SKOBELEFF.*

THERE is a well-known rale which used to be inculcated on the

budding draftsman in a conveyancer's chambers, which was couched in the form, "First, turf your testator." The meaning of it was that when you had recited a will, you were not to pass on to any other transaction till you had got rid of the will by reciting the death and burial of its maker. A similar adage might be formulated for the reviewer of a translation,— "First, trounce your translator." It would be of even more general application, as translations, which to be done well really require • literary talent of a considerable order, are generally left to be done by incompetent and feeble hands.

This book is no exception to the rule. Whether the translation literally represents the Russian we cannot pretend to say, being, like the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, nnfortusately ignorant of the Russian tongue. But ',whether the translator, Mr. E. A. Brayley Hodgetts, is a master of Russian or not, he is certainly not a master of English.

It would be supposed from the following sentence, which occurs on page 2, that the translator was himself a foreigner; perhaps he may have tarried so long in foreign parts that he has forgotten his native idioms :—" One saw all those circumstances of woe, and yethe hoped there might after all be some mistake." Nor is this

a solitary specimen of the abnormal use of that thoroughly nu-English " one." Such specimens are scattered broadcast -through the book. Perhaps the best is, " One lost his head, and consciousness refused to serve him." The use of pronouns generally seems to be a difficulty to Mr. Brayley Hodgetts. "The soldier," he tells as, "knows perfectly who loves him. Him who loves him he trusts, but who

does not he has no confidence in. nor does he show him any remarkable affection." " Himseli showed ns " may be good Russian, but it is almost as odd English as " it will go bad with us" or "officers who had happened into Plevna." We should like to ask, too, the meaning of these expressions,—" He dismissed one of his Colonels simply because this officer

began cultivating his men's teeth in the interests of discipline,""the whole English colony carried him [Skobeleff] in their arms." We can dimly grasp .what is meant

by "an extraordinarily habilitated individual," or by Skobeleff entertaining at dinner "the most variegated public," but it is difficult to grasp the saying, " the compliance is too steep," or to see the point of Skobeleff's tale of some one who struck him, whereupon he "sprang upon him, seized him, and remained petrified." These two last difficulties

may be caused by the text itself, but if so, the translator should have had compassion on- the infirmities of the unsophisticated .English reader, and translated it in a way to convey some meaning to him. But the fact is that the translator is totally

devoid of any notion of English or of the duties of a translator, or he could not have left us such a sentence as, " Let them carry their own and strange wounded." Before he sets to work on another book, we should recommend a few simple lessons in English grammar, and a little practice in translations from, say, Henry's First Latin Exercises.

So far as we can pierce to the original through the veil of the translation, the book seems to be written in a Frenchy, jerky, epigrammatic, but often picturesque style. The narrative is lively enough, but not always very clear. Some of the stories told of Skobeleff are quite pointless, but this may be owing to the translator having carefully concealed the point. The writer was a Russian war correspondent in the Russo-Turkish war, and was accused of having " invented " Skobeleff. Anent this, he tells rather an amusing story ; how, after the war, he got into conversation with a fellow-traveller in a railway-carriage who turned out to be a Russian General. The General complained that he had got no " orders " out of the war, because he had no money to provide the twenty-five kopeks a line required to make a correspondent write him up :-

" We spoke of Skobeleff. He had not yet recognised me. Nemi- rovitch-Dantchenko invented him.'—' How do you mean ?'—' Simply enough. They need to get drank together, so he invented him.'- 'Dyou know Nemirovitch-Dantchenko ? Have you ever seen him ?' —' Ever so often. Frequently seen him drunk. Know him well,— very well.'—' Dear me, and I had heard he was a teetotaller.'—' Not in the least ; he drinks like a fish.' " When they got to Moscow, the writer introduced himself:— "My name is Nemirovitch-Dantchenko.'—' What, Nemirovitch-

` Personal Reminiscences of General Skobeleff. By V. I. Nemiroeiteh-Dantehenko. Translated from the Russian by R. A. Brayley Hodgetts. London : W. H. Allen and Co. T884.

• Dantchenko !'—' Yes.'—' He who ?—'—' He who--' The General gave me no time to finish my sentence, but disappeared."

The writer correctly estimates his work as "not a biography of Skobeleff," but " merely a collection of fragmentary remin- iscences of him." From these fragments, however, it is easy to see that Skobeleff was areal hero, of the knight-errant or fairy-prince kind, a figure well calculated to wia the love and admiration of the Russian peasants, the mass of the Russian nation. He had a " delicate, handsome face," a fair beard, blue eyes, dark hair. He looked like an Apollo, as he rode into battle " on a white horse, and dressed in a white coat " prac- tice which won him among the Turks, the title of Alih-Pasha, or " the White General"), " looking as though he had come dressed for a ball. Is not a battle the soldier's ball P' he asked some one. ' Now, at last, I feel happy." He was described as " fighting like an ensign." The answer given was, " Yes, but he does not hide himself like a General." He was always in the thickest of the rain of bullets and shrapnel, cheering on his men, and showing them the way to the enemy's batteries. But though he was careless of himself, he was always careful of his men. His division was always the best provided with fur coats, with soup, tea, and " corn-brandy." He refused to have anything to do with the Commissariat Department, and made each of his regiments do its own commissariat. Some one suggested that the command- ing officers might embezzle. His answer was,—" If my men get as much bread and meat and tea and brandy as they want, if there are no complaints lodged against my officers, if the in- habitants of the district are satisfied, let them embezzle,—what do I case?" After the' famous passage of the Balkans, in which Skobeleff and his division played the first part, when they, passed in review before the Grand Duke " in splendid condition, while the other divisions looked pale and starved," the Grand Duke exclaimed, " What red-faced fellows ! One can see they are well filled. Thank God that some at least do not look like corpses." Flogging and cuffing appear to prevail still in the Russian Army. Skobeleff would have none of it in his division. He told one of his favourite colonels, who was 'beating a soldier, that if he found him doing it again, he should dismiss him. After Plevna, one of his men was ordered by his colonel to be flogged. The man appealed to Skobeleff, confessed his crime, and asked for a court-martial. Skobeleff told him a court-martial would condemn him to death. His answer was, " We are all in God's hands. Every day of our lives we are under fire here. I don't mind being shot, but if I am to be disgraced, your Excellency, I shall commit suicide." A significant commentary this on the Tdry desire to keep on flogging the English soldier, who is less " like a foot- man," as Skobeleff said, than the Russian. Skobeleff treated his soldiers like men and like equals. Before making a night attack, he assembled the force which was to undertake it. The non- commissioned officers sat round Skobeleff in a circle, the men in an outer circle beyond, and thus the writer assisted "at a council of war, composed of the general of division and his men," in which the mode of assault was pointed out and discussed, and even the privates were asked to give their opinion how it was to be conducted. - No wonder that Skobelefrs men idolised him, and were ready to go any- where and do anything. One of them was to have both legs amputated. He refused to have chloroform, asked only for a pipe, and submitted to the operation without a moan. When he was asked why he would not have chloroform, he said, —" We must not."—" Wfiy not ? All the other fellows do."— " Others may, but we are Skobeleff's." Skobeleff was as good to his prisoners as to his own men. He saw a soldier strike a Turkish prisoner. He told the officer in command of the squad that he would take his sword from him ; he was a disgrace to the Russian Army. He told the man,—" Show your enemy no mercy, so long as he has a weapon in his hand ; but as soon as he has surrendered and become your prisoner, he should be your friend and brother. Stint yourself in food, rather than make him suffer, he wants it more ;" and he took care to see that his directions were followed, and this notwithstanding that the very night before, these Turks were said to have tortured, muti- lated, and mangled the Russian wounded, who had been left on the field after an unsuccessful assault. Skobeleff was not a mere soldier. He was a scientific strategist. Even "in the trenches before Plevna he studied and read continuously. He contrived to get hold of military periodicals and books in all languages, not one of which went' out of his hands without being

profusely studded with marginal notes, bearing testimony to his military genius and critical faculty." He was always discussing military problems with his officers and with his guests at dinner. In proposing any plan to the Commander-in-Chief, he would back it up with arguments drawn from the history of the Napoleonic wars or the battles of Frederick the Great. He was the main prompter of the passage of the Balkans, which he himself carried out. He was extremely angry with the " old women of diplomatists " for not allowing the Russian army to take Constantinople. He " proposed to take it himself, of his own initiative, and to give himself up to be tried by court- martial and shot, so long as only Russia took it and kept it." He was described as " going about it " (during the armistice) "like a tom cat smelling round a moose-trap. Sometimes he pats it with his paw, and sometimes he pulls himself together and shakes himself," and many expected to find that be had " crept in over-night with his men." However, the " old women " were too strong for the torn cat, and the " bull dogs" were not put to the test as to whether they really meant business. Skobeleff s Jingoism was, however, of no vulgar type. " My motto," he said, " is short,—Love of country, freedom, science, and Slays." He looked forward "towards a free confederation of all Slavonic tribes, each with a complete autonomy of its own, Only having in common its army, its coin, and its customs duties. In other respects, let each live as it likes, and rale its own country as it can. And as to 'freedom, I am not speaking of to-morrow. By that time, perhaps, Russia will be more free than they are." Whether, if he had lived, Skobeleff might not have largely helped to realise his own programme, it is vain to discuss. It was at least a noble plan. But it was not to be, and the youthful hero of Russia was destined to an early grave.