surround his memory, and the many and grievous faults that obscured his life. But when to the good services he rendered to his country, we oppose the sectarian and class warfare that resulted from his policy, the fearful elements of discord he evoked, and which he alone could in some degree control, it may be questioned whether his life was a blessing or a curse to Ireland.'

The aim of every statesman should be, as Mr. Lecky justly conceives, to give to Ireland the greatest amount of self-government that is compatible with the union and the security of the empire. Difficulties of no ordi ary kind surround this duty, but influences are in operation which must tend towards its realisation.

Improved Prospect of Affairs in Ireland.

In spite of frequent and menacing reactions, it is probable that sectarian animosity will diminish in Leland. The general intellectual tendencies of the age are certainly hostile to it. With the increase of wealth and knowledge there must in time grow up among the Catholics an independent lay public opinion, and the tendency of their politics will cease to be purely sacerdotal. The establishment of perfect religious equality and the settlement of the question of the temporal power of the Pope have removed grave causes of irritation, and united education, if it be steadily maintained and honestly carried out, will at length assuage the bitterness of sects, and perhaps secure for Ireland the inestimable benefit of real union. The division of classes is at present perhaps a graver dauger than the division of sects. But the Land Bill of Mr. Gladstone cannot fail to do much to cure it. If it be possible in a society like our own to create a yeoman class intervening between landlords and tenants, the facilities now given to tenants to purchase their tenancies will create it; and if, as is probable, it is economically impossible that such a class should now exist to any considerable extent, the tenant class have at least been given an unexampled security -they have been rooted to the soil, and their interests have been more than ever identified with those of their landlords. The division between rich and poor is also rapidly ceasing to coincide with that between Protestant and Catholic, and thus the old lines of demarcation are being gradually faced. A considerable time must elapse before the full effect of these changes is felt, but sooner or later they must exercise a profound influence on opinion; and if they do not extinguish the desire of the people for national institutions, they will greatly increase the probability of their obtaining them.

Mr. Lecky is author of more elaborate works than his Irish volume. His History of Rationalism in Europe,' 1965, and History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,' 1869, are contributions to philosophical history, in which the narrative or historical parts are clear and spirited. Their author was born in the neighborhood of Dublin in 1838, and educated at Trinity College.

SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER.

A valuable addition to our knowledge of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. has been made by a series of historical works by MR. SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. These are History of England from the Accession of James I. to 1616;' 'Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage (1617-1623); History of England under the Duke of Buckingham and Charles I.' (1624–1628). Mr. Gardiner is more fafourable to the character of James I., in point of learning and acute

ness, than most historians, but agrees with all previous writers as to the king's want of resolution, dignity, and prudence.

'It was the great misfortune of James' character that while, both in his domestic and foreign policy, he was far in advance of his age in his desire to put a final end to religious strife, he was utterly unfit to judge what were the proper measures to be taken for the attainment of his object.'

SIR JOHN W. KAYE-LADY SALE, ETC.

A number of military narratives and memoirs has been called forth by the wars in India, in Russia, and on the continent. Among the most important of these are the History of the War in Afghanistan' in 1841-42, by JOHN WILLIAM KAYE (afterwards Sir John), and a 'History of the Sepoy War in India' in 1857-58, of which three volumes have been published (1876), and a fourth is to follow. The author says: There is no such thing as the easy writing of history. If it be not truth it is not history, and truth lies far below the surface. It is a long and laborious task to exhume it. Rapid production is a proof of the total absence of conscientious investigation. For history is not the growth of inspiration, but of evidence.' Sir John Kaye (born in 814) served for some time in India, as a lieutenant of artillery, but returning to England in 1845, devoted himself to literature. Previous to his Listories of the disastrous events in India, he had written memoirs of Lord Metcalfe and Sir John Malcolm, and an account of Christianity in India.' He died July 24, 1876.

Besides the careful, elaborate work of Sir John Kaye on Afghanistan, we have a 'Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan,' by LADY FLORENTIA SALE (a woman who shed lustre on her sex,' as Sir Robert Peel said); and Lady Sale's husband, SIR ROBERT HENRY SALE, published a Defence of Zellelabad;' LIEUTENANT VINCENT EYRE wrote Military Operations in Cabul;' J. HARLAN, Memoirs of India and Afghanistan; Mr. C. NASH, a History of the War in Afghanistan;' and there were also published-Five Years in India,' by H. G. FANE, Esq., late aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief; Narrative of the Campaign of the Army of the Indus in Scinde and Cabul,' by Mr. R. H. KENNEDY;' 'Scenes and Adventures in Afghanistan,' by MR. W. TAYLOR; Letters,' by COLONEL DENNIE; Personal Observations on Scinde,' by CAPTAIN T. POSTANS, &c.

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE.

'The Invasion of the Crimea, its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan' (June 28, 1855), has been described by ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE, Sometime M. P. for Bridgewater, in an elaborate work, of which five volumes have been published (1875). Mr. Kinglake's history is a clear, animated, and spirited narrative, written with a strong animus against Louis Napoleon of France, but forming a valuable addition to our modern

historical literature. Its author is a native of Taunton, born in 1811, educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1837, but retired from the legal profession in 1856. In 1844 Mr. Kinglake published his experiences of Eastern travel under the title of Eothen,' a work which instantly became popular, and was justly admired for its vivid description and eloquent expression of sentiment. In the discursive style of Sterne, Mr. Kinglake rambles over the East, setting down, as he says not those impressions which ought to have been produced upon any wellconstituted mind,' but those which were really and truly received at the time. We subjoin his account of

The Sphynx.

And near the Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphnyx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world; the once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty-some mould of beauty now forgottenforgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Egean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly wreathed lip should stand fo the sign and the main condition of loveliness through all generations to come. Yet still there lives on the race of those who were beaut ful in the fashion of the elder world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad, serious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very Sphynx.

Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity -unchangefulness in the midst of change-the same seeming will, and intent for ever and ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings -upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors-upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern empire-upon battle and pestilence-upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race-upon keen-eyed travellers-Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day-upon ail and more this unworldly Sphynx has watched, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes and the same sad. tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the Faithful and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the new busy race, with those same sad, earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the Sphynx!

The Beginning of the Crimean War.

Looking back upon the troubles which ended in the outbreak of war, one sees the nations at first swaying backward and forward like a throng so vast as to be helpless, but afterwards falling slowly into warlike array. And when one begins to search for the man or the men whose volition was governing the crowd. the eye falls upon the towering form of the Emperor Nicholas. He was not single-minded, and therefore his will was unstable, but it had a huge force; and. since he was armed with the whole authority of his empire, it seemed plain that it was this man-and only hewho was bringing danger from the north And at first. too. it seemed that within his range of action there was none who could be his equal: but in a little while the looks of men were turned to the Bosphorus. for thither his ancient adversary was slowly bending his way. To fit him for the encounter the Euglishman was clothed with little authority except what he con'd draw from the resources of his own mind and from the strength of his own wilful nature. Yet it was presently seen that those who were near him fell under his dominion, and did as he bid them, and that the circle of deference to his will was always increasing around him; and soon it appeared that, though he moved gently, he began to have mastery over a foe

who was consuming his strength in mere anger. When he had conquered, he stood, as it were, with folded arms, and seemed willing to desist from strife. But also in the west there had been seen a knot of men possessed for the time of the mighty engine of the French State, and striving so to use it as to be able to keep their hold, and to shelter themselves from a cruel fate. The volitious of these men were active enough, because they were toiling for their lives. Their efforts seemed to interest and to please the lustiest man of those days, for he watched them from over the Channel with approving smile, and began to declare, in his good-humoured, boisterous way, that so long as they should be suffered to have the handling of France, so long as they would execute for him his policy, so long as they would take care not to deceive him, they ought to be encouraged, they ought to be made use of, they ought to have the shelt r they wanted; and, the Frenchmen agreeing to his conditions, he was willing to level the barrier-he called it perhaps false pride-which divided the government of the Queen from the venturers of the 2d of December. In this thought, at the moment, he stood almost alone, but he abided his time. At length he saw the spring of 1853, bringing with it grave peril to the Ottoman State. Then, throwing aside with a laugh some papers which belonged to the Home Office, he gave his strong shoulder to the levelling work. Under the weight of his touch the barrier fell. Thenceforth the hindrances that met him were but slight. As he from the first had willed it, so moved the two great nations of the West.

The March.

[Both in Turkey and in the Crimea, the left was nearest to the enemy, whilst the right was nearest to the sea]. Lord Raglan had observed all this, but he had observed in silence; and finding the right always seized by our allies, he had quietly put up with the left. Yet he was not without humour; and now, when he saw that in this hazardous movement along the coast the French were still taking the right, there was something like archness in his way of remarking that, although the French were bent upon taking precedence of him, their cour.esy still gave him the post of danger. This he well might say, for, so far as concerned the duty of covering the venturesome march which was about to be undertaken, the whole stress of the enterprise was thrown upon the English army. The French force was covered on its right flank by the sea, on its front and rear by the fire from the steamers, and on its left by the English army. On the other hand, the English army, though covered on its right flank by the French, was exposed in front, and in rear, and on its whole left flank, to the full bruut of the enemy's attacks.

Thus marched the strength of the Western Powers. The sun shone hotly as on a summer's day in England, but breezes springing fresh from the sea floated briskly a ong the hills. The ground was an undulating steppe alluring to cavalry. It was rankly covered with a herb like southernwood; and when the stems were crushed under foot by the advancing columns, the whole air became laden with bitter fragrance. The aro.na was new to some. To men of the western counties of England It was so familiar that it carried them back to childhood and the village church; they remembered the nosegay of 'boy's love' that used to be set by the prayer-book of the Sunday maiden 100 demure for the vanity of flowers.

In each of the close massed columns which were formed by our four complete divisions there were more than five thousand foot soldiers. The colours were flying; the bands at first were playing; and once more the time had come round when in all this armed pride there was nothing of false majesty; for already viduttes could be seen on the hillocks, and (except at the spots where our horsemen were marching) there was nothing but air and sunshine, and at intervals, the dark form of a single rifleman, to divide our columns from the enemy. But more wariike than trumpet and drum was the grave quiet which followed the ceasing of the bands.' The pain of weariness had begun. Few spoke. All toiled. Waves break upon the shore, and though they are many, still distance will gather their numberless cadences into one. So also it was with one ceaseless hissing sound that a wilderness of tall crisping herbage bent under the tramp of the coming thousands. As each mighty colunin marched on, one hardly remembered at first the weary frames, the aching limbs which composed it; for instinct with its own proper soul and purpose, absorbing the volitions of thousands of men, and bearing no likeness to the mere sum of the human beings out of whom it was made-the column itself was the living thing, the

slow, monstrous unit of strength which walks the modern earth where empire is brought into question. But a little while, and then the sickness which had clung to the army began to make it seen that the columns in all their pride were things built with the bodies of suffering mortais.

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.

The Russian war has been brilliantly illustrated by an eye-witness, MR. WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL, Special Correspondent' of the Times. Mr. Russell accompanied the army to the Crimea, and transmitted from day to day letters descriptive of the progress of the troops, the country through which they passed, the people they met, and all the public incidents and events of that dreadful campaign. His picturesque style and glowing narratives deepezed the tragic interest of the war. But the letters told also of giv as mismanagement on the part of the home authorities, and of supineness on the part of certain of our commanders. These details, it is now proved, were in some instances exaggerated; the merits of our allies the French were also unduly extolled; but much good was undoubtedly done by the revelations and comments of the fearless and energetic Correspondent.' A bad system of official routine was broken in upon, if not entirely uprooted, and a solemn public warning was held out for the future. The benefit of this was subsequently experienced in India, whither Mr. Russell also went to record the incidents of the revolt. His Russian battle-pictures and descriptions were collected into two volumes, 1855-56; the first giving an account of the war from the landing of the troops at Gallipoli to the death of Lord Raglan, and the second continuing the history to the evacuation of the Crimea. We give a portion of one of his battle-pieces.

The Battle of Balaklava, October 25, 1854.

Never did the painter's eye rest on a more beautiful scene than I beheld from the ridge. The fleecy vapours still hung around the mountain-tops, and mingled with the ascending volumes of smoke; the patch of sea sparkled in the rays of the morning sun, but its light was eclipsed by the flashes which gleamed from the masses of armed men below. Looking to the left towards the gorge, we beheld six compact masses of Russian infantry, which had just debonched from the mountain-passes near the Tchernaya, and were slowly advancing with solemn stateliness up the valley. Immediately in their front was a regular ine of artillery, of at least twenty pieces strong. Two batteries of light guns were already a mile in advance of them, and were playing with energy on the redoubts, from which feeble puffs of smoke came at long intervals. Behind these guns. in front of the infantry, were enormous bodies of cavalry. They were in six compact squares, three on each flank, moving down en échelon towards us, and the valley was lit up with the blaze of their sabres, . and lance points, and gay accoutrements. In their front, and extending along the intervals between each battery of guns, were clouds of mounted skirmishers, wheeling and whirling in the front of their march like autumn leaves tossed by the wind. The Zonaves close to us were lying like tigers at the spring. with ready rifles in hand, hidden chin-deep by the earthworks which ran along the line of these ridges on our rear; but the quick-eyed Russians were manoeuvring on the other side of the valley, and did not expose their columns to attack. Below the Zouaves we could see the Turkish gunners in the redoubts, all in confusion as the shells burst over them. Just as I came up the Russians had carried No. 1 Redoubt, the furthest and most elevated of all, and their horsemen were chasing the Turks across the inverval which lay between it and Re