WANDERINGS OF A WAR ARTIST.* "THE Moon looked in through
the window somewhere in Germany, and in a handsome room saw an editor sitting at his desk with two little books before him, both by new authors and both to be noticed. As he had not read them, he turned to one of his assistants, who was a poet himself, for his opinion : It is good enough, but the author, you see, is young; the verses might be better ; there is certainly a good deal of common- place about them, but what will you have P You can't be always getting something new; that he will turn out anything great I don't believe, but you may safely praise him ; it was he who wrote that nice review of my reflections on domestic life; we must be lenient towards the young man.'—' Well, I have noticed the book briefly : "Undoubted talent—a welcome offering—prettily brought out," and so on. But this other book ; I hear it is praised; the author has certainly genius, don't you think so P' 'Yes, all the world declares as much,
• Wanderings of a War Artist. By Irving Montagu, late of the Mt:strata London News. London: W. H. Allen and Co. but it has turned out rather wildly ; the punctuation of the book in particular is very eccentric; it will be good for him if we pull him to pieces, otherwise he will get too good an opinion of himself; if he is a true genius, he can bear the sharp voice of censure.'—' Decided talent,' wrote the editor, but with the usual carelessness ; that he can write incorrect verse may be seen in p. 25; let him study the classics,' &c. I went away, continued the Moon, and looked through the windows of another house and saw the bepraised poet, the tame one, and all the guests paid homage to him, and he was happy ; and a young girl sat in a corner, and she read these words in a book : 'In the dust lies genius and glory,
But ev'ry-day talent will pay : It's only the old, old story, But the piece is repeated each day.'"
"After all, one is, what the critics and public make one." These are Mr. Irving Montaga's concluding words, and it is his fault that their unconscious sarcasm, seasoned with a certain humility, has brought the above quaint little story of Hans Andersen to our mind.
There is a large class of the reading publidwho insist on being amused, and who like, moreover, at the same time to pick up some slight amount of information without trouble or conscious exertion of mind. They probably prefer travels and light biographies. "Stiff reading" does not suit their brain; novels, on the other hand, mean waste of time over imaginary people and their woes. These readers may range from tired men of business who seek for relaxation of mind, to mere idlers who only wish to while away an hour. The Wanderings of a War Artist furnish much to amuse and interest any of these readers. Mr. Montagu's life has been one of dangers and adventures, beginning with the traditional youthful struggles with poverty and difficulties. He was early left an orphan, and entirely dependent on his own exertions. He was taken from school at fourteen, and during his father's life began to study Art, drawing at the British Museum and at Marlborough House, then an art gallery. He gave himself heart and soul to the study, and never lost any opportunity he could for practice, often sitting up at night drawing hard at some plaster casts, and when he had drawn them in all conceivable positions, he used as models of still life every article of furniture he had in his small bed-room, working by the light of candle-ends, collected and put away for the purpose. On his father's death, when he was left entirely to his own resources, it was a hard struggle ; he had sometimes nothing but an aerated bun and a draught of water from a drinking-fountain for dinner. He found two good reasons for this choice of food,—first, it was cheap and looked large at the price ; and then he discovered that by drinking water between each mouthful, it was a bun which had a marvellous capacity of expansion, and so in this way, and with a large stretch of imagination, he convinced himself he was as "replete as if he had had a substantial meal." We can but glance at the devices and shifts he was put to, or at the first orders he received, whether it was the sign-board or the model advertisement of a grate, or the resplendent portrait of the old clothesman. Finding this artist life all too precarious, he competed for the Professorship of Drawing at the Rossall School, and won it. He might have been there still perhaps, but for a warlike spirit and love of fighting, which he traces back with satisfaction to his early childhood, and his cults for "Bob Landells," the war-corre- spondent, and the enthusiasm he felt for him when he was ordered to the front in the Crimean War. It so happened that Mr. Montagu was spending the long vacation in Switzer- land, when the Franco-German War broke out, and even quiet little Switzerland sent its peaceful army to guard its frontier. He gives us the story of his own adventures and any incidents that come under his personal knowledge, just bound together by a slight general sketch of the situation. His first adventure was being taken up as a spy, probably the first real prisoner of war taken for ages by the Swiss Republic. He was finally released, for it was considered that his statement that he was an artist was sufficiently guaranteed by the contents of his sketch-book. He even received official permission to sketch where he pleased. After this slight taste of danger, he determined to push into Germany, to ascertain the state of affairs, and to try and join the Prussian forces which were then concentrating on Strasburg, He took a ticket for Miihlheim, intending to go on to Kiel. With the exception of a few market-women, he was almost the only person in the train, and surmises were evidently afloat as to his reasons for travelling in that direction. At Miihlheini he was asked for this passport by a huge official in military uniform= he had none,—card, name and address—name and address he gave, but; card he had none. He was then called upon to prove he had been in Switzerland. This he thought he could easily do, having his circular-ticket from Paris to Switzerland and back ; but this only made his case much worse. He urged his nationality; that did no good. Was it to be supposed that the French would only employ their own countrymen as spies? He had a loaded revolver in his pocket, and this he managed to unload without observation, knowing well it would tell against him if found fully primed. About this time the train for Kid came up, and seeing the opportunity, he made a rush for it ; but the huge official was too quick for him, and he was collared and dragged back on to the platform. Then. his feelings became too much for him, and he "let fly" at his antagonist; but, unfortunately, besides his superior size and strength, the German was an accomplished wrestler to boot. "There was no help for it. There I lay sprawling at the mercy of a powerful Badener, armed cap-a-pie, and all around a little crowd of idlers cursing me with a vigour worthy of a better cause." It would spoil the story to tell the end of the adventure, or how he made his escape. His ex- periences taught him at least that credentials were necessary if he was to see anything. His intention had been to join the army of the Crown Prince, but circumstances and fate disposed of him otherwise, and he found himself after a time with the French at Dijon, and again later on in Paris, furnished with the necessary papers and having made certain satisfactory arrangements with Le Monde illustre. His own adven- tures are largely seasoned with stories of other people and anecdotes he picks up. Some are interesting and, characteristic, some we could dispense with, and should have heard with pleasure more personal details. Having to return temporarily to England for business, he caught small-pox by going over the hospitals at Havre, and was laid- up many weeks near Lond.on, and when he was well enough to begin campaigning again, Paris was invested and unapproach- able, and as his credentials were all French, there was nothing left him to do but to join the Army of the North. He went through the second siege of Paris under the Commune, and some of the best reading in the book is the picture he gives of the state of poor, beautiful Paris seen by the eye of an observing, impartial man, who has no object in either exaggerating or under-colouring the work of the Commune. Indeed, the details and pictures he gives throughout of the spirit of the French are altogether dispassionate and faithful. He sees all the gooa points, but does not flinch from telling the truth when 1131, favourable,—the expenditure of bravery and heroism being made almost useless by the want of foresight and discipline. He considers the soldiers of the Republic to be certainly superior to those of the Empire. Taught by the sad experience of defeat, they held their own, only giving way inch by inch, clinging with desperate tenacity, even when all hope of ultimate success was gone, to the colours, now little more than shreds by which they stood. But even with the Army of the North, ammunition and commissariat supplies were too often conspicuous by their absence. Contrasted with these sadder sides there is many an amusing incident which tells of French gaiety and adaptability to circumstances. Though the chief portion of the " wanderings " concern the French War, Mr. Montagu was also in Spain during the Carlist War, and later on in Servia. The Spanish part is decidedly the least in- teresting ; it savours rather of book-making and of an endeavour to lengthen out the work. The illustrations are clever and fresh, especially the pen-and-ink sketches, and add greatly to the interest of the volume.
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