BALACLAVA AND THE BIRKEXHEAD.'
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—The lines of Sir Francis Doyle on " The Loss of the Bir- kenhead" may be finer than those of his on " Balaclava," inas- much as the theme is more heroic. But the latter poem deserves to be remembered too. Unless it be in the epitaph of Simonides,—
" Go, tell the Spartans, friendly passer-by,
That we obeyed their orders, and here lie,"
it would be difficult to find any words which express more exactly than those of Sir Francis Doyle the soldier's idea of duty, as obedience to orders :—
" Men may be mad, or men be wise, But not with us the question lies; Although wo guess not their intet, This one thing well we know,— That where the Light Brigade is sent, The Light Brigade will go."
. . . . . . . . We will not call their lives ill-spent, If to all time they show,
That where the Light Brigade was sent, The Light Brigade would go."
Perhaps some of your readers may be glad to know that both poems are to be found in the little volume called " The Return.
of the Guards, and other Poems."—I am, Sir, &c., E. S.
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