THE FAIRY THAT I KNOW.

BY W. BRAILSFORD, ESQ.

grace;

I Do not say she is so fair
No maiden may with her compare;
I do not say those eyes so bright
Will dazzle by their brilliant light;
Or that the roses on her face
Will shame all others by their
But this I can in truth declare,
That she is very sweet and fair;
That never truer heart was found
Within Love's consecrated ground;
That all the charms that love can show
Meet in the fairy that I know.

I do not say she is so wise

That lowly lore she would despise ;
Or that the structure of her mind
To lofty uses is designed;

I do not say she lives and seems

Like some great princess of our dreams;

But yet I never hesitate

To bend unto her gracious state,

For skilled she is in pity's art,

In all the kindness of the heart;
Ev'n pride would all its pomp forego
To greet the fairy that I know.

I do not say her voice is such
No nightingale its tones can touch;
Or when perchance she speaks and sings,
Some angel-nature round her springs;
Yet all her notes are clear and free
As childhood's cheerful ecstasy;

And when she moves, so self-possess❜d,

Her dignity befits her best.

Still fairest of the fair in this,

THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR.

THE deepest sympathy is felt throughout the country for the fate of our gallant countrymen in the Crimea: it is not so much that our honour as a nation and our military credit are at stakethat is a great deal-but every one is aware, that after the repeated warnings, in which we ourselves have laboriously and conscientiously taken a part, nearly one-half of the army-some 20,000 out of 54,000-has been lost from fatigue and exposure, want of sufficient food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, and that this state of things has been aggravated by all kinds of petty grievancespetty in character, but most serious in results, and serving only to deepen the indignation everywhere entertained into the most profound contempt for the administrative and official imbecility.

The various subterfuges by which the main question at issue is avoided, would be amusing, if the matter were not of so grave an import. "We can do nothing but make railroads and cotton goods; we are a nation of miserable bunglers," says one; "We are so demoralised by a long peace, that we have lost the robust and manly virtues of our ancestors," says another; "We are so weak and craven-hearted, that the slightest reverse is sufficient to repress our few remaining energies, and transform us into a knot of grumblers," remarks a third; "We are so impatient, so ignorant, and so perverse, that we expect impossibilities, and, being disappointed, find no resource but in venting our idle spleen against our servants and instruments, demanding a victim somewhere we care not whether innocent or guilty-and offering him up without remorse as a sacrifice to our wounded vanity," growls a fourth; "We have in the gigantic struggle against Russian aggression been foiled and beaten, and reduced to a pitiable, if not a dishonourable, extremity, and we are proportionately exasperated in consequence," yelps a fifth.

Nothing can more grossly misrepresent public opinion than these suggestions. There has been plenty of bungling most undoubtedly, and much worse than bungling; but there is no undue impatience exhibited at this long siege of Sebastopol; there is nothing but sympathy for its heroic assailants; that is not the cause of "the singular ill-temper and impatience" of the British people during the last three months. To say so would be the

The only signs of impatience that have been exhibited have been on the part of the Emperor of France, who, incapable of understanding the insurmountable difficulties presented to the assault of the virgin fortress of the Black Sea, or wearied with the "timid counsels" pervading in quarters against which

most astounding perversion of the truth. It is not even regret for those who have fallen in battle: they have died like heroes, and we honour their memory. It is that nigh 20,000 men are laid low by sickness or by death, out of an army of 54,000-as gallant a body of men as Great Britain ever sent forth-and that this fearful loss has resulted altogether from gross mismanagement and official incapacity.

The problem to solve is, where this mismanagement and incapacity lies. "We are not to blame," say the ministers, through their mouthpiece, Mr. Sidney Herbert, "it is the Humes, Brights, and Cobdens who have so retrenched the service, that it was no longer in a fit condition to enter upon the campaign." "It is not the officials," says another, "but the Jacks in office, the worthless and inefficient sons, brothers, and cousins of electors, whose votes have to be paid for by situations in public offices-the creatures of that corrupt system which foists off poor relations upon the public service, and considers their salaries and emoluments as equivalents for their votes." It is not the fault of the general in command or of his aristocratic staff, for every man who was available had to be employed in an extent of trenches beyond the power of the army to defend; it is not the Admiralty, for the port of Balaklava was under a special disorganisation introduced by the transport service; it was not the transport service, for the ships were loaded by two or three different branches of the service at once, who piled frail medicine-chests by the side of heavy ordnance, and when they arrived with the relics there was no one to take charge of them. It is not the field-officers, because they can deliver no stores without obtaining a receipt, not from the party for whom the goods are intended, but from the head of a department, from whom alone they can receive a document which will protect them when their accounts are made up at the end of the war. It is not the climate--a favourite scapegoat-for the men wanted all those resources and appliances which would have enabled them to resist it. It is ever the same vicious circle of irresponsibility, upon which the height of ridicule has been thrown by a private firm offering to feed and shelter the army at a distance of 200 miles from any port for 3s. 6d. a day!

he has already felt it his duty to animadvert privately, actually meditates a visit to the Crimea. Failing, however, in being able to carry his gallant enthusiasm in the cause so far, it is said that he is about to send Prince Napoleon once more to the seat of war. And as there can be no doubt that the cause of the Prince's quitting the field of honour, as was also more or less the case in the instance of the Duke of Cambridge, Sir De Lacy Evans, and others, was because they could not continue to act under the slow, cautious, spiritless system which reigned supreme at head-quarters, such a resolve fully indicates the policy determined upon.

The greater the difficulty of discovering the culpable parties, the more imperious becomes the necessity of inquiry. It is obviously impossible to remedy an evil the nature and origin of which are undiscoverable. The facts themselves are patent enough, and public opinion as to who are the real delinquents cannot be very far wrong.

In the year 1836 a small body of Englishmen transported the materials of two iron steam-boats, engines, boilers, and diving-bell, with stores of every description, from the coast of Syria to the river Euphrates, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, sometimes through snow and mud up to the axle-trees of the waggons. In the year 1854, an army of 20,000 men has been unable to supply itself with stores and ammunition at a distance of seven miles from a port, simply because there was no one to see to its being done. The whole of the matériel-clothing, food, and ammuni tion-could have been passed along over that distance from hand to hand by a few thousand men. They were left to perish in an extent of trenches to which they were numerically unequal, instead of providing themselves, before all things, with winter clothing and provisions, driving the Russian army of relief to the steppes beyond Baktchi-Sarai and Simpheropol, and occupying winter quarters in which they would at once have found excellent shelter and abundant food, and have held the Russian army and all possible reinforcements at bay. Would not Sebastopol have been there, and in the same condition to be invested-without which there can be no permanent success-and to be assaulted, in the spring time? Some strategists may object to such a plan of action propounded by us, when all possibility of getting up huts and winter clothing in time to be of any use became so painfully manifest, that it would have removed the army from its basis of supplies further than ever-that if our men could not carry out a transport of seven miles, how could they carry it over a distance of thirty? To this we would answer, that the country itself would present its own resources in and around BaktchiSarai and Simpheropol, and that 10,000 men in warm quarters and well fed, without trench work, and with no enemy on their flank, would have been more effective in carrying out a transport of thirty or forty miles, than 20,000 men, worn out by fatigue, exposure, want of clothing, shelter, and nourishment, would be over six.

But the fact is, that by extending the base of operations, the effectiveness of the army would in this case have been increased. The Allies holding Baktchi-Sarai, Simpheropol, and the sea, Sebastopol would have been as much invested as it is at present, and put to far greater straits for the necessities of life. The Allies, on the other hand, would have added to their facilities in landing

stores of all kinds, by adding to the harbours of Balaklava, Kamisch, and Eupatoria, the ports of Alupka, Yalta, and Alushta, together with all the resources of the most fertile, sheltered, and productive region of the Crimea-the renowned undercliff, the Tempe of the country. It is only twenty-five miles from Alushta to Simpheropol, and thence to Eupatoria, by which a good line of defence would have been obtained, some forty miles. This latter part of the line could have been left to the Turks, as less exposed than Simpheropol, where ought to have been the head-quarters of the Allies during the past fatal winter.

The road from Alushta to Simpheropol is in part carried along the cultivated valley of the Salgir, with a pass at the foot of the Tchatir Tagh, but it is throughout good and serviceable. From Dafstan Bazar is a chaussée, or paved way, which goes over the mountain ridge, descends to the coast, and is carried thence to Yalta and Alupka. An obelisk has been erected on the summit of the pass to commemorate the construction of this road, the great work having been commenced in the reign of Alexander, and finished in the early part of that of Nicholas. Along the undercliff the road is wide and macadamised. It is not only that the Allies would thus have acquired three additional ports--Alupka, with its magnificent mansion of the Woronzoffs; Yalta, the Brighton of the Crimea; and Alushta, with its ancient citadelbut the whole line of country is replete with resources, abounds in wood as well as in the necessities of life, and its possession would have rendered it unnecessary to remove the sick and the wounded in crowded ships to infected barracks swarming with vermin. As it is, the north coast of Asia Minor furnished many healthy spots abounding in resources for the sick. Samsun, Sinope, and Harakli are examples. There was no end of wood and no want of workmen to run up huts to any amount, and in which our countrymen would have been spared the additional sufferings inflicted upon them by the barrack vermin. Instead of that, another barrack is taken at Smyrna, adding to the length of transport, and one of the most unadvisable places that could have been selected. In summer time the wind blows pretty regularly during the day from the sea, at night-time it sets in from the land, and the town being sheltered by lofty mountains, is deprived of these refreshing night breezes. Hence is Smyrna one of the most pestilent cities on the coast, adding sand-flies to the other sources of irritation, and having in addition a very mixed and debased population, contact with which would be anything but beneficial to the soldiery. Better the Prince's Islands in the Sea of Marmora, or any of the numerous islands of the Greek and Turkish Archipelago, than such a site, as the civilians who are to have charge of this new lazaretto will find to their cost.