ittle
brother"; a wounded officer with his arm in a sling timidly inquires the
price of a captain's commission, and turns wearily away on finding the
preposterous price (L3,694) is wholly beyond his means. Fortunately for
us (for events proved that in trusting to French assistance we were
leaning on a broken reed indeed!) the Russian rank and file, besides being
badly led, were as inferior to our own in endurance and pluck as they were
superior to us in the mere matter of numbers. Justly wondering why forty
thousand men, supported by twenty thousand reserves, had failed to hold
their own against a mere handful of British infantry, Nicholas
nevertheless treated the result apparently in a philosophical spirit, and
calmly asked his people to wait for "Generals _Janvier_ and _Fevrier_."
But the brave man's heart was broken, and when February came it found the
Imperial prophet a corpse.[145] The death of this great and disappointed
man is forcibly commemorated by Leech's memorable cartoon of _General
Fevrier Turned Traitor_. Lord John Russell, true to his character of "Lord
Meddle and Muddle," had done nothing for us at the Congress, and in _The
Return from Vienna_, Her Majesty catches the frightened little statesman
by the collar and angrily asks him, "Now, sir, what a time you have been!
What's the answer?" To her Lord John--"Please 'M--there
is--is--is--is--isn't any answer."

An English general in those days was so scarce a commodity that in Lord
Raglan we seemed absolutely to have exhausted the supply: one old
incapable was replaced by another, until the dearth of English military
ability became at length nothing less than an absolute scandal. In _What
we must Come to_, reference is made to this lamentable state of things,
wherein an old woman in bonnet and shawl, with a capacious umbrella,
applies for a post to Lord Panmure (the Minister of War), "Oh, if you
please, sir, did you want a sperity old woman to see after things in the
Crimea? No objection to being made a Field Marshal, and glory not so
much an object as a good salary"; in another (_A Grand Military
Spectacle_) we find the heroes of the campaign engaged in inspecting the
Field Marshals, a pair of decrepid, purblind, old men seated in arm
chairs; in the third we recognise the amiable Prince Consort, who was
most unjustly suspected in those days of a desire to interfere in the
administration of our military matters--it would be moonshine to term it
military _s