3-053-395 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"After the Victory", by J. Faed, in the exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1873. Engraving of a painting. '"When wild war's deadly blast was blown, And gentle peace returning, Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning". These lines from Burns's "Sodger's Return" are appropriately quoted by Mr. John Faed in connection with [his] picture...the scene is laid in a Scotch cottier home; the period may be that, say, of the Crimean War or Indian Mutiny; and the head of this humble house is away "fighting...for his country." News of the absent one, long looked for, perhaps, and certainly awaited with yearning love and boding anxiety, at length arrives. The letter (not in the familiar handwriting) proclaims a victory, but it also announces the husband, father, and son in the list of slain. The blow that laid the poor soldier low now pierces two other hearts far away. What is the glorious victory to them? Death on the field is merciful compared to their present agony and future sorrow. Ah! when will war, with all its shallow sophistry of pretended glory, with all its really murderous cowardice, with all its wanton waste, and cruel ravage, be no longer sought to aggrandise a selfish despot, bigot priest, or insensate people?' From "Illustrated London News", 1873.