KNOX'S CONFESSIONS OF COUNTRY QUARTERS. * To advance his reputation, a
writer must either improve on his first work, or vary it, exhibiting an equal ability; for if the sub- ject matter is pretty much the same, there is not only repetition, but the author is probably presenting the skimmed milk, having already used up the cream. In his present novel, Captain Knox exhibits a species of mechanical improvement. There is more unity of story and more moral purpose than in Hardness ; but the effect upon the reader is not greater,—in part, perhaps, from want of freshness, in part from the writer's deficiencies not having been supplied. There is the same truth in the delineation of everyday life and everyday, persons, but there is an equal want of force and elevation. The dramatis persome inspire no more interest in their fortunes than would be felt towards so many people in common life. Captain Knox wants the stuff to make a hero or a heroine. Many scenes are introduced for themselves rather than for the story; the composition, though light and humorous, is too loose in the grain ; there is no character which has the strength and mas- siveness of Lord Innismore, the representative of "hardness." The object of the author is to impress upon military men the evil and miseries of flirtation. This is attempted by the story of Ellen O'Reilly; to whom Captain Hawkins, a friend of the auto- biographer, has paid too much attention without serious inten- tions, and whose lifeis saddened in consequence. But the gallant captain has been playing with edge-tools; and his own feelings, assisted by the advice of Captain Somerset Cavendish Cobb, induce him to marry and settle. As another phase of flirtation, an officer is rendered wretched through the arts of a jilt; who, moreover, nearly destroys the happiness of Captain Cobb, by representing him to his lady-love as engaged to -Ellen O'Reilly. These love- affairs give connexion and variety to the story, though perhaps they insufficiently teach the lesson they are designed for: but the question spontaneously arises, whether the majority of officers or of ladies at country quarters, as represented in these volumes, are very teachable.
The scene of the novel is chiefly laid in Ireland. The country- quarters of the Camberwell Rangers are used as a vehicle to intro-
Confessions of Country Quarters: being some Passages in the Life of Somerset Cavendish Cobb, Esq., late Captain in the Hundred-and-twentieth Foot (Cam- berwell Rangers). By Captain Charles Knox, Author of "Hardness," "The Ark and the Deluge," &e. In three volumes. Published by Saunders and OUey.
duce social and political sketches of the "first gem of the sea," as well as to carry on the story. In fact, the book is a series of sketches descriptive of military life and character, rather than a novel in the proper sense of the term. The sketches do not give a very exalted idea either of the men or their mode of life; but something is doubtless to be allowed for the spirit of humour. There is a touch of this in the description of the barracks of Bally- . maccrocodile, and the two other arms of the service ; Captain Ca- vendish Cobb being in the Line.
"The barrack accommodation being limited, the squadron of the Twentieth Heavy Dragoons messed with us ; giving us thereby a most interesting in- sight into the character and habits of some parts of the Cavalry variety of the British army. I am bound to say that the Twentieth was a very indifferent sample, and that my experience of other regiments completely upset any conclusions I might have arrived at from our knowledge of them. These booted Apollos were commanded by Major Duerow, (who, as he informed us before we had time to march our companies off to their quarters when we arrived, was styled in his regiment the Hero of Waterloo, for reasons that will become apparent in due time and place,) Captain Waddilove, Lieutenant Holster, (who considered Don Juan as merely a faint foreshadowing of the
coming man' himself,) and Kilderbee, (who had two ideas—one was Cavalry fellows, the other' Linimers,) and, I suppose, they ought to have had some Cornets with them, but I believe the sucking Murata were learning to. ride at Cahir,—a process which always seemed to me at least, when hounds were running, to partake much more of unlearning than anything else.
"In the garrison there was an Engineer and two Artillery officers, who did not mix much with us, who were mere food for the powder they manufac- tured. They resided in great ease and dignity in a palace which the Ord- nance department (which they represented) had erected adjacent to the man store-rooms in which we were stowed away ; and which comfortable family mansion of theirs, indeed, to the eye of a stranger, would have seemed an integral part of the barracks of Ballymaccrocodile ; from which, however, notwithstanding a certain general external resemblance, to save appearances, and the being surrounded by the same wall, it differed very widely indeed, in point of interior accommodation, salubrity, and comfort. They, as the phrase runs, kept themselves to themselves,' and, I believe, had a tea mess.
"They held us, in general, hi utter scorn and contempt, as men without mind, intellect, or mathematics, who did not know a parabola from a sphe- roid, and could not calculate nativities, as I believe they thought they could, so high was their opinion of Woolwich science : but I am bound to say, and I do so with all due humility, that they professed great esteem for me never- theless, having discovered that I knew something about the component parts of triangles, upon one of them making a remark to Major Ducrow (I do not know upon what provocation) about the square of the hypothenuse, which that gallant officer supposed to signify, some irregular variety of Russian in- fantry, and said he would like to try if he could not break it with lancers, ' and was about to add an illustration from Waterloo, as usual, when I ex- plained the meaning of the term to him ; whereupon he thanked God he was not what he was pleased to call agometor,' and knew nothing about those sort of things,—and, indeed, in that way he had a great deal for which to be grateful to Providence. "I may add, that our scientific fellow soldiers had another establishment in the barracks—the canteen ; an institution indicative of great sagacity on the part of the authorities who sanction the investment of public money in buildings from which the Ordnance derive a handsome reut by keeping the army drunk."
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