place of safety, made over to the British authorities Government money which he had rescued, and refused to accept a cowrie of the 5,000 Rs. which Captain Barrow offered to him, either for himself, or his followers. This noble-minded Hindu has since been in arms against If he be still alive, we trust his chivalrous conduct will not be forgotten. There is yet hope for Oude if it contains men like him.

us.

On reaching Allahabad, the writer formed one of the volunteer cavalry, one of that band of eighteen, many of them boys, and all of them officers, who constituted the whole of General Havelock's cavalry, on that marvellous march unexampled in history, when, with 1,200 men of all arms, he drove 20,000 like sheep before him, defeating them whenever they ventured to make a stand, and striking a terror into their hearts, from which they have never recovered.

He was present through all the first advance, the retreat, the bloody entrance into Lucknow, the struggle in the streets, the worldfamous siege, the last relief; then with Outram in the Alumbagh ; and there my Journal' ceases. Any narrative of such events by an eyewitness must be interesting. That which adds to the freshness of this is the fact, that the narrator was a young officer, for the first time under fire, and passing at once from a quiet civil office into the very 'hell' of battle. He writes down his own sensations from day to day, with a frank truthful simplicity, and without a word of boasting, until you feel as if you were his comrade on the march, and saw all that he sees; stood with him by the well at Cawnpore, and charged with him in the melée, when Outram galloped before the men, knocking down the enemy with his stick. The impression it leaves of the writer's character is one of the pleasantest connected with the work. You might desiderate more life, brilliancy, and point; but you feel that he is a true brave man, worthy to have fought with Outram and Havelock, and of like mind, if of lower degree.

Ex Oriente. Sonnets on the Indian Rebellion. London, 1858.

The

THE Rebellion has not yet found its Poem. It must be a great Epic, even though the Unities be violated. It has more than Homeric heroes, a greater than Achilles, though alas! no Odysseus, two Troys, and full many a scene exceeding in pathos that of Hector and Andromache. It has elements that no poet has ever had, that Homer lacked, that Milton could not have imagined. Sonnets will not do as descriptive. In this work they are put to a wrong use. Lyric is purely subjective, the Poetry of unconsciousness. This author, smitten by a love of Petrarch, has given us, in a series of Sonnets, a sort of history of the leading outlines of the Rebellion. As the expression of what was felt by an Anglo-Indian, when God seemed to have hidden His face, they might have been valuable, and the Sonnet would have been the proper form, but as historical descriptions of certain scenes they violate Art, and seldom rise above the prosaic. They are

correct in form, and in many cases elegantly cold; in a few a vivid imagination might fancy it saw the dim outline of poetic thought and expression. We give three as specimens-the first two for their subject, the third as a test, a crux, by which to try of what poetic stuff the author is made :

LORD CANNING.

"And what did he, within whose hand was placed
The guidance of the empire? A great name,
The high inheritance of a father's fame,
Were his, and at the first were not disgraced.
The laws, too nerveless for the times, were braced;
New powers were granted, as such crises claim;
And from all sides to quench the rising flame,
The British troops were summoned up in haste.
All efforts were exhausted to dispel

The Sepoy's mad delusion ere it grew :
Measures of stern repression passed, to quell
Those bent on mutiny; and he withdrew

A doubtful proclamation: so far well,

And praise shall not be stinted where 'tis due."

Unheeded at such times, 'neath such a phrase.
What time Rebellion stalketh in the ways.
Their dearest licence loyal men forego!
Such vigour the affrighted cit would show,

Who, when the burglars enter, and there bays
His faithful watchdog, the poor sentinel slays.
Vigour, my Lord, were best against the foe.
The act was ne'er Lord Canning's own; the field
Of English politics ne'er such teachings gave.
But when his better instincts he did yield

To narrow Councillors, the mind misgave;
His was not the unswerving hand, to wield
O'er rebel peoples England's brandished glaive."

CAWNPORE.

"Sudden the rapture fadeth from each eye;

Rose the wild woman-shriek, the infant's wail,
And men grown used to battle's horror, pale ;
The bravest hearts are numbed by Treachery;
The murder signal has been sounded; ply

The guns on either bank, and the quick hail
Of musketry the huddled groups assail;
No chance is left to combat or to fly.
The boats are all brought back unto the shore,
For sentence such as Nana Saib may deem
Fit for the living few; ten miles or more

One boat alone still struggles down the stream,
Pursued by Troopers, drunk with English gore,

And three men live to tell that ghastly dream."

"Death for the men at once-Death, Sovran balm
For the crushed heart, with 'whelming anguish rife ;
God must protect the little ones and wife.
A holy man amongst them, bravely calm,
Readeth aloud the solemn funeral Psalm.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life!"
O brothers, ye have passed from the strife!
O martyrs, ye have fairly won the palm!
One noble wife beside her husband died,

They could not tear her from him; all the rest
For further days of woe are placed aside.

Mothers still clasp their infants to their breast.

Are not all forms of agony yet tried?

And must still more be suffered ?-God knows best."

"The

Will He marry Her? A Novel. By John Lang, Author of "Too Clever by Half," "The Forger's Wife," Wetherbys," etc. London, 1858.

THIS story certainly attains the first object of all the class of Literature to which it belongs-it amuses. But it does so at the expense of probability, of unity, of Art, of all that an author who values his previous reputation, or seeks to increase it, generally values. Its wit degenerates into burlesque, its pathos into mere rant, while throughout the whole, there is no evidence of anything like a high moral tone, or purpose. Even the purely Indian passages, the description of the Sikh battles, are neither in themselves pieces of fine writing, nor true to fact. Mr. Lang has abused the powers which he certainly possesses, and while in all his works, you feel that he never does justice to himself, this is most painfully the case in the present. When shall we have a true Indian Novel, such an one as Thackeray would have written, had he spent more than his mere boyhood in the country?

Lé Général D'Orgoni-Sa Mission, en France et à Rome et Plan de Campagne pour une Croisade Française en Indo-Chine et en Chine. Nancy, 1858.

THE above is the pretentious title of a little brochure we have chanced to come across, and which, from its gasconading mendacity and bitter spite against "les pauvres Anglais," whom Monsieurwe beg his pardon, General D'Orgoni, is pleased to consider his "mortal enemies," has afforded us some amusement. It is ostensibly the work of a M. Prosper Dumont, styling himself a retired officer, but he has evidently received his inspiration from the soi-disant General himself.

M. Dumont commences with a glowing description of Indo-China, that "veritable pearl of Asia," which he says is

"Eminently worthy of the attention of France, and a country, which our Government might obtain a large share of, would they but enter upon that course which the English pursue with so much perseverance in Hindustan. Without exactly declaring it to be a land 'flowing with milk and honey, it is at least a region remarkable

for the beauty of its sky; the prodigious fertility of its soil; the magnificence of its tropical vegetation; the immense variety of its productions; the richness of its forests, where all kinds of valuable 'timber abound; for its fluvial system; its chains of mountains; its 'admirable conformation, and its marvellous resources. Were I happy 'enough to see the French Government take up the position, if not ' of an enemy-at least that of a rival of the British and Dutch Go'vernments, in those seas where our flag has never yet been remarkable, except by its absence-if I had the happiness of seeing France firmly resolved to found a powerful colony in that semi-barbarous country, which the breath of civilization would speedily animate, I should rejoice, I should pride myself, on having been one of the 'first in our days to point out the immense advantages which our country would derive from the occupation of Indo-China."

เ

Passages from M. Huc's work "Le Christianisme en Chine-en Tartarie et en Thibet," and from a work entitled "Voyage autour du monde de l'Astrolabe et de la Zélee, pendant les années, 1837-38-39-40," are then quoted in favor of the scheme of establishing another Algeria in Indo-China, and the Eastern Archipelago, after which our author dwells upon the particular importance of the Burman Empire among the nations of Indo-China, and the importance of General D'Orgoni's mission.

"It seems that France has long had a presentiment of the great things to which she will one day be called in Indo-China. Up to the present time however, there have only been individual attempts to take possession of the trans-gangetic peninsula in the name of 'France. Some of these attempts, which have nearly all proved successful, may be related here. Towards the close of the last century, Mgr. Pigneaux de Bebain, Bishop of Adran, the able and honest minister of Gia-long, emperor of Annam, with the 'assistance of some French Officers, re-organized in a very short 'time the fleet and army of that monarch, fortified several of his cities, and added a prestige to his arms, which they had never before 'possessed. Had not the labors of those Frenchmen, who were sent out to Cochin-China to carry on the improvements of Gia-long, 'been lost sight of during the revolution of 1789, there is no doubt that the empire of Annam would have had an incalculable influence on the 'destinies of Asia, and perhaps even on those of France herself. That influence unhappily was annihilated by the preponderating power of the English, and by the death of the Bishop of Adran. In the 'beginning of the present century two other Frenchmen, MM. Chaigneaux and Vannier, following up the noble tradition of Mgr. de 'Bebain, organized anew, after the European model, the army of the Emperor of Annam. They fortified his towns, enlarged his arsenals, ' and superintended the construction of a very considerable IndoChinese fleet. More recently Général D'Orgoni has settled among 'the Burmans, to try in his turn to introduce our arts and sciences to that interesting race, and at the same time to light up the civilizing lamp of the Christian religion."

Then follows a short account of the extent and present condition of the Burman empire, with a more detailed history of our author's hero. As a good deal has lately been said about the antecedents of the soi-disant General, and that generally of no very favourable character, we will give a slight sketch of his history, as related by himself, or rather by his own special biographer, without however in any way vouching for its correctness. Louis Charles Girodon D'Orgoni was born in the canton of Blaisois in 1811. All his relations had been soldiers of Charrette, and he was therefore nurtured among military traditions, and at the proper age provided with a place in the body-guard of Charles X., when that monarch was driven from his throne by the Revolution of July 1830, D'Orgoni followed the fortunes of the Royal Family, and resided with them for some time in England. He took a part in the insane attempt of the Duchess de Berry to raise an insurrection in La Vendée in 1832, and was lucky enough to get back to his refuge in England, with only a broken leg and a wound in the head.

We are then told that he espoused the cause of Don Miguel, by whose hands he was decorated for his gallant exploits, with the order of Christ and that of the Tower and the Sword. After the convention of Evora, he received permission to return to France, and had moreover several brilliant offers made to him by Louis Philippe, but he would neither re-enter France, nor respond to the advances of the Citizen King, having "no sympathy with the bourgeois and Voltairian 'Government of the son of Egalité."

He then marries the daughter of a General Court Bouvet de Logier who brings him some property in the Isle of Bourbon, whither he accordingly proceeds. This lady having died, D'Orgoni espouses her sister, but being unfortunate enough to lose her also a few months after his marriage, he sallies forth to peregrinate the world, and thus soften the poignancy of his grief. He traversed South America, spent some time at the Cape of Good Hope, penetrated into Madagascar, and actually, we find, rivalled Livingstone by ascending the Rio Zambeze to a distance of 500 leagues from its mouth. And now, his biographer tells us-" the audacious Frenchman, as the Anglo'Indian Journals style him, resolved upon the realization of a pro'ject he had long cherished in his mind-a project, the results of which are destined to exercise an immense influence, not only on the progress of civilization in one of the greatest and richest countries ' in the world, but also upon the commercial interests of France."

This important project, we are surprised to find, is merely a resolution on M. D'Orgoni's part to travel leisurely through Hindustan, and examine carefully the condition of the people, and also the political and military organization of "that gigantic establishment which is still officially termed, the factory of John et Cie'"-such is M. Dumont's mode of Gallicizing the familiar soubriquet of the H. E. I. Company. Upon the veracity of M. D'Orgoni's biographer up to this point, we cannot speak with certainty, but judging from the SEPT., 1858.

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