by the broad red line of uniforms upon
the ground. They fell in their tracks, in some places whole
platoons together. Dressed in their gay uniforms, cleanly shaved
and attired for the promised victory, there was not, as Walker
says, a private among the slain whose aspect did not present
seen.


## p. 8597 (#205) ###########################################

GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8597
(
more of the pomp and circumstance of war than any of the com-
manders of their victors.
About noon, a British officer, with a trumpeter and a soldier
bearing a white flag, approached the camp, bearing a written
proposition for an armistice to bury the dead. It was signed
« Lambert. ” General Jackson returned it, with a message that
the signer of the letter had forgotten to designate his authority
and rank, which was necessary before any negotiations could
be entered into. The flag of truce retired to the British lines,
and soon returned with the full signature, “ John Lambert, Com-
mander-in-Chief of the British forces. »
On the right bank of the river it was the British who were
victorious. The Americans, yielding to panic, fled disgracefully,
as people with shame relate to this day. It was on this side of
the river that the British acquired the small flag which hangs
among the trophies of the Peninsular War, in Whitehall, with
the inscription : "Taken at the battle of New Orleans, January 8,
1815. ”
As soon as the armistice expired, the American batteries
resumed their firing. Colonel Thornton with his men recrossed
the river during the night of the eighth. From the ninth to the
eighteenth a small squadron of the British fleet made an ineffect-
ual attempt to pass Fort St. Philip. Had it timed its action
better with Pakenham's, his defeat might at least have cost his
enemies dearer.
On the 18th of January took place the exchange of prison-
ers, and New Orleans received again her sorely missed citizens.
Although their detention from the stirring scenes of the camp
formed in their lives one of the unforgivable offenses of destiny,
their courteous, kindly, pleasant treatment by the British naval
officers was one of the reminiscences which gilded the memories
of the period.
Sir John Lambert's retreat was the ablest measure of the
British campaign. To retire in boats was impracticable; there
were not boats enough, and it was not safe to divide the army.
A road was therefore opened, along the bank of the bayou,
across the prairie to the lake: a severe and difficult task, that
occupied nine days. All the wounded except those who could
not be removed, the field artillery and stores, were placed in
barges and conveyed to the fleet; the ship guns were spiked; and
on the night of the eighteenth the army was stealthily and quietly


## p. 8598 (#206) ###########################################

8598
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
201
formed into column. The camp-fires were lighted as usual, the
sentinels posted, each one provided with a stuffed dummy to put
in his stead when the time came for him to join the march in
the rear of the column. They marched all night, reaching the
shores of Lake Borgne at break of day.
Early in the morning of the nineteenth, rumors of the retreat
of the English began to circulate in the American camp. Officers
and men collected in groups on the parapet to survey the British
camp. It presented pretty much the same appearance as usual,
with its huts, flags, and sentinels. General Jackson, looking
through his telescope from Macarty's window, could not convince
himself that the enemy had gone. At last General Humbert,
one of Napoleon's veterans, was called upon for his opinion.
He took a look through the telescope, and immediately exclaimed,
“They are gone! ” When asked the reason for his belief, he
pointed to a crow Aying very near one of the sentinels.
While a reconnoitring party was being formed, a flag of
truce approached. It brought a courteous letter from General
Lambert, announcing the departure of the British army, and
soliciting the kind attentions of General Jackson to the sick and
wounded, whom he was compelled to leave behind. The circum-
stances of these wounded men being made known in the city, a
number of ladies drove immediately down the coast in their car-
riages with articles for their comfort.
The British Aleet left the Gulf shores on the 17th of March.
When it reached England, it received the news that Napoleon
had escaped and that Europe was up again in arms. Most of
the troops were at once re-embarked for Belgium, to join Well-
ington's army.
General Lambert, knighted for gallantry at New
Orleans, distinguished himself at Waterloo.
A handsome tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, commem-
orates Pakenham's gallant life and heroic death.
Walker relates that the Duke of Wellington, after the battle
of New Orleans, always cherished a great admiration for General
Jackson, and when introduced to American visitors never failed
to inquire after his health.


## p. 8599 (#207) ###########################################

8599
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
(1809-1891)
K
INGLAKE the historian did not turn literary man of set pur-
pose. After a trip in the Orient he jotted down his remi-
niscences; talking, as he himself says, to a certain friend,
rather than writing for the public. The resulting book, Eothen,' was
a brilliant success: the author became famous at a bound. In after
years his solid literary performance as historian of the Crimean war
confirmed the position so easily won.
Alexander William Kinglake was the eldest son of a banker of
Taunton, England, where Alexander was born August 5th, 1809. He
was reared in a home of refinement, and as
a lad was a notable horseman and had a
taste for Homer. He went to Eton in due
course, and thence in 1828 to Trinity Col-
lege, Cambridge, where he was the friend
of Thackeray and Tennyson. He got his
B. A. in 1832, entered Lincoln's Inn, and
was called to the bar in 1837. But before
beginning his legal career he took the East-
ern tour, from which he made literary capi-
tal by writing (Eothen. ' The book, which
did not appear till 1844, is one of the most
enjoyable chronicles of travel in English;
full of picturesque description, quiet humor, A. W. KINGLAKE
and suggestive thought, — the whole seem-
ing freshly, spontaneously thrown off, though in reality the work was
several times rewritten. "Eothen) is as far as possible removed from
the conventional account of tourist doings. It gives in a charming
way the personal and independent impressions of an Englishman of
brains, culture, and literary gift. The style is at once easy and ele-
gant. The success of the volume, coming in a day when travel-books
were not so numerous as they now are, is not hard to understand.
Kinglake practiced law with only a desultory attention. The suc-
cess of 'Eothen' made him think of further literary work; and a nat-
ural disposition towards travel and an interest in affairs military drew
him in the direction of his master work, the Crimean history. In 1845
he went to Algiers, and accompanied the French general St. Arnaud



## p. 8600 (#208) ###########################################

8600
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
on his expedition in Algeria. In 1854 he joined the campaign in the
Crimea, was present at a battle, and remained with the English army
until the opening of the siege. This practical experience paved the
way for his acceptance of Lady Raglan's proposal that he should
write the history of the campaign, which her husband Lord Raglan
conducted. He agreed to do so, and all papers were turned over to
his care. Kinglake displayed the most painstaking care and diligence
in working up his material, and was also conscientious in polishing
his writing. The result is a work that is an authority in its field
and an attractive piece of literature. There can be but one opinion
with regard to the honesty, care of workmanship, and literary brill-
iancy which it shows. The historian at times enters too minutely
into details, and he is frankly prejudiced; his disapproval of Napoleon
III. coloring his view, while his belief in his friend Lord Raglan
gives his account something of party bias. But with Kinglake the
judgment is always based on moral principle. And he possessed
some of the finest qualities of the history-writer. He could make
historic scenes vivid and vital; he had sympathy, imagination, knowl-
edge of his subject. His marshaling of events has coherence and
unity. The human interest is strong in his pages. In fine, he is
among the most readable of modern writers of history.
Kinglake served in Parliament as a Liberal from Bridgewater from
1857 to 1868: his influence was felt in worthy reforms. The prepara-
tion of his eight-volume history occupied him for thirty-four years,
and it will remain his monument. (The Invasion of the Crimea, its
Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord
Raglan,' the first volume of which appeared in 1863 and the last in
1888, represents the life work of a writer of force and originality.
Kinglake was a man of charming personality. His final illness, a
cancer of the tongue, was borne with great courage; his death occur-
ring on January 2d, 1891. His dislike of the parading of one's pri-
vate life is shown in his instructions to his literary executor that
none of the manuscripts he left should be published.
THE DESERT
From (Eothen)
A
S LONG as you are journeying in the interior of the desert, you
have no particular point to make for as your resting-place.
The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs:
even these fail after the first two or three days; and from that
time you pass over broad plains - you pass over newly reared


## p. 8601 (#209) ###########################################

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8601
hills-you pass through valleys that the storm of the last week
has dug, and the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, still
sand, and only sand, and sand, and sand again. The earth is so
samely that your eyes turn towards heaven-towards heaven, I
mean, in the sense of sky. You look to the Sun, for he is your
taskmaster, and by him you know the measure of the work that
you have done and the measure of the work that remains for you
to do; he comes when you strike your tent in the early morning,
and then for the first hour of the day, as you move forward on
your camel, he stands at your near side, and makes you know that
the whole day's toil is before you;- then for a while and a long
while you see him no more, for you are veiled and shrouded,
and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory; but you know
where he strides overhead, by the touch of his flaming sword. No
words are spoken; but your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, your
skin glows, your shoulders ache, and for sights you see the pattern
and the web of the silk that veils your eyes, and the glare of the
outer light. Time labors on: your skin glows, and your shoul-
ders ache, your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, and you see the
same pattern in the silk and the same glare of light beyond; but
conquering Time marches on, and by-and-by the descending Sun
has compassed the heaven, and now softly touches your right
arm, and throws your lank shadow over the sand, right along on
the way for Persia: then again you look upon his face, for his
power is all veiled in his beauty, and the redness of flames has
become the redness of roses; the fair, wavy cloud that fled in
the morning now comes to his sight once more— comes blushing,
yet still comes on - - comes burning with blushes, yet hastens, and
clings to his side.
Then arrives your time for resting. The world about you is
all your own; and there where you will, you pitch your solitary
tent: there is no living thing to dispute your choice. When at
last the spot had been fixed upon, and we came to a halt, one of
the Arabs would touch the chest of my camel, and utter at the
same time a peculiar gurgling sound: the beast instantly under-
stood, and obeyed the sign, and slowly sunk under me till she
brought her body to a level with the ground; then gladly enough
I alighted; the rest of the camels were unloaded, and turned loose
to browse upon the shrubs of the desert, where shrubs there
were, or where these failed, to wait for the small quantity of
food which was allowed them out of our stores.


## p. 8602 (#210) ###########################################

8602
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
-
At the beginning of my journey, the night breeze blew coldly;
when that happened, the dry sand was heaped up outside round
the skirts of the tent, and so the wind that everywhere else could
sweep as he listed along those dreary plains was forced to turn
aside in his course, and make way, as he ought, for the English-
man. Then within my tent there were heaps of luxuries, –
dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms,
oratories,—all crowded into the space of a hearth-rug. The first
night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted
light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the
silent desert there rushed in a flood of life, unseen before. Mon-
sters of moths of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps
had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into
my tent, and dashed through the fire of the candle till they fairly
extinguished it with their burning limbs. Those who had failed
in attaining this martyrdom suddenly became serious, and clung
despondingly to the canvas.
By-and-by there was brought to me the fragrant tea, and big
masses of scorched and scorching toast, that minded me of old
Eton days, and the butter that had come all the way to me in
this desert of Asia, from out of that poor, dear, starving Ireland.
I feasted like a king,— like four kings, like a boy in the fourth
form.
When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began
to load the camels, I always felt loath to give back to the waste
this little spot of ground that had glowed for a while with the
cheerfulness of a human dwelling. One by one the cloaks, the
saddles, the baggage, the hundred things that strewed the ground
and made it look so familiar - all these were taken away and
laid upon the camels. A speck in the broad tracts of Asia re-
mained still impressed with the mark of patent portmanteaus and
the heels of London boots; the embers of the fire lay black and
cold upon the sand, and these were the signs we left.
My tent was spared to the last; but when all else was ready
for the start, then came its fall: the pegs were drawn, the can-
vas shivered, and in less than a minute there was nothing that
remained of my genial home but only a pole and a bundle.
The
encroaching Englishman was off; and instant, upon the fall of the
canvas, like an owner who had waited and watched, the Genius
of the Desert stalked in.
-
24
1


## p. 8603 (#211) ###########################################

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8603
I can understand the sort of amazement of the Orientals at
the scantiness of the retinue with which an Englishman passes
the desert; for I was somewhat struck myself when I saw one
of my countrymen making his way across the wilderness in this
simple style. At first there was a mere moving speck in the
horizon; my party, of course, became all alive with excitement,
and there were many surmises: soon it appeared that three laden
camels were approaching, and that two of them carried riders;
in a little while we saw that one of the riders wore the Euro-
pean dress, and at last the travelers were pronounced to be an
English gentleman and his servant; by their side there were a
couple, I think, of Arabs on foot: and this was the whole party.
You,- you love sailing: in returning from a cruise to the
English coast, you see often enough a fisherman's humble boat
far away from all shores, with an ugly black sky above and an
angry sea beneath; you watch the grisly old man at the helm,
carrying his craft with strange skill through the turmoil of
waters, and the boy, supple-limbed, yet weather-worn already,
and with steady eyes that look through the blast, - you see him
understanding commandments from the jerk of his father's white
eyebrow, now belaying and now letting go, now scrunching him-
self down into mere ballast, or bailing out Death with a pip-
kin. Stale enough is the sight; and yet when I see it I always
stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic exultation, because that
a poor boat, with the brain of a man and the hands of a boy on
board, can match herself so bravely against black Heaven and
Ocean: well, so when you have traveled for days and days, over
an Eastern desert, without meeting the likeness of a human
being, and then at last see an English shooting-jacket and his
servant come listlessly slouching along from out the forward
horizon, you stare at the wide unproportion between this slender
company and the boundless plains of sand through which they
are keeping their way.
This Englishman, as I afterwards found, was a military man
returning to his country from India, and crossing the desert at
this part in order to go through Palestine. As for me, I had come
pretty straight from England; and so here we met in the wil-
derness at about half-way from our respective starting-points. As
we approached each other, it became with me a question whether
we should speak. I thought it likely that the stranger would
accost me; and in the event of his doing so, I was quite ready to


## p. 8604 (#212) ###########################################

8604
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
be as sociable and as chatty as I could be, according to my
nature, but still I could not think of anything in particular that
I had to say to him. Of course among civilized people the not
having anything to say is no excuse at all for not speaking,
but I was shy and indolent; and I felt no great wish to stop and
talk like a morning visitor, in the midst of those broad solitudes.
The traveler perhaps felt as I did; for except that we lifted our
hands to our caps and waved our arms in courtesy, we passed
each other as if we had passed in Bond Street. Our attendants,
however, were not to be cheated of the delight that they felt in
speaking to new listeners and hearing fresh voices once more.
The masters, therefore, had no sooner passed each other than
their respective servants quietly stopped and entered into conver-
sation. As soon as my camel found that her companions were
not following her, she caught the social feeling and refused to
go on.
I felt the absurdity of the situation, and determined to
accost the stranger, if only to avoid the awkwardness of remain-
ing stuck fast in the desert whilst our servants were amusing
themselves. When with this intent I turned round my camel, I
found that the gallant officer, who had passed me by about thirty
or forty yards, was exactly in the same predicament as myself.
I put my now willing camel in motion and rode up towards the
stranger; who, seeing this, followed my example and came for.
ward to meet me. He was the first to speak. He was much
too courteous to address me as if he admitted of the possibility of
my wishing to accost him from any feeling of mere sociability
or civilian-like love of vain talk; on the contrary, he at once
attributed my advances to a laudable wish of acquiring statistical
information: and accordingly, when we got within speaking dis-
tance, he said, “I daresay you wish to know how the Plague is
going on at Cairo ? ” And then he went on to say he regretted
that his information did not enable him to give me in numbers
a perfectly accurate statement of the daily deaths. He after-
wards talked pleasantly enough upon other and less ghastly sub-
jects. I thought him manly and intelligent; a worthy one of
the few thousand strong Englishmen to whom the Empire of
India is committed.
1
1
ܨ


## p. 8605 (#213) ###########################################

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8605
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
From "The Invasion of the Crimea)
A"
(
T FIRST, as was natural, the enemy's gunners and riflemen
were so far taken by surprise as to be hardly in readiness
to seize the opportunity which Lord Cardigan was present-
ing to them; and indeed for some time the very extravagance of
the operation masked its character from the intelligence of the
enemy, preventing him from seeing at once that it must result
from some stupendous mistake. But the Russians at length per-
ceived that the distance between our Heavy Brigade and Lord
Cardigan's squadrons was every moment increasing, and that,
whatever might be the true meaning of the enterprise in which
our Light Cavalry had engaged, the red squadrons were not
under orders to give it that kind of support which the English-
man calls thorough-going. ” This once understood, the enemy
had fair means of inferring that the phenomenon of ten beau-
tiful squadrons moving down the North Valley in well-ordered
lines, was not the commencement of anything like a general
advance on the part of the Allies, and might prove after all to
be hardly the result of design. Accordingly, with more or less
readiness, the forces on the Causeway Heights, the forces on the
Fedioukine Hills, and the twelve-gun battery which crossed the
lower end of the valley, became all prepared to inflict upon our
Light Cavalry the consequences of the fault which propelled it.
It is true that the main body of the Russian cavalry, drawn up
in rear of the confronting battery, had been cowed by the result
of its encounter with Scarlett's dragoons; but when that has
been acknowledged as a qualification of what is coming, it may
be said that the three sides of the quadrangle in which our cav-
alry moved were not only lined with Russians, but with Russians
standing firm to their duty.
Soon the fated advance of the Light Brigade had proceeded
so far as to begin to disclose its strange purpose: the purpose
of making straight for the far distant battery which crossed the
foot of the valley, by passing for a mile between two Russian
forces; and this at such ugly distance from each as to allow of
our squadrons going down under a doubly flanking fire of round
shot, grape, and rifle-balls, without the opportunity of yet doing
any manner of harm to their assailants. Then from the slopes


## p. 8606 (#214) ###########################################

1
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8606
i
I
-
•
.
of the Causeway Heights on the one side and the Fedioukine
Hills on the other, the Russian artillery brought its power to
bear right and left, with an efficiency every moment increasing;
and large numbers of riflemen on the slopes of the Causeway
Heights, who had been placed where they were in order to cover
the retreat of the Russian battalions, found means to take their
part in the work of destroying our horsemen. Whilst Lord Car-
digan and his squadrons rode thus under heavy cross-fire, the
visible object they had straight before them was the white bank
of smoke, from time to time pierced by issues of flame, which
marks the site of a battery in action: for in truth the very goal
that had been chosen for our devoted squadrons— a goal rarely
before assigned to cavalry — was the front of a battery; the
front of that twelve-gun battery, with the main body of the
Russian cavalry in rear of it, which crossed the lower end of
the valley: and so faithful, so resolute, was Lord Cardigan in
executing this part of what he understood to be his appointed
task, that he chose out one of the guns which he judged to be
about the centre of the battery, rode straight at its fire, and
made this from first to last his sole guiding star.
Pressing always deeper and deeper into this pen of fire, the
devoted brigade, with Lord Cardigan still at its head, continued
to move down the valley. The fire the brigade was incurring
had not yet come to be of that crushing sort which mows down
half a troop in one instant, and for some time a steady pace
was maintained. As often as a horse was killed or disabled or
deprived of the rider, his fall or his plunge or his ungoverned
pressure had commonly the effect of enforcing upon the neigh-
boring chargers more or less of lateral movement, and in this way
there was occasioned a slight distension of the rank in which the
casualty had occurred; but in the next instant, when the troopers
had ridden clear of the disturbing cause, they closed up, and rode
on in a line as even as before, though reduced by the loss just
sustained. The movement occasioned by each casualty was so
constantly recurring, and so constantly followed by the same pro-
cess, - the process of re-closing the ranks,—that to distant ob-
servers the alternate distension and contraction of the line seemed
to have the precision and sameness which belong to mechanic
contrivance. Of these distant observers there was one - and that
too a soldier- who so felt to the heart the true import of what
he saw, that in a paroxysm of admiration and grief he burst into
!


## p. 8607 (#215) ###########################################

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8607
(C
»
(
»
tears. In well-maintained order, but growing less every instant,
our squadrons still moved down the valley.
Their pace for some time was firmly governed. When horse-
men, too valorous to be thinking of flight, are brought into straits
of this kind, their tendency is to be galloping swiftly forward,
each man at the greatest pace he can exact from his own charger,
thus destroying of course the formation of the line: but Lord
Cardigan's love of strict uniform order was a propensity having
all the force of a passion; and as long as it seemed possible to
exert authority by voice or by gesture, the leader of this singu-
lar onset was firm in repressing the fault.
Thus when Captain White, of the 17th Lancers (who com-
manded the squadron of direction), became “anxious," as he
frankly expressed it, “to get out of such a murderous fire, and
into the guns," as being the best of the two evils,” and, endeav-
oring with that view to force the pace," pressed forward so much
as to be almost alongside of the chief's bridle-arm, Lord Cardigan
checked this impatience by laying his sword across the captain's
breast, telling him at the same time not to try to force the pace,
and not to be riding before the leader of the brigade. Otherwise
than for this, Lord Cardigan, from the first to the last of the onset,
did not speak nor make sign. Riding straight and erect, he never
once turned in his saddle with the object of getting a glance at
the state of the squadrons which followed him; and to this rigid
abstinence-giving proof as such abstinence did of an unbending
resolve- it was apparently owing that the brigade never fell into
doubt concerning its true path of duty, never wavered (as the
best squadrons will, if the leader, for even an instant, appears to
be uncertain of purpose), and was guiltless of even inclining to
any default except that of failing to keep down the pace.
So far as concerned the first line, this task was now becoming
more and more difficult. When the 13th Light Dragoons and the
17th Lancers had passed so far down the valley as to be under
effective fire from the guns in their front, as well as from the
flanks right and left, their lines were so torn, so cruelly reduced
in numbers, as to be hardly any longer capable of retaining the
corporate life or entity of the regiment, the squadron, the troop;
and these aggregates began to resolve themselves into their com-
ponent elements - that is, into brave, eager horsemen, growing
fiercely impatient of a trial which had thus long denied them
their vengeance, and longing to close with all speed upon the


## p. 8608 (#216) ###########################################

8608
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
i
guns which had shattered their ranks. The troopers here and
there could no longer be restrained from darting forward in front
of the officers; and the moment this license obtained, the cere-
monious advance of the line was soon changed to an ungoverned
onset. The racing spirit broke out; some striving to outride
their comrades, some determining not to be passed.
In the course of the advance, Lieutenant Maxse, Lord Cardi-
gan's second aide-de-camp, was wounded; and when the line had
come down to within about a hundred yards of the guns, Sir
George Wombwell, the extra aide-de-camp, had his horse killed
under him. We shall afterwards see that this last casualty did
not end the part which Wombwell was destined to take in the
battle; but for the moment of course it disabled him, and there
was no longer any staff officer in the immediate personal follow-
ing of the general who led the brigade.
But although he rode singly, and although as we have seen
he rigidly abstained from any retrograde glance, Lord Cardigan
of course might infer from the tramp of the regiments close fol-
lowing, and from what (without turning in his saddle) he could
easily see of their flanks, that the momentum now gathered and
gathering was too strong to be moderated by a commander; and
rightly perhaps avoiding the effort to govern it by voice or by
gesture, he either became impatient himself, and drew the troops
on more and more by first increasing his own speed, or else
yielded (under necessity) to the impatience of the now shattered
squadrons, and closely adjusted his pace to the flow of the tor-
rent behind him. In one way or in the other, a right distance
was always maintained between the leader and his first line. As
before when advancing at a trot, so now whilst Alinging them-
selves impetuously deep into the jaws of an army, these two
regiments of the first line still had in their front the same rigid
hussar for their guide, still kept their eyes fastened on
crimson-red overalls and the white near hind-leg of the chestnut
which showed them the straight, honest way — the way down to
the mouths of the guns.
Lord Cardigan and his first line had come down to within
about eighty yards of the mouths of the guns, when the battery
delivered a fire from so many of its pieces at once as to constitute
almost a salvo. Numbers and numbers of saddles were emptied:
and along its whole length the line of the 13th Light Dragoons
and 17th Lancers was subjected to the rending perturbance that
1
the


## p. 8609 (#217) ###########################################

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
8609
must needs be created in a body of cavalry by every man who
falls slain or wounded; by the sinking and the plunging of every
horse that is killed or disabled; and again by the wild, piteous
intrusion of the riderless charger, appalled by his sudden freedom
coming thus in the midst of a battle, and knowing not whither
to rush unless he can rejoin his old troop and wedge himself
into its ranks. It is believed by Lord Cardigan that this was
the time when, in the 13th Light Dragoons, Captain Oldham,
the commander of the regiment, and Captain Goad and Cornet
Montgomery, and in the 17th Lancers, Captain Winter and
Lieutenant Thompson, were killed; when Captain Robert White
and Captain Webb and Lieutenant Sir William Gordon were struck
down. The survivors of the first line who remained undisabled
were feeble by this time, in numbers scarce more than some
fifty or sixty; and the object they rode at was a line of twelve
guns close supported by the main body of the Russian cavalry,
whilst on their right flank as well as on their left there stood a
whole mile's length of hostile array, comprising horse, foot, and
artillery. But by virtue of innate warlike passion - the gift, it
would seem, of high Heaven to chosen races of men — the mere
half of a hundred, carried straight by a resolute leader, were
borne on against the strength of the thousands. The few in
their pride claimed dominion. Rushing clear of the havoc just
wrought, and with Cardigan still untouched at their head, they
drove thundering into the smoke which enfolded both the front
of the battery and the masses of horsemen behind it.
Lord Cardigan and his first line, still descending at speed
on their goal, had rived their way dimly through the outer folds
of the cloud which lay piled up in front of the battery; but then
there came the swift moment when, through what remained of
the dimness, men at last saw the brass cannons gleaming with
their muzzles toward the chests of our horses; and visibly the
Russian artillerymen - unappalled by the tramp and the aspect
of squadrons driving down through the smoke
— were as yet
standing fast to their guns.
By the material obstacle which they offer to the onset of
horsemen, field-pieces in action, with their attendant limber-
carriages and tumbrils behind them, add so sure a cause of frus-
tration to the peril that there is in riding at the mouths of the
guns, that upon the whole the expedient of attacking a battery
in front has been forbidden to cavalry leaders by a recognized
XV-539


## p. 8610 (#218) ###########################################

8610
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE
come
maxim of war. But the huge misconception of orders which had
sent the brigade down this valley was yet to be fulfilled to its
utmost conclusion; and the condition of things had now
to be such that whatever might be the madness (in general) of
charging a battery in front, there by this time was no choice
of measures. By far the greater part of the harm which the
guns could inflict had already been suffered; and I believe that
the idea of stopping short on the verge of the battery did not
even present itself for a moment to the mind of the leader.
Lord Cardigan moved down at a pace which he has estimated
at seventeen miles an hour, and already he had come to within
some two or three horses’-lengths of the mouth of one of the
guns, - a gun believed to have been a twelve-pounder; but then
-
the piece was discharged, and its torrent of flame seemed to
gush in the direction of his chestnut's off fore-arm. The horse
was so governed by the impetus he had gathered, and by the
hand and the heel of his rider, as to be able to shy only a little
at the blaze and the roar of the gun; but Lord Cardigan being
presently enwrapped in the new column of smoke now all at
once piled up around him, some imagined him slain. He had
not been struck.
In the next moment, and being still some two
horses'-lengths in advance of his squadrons, he attained to the
long-sought battery, and shot in between two of its guns.
There was a portion of the 17th Lancers on our extreme left
which outflanked the line of the guns, but with this exception
the whole of Lord Cardigan's first line descended on the front of
the battery: and as their leader had just done before them, so
now our horsemen drove in between the guns; and some then
at the instant tore on to assail the gray squadrons drawn up
in rear of the tumbrils. Others stopped to fight in the battery,
and sought to make prize of the guns. After a long and disas-
trous advance against clouds and invisible foes, they grasped, as it
were, at reality. What before had been engines of havoc dimly
seen, or only inferred from the jets of their fire and their smoke,
were now burnished pieces of cannon with the brightness and
the hue of red gold, — cannon still in battery, still hot with the
slaughter of their comrades.
D


## p. 8611 (#219) ###########################################

8611
CHARLES KINGSLEY
(1819-1875)
a
N THE autumn of 1849, in the midst of the famous Chartist
movement in England, there appeared a book, a romance,
which excited the enthusiasm of all “Young England and
kindled afresh the spirit of revolt against class oppression. It was
called Alton Locke'; and was the story of a young London tailor,
who, filled with yearnings, poetical and political, which his situation
rendered hopeless, joined the Chartists, shared their failure, and in
despair quitted England for the New World, only to die on reaching
the promised land.
All his misery and failure are ascribed
to the brutal indifference of the rich and
well-taught to the needs and aspirations of
the workingman. When it became known
that the author, Charles Kingsley, was
clergyman of the established church, a man
of ancient family; that he had been forbid-
den by the Bishop of London to preach in
that city on account of a sermon embody-
ing radical sentiments; and that he was
suffering social ostracism and newspaper
attack for the stand he had taken, party
enthusiasm burned still higher. He became
the knight-errant, the chosen hero, of the
CHARLES KINGSLEY
movement known as “Christian Socialism. ”
Charles Kingsley was born in Dartmoor, Devon, England, the 13th
of June, 1819. He took honors at Cambridge, was ordained, and in
1841 became in turn curate and rector of the church at Eversley,
Hampshire, where he lived and died; varying his duty only when
in residence as canon at Chester and Westminster, or at Cambridge
where he was a professor of modern history in 1861-9. With the
exception of two short holidays in the West Indies and America, and
two trips on the Continent, his external life saw few changes. But
the peace was outward only.
As long as there was evil in the world he stood up to fight it;
head downwards he charged at every red rag of doctrine, either
defense or offense. He attacked political economy, competition,
the laws of gravitation, the Manchester school, the cholera, Bishop
Colenso, and Cardinal Newman. On the other hand, he pleaded the

in


## p. 8612 (#220) ###########################################

8612
CHARLES KINGSLEY
cause of the undefended, from the oppression of Indian widows or
the preservation of village greens to the struggles of the Australian
canned-meat industry, the success of which, he maintained, would
settle the food question forever.
The key to Kingsley's mental development must be sought in his
emotional history. His youth was passed in a Devon parish, of which
his father, an old-fashioned parson and keen sportsman, was rector.
The boy rode to hounds as soon as he could sit a horse, and was
a devoted naturalist before he was old enough to know the scientific
name of a single specimen of his collection. His love of nature, so
rare a quality in children, “had the intensity,” said Mr. Stephen, “and
the absorbing power of a sensual appetite. He gave himself up to
the pure emotion as a luxuriant nature abandons itself to physical
gratification. ”
On reaching manhood, the strength of his sympathies and the
vigor of his perceptions threw him headlong into the revolt of the
time against oppression and wrong. But Kingsley was as far as Dis-
raeli from being a democrat, and as sincere in defending a social
and religious hierarchy. His politics were in fact those of the great
statesman's Coningsby,-a «Young England » Tory who denounces
social wrongs and provides the workingman with good clothes, good
food, and amusements, but will listen to no revolutionary remedy to
destroy the evil.
His fighting propensity left a mark on the time and its literature.
It formulated the creed that pluck and Bible texts would regenerate
the world; and it created the muscular Christian » who strutted
through the pages of most of the novels of the day, from Bulwer
with his Kenelm Chillingly) to the waxwork Sir Galahads of the
Misses Wetherell. Kingsley disliked the cult, and denied that he was
responsible for it; but it became to him a sort of Frankenstein's
monster, growing till it assumed the proportions of strength-worship
and the elevation of physical over moral force.
A passionate Protestant, he was deeply affected by the agitation in
the English Church known as the “Oxford Movement, and the spirit
of what was called “Manichæism,” or the principle which placed the
monkish over the domestic virtues. He had a theory that the love
of woman is the guide of the intellect, and that the love of nature
teaches the theory of the universe. Elizabeth in the "Saint's Tra-
gedy,' the heroines in Westward Ho! ” Hypatia, Grace in “Two Years
Ago,' are the saving influences of the men of these books.
in «Yeast' designs a great allegorical drawing, which sets forth the
influence of the feminine charm on every variety of human being.
« The picture,” says a reviewer in Cornhill, «could hardly be put on
canvas; but it would be a perfect frontispiece to Kingsley's works. ”
>
1
G
Lancelot


## p. 8613 (#221) ###########################################

CHARLES KINGSLEY
8613
(c
besar
1
>
The stories (Yeast' and Alton Locke,' written on the same
theme and in the same year, are both clumsily constructed and un-
even; and fifty years later, lack the interest they excited when their
topics were new and
immediate. Kingsley has the tendency to
preach, common to all novelists with a purpose. The power of these
books is in their intense feeling and sincerity, and the genuine force
of their attack upon injustice. And there are scenes in (Yeast,' such
as the village feast, and the death of old Harry Verney the game-
keeper; and in Alton Locke,' such as the Chartist rising in the
country, - as bold as anything in English fiction. (Alton Locke) is
the more sustained effort, the more ambitious conception; but Car-
lyle describes it as a “vivid creation, still left half chaotic. ” But of
Kingsley's masterpiece in the way of character, the old Scotchman
Mackaye, he says, “My invaluable countryman in this book is nearly
perfect. ”
Kingsley's historical novels are in a different strain. The further
he removes his story from his own time, the more pictorial the pres-
entation. His freshness and vigor seize upon the reader; the roots
of feeling strike down into the heart of life. The desert scenes in
Hypatia,' the thrilling tragedy of the death of the martyr, which if
bad history is admirable fiction, the sea-fight in Westward Ho! ' an
epic «not of dull prose but of the thunder roll of Homer's verse,
stir the blood and mock criticism. Concerning the history and the
theology the general reader does not concern himself. The genius
of the author has already possessed him. Raphael, Wulf, and Amal —
beings begot of fancy, dwelling in an unreal time—are more alive
than modern photographic realism makes the latest realistic hero.
No writer in the language has shown a greater power of descrip-
tion than Kingsley. Landscape, beast, and bird are invested with
poetic charm. He is as close an observer as John Burroughs, and as
great an artist as Turner in painting grand effects of sea and sky.
There is no elaboration of detail, no exaggeration, in his glimpses of
the fens of Devon and the cliffs of Lundy.