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native of Girvan, in Ayrshire.
musket-ball went through my right
arm. It was just like a pin touching
I continued firing
me at the time.
about five minutes; then I got a ball
in the left breast. I never fell; but,
thank God, the ball passed quick as
lightning through my back, just below
my shoulder. The wound is three or
four inches higher before than it was
behind, because the enemy were higher
than we, they firing in a slanting di-
rection." He goes on fighting, never-
theless. "I was staggering down the
hill as well as I could, when I was soon
struck on the arm with a bit of a shell.
I had no time to say a word till an-
other ball went through my left thigh.
I got about twenty yards further down,
I never got
then fell on my face.
timorous till then." [Did you get
timorous then, Joseph Coulter? We
question it; at all events, we should
think ourselves rather brave with your
allowance of timidity.] . . . "I tried
to get up, and with the help of God I
I was not
got to my feet once more.
one minute on my feet till a ball struck
me on the first joint of the middle
finger of my left hand, and broke it.
I still kept my feet.

"Aing the forts that the Russians had
abandoned, although, when they found
out their error, they were profuse in
Our officers who landed
apologies.
on a subsequent occasion, though they
fraternised with the Circassians, could
learn little or nothing about Schamyl.
The fact is, that Circassia proper has
been only occasionally the scene of
his operations, and the fishers on the
Black Sea have been in a manner,
more so formerly than now, brought
These very
under Russian power.
Circassians about whom most is known,
and with whom Mr Bell and Captain
Spencer became acquainted by actual
residence among them, are very odd
people. The position of woman amongst
them in some respects resembles that
of woman in the West. Being to a
great extent monogamists, probably
because they cannot afford polygamy,
their women seem to play a higher
part than in Turkey proper. We have
mentioned their exploits in war, equal
to those of the maid of Saragossa.
Nevertheless they export their daugh-
ters for sale in the Turkish slave-mar-
kets, andto replenish Turkish seraglios.
It may be that the high position of
woman is an old tradition in the purer
races, and that some of the original blood
of the Teutonic stock still lingers in the
Caucasus, which in the West runs in
the veins of those who, heathen or
Christian, have always reverenced wo-
man; so that Tacitus remarked, in as-
tonishment at this trait of civilisation
eighteen hundred years ago, "Aliquid
divini inesse putant." We must not
be considered ungallant if we do not
impute this Teutonic woman-worship
entirely to moral and intellectual supe-
riority. The women of the German
races are more beautiful than the men.
It is not so with the Turks and Greeks
-not so even with the Italians, in spite
of Lord Byron-or, dare we say, even
with the Spaniards. We have ourselves
observed a superiority in the beauty of
the men of Catalonia and Arragon, at
least in the mountains, to that of the
women, who are beaten by their French
sisters on the other side of the Py-
renees. But in the Caucasus, female
beauty appears to be in perfection, and
must have its effect on society in spite
of Mahomedanism. Thus we cannot
help thinking that all the good the
Caucasians have, belongs to their ori-

My thigh is quite well. In my next I will tell you how I got off the field. I am now able to walk about.

·

will soon

...

Our

be as good a man as ever. quartermaster-sergeant, bappening to pass, called out, Halloo, my dear fellow, where are you struck?' I said, 'Well, sir, I am struck with four balls and a bit of a shell.'Good God!' he said, and are you not dead yet?'" He surely ought to have been dead long ago, on the same principle as that on which the Duke ought to have been beaten at Waterloo.

6

He was dead by every rule of science, but he told his own story. Here is an escape as miraculous as any of Schamyl's. It is a great disadvantage to Schamyl's reputation that he enshrouds himselfin such inaccessibility. Few Europeans have been favoured with an interview with him. The Caucasus has been dangerous to any travellers who might have been taken for Russian spies, and it would be difficult, without a knowledge of the language of the inhabitants, to identify oneself. One of our steamers was fired at, in mistake for a Russian, by the Circassians when they were burn

ginal traditions. They resemble in their good points the mountaineers of the Tyrol and Servia; but they are spoiled to a great extent by Islamism. It is well to ponder this. Our ladies and the ladies of Paris are really in danger of a little sentimental Islamism, for they play Omar Pasha quadrilles, forgetting that the Turks, like the fabled Tenth, "never dance;” and they wear in their head-dresses gilded crescents, as the Athenians used to wear golden grass-hoppers. This is anything but the place for theological discussion, but we have surely a right to observe, in spite of our Ottoman alliance, that a religion can be worth nothing which is no religion at all for half the world, except by special favour, and that half the fairer and the better. Those whose Turkish sympathies would lead them astray, would do well to take Scott's Talisman from the shelf, and read over the dialogue between Sir Kenneth and Saladin.

We do not believe that civilisation in Turkey can ever be more than a mere varnishing of decay. Her Christian races must rise, her Ottoman race must fall, and woe be to us if we attempt to arrest the decrees of Heaven. It is for her Christian races that we are warring now, if we know what we are about, and that they may be left to their natural development, unshackled by Muscovite interference. We must not for a moment suppose that we are fighting to rivet the sceptre in the hand of a power—

"A Dio spiacente, ed a nemici suoi❞— or no great good fortune can attend

our arms.

The highest praise we can give the Turkish government is that of "laissez faire," that it does not interfere with its Christian subjects. As long ago as 1849, we met at Chamouny some Moldavian gentlemen. They assured us that under the Porte they enjoyed nearly perfect civil and religious liberty, for they never saw a Turkish official; they only paid a trifling tribute; while, even then, they lived in continual dread of the encroachments of Russia. All this, however, is owing, not to the benevolence, but the imbecility of Turkey,

whatever galvanic life Omar Pasha may give to her armies. Considering all this, we must not hope too much from Schamyl's co-operation. It is doubtful whether he will ever be in a position to carry on war beyond his own mountains; though in his own mountains the diversion our arms are making makes him easily impregnable, and takes off the weight that he has felt for the whole of his former life, so that he may fortify himself in them, always supposing his existence, at his leisure. The Caucasus safe, Georgia is isolated, and a little organisation of the Turkish armies there by European officers would give them the upper hand. Their Asiatic armies are disorganised now, because the officers are sunk in sloth and every degrading vice; for it is in the rich, and not in the poor, that the worst effects of Islamism are seen. Schamyl might possibly be able to get as far as Tiflis, as we see that a spur of his mountains runs out in that direction; but we question if he has artillery for a siege, and we should fear that his manner of carrying on war might make his alliance questionable, for the same reasons that Lord Chatham objected to our employing the Red Indians and their scalping-knives in the American War. If we cannot beat Russia by fair civilised fighting, we had better not beat her at all. As it is, she has shown but a bad example, although the Emperor is to be acquitted of such deeds as murdering the wounded; as he publishes an ukase against it ; yet we should scarcely be justified in retaliating, as long as she is more cruel to her own soldiers than to the enemy-such cruelty appearing to be part of her military system. This is due to the Tartar blood of subordinates, more than, we should think, to the disposition of Nicholas. When speaking of Schamyl, we forget how little the Czar himself, who is so much more accessible, is really known by the world as a private man. He is probably only now beginning to come before the world in his true colours. He is too near us for us to see him, as Napoleon was to our fathers. Posterity will see him and judge him, and One higher than posterity.

REVELATIONS OF A SHOWMAN.

WE have often regretted that the inimitable author of Gil Blas has not given us, in his entertaining volumes, a minute and detailed biography of that ingenious personage, Ambrose de Lamela. He appears but too rarely in the pages of that excellent romance, and we are rather tantalised than satisfied by the glimpses which we are permitted to obtain. Rigid persons may object to certain of his actions as slightly latitudinarian, but we are left in no doubt as to his principles. If, from some unexplained confusion in his ideas, he decamped with his master's portmanteau two days after entering his service, he had previously made a visit to church, "where he had been, to return thanks to heaven for having preserved him from all evil accidents on the road from Burgos even unto Valladolid." A little later, we find him levying contributions on the country, in the disguise of an abstaining anchorite; next, he puts on the garments of an Inquisitor, and makes free with the ducats of a Jew; afterwards, being convinced of the iniquity of cheating, he becomes a Carthusian monk, and is advanced to a place of trust in the convent; and finally, towards the close of the romance, we find him, in consequence of a relapse from the ways of virtue, walking in procession to the pile as one of the victims of an auto da fé. To this sad fate, Le Sage, though by no means the most austere of moralists, thought fit to condemn his pattern of the hypocritical rogue; nor, though we admit the ingenuity of Ambrose, and are vastly tickled by the account of his depredations-though we admire his dexterity in gulling the public, and acknowledge the aptitude of the means which he employed-can we find fault with the author for his measure of retributory justice. On the contrary, we should have felt rather shocked had we been compelled to take leave of Ambrose in the character of a grandee and millionaire, enriched by the proceeds of his swind

ling, and maintaining a considerable position in society, on account of the wealth amassed by such very equivocal proceedings.

It is, we think, a most desirable thing, that in all works of fiction, whether high or low, there should be a distinct development of the Nemesis, or retributive power-that vice or fraud, however exhibited, should not be portrayed as finally triumphantbut that each action, according to its merit or demerit, should have its proper moral consequence, and produce its legitimate effect. What interest could any of us find in Bluebeard, if popular tradition had allowed old Indigo to chop off Fatima's head, to hurl the screaming sister Ann from the heights of the bartisan, and to impale the avenging brothers on the stake? Is it not an immense relief to our feelings when, in the concluding act of the melodrama, Jack, who is supposed to be far away at sea, perhaps whitening the corals of the Pacific Ocean with his bones, darts upon the stage all alive and hearty, at precisely the right nick of time, and scores with his cutlass the skull of that villanous smuggler, who, after having impugned his fidelity, is now proceeding to take liberties with the disconsolate and despairing Poll? Rely upon it, there is a fine moral stratum at the base of the popular heart. Even thieves and housebreakers will admit that the reputation of Jack Sheppard would have been lessened, and the professional glories of David Haggart have been dimmed, had not these illustrious individuals consummated their career upon the gallows. We cannot do without our moral. Some of the dramatists, such as Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden, Congreve, and others, attempted to reverse the rule, and to exhibit vice as triumphant. Posterity has righteously judged them for their offence, and has dismissed them with ineffable disgust to a limbo from which there is no return. Passing from the domain of fiction,

The Life of P. T. Barnum. Written by Himself. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co.

1855.

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXXII.

N

and entering the territory of history, we find but few instances of rogues openly congratulating themselves upon the success of their roguery, and confidently demanding from the public applause and congratulation. Haggart, to whom we have already alluded, did certainly, while under sentence of death, compile or dictate a biography, in which his various misdemeanours were palliated with excusable leniency; but then he never denied the justice of the sentence, nor attempted to maintain that predatory courses were the best qualification for honour and distinction in this world, or for happiness in that to come. Vidocq, the French police spy and informer, has given us some curious revelations; but he does not exhort others to adopt the same line of business, neither are his antecedents likely to allure many followers. Ten years have elapsed since the railway mania was at its height, and yet we are without any authentic memoir of a "stag." Doubt less, some of these agile beings must have escaped the general "tinchel" or demolishment of their race; but no survivor has had, as yet, the hardihood to tell us how he imposed upon a credulous public-by what nefarious means he inveigled victims to buy his worthless scrip at an astounding premium-or how he emerged, in the possession of a plum, from the general wreck of bankruptcy. We believe, with Shakespeare, that this kind of creature has fine feelings of his own; and that the tears "have coursed down his innocent nose," not by any means on account of his own losses, but from a due sense of Christian commiseration for the fate of multitudes whom he had swindled. That every one should put some flattering unction to his soul, for every misdeed which he has committed, is natural and common. The gold-fever, at the period to which we allude, was so universal that it may almost be styled an epidemic; and therefore we are the less inclined, perhaps entitled, now to challenge the erratic movements of those dumb denizens of the forest." They are, at all events, quiet; and do not, reversing the parable, call their neighbours, and kinsfolk, and the public in general, to rejoice with them over certain pieces of silver,

which they never had lost, but which, on the contrary, had been acquired in a manner, and through a process, not quite creditable to their own morality.

Adventurers there have been in all ages, who, calculating upon the inexhaustible score of credulity contained in the public reservoirs, have turned that superabundance to their profit. The world has known quacks of all degrees, from Cagliostro of the diamond necklace down to St John Long of the cabbage leaves, and doubtless it will know many more; but up to the present time adventurers, quacks, and other impostors have been chary of their confessions. Some, having achieved their end and made their fortunes by unscrupulous practices instead of honest industry, have settled down into respectable obscurity, and even changed their names, in order to escape an unenviable notoriety. Others have attempted to brazen out their impostures, and have maintained to the very last that they were in truth and in reality what they represented themselves to be; and the same credulity which supported them when alive has gained them posthumous adherents. But it was reserved for our age and generation to be requested to honour a man who, after having practised, by his own confession, innumerable deceptions upon the public-after having fleeced them so successfully that he has already, though but in middle life, realised a large fortune-has the astounding audacity to make a full revelation of his practices; representing himself, at the same time, as an eminently moral and religious character, and absolutely closing his book with an expression of his gratitude to heaven for the blessings which have been showered upon him!

Mr Phineas Taylor Barnum is, we are thankful to say, not a native of this country. If he is, as the preface to the English edition of bis Life advises us, "essentially a popular man in his own country"-America-we cannot form any exalted idea of the standard of morals which prevails among our Transatlantic brethren. But we rather apprehend that the writer of the said preface is by no means a master of synonymes, and that he confounds "popular," which is one thing, with

"notorious," which is another. Dando, the oyster-eater, was decidedly notorious, but we never heard him described as popular; and we doubt much whether Barnum has any more title than Dando to the latter epithet. The great predatory consumer of the bivalves left behind him no autobiography. Had he done so, we are sure that, in the words of the preface, "the career of such a notability must present details of much interest, with lessons of practical wisdom;" and as Dando was really a genius in his way, we can hardly doubt that his adventures, had be chosen to relate them, would have been quite as interesting as Barnum's. Both of them adopted as their motto and rule of life, from an early age, the apothegm of ancient Pistol:

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Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open."

But Dando was a straightforward creature; and, being unskilled in tropes, interpreted the passage literally, and confined his efforts to the crustacea; whereas Barnum, having the Vestiges of Creation in his eye, considered man in the light of a developed oyster, and attacked the figurative mollusc. But how his acknowledged and vaunted success in this enterprise should render him "popular," we really are at a loss to conceive. Dando was not popular either with oysters or oyster-venders does the higher state of development necessitate a lower tone of the moral sentiment?

Seriously-we have not read, for a long time, a more trashy or offensive book than this; and we should not have considered it worthy of the least notice had we merely looked to the intrinsic merits of its contents. But it is worth noticing as a satire upon all of us; and we hope it may have the effect-very different from what its author intended -of opening the eyes of the public, for some little time at least, to the shameless exhibitions which have become matter of regular trade and speculation. In saying this, we are so far from making a reflection upon honest showmen, that we are really advocating their interests. In the days of our boyhood there were no zoological gardens; and we remember what in

tense delight the arrival of a caravan of wild beasts occasioned. There, on the Mound of Edinburgh, stood the mysterious quadrangle of waggons, with a huge and somewhat incongruous picture of lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, wolves, and boa-constrictors, making their way towards some common centre-piece of carrion; whilst pelicans were seen ladling up bucketfuls of fish; and macaws, with bills like pickaxes, were smiting into the hearts of cocoa-nuts. But what were the outward depicted glories to those of the interior? Wretched paint! Our shilling paid, or rather paid for us by a sympathising relative, we walked into the menagerie with a far more excited feeling than any middleaged traveller experiences when he first catches a glimpse of Timbuctoo. Strange and wildly tropical was the commixed odour of the sawdust, ammonia, and orange-peel. An undefined sensation of terror seized us on the trap-stair, while descending into the interior of the caravan; for a hideous growling, snarling, hissing, baying, barking, and chattering, warned us that the inmates were upon the alert, and between the entrance and the quadrangle there seemed danger of a protruded paw. But-once inwhat a spectacle! There was "Nero," the indulgent old lion, who would stand any amount of liberties-into whose cell you might go, safely as another Androcles, for the moderate fee of half-a-crown, and pluck with impunity the beard that erst had swept the sands of the Sahara. But in those days nobody gave us two-and-sixpence to make the experiment; and, sooth to say, we would rather have expended the money, if offered, in the purchase of nuts and gingerbread, for the monkeys, racoons, and the dearlybeloved elephant. What a nice beast that elephant was, and what an appetite he possessed! From nine in the morning till six in the dewy eve, his trunk was a mere vehicle for cakes, of which he must have swallowed as many as ought to have deranged the digestion of a ragged school; and yet, when the ordinary pasture-hour approached, the unappeased devourer trumpeted with his proboscis, and absorbed as many carrots as would have made broth for the army of the

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