BOOKS.
DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE.* OUR readers may remember that about a year ago we drew attention to Mr. Fitchett's stirring book, Deeds that Won the Empire, a copy of which had been sent us from Australia. At that time, however, the work was practically unobtainable in England. It is with the greatest pleasure that we now welcome an edition issued by a London publisher. But it is more than a reprint of the book noticed by ne last year. Half, or more than half, is new, and the new matter is quite equal, if indeed not superior, to the old. A re-reading of the work does not modify but merely confirms our previous judg- ment, that not since Macaulay ceased to write has English literature produced a writer capable of infusing such life and vigour into historical scenes. Superfine critics may say that Mr. Fitchett's style has " the worst faults of Macaulay," but unless we are greatly mistaken, the general reader will be de- voutly thankful for a book in which he can find the human and heroic side of our history described in clear and picturesque English. The wholesome and manly tone of Mr. Fitchett's book is specially satisfactory. There is no fine writing in the bad sense, no foolish boasting and vainglory, no pompous. padding. The book, indeed, is wholly satisfactory from the reader's standpoint. As every good book should, " it reads itself," and there is no need to say that if the reader will only take the trouble to master the plans of the battles he will enjoy the work. The reader, whether he manages or does not manage to master the strategy, is perfectly happy, for Mr. Fitchett, contrives, as by enchantment, to translate him instantly into the fighting-line, and to let him see all the most striking incidents of the action and hear all the most exciting things said by the chief actors. One is on the ridge at Waterloo oneself or on the quarterdeck of the ' Victory '—for Mr. Fitchett is equally at home on sea or land—not merely hearing an echo of the deeds done. Before we deal with Mr. Fitchett's book in detail we must note yet one more ground for pleasure and satisfaction in his most remarkable a-.1ievement. This admirable record of the deeds that made us what we are is written not only by an Australian Englishman, but by a Nonconformist clergyman. The foolish and un- just policy of a past age deprived the Nonconformists of all chance of serving the country in the higher posts in the Army or Navy, with the evil result that many Noncon- formists felt that the deeds of our soldiers and sailors were things in which they could have no part or share. The unhappy, tradition thus set going has lasted almost to the present time. It is a welcome proof that it is at last dead to find a Noncon- formist clergyman writing such a book as Deeds that Won the Empire. If we had been asked in the abstract to designate the happiest source for a book which should stir the patriotic emotions of the present generation we should have said with- out hesitation, "Let it be written by a native-born colonist or a Dissenter, as a testimony of how few are the non-conductors of patriotism which now exist." That such a book has been written by one who is both a colonist and a Dissenter is indeed of good omen.
But we must not forget Mr. Fitchett's book in expressing our satisfaction that it was he, and not another, who wrote it. In our last notice of Mr. Fitchett's book we mentioned his stirring account of the battles of Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, and his admirable study of " the man who spoiled Napoleon's destiny." Here we will dwell specially upon two
• Deeds that Won the Empire. By the Rev. W. H. Fitchett ("Vedette "1• With Portraits and Plane. London : Smith, Elder, and Co.
studies which were not in the former book,—one is on Waterloo, the other on Trafalgar. The present writer has read accounts of Waterloo by the hundred, but he has never read anything which equals Mr. Fitchett's narrative for vividness and clearness. It is possible that minute historical and military critics will discover a few errors in detail. But after all that matters comparatively little. Errors of detail may be corrected in a foot-note in a subsequent edition. What can never be corrected by foot-notes are dulness, haziness, and lack of life and interest. These are, of course, by no means the only qualities required in the historian; possibly they are not the most important; but however that may be, they are essentials. The lack of them can never be made up. It is an error which nothing can amend. The moment one begins to read Mr. Fitchett's account of Waterloo one feels that one is in the hands of a guide who will never weary, and who will not forget a single good thing or miss a single great and heroic incident. His incidental delineations of character are admirable. We have not read a couple of pages before he has given us the Duke of Wellington exactly in his true colours,—the man without a touch of humbug, or what he would have himself called "damned nonsense," in his whole composition. Mr. Fitchett makes us " realise " Wellington by introducing him to us with the story of how he rode over to see Blucher's lines at Ligny, and remarked, "If Bonaparte be what I suppose he is, the Prussians will get a damned good licking to-day." That was just what they did get. In the afternoon a Prussian Staff officer rode over to Quatre-Bras, " galloped up and whispered an agitated message in the Duke's ear. The Duke, without a change of countenance, dismissed him, and, turning to Bowles, said, Old Bliicher has had a damned good licking, and gone back to Wavre, eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go too. I suppose in England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it ! As they have gone back, we must go too." One would like to quote the whole of the Waterloo section of the book, but as that is impossible, we will choose a couple of incidents as examples of Mr. Fitchett's method :—
" The story of how the eagles were captured is worth telling. Captain Clark Kennedy of the Dragoons took one. He was riding vehemently in the early stage of the charge, when he caught sight of the cuirassier officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break through the melee and escape. ` I gave the order to my men,' he says, "Right shoulders forward ; attack the colours." He himself overtook the officer, ran him through the body, and seized the eagle. He tried to break the eagle from the pole and push it inside his coat for security, but, failing, gave it to his corporal to carry to the rear. The other colour was taken by Ewart, a sergeant of the Greys, a very fine swordsman. He overtook the officer carrying the colour, and, to quote his own story, ` he and I had a hard contest for it. He made a thrust at my groin ; I parried it off, and cut him down through the head. After this a lancer came at me. I threw the lance off by my right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth. Next, a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his bayonet, which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down through the head. Thus ended the contest. As I was about to follow the regiment, the general said, " My brave fellow, take that to the rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it ' "
Mr. Fitchett tells the oft-told tale of the charges on the squares with great picturesqueness, and gives exactly the impression of alternations of sombre calm and tempestuous fury given to the present writer by an old Waterloo veteran. Mr. Fitchett has a keen sense of humour and knows how to give it its place in a battle-story, just as in their own way did the old ballad-writers. Here is his account of the exploits of a regiment of Hanoverian horse
" For two hours 15,000 French horsemen rode round the British Squares, and again and again the ridge and rear slope of the British position was covered with lancers, cuirassiers, light and heavy dragoons, and hussars, with the British guns in their actual possession; and yet not a square was broken ! A gaily dressed regiment of the Duke of Cumberland's (Hanoverian) Hussars watched the Homeric contest from the British rear, and Lord Uxbridge, as the British cavalry were completely exhausted by their dashes at the French horsemen as they broke through the chequer of the squares, rode up to them and called on them to follow him in a charge. The colonel declined, explaining that his men owned their own horses, and could not expose them to any risk of damage ! These remarkable warriors, in fact, moved in a body, and with much expedition, off the field, Seymour (Lord Uxbridge's aide) taking their colonel by the collar and shaking him as a dog shakes a rat, by way of expressing his view of the performance."
We have purposely refrained from quoting the best things in the account of Waterloo, for they would be spoiled by being taken from their context. Our readers must read for them- selves the account of the charge of the Union and Household Brigades and the advance of the Old Guard. That most impressive movement has never been better handled, nor has the part taken by the Fifty-Second in the defeat of the Old Guard ever been better displayed. Again, the use of Mercer's narrative of the part played by the Horse Artillery is masterly.
We must leave Waterloo to say a word about Trafalgar. Mr. Fitchett is no whit less picturesque here than at Waterloo, and makes the same admirable use of all the striking little touches and sayings he has collected from a hundred memoirs. In this, indeed, is seen the perfection of his method. He weaves these human touches so skilfully into the preliminary narrative, that what ought to be the dullest pages of the story are often among the most amusing. Take the following from the preliminary pages of Trafalgar. Mr. Fitchett is not quite enthusiastic enough about the noble Collingwood, but hie anecdotes are delightful :—
" Of Collingwood, Thackeray says, `I think, since Heaven made gentlemen, it never made a better one than Cuthbert Collingwood,' and there was, no doubt, a knightly and chivalrous side to Colling- wood worthy of King Arthur's round table. But there was also a side of heavy-footed common-sense, of Dutch-like frugality, in Collingwood, a sort of wooden-headed unimaginativeness which looks humorous when set against the background of such a planet-shaking fight as Trafalgar. Thus on the morning of the fight he advised one of his lieutenants, who wore a pair of boots, to follow his example and put on stockings and shoes, as, in the event of being shot in the leg, it would, ho explained,' be so much more manageable for the surgeon.' And as he walked the break of his poop in tights, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, leading, in his single ship, an attack on a fleet, he calmly munched an apple. To be able to munch an apple when beginning Trafalgar is an illustration of what may be called the quality of wooden- headed unimaginativeness in Collingwood. And yet Collingwood had a sense of the scale of the drama in which he was taking part. `Now, gentlemen,' he said to his officers, `let us do something to- day which the world may talk of hereafter.' Collingwood, in reality, was a great man and a great seaman, and in the battle which followed be ` fought like an angel,' to quote the amusingly inappropriate metaphor of Blackwood. The two majestic British columns moved slowly on, the great ships, with ports hauled up and guns run out, following each other like a procession of giants. ' I suppose,' says Codrington, who commanded the Orion, ' no man ever before saw such a sight.' And the element of humour was added to the scene by the spectacle of the tiny Pickle, a duodecimo schooner, gravely hanging on to the quarter of an 80-gun ship— as an actor in the fight describes it—` with the boarding-nettings up, and her tompions out of her four guns—about as large and as ft.rmidable as two pairs of Wellington hoots."
Again we mast leave our readers to study for themselves, or rather hurry with breathless interest, for that is the more likely attitude of mind, through the account of Trafalgar. One more quotation and we have done. At the end of the story of Nelson's victory our readers will find an incident such as the Elizabethans would have described as " right English ":— " The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that `it blew away the top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore- topsail after it was dewed up ready for furling.' They dare not set a storm staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The Redoutable sank at the stern of the ship towing it ; the Bucen- inure had to be cut adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off the shore ; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge Santissinta Trinidad had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea were furious; but the boats of the Ajax and the Neptune succeeded in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats, indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss ! "
All sailors love cats, for sailors generally are people of good taste, but only a crew of British sailors would have acted thus after the dangers and fatigues of the greatest sea-fight in history. The Greek sailors at Salamis would not even have been melted by the beauties of a Persian cat. We will leave Mr. Fitchett's book with this prophecy. Before three months it will be in every regimental reading-room and the beat. thumbed book in a hundred Free Libraries. The book cannot but take the reader by storm wherever it finds him.
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