relations of those who did escape, as well as they themselves, ought ever to bear in remembrance, as a proof of the greatness and loving kindness of the Lord. Such barbarous cruelty as the Russians evinced on this occasion must for ever remain an eternal stigma on their name. In the agony of wounds our poor soldiers were coolly butchered and murdered by these cowardly savages, or defenceless and dying, stripped of their clothes, and left to perish from cold and exposure by these cruel assassins!

To enumerate the courage and daring of any individual when all were so brave, is, perhaps, partial, but we cannot resist giving a portion of a letter relative to Lord Cardigan's conduct on this memorable, though melancholy occasion: "Lord Cardigan, having remonstrated, now prepared to obey, and rode his death ride' as coolly and as unconcerned as I have seen him in days of yore ride a fox hunt with the Quorn from Kirby-Gate, or with the Pycheley from Crick Gorse, when we were quartered at jolly old Nottingham or Coventry. He is indeed a brave man, and we have named him my Lord Charge-again. . . . He had a new suit on that day worth a hundred guineas-what spolia for the Cossacks had he fallen.”

Colonel Low of the 4th Light Dragoons, and Major Morris of the 17th Lancers, deserve special notice. The 17th Lancers were cut up almost to a man! It was the first action this regiment had ever been in, and rightly have they deserved the insignia* they bear, and “Balaklava” will surely be sufficient emblazonment for twenty actions. For three years they had been quartered in Dublin, and enjoyed unequalled popularity. It was heartbreaking and fearful, therefore, to see friends, relatives, wives, and children, crowding round the newspaper offices in that city, on the day when the terrible news was telegraphed. Few but had lost a son or a friend, and Dublin was indeed a city of desolation and mourning.

Many "camp shaves" were of course told of that charge. We select one as rather amusing, which, of course, we need not say is only an 66 army canard:"

did

"Well, George, inquired Lord Raglan of a distinguished officer, “how you feel under fire ?"

G." At first rather queer, my lord; especially when the second shot killed my major."

Lord R.-"Come! come! that could affect you but little. Yourself and your major were always at enmity."

G." The next shot knocked over my trumpeter."

s;

Lord R.-"Well! that would have effected you still less, methinks for, egad, I always heard you were your own trumpeter. Never mind, it was a gallant charge, and you rode it as your ancestors ever have done before you-bravely-nobly !"

This canard, we opine, would suit some of our German or French almanack writers.

It was indeed a glorious and noble charge! Our French allies call it "un héroïsme magnifique-mais pas la guerre ?"

Elated with the success of the 25th, on the following day several

*The insignia of the 17th Lancers are a death's head and cross-bones, with "OR GLORY" written underneath.

Russian divisions made an attack on the right flank of our position. These were most nobly repulsed by the gallant veteran, Sir De Lacy Evans, who, with a mere handful of men, killed 160 and took 30 prisoners of the enemy. We may perhaps observe here, en passant, that no officer in the British army has seen so much service, or been so severely wounded, as Sir De Lacy Evans.

We now come to Inkerman. Adhering strictly to our "plan of operations," to avoid giving full particulars of any event, but only allude to "incidents" of the campaign, we shall simply give a cursory sketch of this the greatest battle ever fought, and the greatest victory ever achieved, "by the British arms."

To tell our readers that our right was unfortified would be to tell them those things they may read in every magazine and newspaper that lately have teemed with such prolific news on this head. The Russians were aware of our weakness as well as ourselves, and through this cause Prince Menschikoff applied for immense reinforcements, which, through the agency of cars, carts, sledges, and even private carriages, were sent down to him in an incredible short space of time. Not satisfied with these, and certain of victory, he applied to have the Emperor's two sons sent to be spectators of the destruction of the invaders of the holy, "mild-eyed" Pope's domains, when the infidels were to have been "crushed, or driven into the sea!" To this appeal his Imperial master immediately despatched his two sons, and a corps d'armée of 40,000 men.

It was on Sunday, the 5th of November (a day still memorable for our deliverance from popish treason through the interposition of Almighty God), under cloak of a thick autumnal fog, that the enemy commenced the attack on the front of the second division of the British army. To describe the battle an eye-witness has assured us was impossible. The English were completely surprised, and the Russians were actually within our lines before any one had an idea but that they were chanting Te Deums in Sebastopol. The rush to arms was very quick; so much so, that the Guards had not even time to take off their great coats, in which they had to fight the whole day. Owing to the suddenness of the encounter and the nature of the ground, covered with short stunted oaks, the battle became a complete mêlée, one regiment became mixed up with another, nearly every man fighting indiscriminately; for which reason it has been justly named "the battle of battalions"- "the soldiers' victory." Each Englishman on that day was indeed "a hero!" Outnumbered-five to one were the Russians stronger than the British-both armies found they had expended all their ammunition, and nothing now remained but the bayonet. The English, supported by their "bull-dog courage," the Russians mad with raki, both lines came to a hand-to-hand engagement, and next day many were found locked together in the stern and vengeful grasp of death.

The ultimate advantage was sad to relate-small, beyond the loss of the Russians, which was upwards of 20,000 left dead on the field. Such a sight presented itself next day as no pen can depict; the Czar's troops lay in heaps, pile upon pile, over the bloody plains! Again no guns were captured; any number of lives were to be sacrificed rather than lose one piece of ordnance.

On this occasion we lost General Sir George Cathcart, and many other

brave spirits. Sir George Brown was wounded, and several besides, whose names have already appeared in the war-office gazettes. Of the brave, where all were brave, where each private soldier was a general, let us mention Sir De Lacy Evans, who, rising from a bed of sickness, careful not to detract from his junior officer's glory, the gallant Evans left him in command of the division, advising and cautioning, meanwhile, until the victory was gained, when Sir De Lacy retired modestly to his invalid's tent, and left his junior to reap the meed of honour and glory! For this Sir De Lacy received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament.

Let us not forget, either, the brave Wilson, the assistant-surgeon of the 7th Hussars, who rallied the Guards, and cheered them on to charge again and again, for which he received the grateful thanks of H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge on the field of battle. In contradistinction, let us tell how the youthful cubs of the Russian bear, who had travelled so many leagues to see the infidels of the allied armies "driven into the sea,' behaved. "They cut, sir," says one letter, "as fast as ever their horses could gallop, rushing over their poor soldiers without the slightest compunction."

Mayhap their Imperial father had included them also in the same category as his ordnance. Be that as it may, at all events the Russians did not take better care of the Imperial cannons than did these illustrious whelps of their precious lives. On their return to St. Petersburg they were decorated with some order-the blanche plumes or white feathers we presume. Another instance of cowardice was a monster in the human form of a Russian major, who, although wounded himself, went about the battle-field stabbing those who lay in the agony of their wounds. The brute was taken in the very act, and an offer was made to Prince Menschikoff, that he should be handed over to the Russians! Faith he was not a meet subject for even the English hangman's rope! The high priest refused, and the Russian assassin was to be brought to trial on his recovery; the monster, however, anticipated public indignation, and died in hospital. A young Scotch surgeon preserved his skull, which we conclude will find a place in some prison museum of horrors, beside those of Hare, Burke, Greenacre, Good, and Courvoisier! Alas! this was not a solitary instance, for, as many of our gallant soldiers lay writhing on the ground, the Russian savages, more barbarous than the Sikhs, pierced them with their spears; and although an Imperial ukase has been issued by his mild-eyed Holiness Nicholas that none of " the infidels" are to be killed after the battle, they still attempt to murder the wounded and resistless, and demonstrate to the world the utter blasphemy of their religious asseverations! Again let us ask, whether the defeat of Inkerman was not that spoken of in the book of Ezekiel, in the 39th chapter"Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal”" -when we consider Russia brought into the field an army of 60,000 men, with artillery acknowledged by every one to be vastly superior to our own, opposed to a mere handful of men, 8000 English and 6000 French soldiers, surprised and unprepared. Blunders were made on both sides. We know the hackneyed adage attributed to every general, from Cæsar, De Bello Gallico's fame, down to Napoleon Bonaparte," that that general who makes the fewest blunders wins the day ;" but there must have been

a great unseen and divine influence that gave a victory to so small a force over one so large, that defends the righteous and just cause, and that proves to his people, whether they be the Czars of all the Russias, clothed in purple, seated on their imperial thrones, or the miserable serfs who drag on their wretched existence in cruelty, ignorance, and want, that "l'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose!" Since that day, sad, horrible, and heartrending have been the accounts-starvation, fever, dysentery, and death, day by day, stare each man in the face. No medical, no commissariat departments. "Three or four ounces of pork and a reduced allowance of biscuit is bad feeding for a man who has eleven nights out of fourteen in the trenches up to his knees in water," says one letter. "An adjutant-general the other day had to wait five hours for a dose of castor-oil," says another letter. "If one of his rank, how long do you suppose a poor private soldier would have? But, then, there isplenty of copaiba in the hospital tents."- "We are entirely without clothing," says a third letter, "and our men are dying like rotten sheep from neglect. There is plenty at Balaklava, but we can get nothing up to the lines. The poor 46th lost seventy men in five days. It would do your heart good, however, to see the Zouaves; they are noble campaigners."

These are no concoctions from Printing-house-square, nor political grievances culled from the Morning Herald, but private letters written by officers, who are in verity suffering greater hardships than their noble natures will allow them to confess.

ITALA OF VALENCIA.

BY MARY C. F. MONCK.

I.

THUS spoke the brave Itala, with faltering voice and slow,
As he left his native city, seven hundred years ago:
"Now fare thee well, Valencia, fair city of the plain,
I look on thee as one who feels he ne'er may look again;
Thy waters, Guadalaviar, shall roll brightly as of yore-

My limbs shall cleave, my shallop skim, thy blue waves never more;
And thou, too, sweet Huerta, thy groves and gliding streams,
From this hour forth my aching gaze shall see them but in dreams;
For the Moorish banner flutters from El Real's lofty walls,
The Moor now holds him master in my murdered father's halls.

"Valencia! oh, Valencia! curse on this luckless day,
Those whom on earth I held most dear have perished in the fray.
What boots it if for thee and them I battled long and well?
Oh, would that I had fallen when my sire and brother fell!

I leave thee, and for ever, for my spirit brooks no chain,

And one against a countless host my single strength is vain;
I leave thee, and for ever, the last of all my race
Must win upon a foreign soil a name and resting-place;
March-VOL. CIII. NO. CCCCXI.

But wheresoe'er my fate may lead, my heart shall ever be,
Thou best beloved and beautiful! turned yearningly to thee:
Nay, Xucar! never champ thy bit, and toss thy flowing mane;
Old friend, our sun of pride is set, and ne'er shall rise again."

The autumn day was waning, the red sun's parting rays
Cast over stream, and tower, and town, a veil of golden haze;
But the green herbage near the walls with valiant blood was dyed,
And Moor and Spaniard, stiff and cold, were lying side by side.
The shivered lance, the broken sword, the helmet, and the shield,
That oft had served their masters well on many a hard-fought field,
Gleamed idly in the trampled grass, shattered and worthless now,
No more to stem the battle tide, or gleam on breast or brow;
And as Itala's gallant steed fast through the valley flew,
His rider saw amongst the dead full many a face he knew.

Oh, beautiful Huerta! thy vineyards droop with fruit,
But in their sunny alleys the vintage song is mute;
The olive and the chesnut, laden and ripened stand,

But forth to glean their treasures comes no jocund peasant band;
As far around as eye can see the yellow corn-fields spread,
Unreaped the bending, bursting ears their mellow burden shed;

The happy voice of labour, its merry laugh is hushed,

For the land hath changed its masters, and the reaper's heart is crushed. Speed on, speed on, Itala! thy foes spur fast behind ;

Dost thou not hear their eager cries borne faintly on the wind?

Xucar, no steed that Spain can boast may match thy strength and speed; Thou'st borne thy lord through mimic fight, thou'st served his sorest need; But not to joust or tourney now, not to an equal strife,

This eve ye go-Itala flies for liberty and life.

Brave courser, art thou flagging? What marvel! since the morn,
Without or food, or drink, or rest, the shock and rout thou'st borne;
But brace thine iron sinews-faster, and still more fast;

Oh, bravely done! the stream once crossed, peril and pain were past!
Thou fliest with the speed of thought, thy proud hoofs spurn the plain,
And now upon the water's edge Itala slackens rein.

Nay, pause not, pause not, Xucar! what though the stream be wide,
Though fast and deep along doth sweep the Guadalaviar's tide,
With the rage of famished tigers, that fear to lose their prey,
The Moorish soldiers, fierce and wild, know neither stop nor stay;
They deem the prize already won; they bend, they spur, they strain-
Oh, Xucar! Xucar! fleet and strong, is all thy fire in vain?
No! death alone can tame thee! "On! on!" Itala cried:

A plunge-a snort-and horse and man are struggling with the tide.
The Moors have reached the level shore, they loose a fisher's boat,
And rest a moment on the oars, Itala's course to note.

Thy dark sides heave, and pant, and reek-oh, Xucar, gain yon beach!
And thou art safe, far, far beyond the dark Morisco's reach;
But thou art faint and weary to stem the current's flow;
Itala trembles, for he sees thy small head drooping low.
With frenzied look and fainting heart he grasps thy bridle-rein,
But try to aid thee as he may, his help is all in vain ;

A dying bound, a long fierce neigh, the waters o'er thee close,
And a glad yell bears witness to the triumph of thy foes.
The wave was red with sunset's flush, 'tis redder now with gore,
The heart's blood of a trusty friend-brave Xucar's flight is o'er.