EPISTLES TO THE LITERATI. No. VIII. YORKE TO BOWLES. DEAR Magister Artium Trin. Coll. Oxon-dear canon residentiary of Sarumdear member of the Athenæum Club, Pall Mall-in the name of those Athenians you invoke, a body very different from the body congregating in the club of which you so judiciously mark the location, I return you the most heartfelt greetings for your letter. You will perceive that it has duly come to hand, by the fact of my having published it. I have carefully followed your recommendation, and purchased at Nicholls's the Lessons in Criticism, which I find were published by Hurst, Robinson, and Co., then (1826) of Cheapside and Waterloo Place. I perfectly well recollect the occasion of their first appearance. A vast hubbub had been excited in the literary world about your edition of Pope; and if Lord Byron mixed in it, he was an antagonist with whom you need not have been ashamed to enter into encounter. He was foeman worthy of the steel of any man who ever drew rapier, or flourished a cut-and-thrust. I verily believe he had no other reason for originally attacking you, in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, except his desire of running a muck at all whom he found in his way. In fact, he borrowed a piece of nonsense from the very Scotch reviewers who had so desperately excited his bile, and pressed it into his service as the cheval de bataille "And gravely tells-attend, each beauteous miss! You had long before shewn that, in your verses, not the woods but the lovers trembled, as the paltry Edinburgh reviewer had represented it; but Lord Byron in that, as in many other instances, followed, without examination, the trash of the review he was censuring. To be sure, he had that respectable person, Hobhouse, at his elbow. I refer you, dear Mr. Bowles, to our picture in this month's Number of this very Hobhouse (which we have purposely chosen, as being the best suited to follow in the immediate wake of Place the tailor); and if any of your friends should think that our remarks may be severe, will you be so good as to refer them to the fourteen lines directed against you by Hobhouse in the original edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers--they will be found in a note in the last edition of Byron's Works, vol. vii. p. 246; and you may, at the same time, assist their critical judgment, by telling them to compare the suppressed lines with those which Lord Byron substituted in their place. The contrast between a drivelling lampooner and a vigorous satirist will be involuntarily apparent; and as by this time all angry feeling on the subject must have passed out of your mind, you may deliver the lecture with the most undisturbed impartiality. In after-life Lord Byron thought proper, out of whim I think, to extol the school of Pope against that of which he was himself so conspicuous a member. I was always of opinion that he was heartily sick of the Keates', and John Scotts, and Hazlitts, and all that litter, whose poetry and criticism were enough to sicken the stomach of a rhinoceros. The whole squad is now forgotten; but you well remember what a noise they made at the time. Living upon some scraps which dropped from the table of Coleridge, and which they sadly misused, it was the pleasure of these people to pronounce that Pope was no poet. Part of their method of proving this, was to set up the poetry of Lord Byron as something in its genius and style far beyond that of the bard of Twickenham; and his lordship submitted to their patronage with the utmost disgust. After having the arcana of the sect dinned into his ears by Hunt, he lost all patience, and determined to come forward, sword in hand, to hew down all who said a word against Pope. This, I think, added to some dim recollections of former hostilities, was the cause of his Letters to Bowles. The controversy is pretty well sunk into oblivion. The memory of Roscoe has followed his Lorenzo de Medici and Leo the Tenth-the books we mean, not the men-into everlasting slumber. Tom Campbell, of course, does not remember a word about what he wrote The Stamford_grac Octavius Gilchrist, has died, and made no sign; and the article in the Quarterly which excited your ire, and led you to commit blasphemies even against John Murray himself, has gone the way of all articles. Make your mind easy about it. Pope will be read and re-read as long as the language lasts; and so will Shakespeare and Milton. There is no danger of their jostling each other on the road. As for essays written upon fundamental principles, they will continue to appear in endless stream as long as criticism runs, and to disappear for "their fit use, which is not the head." But it is not my intention to open this endless controversy, to discuss whether Pope was right or wrong when, in a poem which for soundness of reasoning much resembles the critical compositions to which I have been alluding, he assures his "mild Arcadians," that "nature must give way to art." I only wish to apologise for the indiscreet anecdote which has called forth your contradiction. I willingly believe that it is nothing but a fiction, framed for the purpose of imposing upon me, and through me upon my readers. In fact, in the multiplicity of business which devolves upon the conductor of such a Magazine as this, it is impossible to be so constantly on one's guard as to be free from such accidents. All I can do is to punish the guilty; and, accordingly, I have paid the contributor his fifty pounds—the sum regularly allotted for the page of letter-press which accompanies our monthly plate,- and discharged him, with an injunction not to appear in Regent Street for the next six months. The unfortunate fellow has been seen ever since hovering up and down Oxford Street at one end, and Piccadilly on the other, but never daring to venture on the forbidden ground. Such is, I think, a fitting punishment; but I own I take shame to myself, in the manner of the Emperor of China, for not having remembered that the editor of Pope knew more about ladies of every degree than to fall into the mistake for which I am indebted to your letter. I should have recollected your indignation at Pope's naughty epistle to Lady Mary W. Montague, which recommended to modest people to keep all decorums when they are close together, but when they step aside to untie garters, &c., without scruple. Your commentaries on that letter and some other passages in the life of Pope should have established you in my mind as one who knows east from west. But would you believe it? Various newspapers, and other vehicles of wisdom, were lamenting the personality, and the scurrility, and the ill-feeling of the "attack" upon you, at the very time that you, like a man of good sense, and good humour, and good feeling, were writing to us, treating with bland jocularity, and the honest free-heartedness of a mind conscious of no offence, what every one with a scruple of brains must have known to be no more than a whimsical joke. Long may the same kindliness of spirit diffuse its pleasant store of feelings through the bosom of the Rector of Bremhill; and, whether in his pastoral parsonage, listening to him playing upon his grandfather's fiddle "Maggie Lauder," or "Over the water to Charlie" [I hope the old "Tweedside" is not forgotten], or, in Regent Street, helping him to our promised rump and dozen, and making "Madeira tremble to a kiss," the author of Six Sonnets, published now, alas! fifty years ago, will not find any where a more strenuous admirer than his present correspondent, OLIVER YORKE. P.S.-I wish I had you here to write me a couple of sonnets on May-day, to wind up my Number. My regular sonnetteer is too idle. He defends him on the score of the weather, which is to-day (April 27) almost freezing. He says that he is afraid to commence a sonnet in the regular manner, "Hail! May!" lest it should take him at his word. Regent Street, 215. CORPORAL-PUNISHMENT COMMISSION, DEFECTS IN MILITARY EDUCATION, AND PROMOTION FROM THE RANKS, CONSIDERED BY ENSIGN O'DONOGHUE. ANY one who thinks he knows what the British soldier has to undergo, solely from what he sees in our regiments of life-guards, foot-guards, and cavalry at home, is sure to fall into error; and yet no disparagement to them either, for on actual service none are better-no troops of continental Europe can be found to cope with them. But in these piping, and pipe-claying, times of peace, they are entertained, very properly, as much for pageantry as for use; they are a brilliant auxiliary to state pomp-they are a national ornament- - themselves, their arms, their horses, form a spectacle of solid grandeur, of which England may well be proud; and as such they are noble adjuncts to a great court. But they are not subject to the wear and tear of colonial service; I shall, therefore, put them aside from my present purpose, which is to bring under consideration the bulk of the army, viz. the infantry of the line. Did the British islands comprise the whole territory which England is bound to defend, the question of a standing army would be reduced to a very simple one; and militia, with occasional training, would be fully adequate for all military purposes. Even the regular and constitutional disturbances of the effervescing spirits of the Emerald In Mr. Hume's public soul, undisturbed by army estimates, might flee away and be at rest. But while her fingers stretch over each quarter of the globe, she will find that armed troops alone will prevent other powers wrenching her possessions from her grasp. the midst of the profoundest peace, if she will preserve her colonies, she must be prepared for war. Her general commerce she may protect with her fleets-a navy she can never be without; but her foreign possessions must be held by her troops. Let her reduce her standing army-then give up her colonies. Let her sever the connexion between the colonies and the mother country - then cease to maintain a standing army. This seems so clear, so commonplace, that it were scarce worth insisting on, except to establish, as a corollary, that, ignorant of colonial localities, dependencies, and interests, it is impossible to say what should, or should not, be the amount, the pay, or the nature of the troops by which those colonies are to be retained. Now, let any one observe, in general society, how seldom colonial politics form the subject-matter of conversation; and if, by accident, some sailor, or soldier, or merchant, who, through such topics after the ladies have gone to the drawing-room, it is surprising to find other gentlemen--country gentlemen, especially-so utterly indifferent to, and, consequently, so curiously ignorant upon, all such matters; though they clearly comprehend and logically discuss railroads and poorlaws, tithes, taxes, and treadmills, corporations and corn-laws, and every other matter that affects their own immediate and particular interests. Even in the House of Commons, how large is the majority of members who confine their attention solely to home affairs-how short a time is ever occupied in colonial matters. The very heads of the colonial and foreign departments seem to be placed there, not because they are supposed to know much of what they ostensibly regulate, but because they are considered by their ministerial coadjutors indispensable to the general carrying through of government measures. Nay, even in electing a member to serve in parliament, one never hears a question touching foreign policy of any kind put to a candidate. And yet each and all deem themselves more than competent to pass sound judgment on every point connected with a soldier, so much of whose military existence is spent into them—a terra incognita. The present standing army consists of 3 regiments of household cavalry, 23 regiments of cavalry, 7 battalions of foot guards; which make a very fine show, but, with the exception of four cavalry regiments in India, take no colonial service. The infantry of the line consists of 6 battalions in England; been found practicable to carry that intention completely into effect; and, at this moment, there are regiments serving abroad whose service is from ten to twelve years; and the regiments who must relieve those, or a part of those, in the course of this year, have not been at home four years, after a service abroad, all of them of ten, and many of them above twenty years; and of those regiments that are first in turn to go, some of them, who have not been four years at home, have been employed in India above twenty years; and, go where they may, they must serve ten years abroad. Consequently, there will be a period of thirty-four years of the service of those regiments, only four of which have been at home; and of those four years at home, it happens in some cases that not one regiment sets its foot upon the English soil at all. For example, there is a regiment just disembarked in Ireland from the Mediterranean, which probably will be called upon for foreign service again, without any chance of its being in England. In fact, if a person enlists in the British army, he must look forward to three-fourths of his time, in all probability, being spent in foreign climates." So says Sir Willoughby Gordon, quartermaster-general to the forces, in whose department the movements of regiments are directed. And these facts must be known, and steadily kept in view, by any one who wishes to comprehend thoroughly the working of our military system. Though the advocates for the abolition of corporal punishment in the army have failed in their humane attempts to subvert, utterly, the discipline essential to its existence, yet the members of the service generally may thank them for a benefit which they have unintentionally conferred, viz. that of causing its actual state to be better known to the community at large, through the evidence adduced before his majesty's commissioners for inquiring into the system of military punishments, which has been copied into many of the newspapers; and for thus disproving the assertions which have been frequently made, and often believed, that the officer loved the sight of blood more on the scourge the bayonet, and that soldier perversely and dogmatically was it insisted on that the soldier must be emancipated, and the tyranny of the officer controlled. But the testimony which has been made public will now, possibly, set the question to rest for a year or two, when a fresh set of patriots may be equally cunning with their predecessors in the discovery of mares' nests. At present, however, the service has benefited by having much of its interior detail made known; and there can be scarce a doubt that that publicity will make it more popular that it has been hitherto. Along with much unimportant matter (except to purely professional men), the Report contains a great deal to interest the general reader. To the private soldier it especially directs attention-such, indeed, were the instructions to the commissioners; but, to have made it complete, they should have been further instructed to inquire generally into the military system, in the higher as well as the lower grades of the service. The report of the committee upon the state of the army, which sat about three years ago, was incomplete without the evidence which has now appeared; and the present Report seems defective unaccompanied by the preceding one. In the existing machinery of things, a publication three years old is as much forgotten as one of thirty. What was told then is now unknown; but had its substance been embodied in this, the country would have had a clear knowledge of that army which costs it so much money. The usual career of soldiers, from their enlisting onwards, is fully shewn, and the class from which they spring is evident enough; but there is little or nothing said of the habits of the officers -of their fitness, in short, to command; and this most important subject might, with but little extra trouble to the commissioners, have been fully treated by referring to the evidence, chiefly of general officers, which was given to the committee I have mentioned. Now, considering the service that our private soldiers have to perform, and the economical scale of remuneration which the necessity for reduced taxation compels every government, Tory, Whig, or Radical, to adopt, it is not possible to introduce as recruits a superior class of men to the present; nor, while such men are to be disciplined, does it apDear that any material improvement can be made in their treatment or condition. But though the soldier has been made a choice instrument by a wise system of training, there is great scope for improvement in the mode of making a good officer. Not that any one regiment in the service can be pointed out devoid of some good officers; but these officers have become so rather in spite of, than in consequence of their early military education-or, more properly speaking, want of early military education. And this arises from two obvious causes,--the difficulty an individual finds in obtaining military books, and the absence of all inducement to his becoming a more scientific soldier than his brother officers. See what an apprenticeship a midshipman has to serve, before he is eligible for further promotion; and, even then, what an examination he has to pass before he gets it! Here every care is taken to make an efficient officer, and the regulation-time of six years afloat is by no means too long to accomplish it. But six weeks is long enough to make an officer in a regiment of the line, for all that he is required to know, or, indeed, all that he has the means of knowing; and hence it is that the herd of mere paradeofficers are such ciphers. What is an usual case? A lad of sixteen leaves school, with some knowledge of Latin, a smattering of Greek, a little French, a little geography, a little arithmetic, and a little — very little - inkling of mathematics; he is a candidate for a commission in the line: between seventeen and eighteen he gets it, and joins his regiment, if it is at home, or the reserve companies, if it is abroad. Now he dons his red coat and epaulettes, and is, naturally enough, in admiration of his own smart appearance; he masters the mysteries of the mazy drill, learns the standing orders of the regiment; and, presto! thinks himself as great in arms as Alcibiades. He forgets what he learnt at school, and learns nothing in its place beyond the common every-day matters of messing, drilling, and quartering; and so he blunders on to the end of the chapter, with no conversation beyond "Jackson of ours," and "Thompson of yours"no erudition beyond what he has culled from a newspaper, an army list, an almanac, or a sporting magazine. knowledes sus of sin |