FEMALE WARRIORS.*

Tux raison d'e'tre of Mrs. Needham's book is explained by her- self in a few sentences, which we may simply extract from her -first chapter. After declaring that "Popular Prejudice is the

'deaf, deformed sister of Justice," she goes on to say :—

"Popular prejudice, having decided that woman is a poor, weak 'creature, credulous, easily influenced, holds that she is of necessity 'timid; that if she were allowed as much as a voice in the government of her native country, she would stand appalled if war were even

hinted at War is, undoubtedly, a horrid alternative to the average woman, and she shrinks from it,—as the average man shrinks. But, walking down the serried ranks of history, we find strange records of feminine bravery ; as we might discover singular instances of masculine cowardice, if we searched far enough. As argumenta- tion is unpleasant and unprofitable, be it counted only idle pastime, gathering a handful of memories from the playground of history."

With this preface, she does proceed to " walk down the serried Tanks," or to "gather a handful of memories from the play- ground of history," we are not quite clear which ; but, at any rate, to give to her readers a long series of female biographies, all tending to show that women did not wait for the present- day talk about their rights and their work, to prove themselves capable of stepping out of what is commonly regarded as their natural sphere, and distinguishing themselves in the most un- gentle of crafts.

The two volumes now before us might, if compressed into one, arranged with more method, and written with more care, have furnished a useful addition to the libraries of people who like their literary food compounded for them, and are not par- ticular as to the genuineness of its ingredients. There are plenty of such people among book-buyers, and even as the present work stands it may very likely be received as that cruelest of delusions, " a good book for girls." But, for

compilation of this kind to become of real use, we ought to be satisfied that its narratives are as nearly true as his- tory can be,—we have a right to know whose testimony to their truth we are required to accept. Mrs. Needham'e stories, being some of them very marvellous, demand much and good testimony, whereas she simply places a long list of authorities in a table prefixed to the first volume ; and a most motley col- lection it is, ranging from Beloe's Herodolus to Kirby's Wonder- ful and Eccentric Museum, and the Illustrated London News. When on some rare occasion she does mention in her text the :source from which her statements are derived, we get such satisfaction as may be found in the following passage :— "The women of Caledonia wore equally warlike. In a curious old book of engravings, published in London during tho last century, en. titled a Collection of Dresses of Different Nations, Ancient end Modern,' there are three plates, one of which represent a Caledonian woman, after De Brii, dressed in a short garment, and armed with masculine weapons ; the other two represent the wife and daughter of a Pict. The woman Pict is entirely naked, and is tattooed and painted with stars, rays, and various similar devices. In one hand she grasps a lance, and in the other two darts. The girl differs from the mother only in being painted with divers floral ornaments, in lieu of the astronomical adornments."

This book of engravings, which she rightly describes as curious, Mrs. Needham accepts with perfect faith ; she has no doubt whatever of its acquaintance with the Picts. And indeed the stories she has gathered from the misty dawn of historic times are told with an ingenuousness equal to that of Herodotus himself, and with a use of epithets worthy of a modern novelist For instance, at Troy, when Penthesilea "fell by the hand of the invincible Achilles," she goes on to relate how,—

" The sarcastic Thersites jeered and derided as usual, till the hero, in a fury, turned on the sneering old wretch, and slow him. Diomedes, .enraged at the death of his mocking old comrade, dragged the corpse of the Amazonian queen from the camp, and flung it into the &amender."

And she ends her account of the Ethiopean Amazons by the 'statement that "this tribe was finally subjugated by the sue- eessors of Prester John."

We have been hitherto very far back among the serried ranks,

for the African Amazons "are said to have existed some cen- turies prior to those of Thermodon," though the latter founded their kingdom "some years previous to the reign of Nians," but at last we get to Semiramis. Here Mrs. Needham pauses -to give a table, showing that doctors have disagreed about the date at which the great Queen lived,—disagreed so seriously as * female Warriors. By Ellen 0. Cleyton (Mrs. Needham). London : Tinsley rothers.

to make Bryant ask, "What credit can be given to the history of a person the time of whose life cannot be ascertained within 1,535 years?" The history of Semiramis, however, is told at length, and is followed by accounts of Harpalyce, Atalanta, Tomyris, and many other heroines, in reference to whom the author remarks,—" It seems to have been a favourite custom, during the primitive ages, to have children nursed by birds or beasts."

It is no wonder that, having dealt very liberally with all these nurselings of the mountain and the forest, our chronicler should feel able to supply us with abundant details respecting so well-known and comparatively recent a personage as Boadicea, who, beside being a British princess, also " through her mother Europeia, daughter of Evanus, King of Scotland" (whose authentic portrait may, no doubt, be seen at Holyrood) "claimed descent from the Kings of Troy and Ptolemies of Egypt." Her misfortunes are traced from her early girlhood, when "she was compelled by her stepmother, the wicked, ambitious Cartismandua, to marry Arviragus, son of that queen by her first husband, King Cymbeline," to the hour when "she was interred with due honours by her faithful adherents ;" and we can only regret that the whole story is not as absolutely credible as it is interesting.

Of Zenobia, whose descent from the Ptolemies must have made her akin to Boadicea, we are told, "Truly she was as beautiful as any Egyptian queen, even the handsome Cleo- patra," and we almost feel inclined to apologise to the "serpent

of old Nile" for the epithet so oddly bestowed on her. Hunila, a Goth, Mavia, Queen of Pharan; and Pliarand.s.lem, Queen of Armenia, conclude this chapter, and bring us to the heroines of

Arabia.

However subordinate and secluded the position of women may now be among the followers of Mahommed, the prophet's own age produced several female warriors, notably his most beloved wife, Ayesha. Ayesha's warlike tendencies do not, indeed, seem to have shown themselves till she was an old woman and a widow, but in the year of the Hegira 36, she suddenly placed herself at the head of an army determined

to oppose the election of Caliph Ali. A great battle VMS fought near Bansorah, at which Ayesha, mounted on a white camel, pushed forward into the very heart of the fray. The man who led her camel by the bridle was, of course, exposed to even greater danger than his mistress. Mrs. Needham says, " Out of the tribe of Benni Beiauziali alone, not less than two hundred and eighty lost a hand on this occasion ;" while Washington Irving, in his Lives of the Successors of Mahomet, more modestly remarks, " Tabari, the Persian historian, with national exaggeration, declares that the heads of threescore and ten men were cut off that hold the bridle of her camel." The heroine, however, does not seem to have minded the so

often repeated loss of her squires, for she would not be driven from the field, and had to be dismounted in the following re- markable fashion :— •

"After the battle had raged for several hours, the Caliph, seeing plainly that it would go on so long as the camel remained alive, ordered his chiefs to direct all their efforts towards cutting down the boast. First, one leg was cut off ; but the camel maintained its erect position. Another leg was cut off ; yet the animal remained immovable. For a moment, the soldiers of Ali thought the camel was a sorcerer or rt genie. But a third leg was out off, and the camel sank to the ground."

Among princesses, English either by birth or marriage, Mrs. Needham commemorates Eleanor of Aquitaine, Matilda of Bonlogne, the Empress Maud, Margaret of Anjou, and Queen Elizabeth. All these ladies except Queen Elizabeth did, no

doubt, see war ; whether they could be called warriors, is an- other question ; and we should like to know why Philippa of

Hainault is omitted, or even Eleanor of Castile, whose pre- sauce in the Holy Land was, at least, as important to the Crusaders as that of her predecessor and namesake of Aqui- taine. Among the "warlike queens' of other nations, we have (not to forget Cleopatra), Mary of Scotland, and Isabella the Catholic.

Side by side with these and many more royal personages, we are shown a crowd of others, of all ranks and all degrees of distinction. Certain illustrious women stand out from the throng, those whom we have mentioned in the begin- ning of this article most prominent among them ; and we gladly do Mrs. Needham the justice to say that her sketch of Joan of Arc is, on the whole, intelli- gent and sympathetic. There is one curious passage in it, however, which oddly reverses the positions of the Maid and the King :—" After being subjected to the most severe exami- nations during three weeks, the King was satisfied that her story was true." And there is also an assertion, which may surely be questioned, that "an opinion is gaining ground in both France and England that the Maid of Orleans lived to be comfortably married." The siege of Lathom, the .defence of Haarlem, and other famous feats of arms, are shortly told, with the stories of brave women who, in some bitter strait, did manful and heroic service to their country, or fought to the death in defence of those they loved; but, alas ! the pages con- secrated to such stories are comparatively few. We turn leaf -after leaf, and find nothing better to reward our pains than records of such exploits as those of Defoe's Christian Davies, and, less-known personages of her class. An extract or two will show that these records are not very edifying. The first shall be from the autobiography of Christian Davies herself, then serving as a dragoon under Marlborough. She had stolen a pig from its sty :—

" I was possessed of it some time, when one Taylor, a corporal 'belonging to Brigadier Banton's Regiment of Horse, attempted to spoil me of my booty ; whereupon, some words arising, he drew, and made a stroke at my head, which I, warding with my hand, had the sinew of my little finger cut in two; at the same time, with the butt- 'end of my pistol I struck out one of his eyes."

Another female warrior, named Hannah Snell, is the heroine of the following

At Liverpool she entered a small public-house, and by affecting

to make love to the landlady, made the landlord so jealous that a match of ' fisticuffs ' ensued. Boniface, however, got the worst of it, and was compelled to keep his bed all next day. Hannah borrowed some money of the landlady, made the best of her way to Chester, where Bbo took genteel lodgings in a private house. It chanced that a pretty young mantua-maker lodged in the Barna home. Hannah contrived to make the acquaintance of the girl, and speedily won her heart, together with five guineas. The handsome young suitor levanted to Winchester, where, in an attempt on the heart of a widow, she met her match. She speedily quitted the town, with only a fow shillings in her pocket."

Lest it should be supposed that our own countrywomen have any special gift of developing into thieves and bullies, we will give one short passage from the adventures of a Spanish American, Catalina de Erauso, an ex-nnrt "During the intervals of military duty, Catalina drank, gambled,

robbed, assassinated, cursed and swore, and behaved altogether very like an Alsatian bully. She chose for her associates the most deeper- ate and reprobate characters, and seemed to take a fiendish delight in • outdoing them. Sometimes she would pay attentions to a simple girl, and when the wedding-day was fixed, she would disappear."

Hitherto we have spoken almost exclusively of the substance of these two volumes ; we must now turn for a moment to their form. As we have already

said, there is a want of such -arrangement as would make the book serviceable for reference, and the same want renders it confused and chaotic as mere reading. Mrs. Needham's style, however, is, on the whole, good, and many of the separate narratives are spirited and in- teresting. Unfortunately, there are slipshod passages scattered all through the book, and every now and then we come upon a word so oddly used that we have to read the phrase which con- tains it a second time, in order to make sure that our eyes have not deceived us. Here are a few instances, taken at random :— 4' The female soldiers behaved themselves quite as manly as their comrades ;" "French women are second to none in war- like esprit?" "Bona Lombardi, declaring that she could not survive her husband, built a tomb for the reception of their mutual remain8 ;" "in 1500 she defended Forli against the talented Ctesar Borgia." There is a droll suggestion of a modern postman in the following sentence :—" It is said that Cadmus was married to an Amazon named Sphinx, when he carried letters from Egypt to Greece ;" and it is curious that Mrs. Needham should seem to suppose, when writing her sketch of Mary, Queen of Scots, that "her base brother, Moray," was quite a different person from "the Earl of Murray, Regent during the minority of King James."

And now, after all our fault-finding, we must say a, word. of admiration for our author's courage and industry. She has boldly tried to pass the whole history of the world in review, except so much of it as is contained in the Bible. Neither the Canonical nor Apocryphal heroines of the ancient Scriptures are mentioned. in her pages, but there is a bewildering throng without them. And even allowing for a good many inaccuracies of various kinds, we are bound to acknowledge that she has attained her object, and shown conclusively that when women do get into Parliament, we may fairly expect them not only to face war as a political nec3ssity, but also to be ready, in ease of emergency, to exchange their legislative functions for the barrack and the battlefield.