immediately afterwards dismissing the man so punished from the army with ignominy. In the colonies, where other punishments are not easily managed, I would spare the cat less. On active service, I would punish in no other way than by flogging. But, above all, I would bear in mind that it is not the severity, but the certainty of punishment following crime, which can deter men from committing it. I once served in a regiment in India, where, unfortunately for those under him, the commanding officer frequently allowed the milk of human kindness, of which he possessed a large portion, to break through this maxim, and to interfere with the due infliction of punishment where it was justly deserved. The natural consequence was, that, as only two delinquents were punished out of three, each criminal hoped to be the fortunate one to escape, and therefore ran his chance. Some were lucky, some were not; but he that was punished blamed his ill luck and the commanding officer; and he that was not, was ready to try another ticket in this lottery. We had a man in the corps named F, whose father had been a respectable brush-maker in Dublin. He was a remarkably active, good-looking, well-made, clean young soldier, standing full five feet ten inches high-a clever fellow withal, but vain of his personal appearance, and endowed with as large a proportion of modest assurance as ever fell to the lot of any son of Erin that ever wore scarlet. F was for some time a scampish, without being exactly a bad soldier ;that is, he broke bounds like a schoolboy, and was frequently irregular, without committing any gross breach of military discipline. But from his good looks and the known respectability of his parents, who had given him a better education than that which usually falls to the lot of a private soldier, great latitude was allowed him; and these irregularities were only censured-not punished. Naturally enough, F- grew to fancy that he might do as he pleased, and that what he chose to do would always be considered as a joke, rather than a crime. He was insolent to the non-commissioned officers, and even ventured occasionally to play upon his own captain. Still he was a favourite. F—, however, took to arrack, and the molehills became mountains. But his ready answers and creditable appearance saved him; till at last an offence which could not be passed over, because it was more than merely a regimental one, brought him before a district court-martial. He had been out one night on a spree" in the native town, within two miles of where we were cantoned, and in his rounds came upon two sepoy sentries at the town-gate. They tried to stop him, according to their orders; but he made his way good in spite of them. They began to abuse him in their own tongue, never supposing that he understood what they were saying. But they reckoned without their host. F had picked up a good deal of the language, particularly the meaning of certain scurrilous epithets which they had applied to him; and, in his present half-drunken mood, would not stand what he termed their insolence. So he turned back, disarmed them both, and thrashed them soundly with the butt end of one of their own firelocks. Their cries brought out the guard, F was made prisoner, and in due time was brought before a district court-martial, which sentenced him to solitary confinement for a period-I forget how long. But our good-natured colonel's heart melted before half of F-'s time in the conjee house-so termed because the prisoner confined in it is wholly fed upon conjee*. was completed: he resolved to forgive him the remainder, after a proper admonition; and, accordingly, summoned him from durance to his presence. The colonel was on horseback, in front of our barracks, with the adjutant on foot by his side, when F was brought up. The colonel went through his speech, and concluded his lecture by telling F― that he hoped he had now received a warning, and bade him return to his duty. But F stood his ground, and stoutly told the colonel that he had been unjustly sentenced Conjee water is that in which rice has been boiled. It is something like thick barley water, au naturel, or thin starch, but very nutritious, cooling, tasteless, and abominable by the court-martial. The colonel ordered him to go off to his barrack: F did not move an inch, but loudly inveighed against the court. Hereupon the adjutant added his command to the colonel's, and in doing so touched F- -'s breast with his open hand. Fclenched his fist, delivered a blow that might have felled an ox, and down like shot went the adjutant. Up he rose in an instant, and, half drawing his sword, rushed towards F; but the colonel, though a tender-hearted, was a spirited old soldier. "Stop, sir, stop!" cried he, pushing his horse between them 66 stop, sir, and do not draw your sword upon an unarmed man!" The adjutant sheathed his weapon, and F was secured without resistance. A general court-martial tried him for this second offence, and sentenced him to be shot. His former irregularities prevented a recommendation being made in his favour, on the plea of previous good character. The lieut.general commanding in chief conceived that the discipline of the army required an example for its improvement, and confirmed the sentence. F's fate was fixed. The warrant for his execution came from the Presidency, and was to be read to him in his cell. The officer on whom this painful duty devolved was so overcome, that his tears impeded his utterance. F took the paper out of his hand, and perused it from beginning to end without the slightest visible discomposure. When he had finished, he handed it back to the officer, and calmly, but gravely, said, that it was exactly what he had expected. Early next morning, the force, consisting of two regiments of native infantry, one of native cavalry, and our own king's regiment, was drawn out, and in front of us was all the mournful preparation for the execution. But the entire tale of his death would swell my paper beyond its due limits. Suffice it to tell, that he refused to have his eyes blindfolded, and insisted upon giving the word "fire" himself. Standing in front of the firing party, he turned to the staff-officer who was nearest to him, and said, "Now I shall die like Marshal Ney!" He threw up his right hand as far as he could; one of the firing party thought it was the signal, and pulled his trigger. The ball struck him apparently in the left shoulder, which spun him round. At the same instant he gave the word in a loud clear voice, and over he fell on his face-dead,-pierced with eleven' bullets, one of which had passed through his heart! Poor F! had he served under a sterner commander his fate might have been different. Now, the colonel, the adjutant, ay, and the captain of his company-even the lieutenant-general who signed the warrant for his execution--are all gone before the same tribunal to which he was so fearfully called. In five years from F.'s execution the last was the only one of those inost concerned in his death alive,and he, too, followed not long after. Some short time after F.'s death I was talking to our sergeant-major about it; and I lamented that so stouthearted a fellow should have been shot like a dog, when his capabilities for good service were so far superior to those of the greater number of private soldiers. "F was a fine lad, sir; pity 'tis that he was not flogged two years ago, and he would have been alive now-perhaps a non-commissioned officer" said the sergeant-major. "I think so, too," said I. "Depend upon it, that severity in the commencement is lenity in the end," quoth the sergeant-major. I had almost closed my paper, when it struck me that a word might be said about the practice of soldiers carrying their side-arms when off duty,-a subject which has lately attracted a good deal of public attention. Now, I see not the slightest objection to a cavalrysoldier carrying his sabre at all times; on the contrary, I think it advisable that he should accustom himself to the weight of the weapon by his side, and that by dint of constantly feeling its handle in his grasp, he may think it unnatural to be without it. Moreover, it is an unwieldy weapon in a crowd, where the striker is on foot, and in a confined space it is inconvenient to draw; in a pothouse-row, therefore, where large numbers are usually collected in a small room, it is useless: while to a good soldier who avoids brawls, it is an honourable badge of his profession, and carrying it makes him feel that he is somebody. With the bayonet it is different. Unfortu nately for an infantry soldier who may be in a scrape, the handle lays very near his hand. The thought of stabbing with a bayonet is not more readily conceived than the deed may be enacted. Out of its sheath is it plucked, and into a neighbour's body is it driven with the speed of light; and the wound from its sharp point and triangular blade is peculiarly dangerous. But the same thing might be said of the butcher's knife, the cobbler's awl, or the blacksmith's hammer. To be sure, these tradesmen do not always carry their tools about them; but they are in their hands, ten to one, oftener than the bayonet is in the hands of the soldier. I would not insist upon the infantry private carrying his side-arms at all times, lest an accident should occur; but, because one bad subject may disgrace his cloth by the cowardly action of drawing the weapon with which he has been intrusted upon defenceless men, or even in his own defence,-for the simple act of drawing it is a high misdemeanour,-I certainly would not deprive the good soldier of the proud gratification arising from the consciousness that he bears, and is worthy of bearing, his proper weapon by his side. The very feeling of being so decorated will act to prevent an abuse of the trust. In brief, I should say that I see no reason for changing the present system, which is to allow the footsoldier, when in forage-cap and shelljacket, to appear without side-arms, but when in full regimentals to carry his bayonet. Lord Hill has lately called the attention, most pointedly, of every officer in the service to this particular; and I conceive that, in spite of all the clamour which has been raised on this score, the lives of his majesty's lieges are in perfect safety. More last words. * This article was about to be placed in the printer's hands when the Duke of Wellington's evidence, taken before the commissioners for inquiry into the system of military punishments, with Lord Wharncliffe in the chair, was made public. This evidence is characteristic of his grace; it is clear, logical, and conclusive; it is straightfor ward, like every one of his public acts; it bears the impress of unvarnished truth on every word; it discloses the sentiments of a man upon a subject which he, above all others, is best calculated thoroughly to understand: and I respectfully submit to his grace my humble measure of praise, in common with others of that profession of which he is the brightest ornament existing. I have just, too, read the report of the commissioners, and I mean to examine the whole of the evidence upon which it is founded at my earliest leisure. I purpose making notes thereon, which, if worth any thing, will appear in this ar Magazine. I will now finish with the le concluding observations of the commissioners upon their own report. "We cannot close our report without assuring your majesty that we find ample evidence of the earnest desire, and the most strenuous efforts, upon the part not only of the superior officers, but of officers of all ranks, so to conduct the discipunishment as rare as possible; and pline of the army as to render corporal more especially, we observe that the commanding officers are fully aware of your majesty's gracious wishes in that respect; and we are satisfied that they will persevere in giving the fullest effect, by the strictest attention to the moral discipline of their regiments, to those wishes. "How far the result of the inquiry in which we have, by your majesty's command, been so long engaged, will tend to remove or mitigate the feeling which now prevails against the use of corporal punishment in the army we know not; but we can assure your majesty that we have endeavoured to sift the questions submitted to our inquiry fully and fairly, and without prejudice, and that we have formed our opinions upon the result of the very best evidence which could have been obtained upon the question. Finally, we feel it to be our duty to your majesty, to state our conviction that, if it were possible to introduce such a system of discipline as that of France into your majesty's army (a system which in its effects we believe to be far from being as successful as that of Great Britain), it could only be by such a rigorous conscription of all ranks as we believe would not be endured, and by a change in the whole tone of this country as to the military service such as we have no expectation of seeing effected." COLLIER ON SHAKESPEARE. THE sports of the field have at all times in this country furnished, to your wits and philosophers about town, a favourite theme for declamation and contemptuous raillery. Many fine things have been said and written by the Steeles, and Addisons, and Johnsons, and the dramatists who lived out their wise and useful existence in the fragrant purlieus of the Garden, touching the silliness of walking miles and miles through bog and heather, for the pleasure of shooting a wretched bird-touching the meanness of mustering an array of dogs and horses to pursue so sinalt an animal as a fox, so contemptible and cowardly a creature as a hare. Multitudinous, too, have been the quips and cranks, and sneers and jests, which have been levelled against the fox-hunter. The courtly Chesterfield is almost unmannerly in speaking of him; the metaphysical Brydges (Sir Egerton, we mean) is downright rude. He more than hints that Pitt was too fond of hunting to be a man of genuine ability. He prates about the Premier's loving to gallop after the dogs, with his chin in the air, and so forth. But surely these commonplaces of Wisdom are so very inapplicable, as to become absurd. The men speak of what they do not understand, and cannot feel. They first assume that the Sportsman proposes to himself a certain end; and having laid this down, they proceed to demonstrate how very unworthy that end is. Men of wit, $ you most insufferable of all bores, because you infest us as domestic buffoons, to you we say nothing--we will not throw a word away upon you, for, of course, your answer would be only some "fool-born jest ;" but, gentle Philosophers, think for a moment whether it be not the fact, that, in all matters of exertion on which we enter from free choice, we have an esoteric and an exoteric end. Shooting a snipe (a bird, by the way, that, as an excellent friend of ours is wont to remark, has no fault, except that he is not as big as a goose) -shooting some scores of snipe may be a very unworthy result of a rational being's labour during several hours of the day; so, in like manner, may running down a fox. But, granting this Ostensible object of pursuit to be never VOL. XIII. NO. LXXVII. so paltry, is this, in sooth, all that has been achieved by the gallant sportsman? And stretch the argument against field-sports a little, will it not extend to all matters of unmixed ambition! Is not the real point of the case explained and decided by our Shakespeare? Let the esoteric end you have in view be but good, and it is of no sort of consequence how trifling to the vulgar eye is the apparent cause of action. The poet takes the highest ground, and well contends that, when Honour is engaged, it boots not to think how paltry in itself is the pretext upon which it is satisfied. Rightly to be great, Here life and limb are to be freely And and, again, the holy calm of riding quietly through the beautiful country to his home, with a sense of cheerful quietude and of conscious pluck and vigour? Will it not be admitted that there is wholesome training for the man's mind, as well as for his physical frame, in this nonsensical chase, as it has been styled? Does it not teach him to meet danger calmly, to rely upon himself in circumstances of difficulty, to feel that the instant he loses his presence of mind he loses every thing, to devise ready expedients, and to decide and act upon the instant? Moreover, we hesitate not to say, and the experience of every gentleman who PP has had the good fortune to be bred up in the country will bear us out in the assertion, that so far from there being any thing like truth, now-a-days, in the vulgar libels upon fox-hunters, that, sooth to say, not alone are they, generally speaking, amongst "the genlest and bravest" of human beings, but likewise amongst the most acute and clever, and not unfrequently amongst the most learned. There is another class of persons who have been subjected, and not always unsuccessfully, to a vast deal of unmerited ridiculethey are much more essentially the inhabitants proper of the town, or rather of the city, than is the Fox-hunter of the country,- -we mean your Antiquaries, in all branches of art, science, literature, and learning. There is no body of men -not even the aldermen of Londonagainst whom the sneer of the superficial scholar-of the dull or narrowminded man, working right worldly in some professional avocation-of the slipshod playwright and of the ribald scribbler, has been so frequently directed. Their persons (for they are rarely young) and their pursuits have alike been made the subject of remorseless ridicule : and in their case, contrary to the general practice, which is to admire, when you cannot comprehend, the world seems determined to laugh, because it can neither appreciate nor understand. The alleged frivolity of their pursuits has been even more declaimed against, and railed against, than that of Fox-hunters; to whose darling sport the praise of manliness must be at least accorded. And yet how unjustly! How little are men able to divine the mind of an antiquary, by estimating it after their own opinion of the value of the particular point of research! There are, perhaps, few pursuits in which all the higher, and finer, and purer faculties of the mind, are more healthfully exercised than in questions of antiquarian lore-few pursuits requiring more extensive and more accurate knowledge-few that lead a man into fields of learning more vast and curious--few that so strongly assist the reasoning powers, and train up the mind to the art of arriving at truth from multifarious and obscure evidence few, indeed, in which the esoteric end the student has in view is more widely remote from the exoteric. The antiquary's, too, is a pursuit perfectly unvordid intima ya no paltry consideration of money or fame from the million-the labour, saving the approbation of the few gentlemen and scholars of congenial taste, is altogether its own reward -- unlike almost all professions, avocations, and trades, it wears no stain of the earth earthy. For our own part, too, the same kindly testimony which we bore to the character of fox-hunters, we can, in like manner, advance in favour of our friends the antiquaries. We have had the happiness of knowing intimately individuals of both classes; and though precluded from the pursuits of either, we can, nevertheless, we do trust, appreciate their merits and afford them justice. The similarity of the misconstruction and clamour of the ignorant-learned, to which they have been exposed, brought both together before our mind; and we have now-and it will lead us to the task we more immediately propose to ourselves to observe, that the bestconditioned men and finest gentlemen, the most generous, the most able, and the most learned individuals it has ever been our fortune to meet, are passionately addicted to matters of antiquarian research. Amongst the fellows of the Antiquarian Society, in this metropolis, is a gentleman for whose labours, all antiquarian as they be, we can yet claim sympathy from the million. Mr. J. Payne Collier has already published a work on our early dramatic literature, in three large volumes. The subject is one which should be universally interesting, notwithstanding the number of dry details which it must necessarily include. But this great monument of patient and able research and genuine enthusiasm, has been already reviewed in this Journal, and there is nothing which at present requires on our part a return to the subject. Mr. Collier has recently published two pamphlets, relating, the first to the life, the second to the works, of the first of dramatic Poets, and our own it is of these we propose to treat. Lord Francis Egerton, it appears, has, with a very creditable liberality, thrown open to our author the MS. treasures of Bridgewater House. The first is entitled, New Facts regarding the Life of Shakespeare, and is addressed, in the form of a letter, to Mr. Amyot, the treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries. The second is named, New Particulars regarding the Works of Shakespeare. quiz de alen in the epistolary form h |