RUSSIAN LIBELS ON ENGLISH NOBLEMEN. So long as the Journal of St. Petersburg confined itself to mendacious reports of Russian victories, to eulogies of the virtues of its Imperial Editor, and to general misrepresentation of public events, we might despise a miserable newspaper, but we could not feel angry with the tool of a tyrant. But when disastrous defeats make it impossible even for MENSCHIKOFF to announce victories, when the praises of the Mild Eyes have been chanted in every variety of Russian melody, and when, in short, lies upon affairs of state being at a discount, the Journal of St. Petersburg addresses itself to damage and scandalise the private character of Englishmen, we confess to growing indignant.

We are not, as our readers know, habitually given to offer adulation to the aristocracy. But we neither do injustice to that, or any other body, nor permit it to be done without protest. And the noble behaviour of members of distinguished families, during the Crimean campaign, entitles the order to which they belong to more than ordinary respect. Consequently, when we find the honour of two noblemen assailed by the Russian libellers, we hasten to put on record our feelings on the subject.

Everybody knows that the MARQUIS of CLANRICARDE, at one time our Ambassador in Russia, has a son, LORD DUNKELLIN, an officer in her Majesty's army. The latter nobleman was taken prisoner in the Crimea, having we believe strayed out of bounds. The EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, who never loses the opportunity of a clap-trap, ordered the release of LORD DUNKELLIN, knowing that this specimen of Imperial mildness would have its weight with the class to which his Lordship belongs-almost over-ready to recognise the merit of any decent act performed by the wearer of a crown or a coronet. With the cunning Cossack eye to a bargain, NICK, however, did not forget to intimate that if a certain CAPTAIN KULZOWLEFF (probably a somewhat more valuable officer than young DUNKELLIN) were exchanged for CLANRICARDE, fils, it would be acceptable. To all this there is no objection. NICHOLAS was glad to make a sensation, LORD DUNKELLIN was glad to get away, and LORD CLANRICARDE was, no doubt, glad to have his son released. All parties were pleased. But the Journal of St. Petersburg has no right to manufacture such letters as the following, and to pretend that they were the composition of a couple of high-minded, high-blooded British aristocrats. The Journal has the audacious insolence to publish, as part of the MARQUIS of CLANRICAKDE's epistle of gratitude, these words:

:

"November 18, 1854.

"MY PRINCE, I beg your Excellency to place at the feet of his Imperial Majesty the expression of the lively gratitude and profound emotion inspired in me by the kind and gracious recollection which his Imperial Majesty has been pleased to preserve of me. The order which the Emperor has issued in regard to my son is perfectly in harmony with the personal goodness that his Majesty formerly exhibited towards me, and which I can never forget. I have motives for thinking that no one can better comprehend than his Imperial Majesty the public duties which under unfortunate circumstances are required of us."

Such is the letter which the Journal of St. Petersburg prints as proceeding from an English nobleman, and which it expects the world

to believe can have been written by one of those aristocrats who, the other day, stood round their QUEEN, and listened to the spirited tones | in which she alluded to the enemy of the country. While the Sovereign is summoning the true hearts of England to aid her in crushing the Imperial Miscreant, LORD CLANRICARDE, one of her peers, is represented as full of lively gratitude" and "profound emotion" that the miscreant in question should deign to "recollect him," and is made to say that he can never forget the Cossack's personal goodness." And he is actually shown as apologising for being obliged to have a son in the QUEEN's army, a son who is unhappily compelled to bear arms against Nicholas. The clumsiness of the libel is no excuse for its malevolence.

It was not to be expected that the Journal of St. Petersburg would do things by halves, or that those who had slandered the father would not equally libel the son. The gallant young officer is also made to write his letter of fulsome and abject thanks, and to say :

"Kaluga, November 10, 1854. "MR. GOVERNOR,-I hope I need not, in the first place, assure your Excellency I feel moved by the act of kindness the Emperor has been graciously pleased to exhibit towards me. This magnanimity, which restores me to complete freedom, and unconditionally, is really the act of a great man, and although I shall never be in a situation to express to him my whole gratitude with words, I nevertheless pray you to have the kindness to inform the Minister of War how deeply I am moved by the noble and magnanimons conduct of his Majesty the Emperor. My heart will never forget it."

Imagine a spirited young officer concocting such an epistle, and finding in his own release the "act of a Great Man," and one which his heart will never forget. The Journal of St. Petersburg has been so long in the habit of lying that its touch is coarsened, and it violates probabilities. We are glad to have the means of declaring our own conviction that the LORDS CLANRICARDE and DUNKELLIN never wrote, or could write, anything of the kind attributed to them. An action for libel against the Journal of St. Petersburg is impracticable, but Parliament meets in a few days, and though it is hardly worth the trouble, for no man with British feelings will believe in the authenticity of the documents, the MARQUIS OF CLANRICARDE might, not ungracefully, rise in his place in the House of Lords, and, on the part of himself and his son, LORD DUNKELLIN, give utterance to his indignation that their names should be attached to such servile and unworthy compositions.

THE HIGH METTLED GUARDSMAN.

AIR-" The High Mettled Racer."

SEE the pier throng'd with gazers! The War is begun!
The soldiers are coming-"Let's see them!" "Run, run!"
A thousand loud voices resound far and near,
With the hearty "huzza" and the soul-stirring "eheer."
While with mien like a hero-erecting his crest,
Proud and pleas'd-with true courage inflaming his breast.
With the prospect of glory, his ardour increas'd,
The High Mettled Guardsman embarks for the East.
From the ship now turned out his way he must push,
Through mud and through marshes, through rain, cold, and slush.
They leave him to struggle as well as he may
From the shore to the camp after leaving the bay.
Sustained by the pluck that he shows in the field,
He is sure to come through, for he never will yield;
And though nearly worn-out, weary, hungry, and wet,
The High Mettled Guardsman has life in him yet.
Exposed to the cold, and turned out in the mud,
Still ready to shed for his country his blood;
While knowing officials-the precedents trace,
Of what are the ancient traditions of place.

What appointments were made-in what heads will reside
The patronage Government has to divide.
Thus the High Mettled Guardsman, 'tis easily seen,
The victim becomes of official routine.

At length ill and weak, working early and late,
Bowed down by disease to a pitiful state;
Expos'd to the wet-a continual drench,
He feebly turns over the mud in the trench.
And now, cold and lifeless, he silently lies
On the soil where he hoped to win victory's prize:
Whilst official routine on contentedly jogs,

And the High Mettled Guardsman has gone to the dogs.

A Protestant Miracle.

SUCH has been the effect of the war at the hearths of many English farmers, that scores of hams, suspended over the fire-place, have walked themselves off to the Crimea! Bacon has even shaken its sides in the heartiness of its sympathy.