and readiness the action of Dafadar Fakira of the Guides cavalry at the beginning of the campaign. This non-commissioned officer was on duty with three so wars as night patrol in the Guides camp on the 3d September 1863. Patrolling in the neighbourhood of the camp, the party of four came suddenly in the dark on a body of some 300 of the enemy advancing with the intention of effecting a surprise. Without a moment's hesitation the patrol charged the tribesmen with loud shouts, whereupon the latter, imagining that their plans had been betrayed and that they had fallen into an ambush, turned and fled without striking a blow.

The Ambela campaign terminated on the 21st December, and from this date began a period of unusual inactivity for the Corps of Guides, which, with the exception of some short intervals of active service, lasted for fourteen years.

But the reputation of the corps had been made already in the eventful years some of the incidents of which have been described in the foregoing pages, and throughout the Indian army it was felt that the honour had been well earned when, in commemoration of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, his Royal Highness was appointed honorary colonel of the Guides, while at the same time her Majesty 66 was graciously pleased to confer on the corps the distinction of being styled 'Queen's Own,' and of wearing on their colours and appointments the royal cypher within the garter." This was the first occasion on which such complimentary titles had been conferred on any regiments of the Indian army, and the Guides shared the honour of being called the "Queen's Own" with the 2d Bengal Light Infantry, a regiment

distinguished by having the longest list of victories on their colours of any corps in India, as well as by having maintained an unsullied reputation for fidelity throughout the trying months of 1857. The only other Indian corps which was similarly honoured was that of the Madras Sappers and Miners, whose reputation then, as now, extended wherever the army of India has borne arms.

Passing over the Jowaki expedition of 1877, the campaigns in Afghanistan in 1878-80 demand notice. Here, as might be expected, the Corps of Guides had a prominent part to play, being engaged in Sir Sam Browne's attack on Ali Masjid, and in all the principal operations of the first campaign in the country round the Khaibar Pass. Of these, the last was the expedition against the Khugiani tribe in the neighbourhood of the town of Fatehabad. The column, which was about 1200 strong, included the cavalry of the Guides under Major Wigram Battye, and was commanded by Brigadier-General C. S. Gough, who, as a subaltern, had been attached to the Guide Corps during the siege of Delhi. The hostile tribesmen were encountered in great force near Fatehabad on the 2d April 1879. Having been lured from their position by a feigned retirement, the enemy were first shaken by infantry fire, and then charged in the most dashing manner by the small cavalry force composed of detachments of the 10th Hussars and of the Guides. The latter behaved with all their old gallantry, completely breaking down the enemy's resistance, and inflicting on them severe loss. Lieutenant W. R. P. Hamilton was conspicuous in the fight, and earned the Victoria Cross by his conduct, while six of the native

ranks were decorated for gallantry. But the satisfaction at the success of the action was sadly marred by the losses sustained by the corps. Not only were three of the men killed and thirty wounded, three of them mortally, but in addition the Guides had to mourn the death of the gallant Major Battye, who was shot down at the head of his men. Like his brother Quentin, who fell in his first fight outside the walls of Delhi, Wigram Battye was beloved by all who knew him, as much as admired for his soldierly qualities. Few men are mourned as he was, yet one cannot but feel how just were the words of his general, Sir Sam Browne:

"It is some consolation to me, in mourning over his loss, to feel that he died, as he would have wished, at the head of his gallant Guides. Throughout his brief yet distinguished career, he conducted himself in his private capacity as a high-minded English gentleman, in his public life as an able, chivalrous soldier; and it seems fitting that to such a life the death of a hero should have been accorded."1

So ended the first campaign of the second Afghan war, during the whole of which (to quote again from the despatches) the infantry of the Guides had "more than acted up to their old reputation," while the cavalry had, as ever, shown themselves to be "a model of what light horsemen should be."

The tranquillity which followed the peace of Gandamak was of short duration. On the 26th June 1879 the newly appointed Resident at Kabul, Major Sir Pierre Louis Cavagnari, left Kohat with his escort: on the 4th September India was horrified by the news of the massacre of the whole party.

The escort was composed of twentyfive cavalry and fifty-two infantry of the Guides, the whole under the command of Lieutenant Hamilton, who had earned the V.C. for his gallantry at Fatehabad. From the date of their arrival at Kabul signs and rumours were not wanting of the ill favour with which they were regarded by both populace and soldiery, and in the early morning of the 3d September the smouldering fire burst forth. The exact details of that day will never be accurately known, for no credible eyewitness of what happened survived to tell the tale. But the main facts are a sufficient record of heroic and determined courage fighting to the death against fearful odds. The Residency, where the British were attacked, was commanded on all sides, nor could it be termed in any way defensible. Nevertheless the little band of eighty men held the armed populace of a great city at bay there from seven in the morning till eight at night, and the struggle only ceased when the doors of their frail fortress were battered in and the few who remained alive were shot down by the mob. Four times did the defenders sally out and charge their opponents, and before them the Afghans fled "like sheep before a wolf"; but each time the leaders and men from the Residency were fewer in number, and at length the band which remained were driven to defend themselves in the upper storey, till the approaches to that too were forced. Seldom has dastardly treachery been faced so boldly, nor can history show a finer example of unfaltering and desperate courage. Lieutenant Hamilton and his men were worthy of their famous regiment. On the capture of Kabul

Roberts a commission was appointed, under the presidency of Colonel (afterwards Sir Charles) MacGregor, to report on the circumstances of the massacre, and by this commission the following testimony to the conduct of the Guides was recorded::

In the second campaign in Afghanistan, which followed the Kabul massacre, the Corps of Guides was even more distinguished for its conduct than in the previous year. Arriving at Kabul just in time to take part in the severe fighting of December 1879, the corps was an invaluable addition to Sir Frederick Roberts's force, and both cavalry and infantry behaved with the greatest gallantry in those as well as in subsequent fights. Having been on service almost continuously for nearly two years, during which time they had suffered severe losses, the Guides were not included in the force which marched with Sir Frederick Roberts to relieve Kandahar, and they returned to their headquarters at Hoti Mardan in September 1880. During the two campaigns the corps had lost 2 British and 6 native officers and 96 non-commissioned officers

tion, was undertaken for the relief

of Chitral.

The little station of Hoti Mardan, where the Guides are located, stands about sixteen miles from the line of rail, and on the direct road from the nearest railway station to the foot of the Mala

kand Pass, over which the relieving column was to advance. The corps was therefore on the spot when the concentration took place, and it crossed the frontier with the rest of the troops on the morning of the 3d April. The infantry formed part of the 2d Brigade, and the cavalry were included in the divisional troops. The former were conspicuous in the assault on the precipitous slopes of the Malakand, while the cavalry, under Captain Adams, equally distinguished themselves on the following day against the hostile tribesmen in the Swat valley. But it was in the action on the 13th April on the banks of the Panjkora river that the conduct of the Guides was most noticeable, reminding those who witnessed it that this was the very same corps which had confronted the overwhelming number of mutineers at Delhi, which had stormed the heights round Kabul, and of which the name was foremost in the history of a hundred fights on the frontier.

The advance troops of the Chitral Relief Force reached the bank of the Panjkora on the 10th April, and on the arrival soon afterwards of Sir Robert Low, commanding

was

the force, orders were at once given for the construction of a bridge, without which it found impossible to cross the stream. On the evening of the 12th April the bridge was sufficiently completed to allow of the Guides infantry passing over to cover the work. The next morning the corps, under Colonel F. D. Battye (the third brother of this distinguished family who served in the Guides), made a reconnaissance into Bajaur territory; but, by a combination of misfortunes, not only did Colonel Battye advance farther than had been intended from the river, but in addition to this the stream suddenly rose, and in the early morning of the 13th the frail bridge was swept away, thus cutting off all possibility of reinforcing the Guides. Meanwhile, at noon, Colonel Battye found himself confronted by two large bodies of the enemy, who advanced rapidly against him down the sides of the surrounding hills. He was immediately ordered by heliogram to fall back on the bridge-head, where he would be covered by the fire of the guns on the opposite bank; and it was in this retirement that the steadiness and discipline of the Guides were so brilliantly displayed. The battalion retired in perfect order, inflicting a loss of some 500 on the enemy, "probably one for every sepoy of the Guides engaged."

"His Excellency," wrote the adjutant-general in a despatch to Government, "considers this a very remarkable instance of the results that may be obtained under very trying circumstances by absolute steadiness, combined with high training and

perfect fire control, and believes that the Guides must have felt themselves conquerors though retiring before eight times their number of brave but undisciplined tribesmen."

To all who know how bold are Afghan tribesmen in pursuit, and how trying is a retirement to all Asiatic soldiery, the brilliancy of this action will be specially apparent. The losses of the Guides were small numerically, amounting to but three killed and nine wounded; but they were rendered more deplorable by the fall of the gallant Colonel Battye, who was shot just at the close of the action. "By his death, at the moment when he had with great gallantry and skill brought the battalion under his command out of a position of peculiar difficulty, the Indian service has lost one of its most admirable officers." 1

This was the last occasion on which the Guides were seriously engaged, and here this brief sketch of their services during the last half century may be fittingly closed. As lately as last year individual officers of the corps have been selected for important service with the contingent sent from India to Suakin, but the last service of the Guides as a whole was in the Chitral expedition. As has been shown, the courage and discipline of both officers and men have not deteriorated since the days when they were led by Lumsden, Hodson, and Daly; and whenever or wherever in the future they may be called on to defend the interests of the empire, the Queen's Own Guides may be trusted to show themselves second to no regiment or corps in the British army.

It has often been remarked that the novel is to the Victorian era what the drama was to the age of Elizabeth, or the narrative poem to the epoch of the Great Revolution-at once the favourite form of literary expression and the most characteristic embodiment of the spirit of the time. The Elizabethan literary world demanded action, vigorous language, and no intrusive comments or explanations; the child of the Revolution preferred a medium in which he could intersperse his narrative with his views on nature or the Rights of Man; and the later nineteenthcentury writer, following out the same idea, chooses the means by which, while pandering to the unaccountable liking of the public for a story, he may most freely inculcate the tenets of the newest form of irreligion or the merits of his own particular nostrum for saving society. Since, therefore, the novel now occupies the place of the pulpit and the platform as well as that of the vehicle of "innocent amusement " (to use a term much reprobated by the novelists of the earlier part of the century), we feel that it is unnecessary to apologise for undertaking a survey of a part of the development of this new social force during the years 1837-97.

The sixty years of the Victorian era lend themselves readily to a rough division into three partsand, in point of fact, we do distinguish three separate periods in the growth of the novel during the reign, but the divisions are by no means equal in length, nor do they follow consecutively on one another. The characteristics of the second period make their

appearance while those of the first are still predominant, and one writer at any rate has brought the tone and manner of the Early Victorian era almost into our own time. The style of 'Kenelm Chillingly,' published in the seventies, betrays its author as the last survivor of the romanticists of the older day. Roughly speaking, we may say that the period of which we propose now to treat ended with the Crimean War, although waifs and strays which properly belong to it continue to make their appearance for some years thereafter, and its lofty solemnity had long been threatened by the encroachments of the rising generation of authors. It was the era of the belated pseudo-romantic, of the imitators of the imitators of Scott, of tales of magic and mystery, and of the novel of high life. Dickens, Thackeray, Charles Kingsley, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Reade, and Mrs Oliphant rose, or even flourished, during its course; but their principal works belong more properly to the succeeding period, although the writers themselves have not all escaped the influence of the romantic era. To take but two instances, the Parisian experiences of Rochester and his courtship of his first wife might have come straight from the pages of Lady Blessington, while the melodramatic portions of Nicholas Nickleby' and other early works of Dickens reflect the methods both of the fashionable and of the purely romantic among his predecessors.

In thus restricting our field of view to the more old-fashioned writers of our period, it might be