THE THIN RED LINE.* Oun debt to Sir Henry Newbolt
grows with every year. Best known, perhaps, as a writer of patriotic verse, though honour- ably distinguished as a novelist, he has shown ever since the publication of his Tales from Froiesart, some sixteen years ago, a peculiar talent for bringing heroic and epic narrative within the reach of the plain person and the juvenile reader. This process of condensing and popularizing has often been undertaken by hack writers, with the result that a great deal of the charm and virility of the original disappears in the operation. It is no easy task, and can only be successfully accomplished by a writer who adds to sympathy a fine selective instinct, and those are qualities which are pre-eminently noticeable in Sir Henry Newbolt. In his now work he has given us a companion volume to his Book of the Blue Sea published last year; this time it is a book about soldiers, and though it is written for boys, will be read with delight by " grown-ups " as well. He has chosen six "good men," four of them famous, and pieced together the stories of their lives, using their own words whenever possible, and taking each of them from tim earliest moment when he began to think of soldiering. In the case of the four famous soldiers—Colborne, Sir Harry Smith, Outram, and Stonewall Jackson—Sir Henry Newbolt's short stories are designed to lead the reader on to further and more intimate acquaintance, and he accordingly gives the names of the best and handiest books in which it may be acquired. But Sir Henry Newbolt, with sound judgment, does not confine his narratives to the lives of soldiers who attained high command. Robert Blakeney's autobiography is admir- ably suited for inclusion because, to quote from the prefatory " Letter to a Boy," "if you wish to see the Great War of a hundred years ago through the eyes of a boy not much older than yourself, that is your book." And the remaining story, that called simply "The Adventures of George," is taken from an unpublished manuscript. Just as the life of Farragut, the great Admiral of the North, was given in The Book of the Blue Sea, so that of the greatest of the Southern Generals, Stonewall Jackson, is included in The Pooh of the Thin Bed Line. Sir Henry Newbolt's defence of this choice is entirely convincing. It is that, "though he was not of the Thin Red Line, he came of the same race [his great-grand- father came from Londonderry to America in 1748], and made war after the same chivalrous fashion: in all our battles of to-day his spirit is at home and stirring."
Robert Blakenoy was a high-spirited young Irishman who was gazetted Ensign in the 28th Regiment of Infantry at the age of fifteen, saw the fall of Copenhagen, served in the Baltic expedition of the following year, and then in the Peninsular War, taking part in the great retreat which ended in Corunna ; and " being in the rearguard he saw as much of it as any one." Returning to England, he was sent out again in 1810, returned home once more after Badajoz, rejoined the Army in Spain in the spring of 1818, and after being badly wounded in his last battle, retired with the rank of Captain. The interest of his reminiscences resides in their wealth of detail, their high spirits, and the chivalrous determination they display to maintain the credit of the British Army. The sack of Badajoz caused him the keenest humiliation, and like many other British officers he fought against it at the risk of his life :— " 'Whatever accounts,' says Robert, 'may be given of the horrors which attended and immediately followed the storming of Badajoz, they must fall far short of the truth; and it is impos- sible for any who were not present to imagine them.' The officers, of course, did all they could to restrain the men, and to save the townspeople; three times Robert narrowly escaped with his life for endeavouring to protect some women by conveying them to St. John's Churah, where a guard was mounted. Once he pre- tended to call up an imaginary guard; once he fired his pistol at a brutal sergeant—it missed fire, but the man was cowed ; once ho had to sham ruffian himself and appear tojoin in looting a house, in order to keep the mad soldiers out of a pick woman's bedroom," The story of Colborne is admirably told, bringing out his One character, his touching devotion to his family, and his • The Boole of the Thin Red Line., By Sir Henry Newbolt. Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood., Loudon Longman and Co. Lia. not.] passionate loyally to Sir John Moore. From Colborne's comments on Sir John Moore's critics after Corunne, we may quote one striking passage :— " You have, of course,' wrote Colborne to a friend two months: after Corunna, 'heard various reports which have been spread with uncommon assiduity by the malicious and ignorant, to injure his reputation. His movements can be fully justified. Fortune never smiled. He was soon aware of his situation, but never discovered the true state of things until he had actually entered Spain. He was disgusted at the infamous conduct of the soldiers, and the inattention of inexperienced officers.' Colborne goes on to analyse the reasons for the conduct of the army. Even after the recent fighting in France and Belgium and the retreat from Mona, the following sentences are worth our attention: We cannot endure hardships ; we have not the military patience with which our enemies are gifted. We can stand to be shot at as well, or better than most people, but this quality, although essential, is not sufficient for a military nation. " What unheard of difficulties, hardship and labours ! living on turnips ! no sleep I " All this frightens Mama, but do not believe the quarter that you hear. John Bull is as fond of the marvellous as an Italian or a Spaniard."
Sir Harry Smith's career was brimful of excitement, hard fight- ing, and romance, and in Sir Henry Newbolt's version it loses none of its exhilaration. And he renders full justice to the splendid chivalry of Outram, the Bayard of India, great alike as a sportsman and a soldier. No part of his record will appeal with greater force to the ingenuous youth than that which describes his adventures in Khandesh, where he raised and commanded a corps of Billie :- t"His perfect sympathy with his Bh41s was shown in two of his most exciting adventures. One day in June, when all the country was parched and dusty, he went out after a big tiger with his friend Douglas Graham and a large party. They had three elephants in line about a quarter of a mile apart, and half a dozen beaters close beside each elephant. They had beat up a dry ravine, and were just at the edge of the jungle when they heard a tremendous roar. The beaters had got rather too far ahead, and they at once ran back or threw themselves fiat on the ground. The only one who stood firm was James's favourite Bhil, a line handsome young fellow named Gurbur. As he stood waiting, the tiger made his spring : the huge yellow cat was seen for a moment in the air, and then came right down upon Gurbur, tearing his shoulder and crunching his head. Douglas Graham fired both barrels, and the brute slunk off, but poor Gurbur was found lying dead with his sword half drawn. James knew all about his Blatt; and their beliefs and customs. He know that, according to their ideas, Gurbur would have to live another life, in which he would be the slave of the tiger who had killed him, unless his death was instantly avenged. Without losing a moment he followed the tiger on horseback, hunted him untiringly for three days, and at bet, on the evening of the fourth day, killed him with a long shot. He was away from camp a whole week, but on the seventh day he came galloping back with the tiger strapped to his saddle, and the Bhils believed that he had saved Gurbur's soul from a terrible fate. In the same way he avenged the death of another of his men, a flack or tracker named Khundoo. Khundoo was a vary small man, but a very efficient one, and highly valued by his master. He got word of a big man-eating tiger one day, and as there had been a Wee report not long before, which had disappointed Captain Outram, he was determined to see the beast this time with his own eyes before taking the sahib out. So he went to track it, armed only with a light spear ; when the tiger made his spring the spear glanced off his head, and Khundoo was caught and bitten through the chest. The tiger then slunk off to covert; some of the beaters surrounded him, and kept him there, while others carried Khundoo back to his master's tent. James saw that he was dying, but he knew how to comfort him; he instantly swore that he would neither eat nor drink till he had killed the tiger. He rushed out with his rifle, came up to the tiger, steadied himself, and killed the beast with one shot, then galloped back with the news. He bent over Khundoo to tell him that he was saved from all fear of the tiger in his next life ; the BhIl chief took his hand, and laid in it the hand of his own little son, that the sahib might be as a father to him, and so died content. You may udge from that story how James's men had come to love and rust him." But Sir Henry Newbolt confesses that he would rather read or write of Stonewall Jackson than even of Outram himself. "The very names of his battles are poetry, his life should be written as a great epic, a modern Iliad, and his death is one of the greatest and most moving tragedies ofthat war"; great man, who, in this spirit that he has told the story of who, amongst other signal claims to distinction, was probably the only general who was cheered by the enemy in the progress of war. Mr. Stanley Wood's pictures are spirited but somewhat extravagant. As illustrations for the romance of war as conceived and described by Lever they would be admirable, but are hardly in keeping with narratives severely founded on fact,
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