were preparation and training for war. It seemed as though at a sound of the trumpet, this mass of men might in a few hours be transferred with all the appurtenances of a campaign to a bivouac or a battlefield. 'Twas a camp of exercise, and a camp of preparation. There was everywhere a recognition of the fact -in the aspect and demeanour of the men, in the general readiness, in the general activity, in the general working of the parts with the whole. It had many comparisons for us-comparisons of men, comparisons of systems. With them the system seemed to be beyond the material; with us the material is far beyond the system. The French soldiergood as he is-is scarcely equal to the standard which the system sets up; and yet we believe that it has brought him to the extreme of his development. The Englishman is as yet but a half-developed type of soldiership; and there are yet many progressions possible to his future. Except in sobriety-a great point truly there is no characteristic in which the Englishman is inferior to the French in natural intelligence, in courage, he is his equal; in physical strength, in endurance, in order, in obedience, in self-devotion, in steadfastness, he is his superior. We assert this confidently even now -now that these faculties and attributes are but half unfolded-we believe that it is in the power of circumstances and influences to present him as the most perfect soldier-type the world has yet known.

The French soldier is a man taken by the State for the purposes of war, to be made the most of at a certain cost, and care is therefore taken to cultivate to the utmost his physique and morale. He costs the State about £14 a-year in food, pay, dress, lodging, &c., and is certainly cheap at the price. But the State pays him back well in the care and consideration it bestows on him. It demands much from him, and it does much for him. All that careful supervision can do to provide for him his rightful comforts, and to see that all the money granted for him is spent on and for him, is done. His exercises, his pleasures, his duties, are

studiously varied, that monotony may not press upon him. Every effort is made to inspire him with love for his profession, to associate him with it, by exalting his vocation, by giving him a high place and import in the ranks of his countrymen.

"The Roman peasant or mechanic imbibed the useful prejudice that he received advancement in being permitted to enter the more dignified profession of arms, in which his rank and reputation would depend on his own valour." This with the French is not a prejudice, but a truth and a belief. The chief of the state speaks of the camp as an agent of civilisation, and an official paper argues "that the soldier, when freed from military service, and who returns to civil life with an education acquired in the ranks, with the respect for law and authority which that education inspires, and the self-respect and sense of dignity and of duty which it imposes, will bring with him also the desire of a continuance of the same wholesome condition of mind and feeling, which is indeed unknown to so many of the country people, that he will hence be a permanent cause of social progress, and that the country will gain through him, in the amelioration of its social condition, a compensation for the expenses which are the result of military institutions." Macaulay attributes such influence to the Puritan army, otherwise the idea would be strange to us. The soldier with us, as an abstract idea, is a hero—a fighting man-belauded and be-toasted-whose deeds are sung with excited choruses of fal-le-lal and row-de-dow; but as a fact, a social fact walking about our streets, he is a pariah, whose presence, it has been said, would pollute the deep-dyed depravity of Manchester. The ranks in which he should be received decline him, and he is thrust down from grade to grade, until he falls into the midst of Jews, publicans, and harlots, and then he is denounced as a debauched fellow, dissolute and irreclaimable.

Exalt a vocation, and the members of it will exalt themselves. Give the soldier his place in society, and he will make himself worthy of it. This, however, must be the effect of

public feeling, not of a system. The institution of camps we hail as a fact which must and will raise the vocation of the soldier, which must have healthful influences, will remove him from temptation, give him motives of emulation and endeavour, and by making him feel a soldier inspire him with the best attributes of his class.

The camp at Chalons was also for us an exposure of fallacies. There is one especially--one which has been passed from mouth to mouth, and received and quoted as an undeniable fact it is, that the English officers, as a body, are inferior to the French, and that the discipline of our army is due in great measure to our non-commissioned officers. Our observation would lead us to reverse this theory. We believe that our officers and men are superior material to the French, and that if they excel us at all, it is in the class of noncommissioned officers;-smart,intelligent, zealous, they appear to have more importance than with us, to have more intrusted to them, and, contrary to the received opinion, to` do more of the duty properly belonging to officers. The regimental officers certainly did not appear to us to exhibit any particular superiority in the drill-field and in general demeanour; and in that great attribute of an officer, the power of command, they certainly fall below our standard. Their lives and habits, too, have been thrust forward as so praiseworthy and so improving. It must be confessed that, during our residence in a French garrison, there were certain faces which we never missed from the café, the table-d'hôte or the billiard-room, except for short periods, and we have some difficulty in believing that these haunts have inspirations more elevating than the hunting-field, the cricket-ground, or the boat-race.

Spite of all our national pride, vanity, and prejudices, we are the most credulous and the most eager of people in accepting calumnies and depreciations of classes and institutions belonging to ourselves. The different natures of the two nations must ever render the French and English the representatives of the

"mobility" and "solidity" principles in military organisation. Each has had its advocates in the systems of the world, and each has had its times of preference and pre-eminence. Whether it is better to make men masses or to make masses men, has been often a question of tactics, and it is one which must depend much on the collateral circumstances of time, localities, armaments, and organisation. The French, by nature, are most adapted for, and inclined to, the mobility. Their experiences, too, have all increased the tendency. The campaigns in Algeria were favourable to it, and the army became Africanised. Mobile before, it became more so still in a long contest with semi-barbarous tribes, whose only advantage was rapidity of movement, and in a country where the usual tactics of war were impossible. They ever circulate their experiences; we too often hoard ours, as old women used to store their guineas in old stockings. The lessons of the desert were adopted as laws, and the Crimea was the harvest-field of seed sown in African marches and combats. It is with them a creed, that rapidity of movement and velocity of attack are more important elements in tactics than solidity, if it be accompanied by immobility. That quickness and locomotion are more valuable qualities in the soldier than compactness or steadfastness.

Solidity is with us almost a sacred tradition; it is also an experience. The glorious records with which it is associated have induced us to reverence even its outward forms, and led us to forget that solidity is a nature, not a system. The detached companies and groups of men who held their ground, and returned again and again to the charge at Inkerman, showed the solid nature. as truly as the impenetrable squares on the field of Waterloo. We are ever thus confounding form and spirit, and hesitate at altering the one through fear of injuring the other. There is no fear, we believe, that systems of drill will make the Saxon soldier less solid. Nor can we think that, in order to maintain his solidity, it is necessary to make him slow and rigid. Solidity is not

a thing begotten of pace-sticks, or pendulums, or drill-sergeants. The time, we believe, is come for a modification; our Indian campaigns have suggested it; the inventions of the time compel it.

The comparisons betwixt mobility and solidity, we have said, depend on eventualities. Mobility would seem most consistent with the war inventions of the present time-most adapted for the tactics demanded by the large range of projectiles. We cannot think that masses and columns will cease to be main elements in the operations of war, any more than that gun-boats, with rifled cannon, will supersede ships of the line; but undoubtedly skirmishers will be more largely employed in modern warfare; the extent of front presented by armies must necessarily be increased; and as troops will now engage at greater distances, all the formations must be made more rapidly and more simply, as every minute of delay under a rifle or artillery fire will be heavily charged with death. Now, then, would seem the time to modify our solidity, to make it more flexible, and to give the infantry a mobility as ready, if not so rapid, as that of cavalry. This, we believe, may be done by merely sweeping away prejudices and fallacies, without touching principles. How it can be done, we shall say when we treat more exclusively of the British soldier. We have one consolation-that we believe the change will be more easy to us than the opposite would be to our allies-that it is more easy to make the English soldier mobile than the Frenchman solid.

The camp has also its political aspect. Armies have again become institutions of power necessities of state. The politics of the world regard them as the great agencies of order and safety; dynasties recognise them as their protectors. Again,

the resources of nations are applied to their perfection and multiplication; the doctrine of millenniums has yielded for a time to the conviction, that the policies and economies of peoples must be directed and propelled by the prestige of physical force. The world may not be in arms, but it stands in a state of preparation for arms. None could look on the field of Chalons without recognising this. War, either present or future-war in preparation, if not in fact, was prominent everywhere. It was not a camp which peace, confident peace, would have established; it had war in prospect. It had a reading more significant than state pamphlets or speeches-a reading that, if peace is to exist, it will be on a war footing, and that nations must keep it arrayed in the aspect of war. To the people on whose borders hang the eventualities of war, it will be an anxious time-a time when every camp will seem an aggression-every increase of troops a challenge -- when armies must balance armies, and the military power be kept at an equilibrium. To those who stand aloof from the hurly-burly of policies - who arm only in defence who need not the soldier as an aid to order, or a protection to power,-it will be a time when the elements of war may be calmly prepared when the force which a great nation needs for the support of its dignity may be perfected and developed-when its material may be collected and improved-the vocation of its war-men raised-and war, in its physical and moral influences, be made to follow the progress of the sciences and the advances of civilisation.

If we thus employ this period, so full of alarms and perturbations, we may ere long look on the camp of Chalons with complacency, and hear of Cherbourg without apprehension.

WE marvel that no ingenious writer has yet attempted to write the his tory of a scarecrow; for assuredly, in able hands, it is a subject affording wide scope for invention and illustration. The coat which now gives shelter only to beetles and earwigs, and which is so infinitely rotten that a sparrow could pick it to piecesmay, for anything we know, in its prouder days, have graced the shoulders of a Brummel, or been buttoned over the breast of a Byron. Beneath its folds, be sure, many an honest heart has beat, besides some that were barely honest, as in the revolution of years it passed from owner to owner with ever-accelerating rapidity, until the last lawful possessor, finding that a garment, one shade better, had been exposed for agricultural protection, effected an exchange with the effigy which is the terror of many rookeries. That bifurcated rag beneath was once a pair of trousers, on the cut and symmetry of which, albeit out of keeping with the parenthetical limbs they enclosed, the original wearer hugged himself as he displayed his terminations in Bond Street, "in those bright days when George the Fourth was king." The crowning ornament of the pole-felt, not describable-could, were it gifted with utterance, or in the hands of a competent interpreter, reveal many phrenological secrets. Mayhap beneath it worked the busy and prolific brain of Jeremy Bentham-or Lord John Russell may have donned it when he threw aside his boy's cap, in the full conviction that he was already an anointed statesman-or Hobhouse, in his youthful glory, may have raised it to the electors of Westminster. Certainly the subject is, of all others, the most suggestive; and if any of our literary friends should think proper to avail themselves of the idea, we shall freely absolve them from larceny, provided they acknowledge the obligation. The hint is worth consideration. Of late years we have had many biographies of deceased characters, which, when true, were invariably

tiresome-when false, ridiculously inflated. They want variety; an element of interest which at once would be supplied if the garments and not the men were made the subjects of chronicle. Those who hunt for relics as memorials of the great departed, are, we apprehend, not sufficiently alive to the fact that each suburban field may contain a priceless treasure. If a proper investigation were made into the antecedents of each particular scarecrow, devil'sdust would rise in the market, and rags become more precious than the issue of the Persian loom.

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We have been led into this train of thought by an intimation that our tailor's bill-presented according to custom at Christmas, as if that genial and happy season required a minder of mortality-has not yet received the formality of a receipt. Although it may be a question how that bill is to be liquidated, we have, at all events, the satisfaction of knowing that we have contributed our full share to the prosperity of the manufacturing interest. We do not mean to insinuate that a sumptuary law is necessary to check our efforts at outward decoration; but we never could, for the life of us, resist the pathetic appeals made by dependents for the reversion of our garments. Saint Martin, who handed over half his cloak to a beggar starving of cold, has received the honours of canonisation for that act of charity; but, if we recollect aright, Saint Martin was a member of a religious brotherhood, whose clothes were furnished at the corporate expense. Therefore his charity consisted merely in submitting, for an hour or so, to the influence of the weather until the termination of his ride, when he was certain to receive, gratis, a new mantle in lieu of that which he had torn in twain. We have not the good-luck to belong to any such clothing society. No man, and no corporation, volunteer to find us in toggery. Economy and Charity seize hold of our garments by the two extremities, as Tragedy and Comedy

are represented laying violent hands upon David Garrick; and the latter generally prevails. So there is an annual, or rather perpetual, clearance of our wardrobe, which, considering that it is exorbitantly expensive, does, in our humble opinion, afford at least as good a plea for canonisation as that which was admitted in the case of the bellicose but gentlemanly Saint Martin. We have parted-and we say it in no spirit of self-glorification-with many vestures endeared to us by kindly associations, without a sigh, though we might without blame have worn them longer; feeling no more remorse than does a Methodist when his pastor departs on an endowed mission to the Cannibal Islands. We remember Juliet's phrase :

"Go, counsellor ;

Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain ;"

and we signify our approval of the sentiment by making the surrender of a waistcoat.

Of all villanous descriptions of parsimony, we most cordially detest and denounce the nefarious system of selling old clothes. Indeed, it is only one degree less atrocious than the traffic in slaves, and we rather incline to the opinion that it is the meaner abomination of the two. For what man of real sentiment and kindly heart can turn over the contents of his wardrobe without feeling that each particular article has a value in his eyes far beyond its textile worth? Those dove-coloured kersey meres-which, alas! have been sorely assailed in the rear by a cowardly squadron of moths-were ordered expressly for a fancy-ball, at which poor Jones intended to secure the promise of Matilda's hand. Years have rolled by since then. The hand of Matilda was long ago given to another; and if contributions to the census can be accepted as a proof of patriotism, she has done her duty to the country. Of that once-adored Matilda what memorial remains to Jones? Nothing beyond the breeches which he vainly believed to be irresistible. Shall he dispose of them to a Jew, even were he the Chief of the Rabbis, for the paltry consideration of some four-and-sixpence? Not

though the two tribes of Issachar and Manasseh were clamouring furiously at his door!

Yes there, in the bottom of the drawer, lies the identical shootingjacket which you wore on the occasion of the capture of your first salmon. How instantaneously does the sight of that garment recall the whole particulars of the scene! The swirl of the noble river issuing in its might from the jaws of the Brander pass, and sweeping round the skirt of Ben-Cruachan the broad pool, with its eddies and its foam-flakes-the plunge of the heavy fish, which made your heart leap to your mouth, and convulsed your whole being with a spasm of mingled terror and delight -the frantic rush, which sent your line spinning from the reel-the wild leap of the infuriated creature in its efforts for extrication-the sullen fit that followed, during which the fish lay passively at the bottom, until the awful apprehension arose that you had lost him and hooked a stone. All these things you now remember, as also the expiring effort, the successful stroke with the gaff, and the glory of the salmon on the sward. Angler, spare that jacket! for in it there lies an enchantment more powerful than any which resided in the crystal sphere of Cornelius Agrippa, wherein spiritual visions were discernible. Remember the words of Ranald of the Mist-" barter it neither for the rich garment, nor for the stone roof, nor for the covered board, nor for the couch of down," nor for the sum of eighteenpence, which is all you are likely to extract from the prowling Israelite of the areas. Keep it, therefore, as a memorial of what has been; or if it must needs go the way of all jackets— for it is evident that you can never assume it more-bestow it upon some poor fisherman, who will again carry it to the water-side, and wear it in shower and sunshine until it silently resolves itself into shoddy!

We confess that we always feel an affectionate interest in the fate of our cast-off articles of apparel, and that we should experience considerable perturbation if certiorated that they had fallen into unworthy hands. It is a very fearful thing to reflect