MR. RIIDYARD KIPLING'S BALLADS.*

RUDYARD Kin,ING has a true gift for rhythm, and a still truer gift for dramatic effect. He gives us the hackneyed slang, the coarse, grinning humour, the devil-may-carish candour, the reckless license, the hardened valour, and the stolid fortitude of the British soldier, with a power that engraves these rather unlovely characteristics, which have won so many victories for the British Crown and extended far and wide the British Empire, on his readers' minds as impressively as literary art could engrave them. His barrack-room ballads are not exactly pleasant reading, for they remind us only too powerfully how many more or less degraded instruments of conquest the British Crown must have had before the British flag could float where it does in every quarter of the globe. But Mr. Kipling does not in any way ignore the higher qualities of these more or less brutalised instruments of empire. The British soldier of his powerful ballads is certainly unlovely, but he is strong and fearless, and, in a coarse way, generous. He is brutal, but he can see the good points even of the victims of his horse-play, and can do them justice in a fashion which sometimes brings tears to the eyes. The British soldier can even admire heartily his victims' sense of duty when it surpasses his own, and brings a feeling of shame to his hardened heart. The ballad called "Gunga Din" seems to us as good an example as we could give both of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's dramatic power and of the British soldier's better qualities. It is as pathetic as it is coarse, as generous as it is rough ; for we can hardly apply the word " brutal " to £0 sympathetic a picture of self-forgetful duty,—as full of recog- nition of the fidelity of the native servant of the regiment, as it is full of recognition of the imperious exactions of those whom he served :—

GIINGA DIN.

You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it ; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

Now in Injia's sunny clime, Where I used to spend my time A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them blackf aced crew The finest man I knew Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

He was 'Din! Din ! Din!

You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din !

Hi! slippery hit herao !

Water, get it ! Panee lao ! You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.'

The uniform 'e wore Was nothin' much before, An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,

For a piece 0' twisty rag

An' a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.

When the sweatin' troop-train lay In a siclin' through the day, Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrAvs craw], We shouted Harry By !'

Till our throats were bricky-dry, Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.

It was Din! Din ! Din !

You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been ?

You put some juides in it Or I'll ?narrow you this minute If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din !'

'E would dot an' carry one Till the longest day was done; An' e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.

If we charged or broke or cut, You could bet your bloomin' nut, 'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right Sank rear.

With 'is mussick on 'is back, 'E would skip with our attack, An' watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,' An' for all 'is dirty 'ide

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Barrack-Room Ballads, and other Verses. By Rudyard Kipling. London : Methuen and Co.

'E was white, clear white, inskle When 'e went to tend the wounded under:flre !

It was Din ! Din ! Din !'

With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.

When the cartridges ran out, You could hear the front files shout, Hi ! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din !'

I sha'n't forgit the night When I dropped be'ind the fight With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been.

I was chok-in' wad with thirst,

An' the man that spied me first Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunge Din. 'E lifted up my 'ead, An' e plugged me where I bled, An' e guy me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green : It was crawlin' and it stunk, But of all the drinks I've drunk.

I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

It was Din ! Din ! Din !

'Era's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen ; 'E's chawin' up the ground, An' e's kickin' all around : For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din !'

'E carried me away To where a dooli lay, An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean. 'E put me safe inside, An' just before 'e died, '1 'ope you liked your drink,' sez Gunga Din. So I'll meet 'im later on

At the place where 'e is gone—

Where it's always double drill and no canteen ; 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' Ill get a swig in hell from Gunga Din ! Yes, Din ! Din ! Din !

You Laza.rushiatt-leather Gunge Din !

Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunge Din !"

Or, to form a conception of Mr. Kipling's vivacity of descrip- tion, let the reader study the picture of the commissariat camel in the very next piece, called Omits,' the name, it seems, for a camel. How vividly it depicts the creature's sufferings, as well as the creature's malignity; what a wonderful summary it gives of the process of loading him. and of the difficulty of saving him from the consequences of his own clumsiness and wilfulnem ! What can be more ex- pressive than this contrast between the various beasts of burden ?— " The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, The elephant's a gentleman, the battery-mule's a mule ; But the commissariat cam-ti-el, when all is said an' done, 'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one."

That last line is one of the touches that betray Mr. Kipling's genuine originality and genius. He is not always as lucid as he is in the description of Gunga Din and the camel. We confess that we carry exceedingly vague ideas away from the ballad called "Belts," describing a row "in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay ;" and "The Rhyme of the Three Captains" is hardly worthy of Mr. Kipling, as it does not bring the Yankee pirate's achievement at all vividly before us. But for the most part these ballads are as wonderful in their descrip- tive power as they are vigorous in their dramatic force. There are few ballads, we imagine, in the English lan- guage more stirring than the one called "East and West," in which the son of a Colonel of the Guides pursues the border chief who has stolen his father's favourite mare, and inspires the robber-leader with such reverence for his gallantry, that he returns the mare with his turquoise- studded rein and silver stirrups, and sends his son back with him to join the Guides. That is a ballad worthy to stand by the Border ballads of Sir Walter Scott, for its martial spirit, its generous fire, its rapid movement, and its ringing eloquence. But it is too long to quote. We must find room for one more ballad, not because it is the beat, but because it is so happy in its satire on the clumsiness of some of our heavily armed and heavily weighted ships-of-war, and so skilful in turning the misfortunes of the Clampherdown ' into an opportunity for celebrating the old valour of the British sailor and the gallantry of the unfortunate British stoker who has now to do so mach of the sailor's work without

reaping the sailor's reward :— "THE BALLAD OF THE CLAMPHEEDOWN: It was our war-ship Clampherdovrn'

Would sweep the Channel clean, Wherefore she kept her hatches close When the merry Channel chops arose,

To save the bleached marine. She had one bow. gun of a hundred ton, And a great stern-gun beside ; They dipped their noses deep in the sea, They racked their stays and stanchions free In the wash of the wind-whipped tide.

It was our war-ship • Clampherdown ' Fell in with a cruiser light That carried the dainty Hotchkiss gun And a pair o' heels wherewith to run From the grip of a close-fought fight.

She opened fir at seven miles—

As ye shoot at a bobbing cork— And once she fired and twice she fired, Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tired That lolls upon the stalk.

'Captain, the bow-gun melts apace, The deck-beams break below, 'Twere well to rest for an hour or twain, And botch the shattered plates again.' And he answered, Make it so.'

She opened fire within the mile— As ye shoot at the flying duck—

And the great stern-gun shot fair and true, With the heave of the ships to the stainless blue, And the great stern-turret stuck.

Captain, the turret fills with steam, The feed-pipes burst bel6w- You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram, You can hear the twisted runners jam,' And he answered, Turn and go !'

It was our war-ship 'Clampherdown; And grimly did she roll; Swung round to take the cruiser's fire As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire When they war by the frozen Pole.

Captain, the shells are falling fast, And faster still fall we ; And it is not meet for English stock To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock The death they cannot see.'

Lie down, lie down, my bold LB., We drift upon her beam ; We dare not ram, for she can run ; And dare ye fire another gun, And die in the peeling steam ? '

It was our war-ship Clampherdown' That carried an armour-belt ; But fifty feet at stern and bow Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, To the hail of the Nordenfelt.

Captain, they hack us through and through ; The chilled steel bolts are swift !

We have emptied the bunkers in open sea, Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be.' And he answered, Let her drift.'

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,' Swung round upon the tide, Her two dumb guns glared south and north, And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth, And she ground the cruiser's side.

Captain, they cry, the fight is done, They bid you send your sword.'

And he answered, Grapple her stern and bow.

They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; Out cutlasses and board !'

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,' Spewed up four hundred men ; And the scalded stokers yelped delight, As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight, Stamp o'er their steel-walled pen.

They cleared the cruiser end to end, From conning-tower to hold.

They fought as they fought in.-Nelson's fleet; They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet, As it was in the days of old.

It was the sinking Clampherdovrn ' Heaved up her battered side— And carried a million pounds in steel, To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel, And the scour of the Channel tide.

It was the crew of the 'Clampherdown ' Stood out to sweep the sea, On a cruiser won from an ancient foe, As it was in the days of long ago, And as it still shall be."

The ballad called "Tomlinson" is a gruesome satire on the lukewarm sin, the limp selfishness of modern days, in which the Devil is represented as refusing to take a soul into:Hell on the ground that there has been no more thoroughness in its sins than there was in the pretended virtues for which it was refused admission to Heaven. That implies a manliness in Satan which, we fear, he would repudiate. Does he not reckon half-and-half sins the most effective for his purpose:of them all P