Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/275

 ii s. XL APRIL 3, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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THACKERAY AND THE GERMAN EMPEROR Though most of your readers possess the book containing the following passage while the rest have almost certainly read it the words may yet be worth putting on record in your columns at this period of cu history : -

"The young princes were habited in kilts; an< by the side of the Princess Royal trotted such t little wee solemn Highlander ! He is the young heir and chief of the famous clan of Brandenburg His eyrie is among the Eagles, and I pray no harm may befall the dear little chieftain."

The passage occurs in the paper ' On Alexandrines.' which contains, inter alia an account of the marriage of Queen Alex- andra on 10 March, 1863, and which first appeared in the April number of The Corn- hill. The essay did not originally figure as one of ' The Roundabout Papers,' and was not incorporated in that matchless volume till the Library Edition of 1869. It first appeared in " collected " form in the ' Early and Late Papers, Hitherto Uncollected ' (with an Introductory Note by J. T. Fields), Boston, 1867.

Would that " the dear little chieftain," then 4 years old, had proved himself worthy of Thackeray's prayer ! H. O.

ERNEST MALTRAVERS AND MORLEY ERN STEIN. In the hero of ' Ernest Maltravers ' and its sequel, ' Alice,' Bulwer introduces us to a man with a strong bias in favour of goodness, and a desire to do that which is right, but having strong passions, with riches and leisure to assist him in their gratification, so that he sometimes falls. This, together with the fact that Alice is too simple and uneducated to understand at first that she has done wrong in yielding to him, made some assert that the story has an immoral tendency.

If by this it was meant that the author wished to make vice appear attractive or excusable, I believe the charge was unjust ; but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that, had he made his hero successfully resist his temptations, his story would have been more bracing to the moral tone of his readers. Possibly this thought occurred to his contemporary G. P. R. James ; for whereas that novelist had hitherto appeared to take Scott for his model, shortly after the appearance of ' Alice ' he wrote ' Morley Erhstein.' which is more in the style of Bulwer, whilst the very name and character of the hero appear to have been suggested by Ernest Maltravers. Ernstein, like Mal- travers, has at once high ideals and strong passions, with riches and leisure to assist him

in the gratification of the latter ; and each hero has an evil friend Lumley Ferrers in the one case, and Everard Lieberg in the other. Both stories also take us to Paris and to Naples ; but whilst Maltravers yields to temptation in the case of Alice, Ernstein successfully resists in the case of Helen. The history of Morley Ernstein may, therefore, be regarded as in a sense the counterpart of that of Ernest Maltravers, and also as the antidote to any enervating effects on the moral tone of its readers which Bulwer 's story may have.

' Ernest Maltravers ' first appeared in 1837, ' Alice ' in 1838, and ' Morley Ern- stein ' in 1842. Bulwer became Bulwer Lytton in 1844. W. A. FROST.

PRAYERS FOR ANIMALS. It is, I think, worthy of note that the special Litany used in St. Paul's Cathedral at the daily Service of Intercession during the War contains the following supplication with reference to the sufferings of animals caused by the terrible conflict now raging :

" For those also, O Lord, the humble beasts, who with us bear the burden and heat of the day, and offer their guileless lives for the well-being of their countries, we ask Thy pity, for Thou hast jromised to save both man and beast, and great is Thy loving-kindness, O Master, Saviour of the ,vorld."

I do not recall having heard previously, Ji the Church of England service, prayers offered for the sufferings of animals. The War is bringing pain and misery to hundreds of thousands of human beings ; but it is good to find that, notwithstanding all this, the duty of thought-fulness for animals is not being forgotten. J. B. THORNE.

ALBUERA AND YPRES. Perhaps the best- mown of Napier's " purple patches " is the celebrated description of the advance of the Fusilier Brigade at the battle of Albuera. Few can read, without finding >heir hearts " moved more than with a trumpet," the closing words of that eloquent mssage :

" The rain flowed after in streams discoloured

,ith blood, and fifteen hundred unwounded men,

he remnant of six thousand unconquerable

British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal

ill ! "

Historians of the present war will find no lack of situations lending themselves to similar treatment, but among them not the least prominent will be the exploits of the 7th Division at Ypres in October last. It will, however, be difficult to write anything surpassing indirectness and pathos the order ssued to the division by its commander,