not to invade the Crimea. In that case, there would have been no invasion; for the simple reason, that none of the generals or admirals, English or French, in command at Constantinople, knew how much force Russia had in the Crimea. The English Cabinet in London thought there were about forty-five thousand troops. Marshal St. Arnaud had heard that there were seventy thousand. Admiral Dundas had been told there were a hundred and twenty thousand. The Crimea was invaded in this blissful state of ignorance about the hostile force there, because the English Ministry ate too much dinner. "Quantillâ prudentiâ, fili mî!"

Mr. Kinglake, whose object in writing this story seems to be to tell the honest truth about every thing and everybody, has devoted nearly two hundred pages to his account of the battle of the Alma. He was himself present with the staff of Lord Raglan, the English commander. It was the first battle fought in the Crimea. Prince Mentschikoff, who commanded the Russians, had carefully selected the ground, as the best place to meet the allies in their advance on Sebastopol. Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud had carefully arranged the position of their respective armies. But the whole battle was fought haphazard. Neither of the three generals had any thing to do in fighting it. All three lost their hold of their troops almost at the beginning. The troops were handled as chance directed, and as the subordinate officers saw fit. Prince Mentschikoff rode away at the beginning of the battle to make a personal reconnoissance on his left, five or six miles off; and did not get back till the battle was decided against his army. Lord Raglan rode with his staff to and fro till he found himself in front of his troops, on a high knoll, in the midst of the Russians. He made use of this accident by sending for a brigade and a couple

of cannon, with which he searched the Russian battalions, and annoyed their reserves. The French marshal disappeared early, and was not heard of often till the end of the battle. "His mind did not touch the battle," says Kinglake." He was not where he could get a view of what was going on." We may hence infer that the English, French, and Russians fought this battle as they could, under division commanders; and nothing worse can be said of our general at Bull Run. In fact, after reading this book, and remembering the sort of country around M'Dowell, and the poverty of his staff, his cavalry, and his artillery, one feels a rising respect for him.

THE LATE DR. FRANCIS.

CONVERS FRANCIS, D.D., late Parkman Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care in Harvard University, was 'a man who was loved by all who knew him. It did not seem to be in him to make or have an enemy. Friendly and genial to all, enjoying social intercourse, and giving joy by his expansive sympathy, he was as happy as a child in his work and in his circumstances. While a minister at Watertown, his preaching attracted numbers, not so much by any charm of manner, nor by any great originality of statement, as by its healthy, cheerful, and progressive tone. The writer of this, then a boy of twelve years, used to walk two miles from Newton Centre to Watertown, as a matter of choice, on Sundays, to hear Dr. Francis. To be sure, the alternative was to go to the old parish church in Newton, and listen to Dr. Jonathan Homer, who, in those years, had already, in his pulpit exercises, left far behind all thought of making himself intelligible to his audience; and

discoursed to himself, in a sort of sing-song way, about his Bible, about his discoveries in tracing the origin of the present version, about the conversations he had lately had, and about any other topic which happened to enter into his somewhat inconsequential train of thought: so that I and my brothers, though schoolboys, were very glad to walk to Watertown, even on a hot day, over a dusty road, to hear the fresh thoughts and genial sentiments and warm-hearted utterances of Dr. Francis. His library, in those days, was a curiosity and treasure; for it contained German books. He was a great reader: he plunged into the deepest current of "the newness "in literature, and swam abreast with the advancing tide. You could borrow of him the last new book published in Germany on any question of philosophy and theology or of social ethics. He gladly lent it; for he had already read it. He read all books as soon as received, and read them through, as a hungry boy eats his cake up immediately, crums and all. He cared not for the looks of his books: he wasted no money on binding or choice editions. Books with him were to be read first by himself, and then by any one else who wished to read them. His books also had a sacred odor of tobacco about them (for the good doctor followed in this matter also the habits of German students), and were marked all through by his diligent pencil. His life at Watertown was happy, in the midst of friends, of new ideas, plenty of new books, and suitable work.

At Cambridge, as professor, we have the testimony of his students to his sympathy with them and their thoughts, and his fidelity in all his sphere of labor. No one ever was more able and willing than he to refer to all the literature on the subject before the class. His encyclopedic head poured out its stores for them without stint or limit,— "Wild beyond rule or art, enormous bliss."

The only defect in his mind was that its affluence exceeded its ordering and defining power, an almost fatal defect in New England, where to have fixed opinions on all subjects has long been regarded as the first duty of man. Dr. Francis was slow to decide between opposing views. His mind, well acquainted with all that could be said on both sides, and too conscientious to be dogmatical, would sometimes disappoint the expectant students by leaving the question opened rather than settled. This left a sense of uncertainty in their minds, which is always unpleasant. But those students who possessed the power in themselves of thinking out conclusions lost nothing by this, while they derived vast help from the stored memory and ample resources of their teacher's mind. But if Dr. Francis, as a teacher, may have seemed sometimes to his impatient students to have hesitated too long before coming to a conclusion, this fault (if it was a fault) had no moral cause, but altogether an intellectual one. It was not from any fear of coming to unpopular conclusions; for no man was more brave than he when the time required it, though no man was more modest than he when he did not feel called to make himself prominent. He was eminently a manly and modest person. He would stand up in the defence of Theodore Parker, or any other unpopular man, if he thought it necessary, though naturally preferring peace and retirement to any controversy. So that, if any one, complaining of his theological indecision, should quote Shakspeare, and say, "Yes and No are not good theology," it would be unjust; for he did not begin with "Yes," and end with "No:" nor did he say both "Yes" and "No;" but he stated both sides, and waited before deciding till it could be seen that he was ready to decide aright. And in this tendency he was singularly balanced and sustained by the fortunate circumstance of having a colleague, whose name

and nature are not "Yes" and "No," but "No" and "Yes;" who begins by criticism and denial of the false, and ends by the assertion and sharp statement of the ascertained: so that these two colleagues together seemed to be exact counterparts and supplements; and, in the two together, the able and earnest student had the means of satisfying his wants in opposite directions.

Dr. Francis will long be lamented and missed by those who knew him. His kindly, happy nature kept him always young. Down to his last day he worked, hearing his classes in his house when he could not hear them elsewhere.

We add a notice from the "Daily Advertiser:"

"Dr. Francis was the fourth child and second son of Convers and Susanna (Rand) Francis; and was born in West Cambridge, 9th of November, 1795. He graduated at Harvard College in 1815, in the same class with President Jared Sparks, John Gorham Palfrey, Professor Theophilus Parsons, and Hon. John A. Lowell. He held a distinguished rank of scholarship in college. After graduating, he studied theology at the Cambridge Divinity School; and was ordained pastor of the Unitarian Church in Watertown, 23d of January, 1819, where he remained twenty-three years. In 1842, he was chosen Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care in Harvard College; which office he accepted, and held the professorship until his death. He was a laborious and successful teacher, and discharged his duties with eminent fidelity and wisdom.

"A large number of his writings have been published: among them were Errors of Education,' a discourse at the Anniversary of the Derby Academy in Hingham, 21st May, 1828; Address on the 4th of July, 1828, at Watertown; An Historical Sketch of Watertown, from the first Settlement of the Town to the Close of the Second Century, in 1830; A Discourse at Plymouth, 22d December, 1832; A Dudleian Lecture at Cambridge, 8th May, 1833; The Life of Rev. John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, in the fifth volume of Sparks's American Biography, 1836; The Life of Sebastian Rask, Missionary to the Indians, in the seventh volume, new series, of Sparks's American Biography, 1845; Memoir of Rev. John Allyn, D.D., of Duxbury, 1836; Memoir of Dr. Gamaliel Bradford,