The Second Armada: A Chapter of Future History
THE
Second Armada:
A Chapter of Future History.
BEING
A REPLY
TO
THE GERMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND IN 1875,
AND BATTLE OF DORKING.
" 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before."
Reprinted from the London Times of June 22, 1871.
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The German Conquest of England and Battle of Dorking.
Illustrated, 12mo., paper, 30 cents; cloth extra, 50 cents.
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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"Everybody is talking about it, and everybody is quite right. We do not know that we ever saw anything better in any magazine, or any better example of the vraisemblance which a skilled artist can produce by a variety of minute touches. If the writer is, as reported, Colonel Hamley, then Colonel Hamley, when he wrote the charming story of 'Lady Lee's Widowhood,' misconceived as a novelist the nature of his own powers. He should rival Defoe, not Anthony Trollope. The writer of this paper, living about 1925, gives his son an account of his adventures as a Volunteer during the invasion of England, fifty years before, and so powerful is the narrative, so intensely real the impression it produces, that the coolest disbeliever in panics cannot read it without a flush of annoyance, or close it without the thought that after all, as the world now stands, some such day of humiliation for England is at least possible. The suggested condition precedent of invasion, the destruction of the fleet by torpedoes attached by a new invention to our ships, has attracted many minds; and with the destruction of the regulars, the helplessness of the brave but half organized Volunteers, and the absence of arrangement, make up a picture which, fanciful as it is, we seem, as we read it, almost to have seen. It describes so exactly what we all feel that, under the circumstances, Englishmen, if refused time to organize, would probably do."—Spectator (London).
"The extraordinary force and naturalness of the picture of the calamity itself, its consistency throughout, from the bits of the last Times' leader, read by the unhappy volunteer in the city, to the description of the conduct of the Germans in the fatal Battle of Dorking, and in the occupation of the English homes which follows, seem to us as natural in its touches as can well be conceived."—Pall Mall Gazette.
[Continued on third page of cover.]
THE SECOND ARMADA.
A CHAPTER OF FUTURE HISTORY.
"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before."
(Reprinted from the London Times, June 22d, 1871.)
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HORTLY after the close of the war between France and Germany, in 1871, the English alarmists seemed unreasonable to an extent that verged on foolishness. Never was there a period when, to all outward seeming, an invasion of England was less probable or feasible. France was stricken down and disabled. We had amicably arranged our differences with the United States, and the greatest military nation of the Continent had apparently neither the disposition nor the power to become a formidable assailant of our independence. If ever there was a country whose interests and constitution pointed to a pacific policy, it was United Germany. She required peace to consolidate her empire, and she could not make war without calling the mercantile man from his desk, the professional or literary man from his study, the shopkeeper from his counter, and the agriculturist from the plough. Then, all-powerful on land, she was powerless on the seas. A contest between her and the maritime population of an island must resemble a contest between a dog and a fish, in which neither could quit its proper element for aggressive purposes without imminent risk of discomfiture or destruction. Germany would no more think of sending an armament across the North Sea to invade England, than England would think of landing an army at Hamburg to advance on Berlin. Nor was the navy of the United States sufficiently strong in seagoing ironclads, like the Minotaur or Monarch, to cross the Atlantic and encounter the English in their own waters.
So thought and argued the wise men of England in 1871. They thought and argued well; but wise men, however well they argue, will sometimes turn out wrong; and they turned out substantially wrong in this instance—as wrong as the late lamented Cobden when he made the tour of Europe to announce that, for all time to come, Free Trade had rendered war a moral impossibility. Unluckily, mankind are more swayed by their passions, their prejudices, their caprices, and their vanity, than by their well-understood interests; and so it fell out that, in the year 1874, the greatest of the Continental Powers, having taken umbrage at the tone and attitude of England in reference to sundry fresh parcellings out of territory, a league, including the most powerful states, was formed for the avowed purpose of reducing the British Isles to the condition of conquered provinces, to be divided among the conquerors. The best mode of invading England had been so often the subject of competitive examination at the military schools, that an eager desire to test theory by practice was felt by every young officer of promise; and a saying of the greatest of modern strategists had got abroad to the effect that the capture of London, as compared with that of Paris, would be child's play (Kinderspiel). The time was opportune; for the long-smouldering hostility of the United States to Great Britain, through a series of untoward accidents, was again kindling into flame. Accordingly, all the shipping of the Baltic, all the naval resources of the league, were put under requisition, and a sufficient number of vessels was built especially adapted for the landing of troops, including cavalry and artillery. In particular, a large provision was made of flat-bottomed boats, carrying 100 or 150 men, the sides of which could be let down when they were in shallow water or had been run on shore. A formidable force of ironclads was to precede the transports and engage any opposing force while the landing was effected, which, it was calculated, could easily be accomplished in six hours. As the Army of Invasion was computed at from 150,000 to 200,000 men, the allotted time seemed short to those who had witnessed the landing of the French and English army in the Crimea, which occupied two days, although that army did not exceed 55,000 men, and the landing was unopposed. But the great Strategist had pronounced six hours sufficient,and the great Strategist could not possibly have miscalculated such a problem.
In recent histories, claiming to be as veracious and trustworthy as this, it has been confidently assumed that we thick-skulled islanders would wait quietly to be knocked on the head like the birds called boobies, or caught, like sparrows, by putting salt upon our tails. But although we are constantly running into extremes, although we are by turns profuse from groundless alarm and niggardly from undue confidence, although representative institutions are by no means favorable to the production of good administrators, we are not altogether wanting in an emergency, and we had profited somewhat from the errors of our neighbors in 1870, '71. Our army had been placed on a respectable footing in point of numbers; it was well officered under the new system of selection; both Regulars and Irregulars had been supplied with the most improved pattern of breech-loaders; our artillery, as regards quality, was (what Bugeaud said of our infantry) the best in Europe; the coast had been carefully surveyed, earthworks thrown up in some places, rifle pits and trenches dug in others, and railway communication rendered so complete that a large force might be concentrated at the shortest notice on a point. It need hardly be added that our diplomatic agents were on the alert, so that an enormous armament could not be got together in any quarter of Europe without creating an alarm. In point of fact, our Government were opportunely advised that the invasion was seriously meditated, and that they must be simultaneously on their guard against an American squadron which was to co-operate in a Fenian insurrection of Ireland. The bulk of the English Navy was, as usual, scattered abroad, but the Channel Fleet, complete in numbers and equipment, was in the Downs, and a number of gunboats and other vessels had been equipped and put to sea under orders similar to those issued by Nelson when Napoleon was meditating an invasion from Boulogne:
"Do not throw away your lives uselessly; retreat towards your own shores before an overwhelming force; but if the enemy attempt to land, dash among them at all hazards, and fight on till you sink them or are sunk."
It was on the evening of the 17th of June, 1874, that the Admiralty received intelligence that an American squadron had been sighted off Milford Haven on its way to the Irish Sea, and my Lords immediately telegraphed to the Commander of the Channel Fleet, Admiral Sir Henry Keppel, to be on the lookout. Three hours afterwards arrived the news that the Armada had been descried, and subsequent reports coming in rapidly left little doubt that the Suffolk coast had been chosen for the landing. The very locality might be inferred with tolerable certainty from its almost exclusive adaptation to the purpose, and from the ascertained fact that foreign officers, disguised as artists, had been seen sketching it. We also, with all our talk about un-English practices, had not disdained to employ spies. Fouché certainly sent the Duke of Wellington Napoleon's plan of the Waterloo campaign, though it came too late; and it was shrewdly suspected, from the unusual foresight shown by the English Government, that there was a Fouché in the military Cabinet of the League.
So soon as the course of the headmost ships left no doubt of the precise destination of the expedition, the telegraphs were set to work, and all the available troops were brought down without delay. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief was present in person, but the detailed arrangements were left to Lord Strathnairn and Lord Sandhurst, assisted by General Wolseley and a well-appointed Staff. A couple of hours sufficed to dig in the sand such rifle pits and trenches as were still wanting; and these were manned with the Guards, the Rifles, a battalion of Marines, and the Inns of Court Volunteers. The rocky and uneven ground behind the beach was occupied by a strong body of Volunteers, under the direction of Lord Elcho, whose dispositions were an improvement on those of Roderick Dhu:
"he waved his hand,
Down sank the disappearing band.
Each warrior vanished where he stood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood."
Taking advantage of every inequality of the ground, he placed his men so as to be within easy range of the boats when they should near the shore, and under shelter from the covering fire of the ships. A brigade, consisting of three regiments of the Line, the Sherwood Rangers, and two batteries of horse artillery, was kept in reserve under Sir Richard Airey. The rest of the artillery, with the exception of one masked battery, was placed on a mound or eminence commanding a large portion of the beach, and the cavalry, including the Blues and 2d Life Guards, under Lieutenant-General Sir James Scarlett, were placed behind the heights on the extreme left, where they could easily reach the shore. In the contingency of the enemy effecting a landing in force, the cavalry were to charge along the beach, and roll them up before they had time to form. With them, at the head of his Hussar regiment, was the Heir Apparent to the Throne, irresistibly impelled by the hereditary courage of his race to disobey a Royal order (issued from Balmoral) not to leave the capital. Torpedoes were laid down by a flotilla of gunboats under Rear-Admiral Sherard Osborn, which withdrew when this duty was performed, prepared to operate on the flank of the Armada when the landing should commence.
It was a time of agitating suspense to the bravest while the ships of war were taking up their positions to cover the landing, and the transports were transferring their armed cargoes to the boats. After ascertaining by careful sounding that they could approach no nearer, they opened their fire at about the distance of a mile. The rocks were shelled, and the strand was swept with round-shot, causing little or no loss to the English, who never showed a finger above rifle pit or trench till the landing boats intervened and the iron hail necessarily ceased. Then a signal gun was heard; the battery in the centre of their position was unmasked; shells and plunging shot from the mound fell thick and fast among the boats; a line of fire ran along the beach; the rocks and heights were all in a blaze with musketry. The effect was withering when volley after volley, by practiced marksmen, each taking an individual aim, poured into boats crowded with men whose orders were to land and rush to close quarters without returning a shot. And gallantly did they struggle to carry out the programme. Half of one boat's crew and a third of another, some 150 men at the most, did actually reach dry land and make a rush at the trench held by the Guards, who shot down most of them as they approached, then sprang up and drove the remainder back into the water with the bayonet. Here occurred one of those incidents which show that modern warfare, with all its mechanical contrivances for wholesale and cold-blooded butchery, still affords scope for chivalry and romance. An officer of distinguished mien, the scion of a princely house, was pushed to the water's edge, overpowered and exhausted, although still fighting desperately, when his situation was seen by a young lieutenant of the invading navy from a ship's launch in which he had been carrying orders. Without a moment's hesitation he commanded the crew to pull back, and they obeyed with such a will that within a few seconds the boat was run aground not many yards from their gallant country-man; and they were springing to the rescue, when a ball struck the lieutenant and he fell. He sacrificed his life to his chivalry, and not a man of the heroic boat's crew got away.
Among the many casualties which added to the confusion, a shell exploded in the boat which carried the leader of the headmost division and his Staff, killing and wounding most of them; and two transports, carrying artillery, ran upon torpedoes and were blown up. Things began to look very unlike Kinderspiel. But large sacrifices had been counted on; it was known and felt that a first landing on the British coast must be effected in the spirit of a forlorn hope, and fresh boats were hurrying in or loading from the transports; when, hark! a low rumbling sound, like intermitting thunder, is heard from far off across the ses. It is the sound of cannon on the extreme left of the Armada. It can be nothing but the English Channel Fleet. A fast steamer had, in fact, overtaken the Admiral, and, dispatching two of his ships to watch the Americans, he had come back (like Desaix at Marengo) to give a decisive turn to the wavering fortunes of the day,—the day big with the fate of England, of Europe, of the world. He brought with him seven first-class iron-clads, with more than twice as many others of heavy metal; and it was a grand and fearful spectacle, the approach of those magnificent machines, instinct with life and motion, cleaving their way right onward through the thick of the hostile armament without stopping to engage the ships of war, and running down transport after transport; while almost every shot from their enormous guns sent a ship to the bottom, or left a boat load of gallant men struggling for life in the waves. If such a fate is appalling to think of or contemplate at a safe distance, what must it have been to those who saw and felt that their own turn was coming,—who watched with fixed and fascinated gaze the rush of the iron monster that was about to pass crashing over them?
The military organization of the invading army was beyond all praise; an order emanating from headquarters might be said to live along the line, and the skill to restore a losing battle or effect a retreat was never wanting, any more than the strategy which wins or improves a victory. But what did such skill avail here, on an untried element, where soldiers and generals were equally helpless, where strategy was useless and bravery thrown away? All hope of carrying out any pre-organized plan was at an end. Sauve qui peut became the word among the hired or pressed masters of transports, who, such of them as escaped being run down, made off without waiting to take in their original freights. The wind rose and soon freshened to a gale. The gunboats which had fallen back before the advancing armament now assailed it on every side. The fire of shells was continued from the heights. A desperate sea-fight was prolonged till dark, and partially continued through the night. When morning broke the catastrophe was made clear in all its horrors. The second Armada had shared the fate of the first. Most of the hostile iron-clads were missing. That which carried Cæsar and his fortunes—in other words, the Admiral-Generalissimo and his suite—had received a six hundred pound steel-headed shot between wind and water, and had no alternative but to strike. Princes, Archdukes, and Dukes were made prisoners by the score. The renowned Chief of a brilliant Staff was picked up in an exhausted state while endeavoring to regain his ship by swimming, after the boat in which he was trying to remedy the confusion had been swamped by the surge; and a Serene Highness, who had made his way to the shore at the head of his contingent, was, with difficulty, persuaded to give up his sword to Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, who enacted the part of Bayard to Francis I at Pavia. But we reserve for another chapter the various episodes of this ever-memorable triumph and its results.
EDITORIAL
ON
THE SECOND ARMADA.
(From the London Times.)
One imaginary history is, as far as argument goes, as good as another, for none does more than express what the author thinks may happen, or might have happened, and the very nature of the literary artifice precludes any serious reasoning. We beg, therefore, to present our readers with a sketch of an Invasion of England which, though less elaborate in description than the Battle of Dorking, has quite as much claim to be considered a just view of the event of such an enterprise. The Battle of Dorking has given a new thrill, not unmixed with a sensation of gloomy pleasure, to our alarmists. If it had only appeared a few months ago, when the anti-Prussian fever was at its height, there is no saying what effect it might have produced. But, as its admirers would probably tell us, the cold fit is again on the British public; they are more absorbed by the catastrophe of the Commune, or even by the momentous question of "Baronet or Butcher," than by the danger which threatens them from the 200,000 Germans whom Moltke can launch against us out of all the ports from Ostend to the Elbe. In these circumstances it is possible that a narrative which represents the other view of the case will be listened to, though, of course, it is only opinion against opinion, and we must form by independent reflection a judgment as to which romancer's fiction is founded on the sounder basis of fact. This type of composition has been applied before to this very subject. Napoléon Apocryphe was written to show what the great Emperor might have done if only he had not been ruined by the hostility of the elements and the treachery of his allies. His chief feat was the invasion and conquest of England. He landed on the east coast, fought a battle at Ipswich, and totally broke the power of England at Cambridge. The British Isles were divided into Departments. The National University was established in London, while Oxford and Cambridge were reduced to the rank of Lycées; the laws were recast on the basis of the Code Napoléon, and many other substantial and excellent changes were introduced. To a whole generation of Frenchmen the feasibility of such an invasion was an article of faith, and they believed, in fact, that Pitt only succeeded in saving England by precipitating the campaign which ended at Austerlitz. Numbers of Englishmen have held the same opinion. Yet the most painstaking and impartial inquirers have since come to the conclusion that Napoleon, having duly examined all the contingencies of the enterprise, saw that it was impracticable; that, in fact, the French invasion was a boast on the one side and a bugbear on the other, even when England, with little more than a third of the population of France as it then was, had to face the greatest military genius of the world. The imagination of a writer of romance could describe, with reference to that time, the various steps in the conquest of England; is there any reason to believe that similar ingenuity is less misplaced now?
We cannot but think that this is little more than a question of military curiosity. The political expectations which the writer of The Second Armada, for the purpose of his narrative, represents as falsified, we believe to be so well founded that England may safely take them as the basis of her policy. Never has there been a period when an Invasion of England was less feasible. The interests and aims of United Germany do really point to a pacific policy. She does require peace to consolidate her Empire, and she cannot make war without calling men from their various pursuits at a cost which a nation will only bear when its dearest interests are at stake. Whatever boasting on the subject of a war with England comes from beyond the Rhine arises, in our opinion, very much from the instinct which prompts men to try to frighten those who proclaim their apprehensions after a fashion which the world cannot help thinking ludicrous. Fussiness is, unfortunately, one of our political characteristics. It is, perhaps, an inevitable result of popular institutions, and of the intense interest which a people informed of the minutest details of public life takes in the discussion of every incident. We debate all our national concerns in public, and the distinction which is to be gained by taking part in political controversy insures that every opinion, however unreasonable or unworthy, shall find somebody to maintain it. Foreigners are surprised at the way in which Englishmen run down their own country, represent its statesmen as fools, its policy as contemptible, its social system as corrupt, its civilization as a counterfeit, its strength as a delusion. Even if this be true, it cannot, they think, be either patriotic or prudent to say it. They do not realize that in England the appetite for political controversy is so great that this national Opposition is indispensable to the public contentment, and that its members have a necessary place in our public economy. So far as the idea of a war with England has entered the mind of any German it has, we believe, been put there by this class of our countrymen. It is not entertained seriously by one out of a hundred thousand, but, at the instigation of such writings as the Battle of Dorking, it may appear in magazine articles or squibs as an instrument for provoking the "selfish islanders" who begin to find that money and twenty miles of sea do not give immunity from all evils. German development and German extension, if there be extension, must be exclusively Continental, and almost certainly inland. Politicians can already anticipate the points where the German Power is most likely to be brought into collision with rivals, and these are far from our neighborhood, and involve antagonisms which in no way concern us. Furthermore, it may be said that Germany, though triumphant, will have enough to do for years to come in watching a vanquished but vindictive enemy on one side and a gigantic military Power on the other. Who will venture to say that even now Frenchmen have made up their minds to pay their five milliards submissively and then to remain models of peacefulness forever? In the elation of victory there may be some empty talking, but we ought to know enough of the Germans to be aware that, in their present circumstances, they are not likely to quarrel with the first naval Power of the world, or to cherish the hope of conquest from an Armada of North Sea merchantmen.
It is probably useless to offer these considerations to our alarmists. It is their nature to conjure up visions of evil, and if one fancy is dispelled, another will present itself. Up to last summer it was France that threatened us, and not a week passed in the Session without some reference to the French ironclads, their number, size, thickness, and so forth, or to French guns and chassepots and mitrailleuses. No sooner is France overthrown than Germany is at once put in its place, and declared far more dangerous, though formerly the main point insisted upon was that the enemy were only separated from us by twenty miles of sea. But, as suming what these gentlemen expect,—that one or more Continental Powers should ever make the attempt to land a force upon these shores,—we submit that the event which the author of The Second Armada anticipates is far more probable than such a landing and such a march as others have described. We know something from former experience of the difficulties which impede the assembling of fleets and flotillas, the embarcation and transport of large bodies of troops, and of the obstacles to landing and penetrating inland in presence of defensive forces. We also know the overwhelming power of the British Navy, and that it could dissipate in a few hours all the maritime preparations by which we are said to be threatened. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the land forces of which this country will now be able to dispose could be collected and concentrated in a few days in sufficient numbers to deal with any enemy which might break through the barrier of our Fleets. Independently of all political reasons, we have in the danger of the enterprise and the facility of the defence a guarantee which ought to be sufficient to all reasonable minds.
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"It sustains its claim to be the only work which has brought together in a single volume, and in clear, concise, and comprehensive language, adequate information on the various subjects of which it treats."—Harper's Magazine, July, 1869.
"'Norris's American Fish Culture' published in this city by Porter & Coates, is passing around the world as a standard. Mr. Norris's authority will be quoted beside the tributaries of the Ganges, as already by those of the Hudson, the Humber, and the Thames. The English publishers of the book are Sampson Low, Son & Co.: and a late number of the Athenæum, after an attentive review of Mr. Norris's methods, concludes thus: 'Mr. Norris has rendered good service to the important subject of fish-culture by the present publication; and, although his book goes over ground (or water rather) occupied to a great extent by English writers on fish culture, it contains several particulars respecting this art as practised in the United States, which are valuable, and may be turned to profitable account by our pisciculturists.'"—Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
"Mr. Norris has produced the best book on Angling that has been published in our time. If other authors would follow Mr. Norris's example, and not write upon a subject until they had practically mastered it, we should have fewer and better works. His volume will live. It is thoroughly instructive, good-tempered, and genial."—Philadelphia Press.
While the principal events of the history of our glorious Revolution are known to every intelligent American, much remains to be disclosed of the inner history of the war, and the motives and patriotism of the people. There were deeds of individual daring, heroism worthy of the proudest days of Greece and Rome, dashing and hazardous enterprises, and hardships bravely borne, performed by subalterns and private soldiers in the grand army of heroes, which should never be forgotten. To collect and preserve the sketches of these almost forgotten passages of the war, as they originally appeared in the newspapers and private letters of that stirring period, and the stories told by scarred veterans round the blazing hearth-stone; these legends of the past; has been the object of this work, and the publishers are confident that none will rise from its perusal without acknowledging that "Truth is stranger than fiction," and with a deeper feeling of reverence for the heroes of the days of '76
"Her career and her character were alike remarkable; surrounded by the demoralizations of the French Court, she was a Roman matron in stern rectitude, with a pre-eminent fidelity to a sensitive conscience; and blended comprehensive genius with a warm heart and a noble personal presence. She was the peer of Napoleon, and in some respects his superior. Her executive force was less, but her foresight was greater. It is to her that the index finger of history points, as an example of female grandeur. Napoleon got a divorce from her because he wished his seed to inherit the French Crown. The son born of his Hapsburg marriage died crownless, while the grandson of Josephine now wears the purple of France—this is more than poetic justice. * * * In the book before us, the story of her life is told in a simple, classic style, and possesses a fascination rarely met with in biography."—Chicago Evening Journal.
MRS. ANNA JAMESON.
The celebrated Mrs. Jameson, who wields a powerful, ready, and pleasant pen, has taken hold of some of the leading events in the brilliant lives of some of the most world-noted women, and depicted them in very attractive colors. It is a lovely book for young ladies, and will give them a taste for history.
Now that the dogma of infallibility of the Pope has been promulgated, this charming history of similar events, over three hundred years ago, acquires a new interest. The narrative is so picturesquely told, it has all the
attractions of a romance. Author of "Cherry, the Missionary," "Grandma Merritt's Stories," "The Voyage of the White Falcon," &c., &c.
"Very nice children's books, indeed, and we only wish that we had more space to say so, and more time to say it in. Any present-giving fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, or sisters, who have a care for the little people, may safely order these for home consumption."—The Hartford Churchman.
"A charming series of stories for the younger class of readers, full of interesting incidents and good moral and religious instruction, brought down to the comprehension of a child in such a way as to produce a salutary impression. They are calculated also to teach parents how to keep children employed in what is pleasant and useful, thus superseding the necessity of imposing so many restraints to keep them from evil. This is apt to be the great fault in the management of children. They are given nothing innocent and useful with which to employ their active, restless minds, and then parents wonder that they need be always in mischief. Rosie's mother better comprehended the wants of a child, and forestalled temptations to end by incentives to good."—Springfield Daily Union.
"And this we can and do most confidently recommend to parents who are faithfully striving to provide only wholesome food for the intellectual appetite of their children. The tone of the book is pure and healthful, the style easy and graceful, and the incidents are such as to give pleasure without at all kindling the passion for exciting fiction, which is so rampant among the young people of our day."—Maryland Church Record.
"This is entitled, 'A Book for Girls,' but it would interest the youth of either sex. It is a succession of tales told at the Christmas season. We can recommend them all for their interest and moral. It is for 'children of a larger growth,' not a mere story-book for the little ones."—Philadelphia Daily Age.
"A story book of an orphan boy, who is thrown loose upon the world by a conflagration, in which his mother and only surviving parent is burnt. The varieties of experience, both sorrowful and happy, through which the boy passes, are wrought up into a story of no little power, and yet are such as often occur in actual life. The religious teachings of the book are good, and penetrate the entire structure of the story. We recommend it cordially to a place in the Sunday-school library."—Sunday-School Times, Philadelphia.
"The author of this book has written some of the best Sunday-school books which have recently been issued from the press of the American Sunday School Union. The volume before us portrays the trials of a little boy, who loses his mother in early life, and is subjected to the intrigues of a designing person, from which he obtains a happy deliverance. The story is
well planned and written, and its moral and religious lessons are good."—Weekly Freedman, New Brunswick, N. J. JAMES HOGG, the Ettrick Shepherd.
"He is a poet, in the highest acceptation of the name."—Lord Jeffrey.
"Few compositions in the English language have been so generally admired as the Farmer's Boy. Those who agreed in but little else in literary matters, were unanimous in the commendation of the poetical powers displayed by the peasant and journeyman mechanic."—Alliborne's Dictionary Authors.
"Burns is by far the greatest poet that ever sprang from the bosom of the people, and lived and died in an humble condition. Indeed, no country in the world but Scotland could have produced such a man; and he will be forever regarded as the glorious representative of the genius of his country. He was born a poet if ever man was."—Prof. Wilson's Essay on Burns.
WILLIAM HOOD, LL.D.
This republication of a book so universally and deservedly popular as Dodd's Beauties, makes it peculiarly valuable as a gift book.
"Hood's verse, whether serious or comic,—whether serene, like a cloudless autumn evening, or sparkling with puns like a frosty January midnight with stars,—was ever pregnant with materials for thought. . . . . Like every author distinguished for true comic humor, there was a deep vein of melancholy pathos running through his mirth; and even when his sun shone brightly, its light seemed often reflected as if only over the rim of a cloud.—D. M. Moir.
"The combinations of his wit are wonderful. Quick, subtle, and varied, ever suggesting new thoughts or images, or unexpected turns of expression—now drawing resources from classical literature or of the ancient fathers—now diving into the human heart, and now skimming the fields of fancy—the wit or imagination of Moore (for they are compounded together), is a true Ariel, 'a creature of the elements,' that is every buoyant and full of life and
spirit."—Chambers's Eng. Lit. MISS H. B. McKEEVER,
Author of "The Flounced Robe, and What it Cost," Edith's Ministry," Woodcliffe," "Silver Threads," &c. &c.
These stories have the merit of being entertaining, instructive, and really much superior to the common run of juveniles. The Springfield Republican, which is competent authority, pronounces them the best and handsomest Juvenile Books on the season."—Lyons Republican.
"Miss McKeever always writes with point and meaning, and in a manner to gain and hold the attention."—Sunday-School Times.
New and beautiful editions of these world-renowned books, second only to those of Cooper and Marryatt, and better than those of Mayne Reid, in the pictures presented to the reader of wild life among the Indians, the hairbreadth escapes and fierce delights of a hunters' life, and the perils of "Life on the Ocean Wave." Ballantyne's name is well known to every intelligent boy of spirit. Leading the reader into the jungles and forests of Africa, sweeping over the vast expanse of our western prairies, "fast in the ice" of the Polar regions, or coasting the shores of sunny climes, he ever presents new and enchanting pictures of adventure or beauty to enchain the attention, absorb the interest, excite the feelings, and always at the same time instructing the reader.
"Thoroughly at home on subjects of adventure. Like all his stories for boys, thrilling in interest and abounding in incidents of every kind."—The Quiver, London.
"This is another of Mr. Ballantyne's excellent stories for the young. They are all well written, full of romantic incidents, and are of no doubtful moral tendency; on the contrary, they are invariably found to embody sentiments of true piety, manliness and virtue."—Inverness Advertiser.
"'Gascoyne' will rivet the attention of every one, whether old or young, who pursues it."—Edinburgh Courant.
"Mr. Ballantyne's name on the title-page of a book, has for some years been a guaranty to buyers that the volume is cheap at its price."—London Athenæum.
This is generally considered the best of Mr. Ballantyne's famous narratives of Indian warfare and border life. In this field he is second only to Cooper.
R. M. BALLANTYNE—Second Series.
"Indulgent fathers and good uncles will look a long time before they will find books more interesting or instructive for boys than these. In the four volumes the author introduces his young readers to the wonders of the Arctic regions, the wild hunting-grounds of the Hudson's Bay Company, the rugged coast and midnight sun of Norway, and the exciting chase of the monsters of the deep on the pathless fields of the ocean. He is quite at home among the scenes he describes, and has the faculty of taking the boys along with him in the narrative, and making them feel at home in his company. His object is to give information and to inculcate sound principles of virtue, and he mingles en ugh of fancy with the fact and the moral lesson to make both more impressive and the more sure to be remembered. The boy who reads these volumes at the time when his mind is most susceptible to the stirring scenes of peril and adventure, will cultivate a taste for more complete and elaborate works of travel and discovery, in mature years."—Rev. Daniel March, D.D.
It is one of the most delightful books this famed author has written. Whilst describing the exciting adventures of Indian life, he conveys new and attractive information about the far north portion of our continent.
Seldom, if ever, has there been a better description of life in the lands of the Hudson's Bay Company, than is found in this little work.
"Is attractive and useful. There is no more practical way of communicating elementary information than that which has been adopted in this series. When we see contained in 111 small pages, as in "Fast in the Ice," such information as men of fair education should possess about icebergs, Northern lights, Esquimaux, music-oxen, bears, walruses, etc., together with all the ordinary incidents of an Arctic voyage, woven into a clear connected narrative, we must admit that a good work has been done, and that the author deserves the gratitude of young people of all classes."—London Athenæum.
Describing a country almost new to us, the author tells of many strange natural curiosities, of the manners and customs of the people, and the curious modes of travel and conveyance.
A story of trapper life in the Rocky Mountains. A better insight of real life in these uncivilized wilds is gained from books like this than from scores of the dry details of travellers.
This is not a mere work of fiction, but the true narrative of a bright boy who roughed it in the bush when Canada, the home of adventure and sporting, was much wilder than it is now. The boys, especially, will be charmed with the adventures with Indians, bears, and wolves, the racoon hunts and duck shooting; while the older class of readers will be drawn to it by its charming description of the scenery, and condition of what may, before long, become
a part of the United States. FOSTER'S TRANSLATION.
"More widely diffused among the nations of the earth than any other product of the human mind. While it is read or recited to crowds of eager listeners in the Arab coffee-houses of Asia and Africa, it is just as eagerly perused on the banks of the Tagus, the Tiber, the Seine, the Thames, the Hudson, the Mississippi, and the Ganges. . . . While there are children on earth to love, so long will the 'Arabian Nights' be loved."—Appleton's American Encyclopedia, article "Arabian Nights."
Carefully printed from new stereotype plates, with large, clear, open type, this is best, as well as the cheapest, edition of this charming work published.
"Perhaps there exists no work, either of instruction or entertainment, in the English language, which has been more generally read and more universally admired, than 'The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.' It is difficult to say in what the charm consists, by which persons of all classes and denominations are thus fascinated: yet the majority of readers will recollect it as among the first works that awakened and interested their youthful attention, and feel, even in advanced life and in the maturity of their understanding, that there are still associated with Robinson Crusoe the sentiments peculiar to that period, when all is bright, which the experience of after-life tends only to darken and destroy."—Sir Walter Scott.
The stories in these volumes are world-renowned, and they will continue to be read, as they long have been, in different languages, and to charm and delight not only the young, but many readers in mature life who love the recollections of childhood and its innocent diversions.
The Countess de Segur, the authoress of this charming work, and the mother of the wife of the French ambassador at Florence, the brilliant Baroness Malaret, is a Russian lady, and a daughter of the heroic Prince Rostopchin, who ordered the burning of Moscow, when Napoleon captured that devoted city.
"Not many of the fairy stories written for children are so admirably contrived or so charmingly written as these."—Worcester Daily Spy.
These Ballads, first published in periodicals, rapidly achieved a whimsical popularity, which soon demanded their publication in a collected form. Much of this is due to the series of inexplicably funny drawings by the author, who is happy in being artist enough to interpret his own humor in these admirable sketches: we pity the man who cannot appreciate and enjoy them. The Ballads will rank with the best of Thackeray, Bon Gaultier, or Ingoldsby. Let every one who in these dull times has the blues, procure a copy as the cheapest remedy. While it is a nearly perfect fac simile of the English copy, it is only half the price.
"Everybody likes, occasionally, a little sensible nonsense. 'Mother Goose' is enjoyed in childhood, and something similar, but more advanced, is needed to provoke a smile on a wearied face in later years. This volume of comic poems answers such a purpose: some of them have a sly moral, while others are simply amusing from their supreme absurdity. The mirth is aided by the author's original cuts, which are quite in keeping with the poetry."—Advance, Chicago, the Great Religious Weekly.
"Among the great wants of students of this noble game of chess has been a handbook which should occupy a middle ground between the large and expensive work of Staunton and the ten cent guides with which the country is flooded. This want is happily supplied by the present volume. It is an abridgment of Staunton's work, and contains full accounts and descriptions of the common openings and defences, besides a large number of illustrative games and several endings and problems. It is a book which will be decidedly useful to all beginners in the game, and interesting to those who are already proficient in it."—Peoria Transcript.
"Will prove an invaluable guide for the admirers of the great and strategic game of chess. It should be in the hands of every chess-player."—Galesburg Republican.
"It is the best manual for the beginner with which we are acquainted,—exceedingly clear and intelligible."—New Orleans Picayune.
MISS WETHERILL.
Contents.—The Cow; The Horse; The Chamois; The Camel; The Reindeer; The Dog; The Monkey; The Polar Bear; The Buffalo; The Goat; The Wolf; The Beaver; The Squirrel; The Tiger; The Elephant; The Sheep; The Ermine; The Lion; The Seal; The Stag; The Hyena; The Hog; The Hare; The Cat.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Everybody has felt the want of a reliable guide in selecting books for their library. In this little manual, the author has endeavored first, in a preliminary essay, to point out how to read books to the best advantage, and how to buy them; second, what books to buy, by giving lists of some fifteen hundred volumes of standard works, such as are necessary to every well-selected library; these are given with the number of volumes, the best and different editions, and the prices. It thus forms a complete and intelligent guide, as to what is best to buy first, such as every person of any pretensions to literary taste should possess.
"Remarkable as the assertion is, that very many of the best works are the product of the chastened and afflicted in society, it is nevertheless true that the world is greatly enriched by the presence of invalid gifted minds in all ages. This delightful little volume is the product of one who has felt the acuteness of disease, and it illustrates the experience of one who has long been an invalid. The Scriptural texts, and poetic suggestions, evince a rich acquaintance with the scriptures and the poets. The book is beautifully printed on tinted paper, red line border, and richly bound. Many would prize it as a gift book."—Pittsburg Gazette.
"This is a reprint from the latest London edition, and is a beautiful little work, both in style of typography and binding, and in the sentiments judiciously selected and collated from the Sacred Scriptures and poets. It comprises three hundred and sixty-five of the most soul-comforting and inspiring texts of the Bible—one for each day of the year. Following each text is a short selection from some hymn, or sacred poem of corresponding sentiment. No better souvenir could be given to one having experienced some of life's sorrows—and who has not!—and who has learned to look for consolation to Holy Writ."—Mauch Chunk Gazette.
A new edition of this charming book, a standard among juveniles. Surely lessons of stern morality and humanity were never more pleasantly and effectually taught than in this book. "The Britons are stirred up by it as they have been by no one magazine article of this generation. The 'Fight at Dame Europa's School' did not hit the bull's eye of English feeling more squarely than this clever shot from old Maga...... The verisimilitude is wonderful. We have read nothing like it outside of 'Robinson Crusoe.'"—Journal of Commerce (New York).
"The tale is most circumstantially told, and is painfully interesting to read."—The Graphic (London).
"Such is the substance of this remarkable article. Fiercer and yet more quiet satire has been rarely penned. It draws blood at every touch, and yet so keen is the weapon that for the second the victim does not know how badly he is hurt. As a mere piece of story-telling it has been seldom equalled."—Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia).
"It is a powerful satire on the military helplessness of England and the incompetency of her military authorities, which is exercising an influence over the British mind almost of a political panic. It is attributed to Colonel Hamley, a well-known writer, and who has won distinction also as a soldier in the regular army. The author, speaking as an old man in 1925, tells his grandchildren of the arrival of a German armada in 1875, of the destruction of the British fleet, the landing of the enemy, the defeat of the ill-organized and unprepared defenders in a battle at Dorking (37 miles from London), the loss of the capital, and the final and lasting subjugation of the English people. Of all this, he speaks with a minuteness of detail and a wonderful verisimilitude as if he were an eye-witness of and an actor in the scenes he relates, and with a charm of style and narration which are sustained in every word and line from beginning to end. As a work of literary art it is as perfect as anything of the kind in the language, and as a picture of what might be, it is no wonder that it has excited the liveliest interest throughout England."—Tribune (Chicago).
'The Battle of Dorking.—Blackwood's Magazine for May has caused much angry excitement across the water. * * Occupying thirty-four pages, is a striking composition, 'The Battle of Dorking; Reminiscences of a Volunteer,' which may be said literally to have alarmed and annoyed John Bull. It is a well-told narrative, which reads like truth, purporting to be related, fifty years hence, by a grandfather, who had 'assisted,' as a Volunteer in the mock-review at Dorking, near London, in 1871. * * The veteran, supposed to talk to his grandchildren, A. D. 1921, traces England's decline, step by step; loss of India and of Canada; the establishment of Ireland as an independent country; the annexation of Holland and Denmark by Prussia; a war with Germany, commencing with the defeat of the British fleet, and ending with the invasion, conquest, plunder, and occupation of England; the future of the Bank of England; the West Indies taken by the United States; the loss of Australia; Gibraltar and Malta ceded to Germany, which becomes a great naval power; trade gone, factories silent, harbors empty, pauperism predominant; credit lost, and oppressive taxes levied by the conquerors. This, after all, is on the cards, and therefore the government journals, because of its truth, have bitterly denounced this remarkably outspoken article in Blackwood."—Press (Philadelphia), June 3d.
"'German Conquest of England in 1875 and Battle of Dorking; or, Reminiscences of a Volunteer,' originally published in Blackwood's Magazine, is now reprinted in pamphlet form, and has created as much sensation as did 'The Fight at Dame Europa's School.' It overleaps time, and is written in 1925. The author, talking to his grandchildren of events 'fifty years ago,' describes the arrival of the German armada, the destruction of the British fleet, the decisive battle of Dorking, capture of London, and total downfall of the British Empire, as happening in 1875. It must be of painful interest to English readers, for, as the Spectator acknowledges, 'it describes exactly what we all feel that under the circumstances Englishmen, if refused time to organize, would probably do.'"—Daily Chronicle (Washington, D.C.)
PORTER & COATES, Publishers, PHILADELPHIA.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse