OF THIS VOLUME. xi TIio fault was not in our people. The fault, un- less I mistake, lay all in those ' showmen ' of ours, who, because much engaged in the business of what France calls ' representing,' are deprived of the sense of Proportion ; and even of these there are some who can scarcely be charged with the practice of favouring their country unduly ; for, to do them sheer justice, they apply the same thousand-fold magnifier to any petty misfortune, as well as to what the armed Puritan was accustomed to call ' a small mercy.' Still, by too big a way of giving expression to what, after all, was only a nation's good - humour, our State showmen rendered it possible for any foreign observers to accuse sober England of swelling with triumph because her magnificent troops under such a commander as Wolseley proved stronger than native Egyptians ! The notion of any such triumph over Colonel, or General Arabi was of course beyond measure absurd ; but, to com])ass the anterior purpose of ap- pearing before him in arms on the banks of the Nile, there took place an exertion of power on which a free, island people refusing to be crushed by con- scriptions may look with some honest complacency ; for, with only a small peace establishment, to send out horse, foot, and artillery, in numbers reckoned sufficient for the conquest of a regular army some sixty or seventy thousand strong and — with swiftness --to plant the invaders on ground some 8000 miles
