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prevented from retreating by the steadfastness of the other faces. The words of the Brigadier in his despatch to the Commander-in-Chief show at all events that he was satisfied. It has been my duty to command a force from which exceptional work, exceptional hardships, and it may even be said exceptional fighting, have been called. It would be impossible for me adequately to describe the admirable support that has been given to me by every officer and man of the force.'

It has been asked how it was that the Arabs entered the square: the cause was that it was not closed up when the attack took place. It was not broken, because it was never properly formed. No doubt the masking of the fire from the rear of the square by our skirmishers enabled the enemy to approach comparatively unharmed. The jamming of the rifles was a very serious matter, and added to the difficulties and diminished the volume of fire from all portions of the square; but, on the other hand, it caused the men to use their bayonets, which in a hand-to-hand fight are safer and more effective weapons.

It has been hinted that cavalry, fighting on foot, were not suited to the work they were called upon to perform, and again that the Heavy Camel Regiment was wanting in cohesion and esprit de corps.

No cavalry soldier ever wishes to be separated from his horse, except when honoured by being selected for some exceptional service like the advance across the Bayuda desert. But, having been called upon, their General, at all events, was of opinion that no troops could have done better under the circumstances than those upon whom the shock of the fight fell. Certain it is that no one regiment, either cavalry or infantry, could have supplied an equal number of highly trained, active, strong, efficient men, selected from their regiments for general efficiency and good shooting. As to the esprit de corps which bound together and supported this regiment on many a trying occasion, it was as if it had been the growth of years instead of weeks. Nothing could have exceeded the cordial feelings that existed between each detachment, or the belief and confidence that they had in each other. Cohesion and esprit de corps were qualities that existed to a remarkable extent.

The last written order of Sir Herbert Stewart, showing the opinion he had formed of the troops who were present at Abu-Klea, will not be an inappropriate conclusion to this article. Sir Herbert Stewart was one of the ablest, most intrepid of generals. He inspired all under him with confidence and devotion. Had he lived, a great career was before him. His loss was irreparable at the moment it occurred, and what it may be to this country in the future cannot be estimated.

Brigade Orders by Brigadier-General Sir H. Stewart, K.C.B.

Abu-Klea, January 13, 1885.

The Brigadier expresses the most sincere thanks to the officers and men under his command for the exertions they made during the march from Korti; these were crowned yesterday by a triumphant victory which proved once again—so often

proved before-that the courage of British soldiers when united with discipline is more than a match for any number of savages. The Brigadier knows well what work the men are doing, and he regrets sincerely the exceptional labours he is obliged to ask from them in a trying climate under privations of food and water; but he is confident that they are animated by the same spirit that supports him, and feels that, if the trials are exceptional, the honour of being called on to undertake them is exceptional also. The Brigadier-General deplores deeply the loss of so many brave comrades, and laments they were not spared to share the high reputation for fearlessness and discipline which was earned by them equally with the living. The Brigadier asks the men for another display of courage and self-denial. We have to reach the Nile, a distance of twenty-five miles, and when that is done a large part of our work will be ended, and a feat will have been achieved at the end of which every man can say that he has indeed striven to do his duty.

R. TALBOT,

Lieut.-Colonel.

'DAWN OF CREATION'-AN ANSWER

TO MR. GLADSTONE.

I HAD been already a month in Italy and expected to remain at least another there, and I was so absorbed in my journey, which was partly for pleasure, partly for instruction, through that beautiful country, that I gave absolutely no thought to politics or theology, except to the very special subject which had drawn me to Ravenna and Rome. Had there been elections in France which might have thrown my country into Parliamentary confusion? Were other elections impending in England menacing a people to whom I am much attached, with a similar fate? Did the Bulgarian question threaten Europe with a terrible storm? I confess, to my shame, that all these questions had become as foreign to my thoughts as the conflicts of Peru and Chili, or the question of the prolongation of the mandates of the Hungarian deputies. I lived wholly in Pagan and Christian antiquity. My time also was limited and barely sufficient for the task I had undertaken. I only remember that one day at table d'hôte I took somewhat warmly the side of Mr. Gladstone-as far as it was proper for a stranger discussing the affairs of a country not his own to do so―against an old English lady who was vehemently denouncing the Patriarch of British Liberalism. For with all due reserve on the points on which the English alone are competent to speak, Mr. Gladstone is, to us who hold ourselves Continental Liberals, one of the glories, one of the great moral forces of European Liberalism. I am bound, however, to add that my defence of him was entirely restricted to the field of politics.

There seemed, therefore, a certain irony of fate to the writer of these lines when, a few days after this episode, at the same table d'hôte, an Italian count, who, unlike myself, was living wholly in the contemporary world, suddenly said to me, 'You are M. Réville, are you not-Professor of the Collège de France?' 'Yes.' 'Well, it seems that Mr. Gladstone has been attacking you sharply in an English Review.' 'Impossible!' I exclaimed. "Yes, the Italie (an Italian newspaper published in French) says so, and I bring you the number.'

This incident brought me a great increase of attention and courtesy in my hotel, where I had hitherto only been No. 17 or 19. I heard, or I thought I heard, that they were saying behind me, 'That

is the gentleman whom Mr. Gladstone has attacked in an English Review.' I had become a personage. The hotel-keeper and the waiters became more deferential, and I soon saw that it was beyond all doubt an honour and an advantage to be attacked by Mr. Gladstone.

Honours, however, have their drawbacks, and I think I perceived it when I paid my bill. The newspaper which had been shown me gave an account, after its fashion, of the attack of which I had been the object, but it threw very little light on the points of controversy, and I was not able to procure the number of the Nineteenth Century. It was no matter of indifference to me to know that I had been censured by the ex-Premier of the United Kingdom, for whose character and superior talents I had long felt a sincere admiration. But age quod agis. I had come to Italy for a special object. I could not deviate from it even for an empire, and when the first moment of surprise and emotion was over I said to myself, like a merchant on his holiday, 'Business to-morrow! We will see to this in Paris.'

At last, thanks to the obliging intervention of some friends in England, and especially to the kind editor of the Nineteenth Century, I am in a position not only to make myself acquainted with the article about myself, but also to submit to the English public, and, with every respect, to Mr. Gladstone himself, some reflections on the points on which, in language at once indulgent and severe, he has done me the honour of attacking me.

These remarks will serve to explain why I am so late in replying to the objections of my illustrious assailant. The delay, however, has had this advantage, that I have found my work half done, and by abler hands than mine. M. Max Müller, in an article entitled 'Solar Myths,' has defended with his usual talent the theory which gives a naturalistic interpretation to the greater part of the myths that have come down to us from antiquity, or that can be even now collected in uncivilised nations. Mr. Huxley has demonstrated, with his accustomed vigour and with his indisputable competence, that Mr. Gladstone labours under illusions about the harmony which he supposes himself to have established between the Biblical account of the creation and the conclusions of modern science. I can only express to these two eminent men my gratitude for their good opinion of my humble person, and assure Mr. Huxley in particular that, so far from resenting it, I am happy and proud that a man of his calibre should have so warmly taken my part, or, to speak more accurately, should have taken my writings as an occasion for defending what for him as for me is the cause of scientific truth.

I now come to the points of dispute. Mr. Gladstone, with a courtesy for which I must thank him, accuses my Prolegomena' of being rather Epilegomena, because, as he says, I have in the first place, without any preliminary demonstration, eliminated from the field of the VOL. XIX.-No. 107. M

scientific history of religions all theories which start from the supposition of a supernatural revelation granted to primitive humanity. I have put, he maintains, in the 'preface' of the History of Religions' what ought logically only to come at the end, if it comes at all.

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I will venture respectfully to observe that prefaces are usually composed by authors when their books are completed, and that they contain directly or indirectly their conclusions; at all events they foreshadow them. I did not begin a history of religions without having studied the subject as a whole. Moreover, the natural end of Prolegomena is to expound, and if necessary to demonstrate, the method which it is proposed to follow in the works to which they are prefixed. Mr. Gladstone is too clear-sighted not to understand at once that it makes an essential difference in the manner in which the history of religions must be treated, whether the writer starts from the idea of a primitive revelation made to the human race, or whether he rejects this hypothesis as unproved or anti-scientific. In the first case this history is the history of a prolonged decadence. In the second it is the history of a progressive evolution. I was therefore forced, by the very nature of things, to state which side I took on this grave question, since all that followed depended upon it. If Mr. Gladstone himself undertook a general history of religion, I would defy him to escape from this necessity.

My honoured critic in the next place complains that I have chosen him, rather than many others, as the representative of the point of view favourable to the idea of a primitive revelation founded on the testimony of the Bible, whereas I ought rather to have referred to specialists, such as Dr. Reusch, who have developed this theory ex professo. Mr. Gladstone acknowledges that he would not now formulate his views as 'crudely' as formerly on this question, which seemed then more simple than in these later times; that to presuppose the supernatural in such matters is to deviate from the law of scientific method; that he was especially absorbed with the luxuriant beauties of the Homeric poetry, and that he only entered indirectly into the theological bearings of his researches. He maintains only that there are evident traces in the poems of Homer of an historical connection with the traditions of the Hebrews, and especially with the Book of Genesis. As for the precise form in which he expressed his views on this question, he insists on it so little that he has not wished to republish the book which contains them, and it has now become very rare. In fine, he refuses to admit the too dogmatic form given by me to that primitive orthodoxy which was revealed to the first man. It consisted at most of rudimentary indications of what are now developed and established truths.'

I can only bow before these attenuations, introduced by the author himself, into a theory which had appeared to me, and to others also, to have assumed a much more definite and angular form. If I

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