D.K.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Memoir of William Francis Bartlett. By Francis Winthrop Palfrey. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co.
The Story of my Life. By the late Colonel Meadows Taylor. Edited by his Daughter. With a Preface by Henry Reeve. London: William Blackwood & Sons.
We put these two books together, not on account of any similarity in the scenes and events, the characters and careers, depicted in them, but because each in its way brings under a strong light the qualities on which nations rely in seasons of peril and emergency, but of which in ordinary times there is only a consciousness as of a latent source of strength, the sound and enduring pith beneath many accretions of questionable fibre and tenacity. General Bartlett may very well stand for a type of the "heroes" produced by our civil war—men who, neither bred to the profession of arms nor inspired by military or political ambition, quitting their homes and chosen vocations at the call of their country or their State, devoted themselves heart and soul to the duties and demands of the hour, distinguished themselves not more by their bravery than by their strict attention to discipline, and in seasons of discouragement and defeat, of bad generalship or defective organization, gave to the respective armies that "staying power," so rare in a citizen soldiery, which prolonged the contest until it ended in the sheer exhaustion of the weaker party. Conspicuous examples of this class were sent forth, perhaps, by every State, and within its borders were often regarded with a fonder admiration than the great commanders on whom a larger responsibility and more complex duties brought a more anxious and less partial scrutiny. Massachusetts, in particular, which could boast of no eminent professional soldier and whose "political generals" carried off the palm of a disastrous incapacity, turned with especial pride to those of her sons who in the camp and in the field were recognized as models of zeal, fidelity and gallantry. Of this number—and it was not small—Bartlett, though one of the youngest, was the most distinguished. He showed from the first equal coolness and daring in battle, as well as the special faculty of a minute disciplinarian. The regiments which he trained and led were among those that headed victorious charges and stemmed the torrent of defeat, besides presenting a faultless appearance on parade and resisting temptations to plunder. He himself was repeatedly disabled by severe wounds, and, being captured before Petersburg, passed many of the last months of the war in confinement, suffering from a disease which permanently injured his system and shortened his life. Yet he survived most of the comrades whose careers had opened with a like promise, and down to his death, in 1876, was full of enterprise and activity as a private citizen, bearing a spotless reputation, and displaying qualities which, it seems to have been generally believed, would have found their fittest field in some high public position. The story of his life is well and modestly told by his friend Colonel Palfrey, and may be specially commended to readers capable of being stirred and stimulated by memories and examples which have certainly not been dimmed by the greater lustre of those of a more recent date.
It would be unfair to expect in such a narrative the rich and varied interest that belongs to the autobiography of Meadows Taylor, whose career was as eventful and exciting as that of any hero of romance, and who has told it with a vividness and graphic power which few writers of romance have equalled. "He was one of the last of those," remarks Mr. Reeve, "who went out to India as simple adventurers." His boyhood and youth were full of precocious adventure and achievement. At the age of sixteen he obtained a commission in the military contingent of the Nizam. At seventeen he was employed as interpreter on courts-martial, and at eighteen was appointed "assistant police superintendent" of a district comprising a population of a million of souls. The duties of this post "involved not only direct authority over the ordinary relations of society, but the active pursuit of bands of Dacoits, Thugs and robbers," and occasional military expeditions to reduce some lawless chief to obedience. But the most remarkable and laborious years of his life were those during which he filled the office of "political agent" at Shorapoor, administering the affairs of that principality and holding the guardianship of the young rajah during a long minority, while cut off from intercourse with Europeans and exposed to continual plottings and intrigues of native functionaries and court favorites. The skill, tact and courage with which he executed the delicate and complicated functions of this anomalous position, and encountered its difficulties and perils, make themselves felt and appreciated in all the details of the narrative, while the picture presented of Eastern character and manners is one which only the most intimate knowledge, combined with rare faculties of delineation, could furnish, and differs in many features from any other to be found in European descriptions of life in India. "Meadows Taylor was never, properly speaking, in the civil service of the East India Company or the Crown, nor did he hold any military appointment in the British Indian army. He was throughout life an officer of the Nizam. He never even visited Calcutta or Bengal." He was thus thrown out of the main line of advancement, and never attained the rank or emoluments that fell to the share of many less gifted contemporaries. Hence the peculiarly adventurous character of his career and the novelty of the scenes which he depicts. Hence, too, perhaps, the width of his attainments, the enlightened spirit he displayed in his intercourse with the natives, and his cultivation of his literary powers as the main resource of his leisure while isolated from the society of his own race. His start in life belonged to a period long antecedent to the days of competitive examinations, but his assiduity and desire for knowledge needed no stimulant and were the keys to his early success. "His perfect acquaintance with the languages of Southern India—Teloogoo and Mahratta, as well as Hindoostanee—was," we are told, "the foundation of his extraordinary influence over the natives of the country and of his insight into their motives and character." He taught himself land-surveying and engineering, and constructed roads, tanks and buildings. He studied geology, botany and antiquities, and applied the knowledge thus obtained to practical purposes. He gained an acquaintance with the principles of law, Hindoo, Mohammedan and English, that he might devise codes and rules of procedure for a country where there were no courts or legislation, and where he had to administer justice according to his own lights. In the midst of his thousand avocations he found time to write a series of novels portraying the manners and superstitions of India, and depicting the various epochs of its history, with a fidelity and liveliness that have gained for these works a wide popularity. Yet perhaps the strongest impression made by this record of his life comes from the evidence it affords of his humane and conciliatory spirit in his dealings with the native Indians of every class, his unselfish devotion to their welfare, his habit of treating them as equals and his power of inspiring them with confidence, with the result of enabling him to preserve a large and important district from participation in the Mutiny, without the aid of troops and against the constant pressure and appeals of surrounding populations all in full revolt. His autobiography has already gone through several editions in England, and we cannot but regret that it has not been republished in America, where the interest in the country and events to which it relates is of course far less general and intense, but where, we may hope, the appreciation of heroic energy and noble achievements is not less common. The book is not to be confounded with the class to which the lives of governor-generals and military commanders in India belong. Arrian complained that the expedition of the Ten Thousand was far more famous in his day than the exploits of Alexander; and this narrative of what must be considered an episode of the British rule in India is likely to hold the attention of most readers more closely than many volumes that recount the grander events of that wonderful history.
Walks in London. By Augustus J.C. Hare, author of "Walks in Rome," etc. New York: George Routledge & Sons.
Not many visitors to London would be likely to take all or half the walks described in Mr. Hare's two thick volumes, even if the word walks should be so interpreted as to include commoner modes of transit between distant points of interest and through interminable thoroughfares. In Rome or Venice the tourist may be expected to follow religiously the prescriptions of his guide-book: he is there for that purpose, he has no other means of employing his time, and he would be ashamed to report that he had omitted to see or do anything that Jones or Smith had seen and done. But a few rapid excursions in a hansom cab will enable him to visit all the "sights" that are de rigueur in London—Westminster Abbey and Hall and the Houses of Parliament; the Museum, the Zoological and the National Gallery; St. Paul's, Guildhall and the Bank and Exchange; the Monument, the Tower and the Tunnel,—after which he may devote himself without scruple to an endless round of social amusements, or to "the proper study of mankind" with all varieties and countless specimens of the genus collected for his inspection. It is only the zealous investigator, primed with the associations of English literature from Chaucer to Dickens, who will be apt to put himself under Mr. Hare's guidance, and to explore patiently the widely-separated districts in which lie scattered and almost hidden the relics that attest the identity of London through the ages of growth and change that have transformed it from the "Hill Fortress" of Lud or the Colonia Augusta of the Romans into the commercial metropolis of the world, with a population, circumference and aggregate of wealth exceeding those of most of the other European capitals combined. Yet one who undertakes this labor with the due amount of knowledge and enthusiasm may be sure of finding his reward in it. Though London is the supreme embodiment of modern life, with its ceaseless absorption and accumulation, it is none the less imbued with a conservative spirit which has saved it from the wholesale demolitions and ruthless remodellings to which Paris has been subjected. Mr. Hare speaks with just indignation of the destruction of Northumberland House at Charing Cross, but this has so far been an exceptional instance, though it is perhaps an ominous one. The traveller may still step aside from the busy Strand into the silent and beautiful Temple Church with its tombs of Crusaders, pause as he leaves his banker's in Bishopsgate to take a survey of Crosby Hall and Sir Paul Pindar's house with their reminders of the financial magnates of a bygone time beautifying their homes in the City as visible proclamations of their prosperity, and find, as he wanders through Aldgate and Bevis Marks, Wych street, Holborn and Lincoln's Inn, Southwark and Lambeth, hundreds of quaint fronts or picturesque memorials linked with names and events, epochs and usages, that have been familiar to his mind from childhood. But many such scenes and objects will escape notice or fail of due appreciation unless an informant be at hand qualified to proffer the needed suggestions without indulging in wearisome garrulity. Mr. Hare seems to us to meet very well the requirements of this office, his book being a happy medium between the concise though comprehensive, and for ordinary purposes indispensable, manual of Baedeker and the voluminous works of Timbs and Cunningham.