OUR EPILOGUE ON AFFAIRS. THANK God, we have the prospect of peace: and, thank God, the English people have shown that there is no exigency in which they will not be found prepared to do their duty. When a nation less brave or less principled might have begun to show signs of wavering, or might have retreated in despair, Great Britain has only begun to grasp her weapons, and to look at her resources. Never have we been so prepared for war as at the moment in which we have listened to terms of peace. Our enemies abroad, and our traducers among ourselves, have reaped as they have sown. But we shall still have enemies. Great Britain is not a power to be loved by despot or by anarchist. Our policy must be to desire peace, to seek peace, but to be ever prepared for war. Let Great Britain be known to fear a conflict, come whence it may, and in that hour her empire will have passed from her, and calamity incalculable will come on one-sixth of the human race. She has no worse enemy than the man who would counsel her to think lightly of her honour. The cloud in the West will, we trust, pass away. But the signs there are not good. Where explosive materials accumulate, the danger is often as great to friends as to foes. If the States be wise, and if Great Britain be wise, the last thought to be welcome to them will be the thought of war between them. The hope of humanity would be hazarded in such a struggle. In the contest which has now closed, the British Quarterly has never scrupled to utter what it believed to be the right word. But happy shall we now be to turn our thoughts into other channels, and to catch up many a thread which, for a season, we have been obliged to let drop. OUR EPILOGUE ON BOOKS. LITERATURE. A Narrative of the Siege of Kars. By HUMPHRY SANDWITH, M.D., Chief of the Medical Staff. Murray.-The garrison and people of Kars have their place in history. Their skill, courage, and endurance entitle them to that honour. But nearly every other aspect of the catastrophe which has come upon that city should be felt as not only painful, but humiliating, by every Turk and every Englishman. Until the fall of Sebastopol the Crimean authorities, especially the French, were opposed to any considerable diversion of force in the direction of Armenia. This feeling caused delay, and contributed to render what was done at last feeble and ineffective. Every one who knew what the campaign in Asia had been in 1854, ought to have foreseen that what has happened in 1855 was sure to come to pass, unless new and special means were employed to prevent it. Concerning Selim Pasha, at the head of the force at Erzeroom, there can be but one opinion. The miscreant never meant to incur the hazard of attempting the relief of Kars, and his words-'I am coming,' as repeated from time to time, were only intended to stimulate the garrison, in the hope of their doing what he should have assisted them to do, without his aid. More was reasonably expected from Omer Pasha. His policy needs much explanation. At present he seems to have lost the reputation in Asia which he had gained on the Danube. We shall allow Dr. Sandwith to speak on this matter. 'I am constantly asked the question--Could Kars have been relieved by Omer Pasha? My answer is, that to the best of my belief, it could. Had Omer Pasha landed at Trebizond, instead of making Soukum Kalé the base of his operations, he might have marched to Erzeroom through a friendly country, where the people and cattle of each village would have been at his service, and over a road which, being habitually traversed at all seasons by hosts of mules and muleteers, affords barley, corn, and other necessaries for a marching army. The road is certainly difficult; but when Omer Pasha, after a monstrous delay, landed at Soukum Kale, it was the best of all seasons for a march to Erzeroom. 'The road, ascending higher and higher, becomes healthier at every step. The weather was dry and fine, the villagers had got in their harvest, and their oxen, carts, and corn were available without difficulty. Supposing the general wished to make a forced march, unencumbered by a heavy train of artillery, Erzeroom was teeming with artillery, ammunition, and military stores, sent all too late for the army of Kars. There were thousands of ox-carts and baggage horses awaiting him at an idle and abundant season, when the crops had been harvested, and men and oxen were resting from their labours. Sandwith's Siege of Kars. 551 'In Erzeroom there are spacious khans, mosques, and other buildings, admirably adapted for barracks and hospitals-in short, everything desirable as a base of operations; and the road from thence to Kars lies across a succession of broad, dry and healthy plains, through a corn-growing country, with streams of pure water at each step. It is more than probable that Omer Pasha, knowing the capacity of his subordinate officers, was in nowise anxious to meet a large and well-appointed Russian army in the field. The result would have been, to say the least, doubtful; supposing Mouravieff had offered battle. The Turkish soldiers, as we have seen, can fight spendidly, but, like other troops, they must be well handled; nor, whatever may be the talents of the generalissimo, can I conceive it possible, officered as they are, that they would meet a Russian army on anything like equal terms. Still it is giving Mouravieff credit for too much temerity to suppose he would have offered battle with a beaten army to a fresh body of well-appointed troops, and with a fortress in his rear containing men who, after one glorious success, were burning with martial ardour, and crying to be again led on; nor, in the event of any aid appearing, would they have cried in vain. The same general and the same officers who had led them to victory on the 29th, were no less eager than themselves to march with them to victory or death. 'The sudden move of Omer Pasha to Soukum Kalé was unaccountable. He seemed to have purposely put all the rivers and ravines of the country between himself and his enemy-a clever movement for a retreating army, but inexplicable under his circumstances. Mouravieff smiled as he remarked to us that Omer Pasha had gone to Soukum Kalé to relieve us.'-pp. 343-345. The route by Trebizond and Erzeroom is that which Lord Clarendon urged should be taken by the army designed to relieve Kars. But his lordship afterwards consented to the adoption of the other course. The attempt, however, to act in favour of the besieged city from the Georgia side was beset, as Lord Clarendon had feared it would be, by enormous difficulties. Want of supplies, famine, disease, and other causes did their work in the army sent thither; and the brave General Williams had to call on Selim Pasha on one side, and on Omer Pasha on the other, for assistance, but for any practical result both were to him to the last as men who heard not. But Lord Redcliffe-what of him? We have been disposed to think highly of the services of his lordship, and have defended him often against his accusers. But our feeling in relation to him as regards this case is of another kind. The following passages from the published correspondence show what General Williams must have felt: 'On the 6th of December, 1854, Colonel Williams has to complain in another quarter. To Lord Redcliffe he writes: 'Since I fulfilled the duties confided to me, as her Majesty's commissioner to the head-quarters of the army of Kars, I have had the honour of addressing to your Excellency fifty-four despatches. Each packet has been accompanied by a private letter containing details and suggestions, which, had they found place in my public communications, would have inconveniently lengthened those documents. On the 23rd of September, I was honoured by a private letter from your lordship, appealing to my spirit and humanity,' relative to the captivity of those unfortunate Russian ladies, who had then recently been seized and carried into the mountains by Sheik Schamyl, the Circassian chieftain. Since the above date, I have not been favoured with a line by your Excellency, even with an acknowledgment of the reception of my public or private communications. To one, who has served your lordship for so many years such an avowal on my part can only be recorded with feelings of deep disappointment and mortification—feelings which I have studiously endeavoured to conceal, even from my aide-de-camp and secretaries, because each successive post was anxiously looked for, in the hope of receiving answers from your lordship on the pressing and important affairs connected with my mission to the head-quarters of the army of Kars. I need not trouble your lordship with a recapitulation of the contents of my various identic despatches; but as the Earl of Clarendon and General Lord Raglan will be furnished with a copy of this communication, I owe it to her Majesty's government and to myself to remind your lordship of communications public and private, especially addressed to you.' The brave man concludes by saying, 'I shall fail to preserve the 'power that I have. I shall not succeed in shielding the troops from starvation unless my demands be complied it.' As far back as the 25th of January, 1855, he writes-'What could I not have done in 'the shape of reform, had even a note from Lord Stratford, and an order 'from the Seraiskir, reached by the return of the first Turkish post, 'which was then as regular in its arrival as that between London and Constantinople.' Now, it is true that Lord Redcliffe did submit the substance of the communications received from General Williams to the authorities at Constantinople; but still there is this silence, leaving such a man as General Williams surrounded, as Lord Clarendon justly says, 'by robbers and traitors,' to suppose himself utterly neglected. And what is Lord Redcliffe's defence? General Williams, it seems, took more upon him than he had warrant for-that is, so far as we can see, showed himself the man for the exigency in his dealing with the said 'robbers and traitors.' His lordship, moreover, it seems, feared that in writing he might be encouraging expectations that would not be realized. Good tender-hearted soul! General Williams is, we trust, the last British hero that will be left to lean upon a gentleman of such exquisite sensibilities! A History of Rome from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire. By HENRY LIDDELL, D.D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxford; late Head Master of the Westminster School. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray. If, to produce a good history of Rome, nothing more were needed than that a man should give proof of being fairly familiar with the material, ancient and modern, relating to it; and that to this knowledge he should bring good sense and good intentions, then the history before us should be a good history. But the qualifications we have named do not embrace the higher requisite for success in this field. The man who would really call up the heroisms of those old Roman times, must not be a man cooled down and governed by the conventionalisms of our own. It would be strange if any man, known as the head of a grammar-school, or as Dean of Christ Church, were found to be the man to deal with Roman history so as to realize this conception of it. But in a narrative designed for the upper forms in schools,' perhaps the course which Dr. Liddell has taken is the best. The story is related in clear and simple language, and the reader is assisted in judging as to the measure of confidence that should be placed in the authorities on which it rests. The sceptical criticisms of Perizonius, Vico, Beaufort, and Niebuhr are all allowed their influence; but while, with Sir Cornwall Lewis, Dr. Liddell surrenders the accounts of wars and foreign transactions in Roman history before Pyrrhus as Porter's Damascus-Oliphant's Minnesota. 553 uncertain, he makes a marked distinction in favour of the Civil History of Rome, even from the first ages of the Republic. There is in this portion of the history a consistency of progress, and a clearness, the fabrication of which, it is thought, would be more wonderful than its transmission in a half-traditionary form. When tradition rests solely on memory,' says the Dean, it is fleeting and uncertain; but 'when it is connected with customs, laws, and institutions, such as 'those of which Rome was justly proud, and to which the ruling party clung with desperate tenacity, its evidence must doubtless be carefully sifted and duly estimated, but ought not altogether to be set 'aside.' So does our author attempt to draw the line between the legendary and the historical. By many readers the work will be accounted dull, but those who go to it mainly for information will not be disappointed. Five Years in Damascus. By Rev. E. L. PORTER, A.M., F.R.S.L. 2 vols. Murray.-Such of our readers as wish to know what is to be known about the ancient and renowned city of Damascus-its history, topography, and antiquities; who wish to traverse the memorable plain in which that ancient city stands; or to make excursions in the direction of Palmyra, into Hauran, or into the country about Lebanon, -have only to avail themselves of Mr. Porter's guidance and their wish will be gratified. Mr. Porter's object in visiting those regions was philanthropic and religious; but he was intent on making himself acquainted with all matters of interest in those parts, and especially with such objects as bore any relation to biblical history. He describes, not only the Jordan, but Abana and Parphar, and has made some material contributions to our knowledge of the geography of those districts. The literary execution of the work, indeed, is not above the common level; but the information is carefully presented, and there is a fulness in it, as well as an accuracy, which could only be given to it by a man some time resident in the country he describes. Much of what is said about the Druses and the Arabs, about the bitterness of religious feuds, and the feebleness and corruption of the Government, has been said by others. But Mr. Porter sees with his own eyes, and has seen some things which others have not seen. As an Minnesota and the Far West. By LAURENCE OLIPHANT, ESQ. 8vo. Blackwood.-The chapters of this volume are divided into three parts: the first series relates to Canada; the second to the territory about Lake Superior; the last to Minnesota, lying westward from those waters. The work is full of information, both useful and interesting, touching all those regions. Mr. Oliphant takes his ears and eyes with him, and knows how to report what he has heard and seen. indication of what is going on in Canada, in 1819 that country did not possess more than fifty miles of railway; it now possesses more than 800, upon which ten millions sterling have been expended, and much more is contemplated. In 1830, the population of Toronto scarcely reached 3000; it now exceeds 45,000. The whole province has shared in this rate of progress. Within the last six years the population of Upper Canada has increased from 800,000 to 1,400,000. It is calcu |