eel of the enemy, or afterwards of their
wounds, and rather more than _fifteen_ thousand men of privation and
disease. As for the poor soldiers themselves, they could do but little
in even more favourable circumstances under the pinheading martinets;
and yet at least such of them as were drawn from the more thoroughly
artificial districts of the country must, we suspect, have fared all
the worse in consequence of that subdivision of labour which has so
mightily improved the mechanical standing of Britain in the aggregate,
and so restricted and lowered the general ability in individuals. We
cannot help thinking that an army of backwoodsmen of the present day,
or of Scotch Highlanders marked by the prevailing traits of the last
century, would have fared better and suffered less.

Another remarkable feature of the war arose out of the singularly
ready and wonderfully diffused literature of the day. Like those
self-registering machines that keep a strict account of their own
workings, it seemed to be engaged, as it went on, in writing, stage
after stage, its own history. The acting never got a single day ahead
of the writing, and never a single week ahead of the publishing; and,
in consequence, the whole civilised world became the interested
witnesses of what was going on. The war became a great game at chess,
with a critical public looking over the shoulders of the players. It
was a peculiar feature, too, that the public _should_ have been so
critical. As the literature of a people becomes old, it weakens in the
power of originating, and strengthens in the power of criticising.
Reviews and critiques become the master efforts of a learned and
ingenious people, whose literature has passed its full blow; and the
criticism extends always, in countries in which the press is free from
the productions of men who write in their closets, to the actings of
men who conduct the political business of the country, or who direct
its fleets and armies. And with regard to them also it may be safely
affirmed, that the critical ability overshoots and excels the
originating ability. There seems to have been no remarkably good
generalship manifested by Britain in the Crimea: all the leading
generalship appears, on the contrary, to have been very mediocre
generalship indeed. The common men and subordinate officers did their
duty nobly; and there have been such splendid examples of skilful
generalship in fourth and fifth-rate commands--commands