Canning and Birch strong advice if they consult me. This is the most tremendous convulsion I have ever witnessed, though I was in the thick of the Cabul affairs: the crisis is eventful." He soon found employment. Three days after his arrival in Calcutta he was appointed to the command of a column, consisting nominally of four European regiments, but, in fact, mustering only about fourteen hundred Europeans, "with eighteen volunteer cavalry, and six guns." With these he started for Cawnpore. The heat was intense, the rain fell a deluge. The rebels first encountered him at Futtehpore, in number 3,500, with twelve cannon. He had marched twenty-four miles in nine hours, and the soldiers were preparing their meal, when the enemy came rushing across the plain, with loud shouts and cheers, and in frantic haste. It was the first battle in which Havelock had been in command; it was the first victory gained over the insurgents. The result is thus told in a letter to his wife: :

"We fought, and I may say that in ten minutes the affair was decided; for in that short time our Enfield rifles and cannon had taken all conceit of fight out of the mutineers." ... "But away with vain glory! Thanks to Almighty God, who gave me the victory, I captured in four hours eleven guns, and scattered the enemy's whole force to the winds. I now march to retake Cawnpore, where, alas! our troops have been treacherously destroyed; and to succour Lawrence at Lucknow. Norris would have rejoiced, and so would dear old Julius Hare, if he had survived to see the day. Harry (his son, the present baronet) was in the thickest of the fight; but, God be praised, escaped unhurt.”

His troops had not tasted a morsel of food since the previous afternoon, and threw themselves down exhausted on the ground, a mile beyond the spot where the enemy made their last stand. The next day he issued the first of his spirit-stirring orders. It was a wonderful victory: "eleven guns captured," he says, " and their whole force scattered to the winds, without the loss of a single British soldier, although the engagement lasted four hours." He ascribes the result" to the skill and valour of his army, and to the blessing of Almighty God in a most righteous cause.' We are shocked to read that "it was a novelty in India to see an order of the day ascribing victory to the blessing of Almighty God!" Shamefully must England, or rather British India, have forgotten the principles under which our commanders fifty years ago won so many triumphs. Who does not recal to mind Nelson's despatch after the battle of the Nile, beginning with the memorable words: "It has pleased Almighty God to crown his majesty's arms with a glorious victory ?" But the scoffers of India were soon to learn that if our empire was saved, it must be by men who were not ashamed to seek the blessing of "the God of battles."

The first battle was fought on the 12th of July. Three days after,

Havelock again met and routed the rebel Sepoys, and halted for breakfast, after a five hours' march and a fatiguing action. But their meal was not yet prepared, when he learned that the enemy were again in force a few miles distant. He felt that not a moment was to be lost. Another march of two hours, another battle, and another victory followed. At two in the afternoon his troops, now utterly exhausted, threw themselves on the ground, contented, for the most part, with a meal of biscuit and porter. The next day followed his great battle of Cawnpore, where he led a thousand British soldiers and three hundred Sikhs, under a deadly sun, with the aid of only eighteen horse, against a superior artillery and numerous cavalry; drove from a position strongly entrenched five thousand native troops, trained and disciplined under our own officers; and dealt against the mutineers the heaviest blow they had yet received. We cannot follow the remainder of the campaign, nor even count up the victories. The story is still fresh in the memory of all our readers. Who can forget the burst of enthusiasm with which at a period of the deepest gloom, the tidings were received in England of Havelock's four victories, in twice as many days, during his march upon Cawnpore? Or of "his terrific strides across a swampy region, under the heat of an Indian summer, each successive mail bringing news of fresh victories,-his fifth, his seventh his ninth,-till the neglected lieutenant became the idol of the nation."

In the midst of this galaxy of triumphs, his heart was still kept humble, and he ascribes the glory to Him to whom it was due. It was thus he wrote to Mrs. Havelock: "I have fought seven fights with the enemy, and, by God's blessing, have beat them in every one of them. Things are in a most perilous state; if we succeed at last in restoring anything, it will be by God's special and extraordinary mercy. I must now write as one you may never see more, for the chances of war are heavy at this crisis. Thank God for my hope in the Saviour! We shall meet in heaven." The anticipation was but too true. He had left Calcutta on the 24th of June, so emaciated that it was confidently predicted he would not survive the fatigue and exposure of the camp for a single week; yet for ten weeks he had seemed to be the hardiest man in the force. At length, however, a sudden reaction came. On the 19th of November, he wrote to Lady Havelock in good health and spirits: Sir Colin Campbell has come up with some 5000 men, and much altered the state of affairs. The papers of the 26th September came with him, announcing my elevation to the Companionship of the Bath for my first three battles. I have fought nine since.... Dear Harry (his son) has been a second time wounded in the same left arm. He is in good spirits, and doing well. Love to the children. I do not, after all, see my clevation in the Gazette; but Sir Colin addresses me as Sir Henry Havelock." Other honours had been showered upon him; but these

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he never knew. The nation was dissatisfied, and almost indignant, that he was only knighted, when it was felt he deserved a peerage. On the 29th September he was raised to the rank of major-general; on the 26th November he was created a baronet; and, on the meeting of parliament, "her majesty being desirous of conferring a signal mark of her favour and approbation on Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, Bart., K.C.B., recommended to the House of Commons to grant him a pension of £1000 a-year for life." But these honours came too late. The good and gallant Havelock had already passed beyond the reach of human applause or the need of human recompense. On the 20th November symptoms of diarrhoea made their appearance as he lay before Lucknow. The next day his complaint assumed a more serious aspect, and he was carried in a doolie to the Dilkoosha, where a soldier's tent was pitched for him. The enemy's bullets fell thick around it, and he was carried to a more sheltered spot. The next day he felt that he was a dying man. He repeatedly exclaimed, "I die happy and contented." His son, who had been severely wounded, his arm hanging in a sling, had the high satisfaction of ministering to all his father's wants; the general indeed would allow no other attendant to wait upon him. At one time he called him to him and said, 66 see how a christian can die." In the afternoon, Sir James Outram came to visit his expiring comrade; and to him he said, "I have for forty years so ruled my life, that when death came I might face it without fear." On the morning of the 24th, he calmly resigned his spirit into the hands of his Redeemer, full of the blessed hope of immortality. He died at the advanced age of sixty-three, but in the noontide of his glory. His sun set amidst a constellation of victories rendered more bright by the gloom which surrounded them; and he affords the rare instance of a man conscious of his own powers, and always eager for an opportunity of exerting them, constantly beaten back by adverse influences, and, at the eleventh hour, when hope was well nigh extinct, suddenly raised to supreme command, and reaching at once the summit of professional eminence.

The long neglect he suffered reflects but little honor on his country, and still less on those to whom the distribution of military promotions is confided by a too confiding nation. But we must lock higher, and see the parental hand of an all-wise God in Havelock's long life of disappointed hopes and anxious poverty. No doubt the discipline was wanted. No doubt the discipline was blessed. No repining word do we find in the whole of his private correspondence; no murmuring at the promotion of other men his juniors, and in every respect greatly his inferiors. We see no relaxation in his military ardour, nothing of the stubbornness with which wronged and slighted men work on hopeless, heartless, unflinching, but with a withered soul from which all vigor and energy have perished. He was in possession of "a secret," as he

called it, which raised him above infirmities like these; he knew the exact value of success in life, and without despising, he did not over-estimate it. He was a child of God, and waited for his reward in a crown of glory. His christian life was one of high consistency. Other christian soldiers may have been more eminently spiritual, none were ever more faithful or more courageous; and it required, as his biographer remarks, more courage to join with the pious soldiers of his regiment in psalm singing and in prayer than to face a battery. But he was brave in both respects, and here lay the perfection of his character. His grateful countrymen are now about to erect a statue to his memory, but his name will live in the hearts of Englishmen while time shall last.

FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. REIGN OF EDWARD VI.

History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Volume V. John W. Parker and Son. London, 1860.

FICTION and history are changing places. The historical novel is almost a veracious history. The history that ought to be veracious is little better than an historical novel. Whatever advantages result, are on the side of fiction; for history gains nothing. Historical writing, it is true, becomes more popular, because more exciting; but what is lost in truth is poorly compensated by what is gained in passion. The ancient gait of history was, we admit, cold and stately; but even this was preferable to rhetorical artifice, and the graces of a charlatan. There is scarcely a modern English history, and certainly no French one, in which effect is not the first consideration. A brilliant narrative is the grand achievement. Truth comes after at a lagging pace-so much truth as may be consistent with the grand aim of making an impression; for truth is there by sufferance, not by right; an attendant to decorate the pageant, not the monarch, for whose sake it moves along.

While this is the fault of some of our recent histories, others offend still more deeply. They are written to embalm a prejudice, sometimes to stereotype a falsehood. That an historical writer has to discharge the functions of a judge; that he is bound to weigh the evidence on both sides with strict impartiality, to lay it before the reader without prejudice, and, to sum up with candour, extenuating nothing, setting nothing down in malice; these are now antiquated notions. Histories are written to work out or to sustain, a theory in religion, in politics, or in morals; or

perhaps to damage a cause which the writer may happen to dislike. Such reading is popular, for it does not tax the understanding, nor hold the judgment in suspense. It presents a highly coloured, and therefore to most minds an agreeable, picture, and the multitude read for entertainment. Bishop Butler complained that, in his day, while there was great anxiety to learn what could be said on any given subject, there was but little to know what was true. The censure may be thought cynical, but it is not without its application to our own age. The writer who can startle and surprise will have many readers. He who is content to elicit truth must be satisfied with few.

Therefore Mr. Froude is popular. In the higher qualities of a historian he is utterly deficient. To calm deliberate investigation, over which an awful sense of the majesty of truth presides, he makes no pretensions. Of the power of depicting the character of the dead, so as to present us with the breathing, living likeness, he knows nothing; and it is, at least, a proof of his modesty that he has attempted nothing in this high walk of historical art. The power of grouping historical facts, so that the most important are most prominent, while others, though not forgotten, are always in the shade, he does not possess, or has not cultivated. But he writes with vigour; his narrative is bright and interesting; and he writes with diligence; for he has pursued his enquiries through new channels, and brought together a mass of information with which few of us have much acquaintance. Above all, he writes with a purpose; and that purpose is to defame the Reformation.

This is our indictment; and that we may not expose ourselves to the charge of the very prejudice we condemn in others, we will at once cite a passage, upon which alone we are quite willing to sustain it. The fifth volume, to which our present notice is confined, gives the reign of Edward VI. Soon after the accession of the boy king, the state of things in England is thus described :

"The Catholic priests in the better days which were past, as the Protestant clergy in the better days which were coming, had said alike to rich and poor, 'By your actions you shall be judged. Keep the commandments, do justice and love mercy, or God will damn you.' The unfortunate persons, who for the sins of England were its present teachers, said, 'You cannot keep the commandments-that has been done for you; believe a certain speculative theory, and avoid the errors of Popery.' It was a view of things convenient to men who were indulging in avarice and tyranny. The world, at all times, has liked nothing better than a religion which provides it with a substitute for obedience. But, as there would have been no reformation at all, had reformation meant no more than a change from a superstition of ceremonies to a superstition of words and opinions, so those who were sincere and upright amongst the reformers-men like Cranmer, Latimer, Becon, Bradford, or Lever, to whom God and duty were of more importance than schemes of Salvation,' whose opinions, indeed, followed with the stream, but who looked to life and practice for the fruit