458 



The Review of Reviews. 



November 1, 1906. 



"THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE." 



Mr. Percy R. Meggy writes : — 



Sir, — In your October issue you quote ''an aston- 

 i.shiiig statement" made by Mr. Henry N. Hall in 

 the July number of the .Yew York Critic, to the effect 

 tliat Wolfe's famous poem of " The Burial of Sir 

 .John Moore " was really written by a Frenchman, 

 and only translated by Wolfe. I thought this joke 

 had long die<l a natural death, and I was 6uri)rised 

 to see it still walking the earth in all its pristine 

 vigour. It is nearly seventy years since that literary 

 genius, known as " Father Prout," who had the gift 

 of translating, if any man had, and who was in- 

 ten.sely fon<l of mystifying his readers, sent his trans- 

 lation of Wolfe's ode to Bentley's 2Iiscfllany as 

 the composition of a Frenchman, under the circum- 

 stances narrated by Mr. Hall. How Father Prout's 

 translation would strike a Frenchman I could not 

 say, not being a Frenchman, but it has always struck 

 me, being an Englislmian. as one of the best French 

 pieces I ever read, with a lilt and a swing in it, and 

 in every phra.se of it like the tread of a firing squad. 

 I «ee from Chnmbers's Ci/clopadia of Literature that 

 Wolfe's poem was suggested by . Southey's narrative 

 in the Edir\}iurgh .-innual lierjister of 1808 of the cir- 

 cumstances under which Sir .John Moore was buried, 

 of which it gives an almast literal version. " Father 

 Prout," who was an Irish prie.st named Francis 

 Mahony, 181)5-1866, wrote a good many remarkable 

 translations, but I think he must have fairly sur- 

 passed himself on this occa.sion. Wolfe's ode, it 

 seems, was originally published in an Irish news- 

 paper in 1817. reprinted in Blacku-ood's and other 

 magazine.*, and ascribed to some of the leading poets 

 of the day. Ultimately a Scotch schoolmaster claimed 

 it as his, but Wolfe's claim was so fully proved that 

 the schoolmaster had to confess himself a fraud. 



MISS KONOPTIAXXOKOW. 



Dr. Laishley writes: — "Greater love hath no man 

 than this, that a man lay down his life for his 

 friends." (John xv. 13). 



The cablegram from England, which appeared in 

 the "Sydney Morning Herald" newspaper of Sep- 

 tember loth last, containing the sentence, " My life 

 is all I had to give," is the most heroically pathetic I 

 know of. It reminds us of what our Saviour said in re- 

 spect to the widow's mite, " Verily I say unto you 

 that this poor widow hath cast more in than all 

 they which cast into the treasury. For all they did 

 cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did 

 cast in all that she had, even all her living." 



Even admitting, but only for the sake of the ar- 

 gument, that IVfiss Konoptiannokow committed an 

 error of judgment in killing General Minn, the noble 

 .self-sacrifice of her earthly existence, including an 

 ignominious death, is significant, as showing, inter 

 alii, the wisdom of a supreme infallible God of Jus- 

 tice, who will rightly estimate the value of her act 

 wliich can affect only, in all probability, the period 

 of her life which might have been here, in any event, 

 an infinitesimal fragment of eternity. She evidently 

 did not believe that, although dying technically un- 

 converted, she was inevitably destined to eternal fire 

 torture. 



Our criiiiinal law, and I presume Russia's is the 

 same, although in certain cases a plea of justifica- 

 tion is admissible, knows nothing or set-otfs ; and of 

 course as the law now stands no plea of "justifiable 

 homicide " would be in the present case of any avail. 

 As Lord Macaulay says in his essay on Lord Clive 



(1885 ed., p. 538): "Ordinary criminal justice knows 

 nothing of set-off. The greatest desert cannot be 

 pleaded in answer to the charge of the slightest ag- 

 gression. If a man has sold beer on a Sunday morn- 

 ing, it is no defence that he has saved the life of 

 a fellow creature at the risk of his own. If he has 

 harnessetl a Newfoundland dog to his little child's 

 cairiage, it is no defence that he was wounded at 

 Waterloo. But it is not in this way that we ought 

 to deal with men who, raised far above ordinary re- 

 traints, and tried by far more than ordinary temp- 

 tations, are entitled to more than an ordinary mea- 

 sure of indulgence. Such men should be judged by 

 their contemporaries .is they will be judged by pos- 

 terity. Their bad actions ought not indeed to be 

 called good, but their good and bad actions ou^ht to 

 be fairly weighed, and if on the whole the good pre- 

 ponderate, the sentence ought to be one not merely 

 of acquittal, but of approbation.'' 



For my part, I would not on any account accept 

 the chance of the Czar, or of General Minn, of a 

 happy immortality for that of Miss Konoptiannokow. 

 Against her devotion, any number of balls and af- 

 ternoon teas, is very, very poor, miserable stuff. 



RECIPROCITY— A STEP TOWARDS A UNITED 

 STATES OF THE PACIFIC. 



Sir, — Reciprocity, which means the opening up of 

 wider trade or commercial relations with our great 

 Continental neighlxiur, with its 5,000,000 of a popu- 

 lation, is a step towards the federation of the English 

 race in the Pacific under one government, including 

 Fiji. 



This colony, like France, will carry a large popula- 

 tion of small, farmers, who will want a near market 

 for their protlucts, and I predict, .Sir, that in time 

 this colony will have turbine cargo steamers carrying 

 our produce at low rates to the sister colonies, help- 

 ing to take away the deserted appearance of some of 

 our harbours and expensive breakwaters. Germany 

 assists her exports by bonuses: we should do likewise. 



The breadwinners of this colony engaged in the 

 leading indu.stries in 1903 numbered as follows: — 



Mining 17,816 persons. 



Industrial 101,184 



Agricultural 67,812 



Pastoral 21,410 



The mining and industrial classes being in the ma- 

 jority, it is only right that any measure which tends 

 to cheapen food to these should have consideration. 



We are allowed to trade with 5,000,000 persons in 

 AiLstralia, and in return we can only present 1,000.000 

 customers here, therefore we are offered a very large 

 market for our surplus products. 



This treaty, if passed, will perpetuate the late 

 Hon. R.. J. Seddon's memory in the minds of the 

 people, as the lowering of the prices of raisins, cur- 

 lants. flour, eggs, fruit and olive oil to the woi'kers. 

 and the opening up of larger markets to the farmers, 

 will be of more use to the colony than a concrete 

 thought in marble. 



It behoves every elector who wishes the country to 

 prosper to watch how his representative in the House 

 \otes on this important measure of cheaper food and 

 wider markets. — I am, etc., S. Pearson. 



P.S. — At the present time it may be wise to ex- 

 clude flour and sugar from the treaty, and to place 

 potatoes on the free list. 



Wellington, Septemljer 8, 1906. 



[The treaty has not been accepted by N.Z. — Edi"'i)e.] 



