PHILIPPI, THE GUARDSMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 52

PHILIPPI, THE GUARDSMAN.

Readers of Hie clever brochures "Made 111 j Germany"' and "The Foreigner in the Farmyard," by the same author, will scarcely need much commendation to induce them Lc read "Marhing Backward." Mr Williams is known as an excellent statistician ; he ha; also shown himself to possess a crisp and ■ a cultured style, as all tho°e who have enjoyed the pou.Fal of tho«e attractno artirlcs on " Tiie lmpcrhl Heritage" in the Wind sor Magazine will readily admit. "Maich ing Backward" is written with the object of showing to what a di'-aslious e\tent JMiglmd''3 industrial supremacy has aheady been undermined by uu'iou<s cousg-;, and though the whole tenor oi the book may be considered pessimistic, it is a po-^iuiiini in support of which the writer unhappily is able to marshal such an an ay of fact -I and figures as may stagger the mo:>t optimistic believei in England's unassailable greatness. Origi ! nally published in the Daily Mail, the article ! contained an error — concerning the export j of bicycles — which uas instantly pounced j upon by the critics, who found a welcome J weapon thus ready to their hands, and used it to tho full, impugning through this one error the truth — unwelcome truth — of the whole* article. Tho en or is, of cour,-e. correclcd in the reprint, and we may safely commend the excellently-got-up little booklet to the attention of all interested readers.

The adventures of the Italian guardsman arc but the thread of personal interest and individual emotion which serve * to bind together more -\ividly the incidents and Uagedics ot the Avar of 1812. _ The book i abounds in vivid and powerfully-drawn c!e- | Ecription, lurid with the red lights of b.ittlc, I murder, and sudden death— somewhat too i full of the horrois of such a conflict as Europe had never before seen, yet full of the fascination which v ill always pertain to the hisloiy of Napoleon and his. grand army. Heie and there the writer seeks to lighten | his pages, and relieve what savours too much I of hictory puie and simple, by the intro- , duction of mere humorous and poi-fon^l I experiences of the narrator, Phil'iipi. a brave and soldicily fellow, whote love affair with the somewhat cataleptic Annetta is, however, decidedly poor. The chapters devoted to the matching forth of that vast array of 550,000 soldiers, only 170,000 of whom wove French, (he remainder consisting of (he sons of 20 conquered nations, many of them under Iheir own kings and princes, vies in graphic descriptive force with the recital of the terrible burning of Moscow, and the retreat of the Grand Army, ragged, starving, and frozen, acrors the snow-covered plains. The inhumanity of the Russians, the terrible disasters of the route, the barbarities practised by Cossacks and Jews upon the hapless wretches who fell into their hands, all provide the author with a menu of horrors in which he revels— a perfect glutton ! It is the kind of history which schoolboys and 33 r oung men will absorb with avidity, and women will read and make the excuse for "nerves" for months afterward*. The style i<s concise and brief to a marvel, and as a natural result the pages are simply packed with incident. .