often because in one or two cases Mr. Frederick Locker does suggest poetic "notes," which are both akin and alien to his own. In Mr. Austin Dobson, however, we are frequently reminded, not only of Thackeray, but of Wordsworth, James Montgomery, and Mr. William Allingham. If we call to mind such poems as Wordsworth's to the Daisy, and the Lesser Celandine; Mr. Tennyson's "Talking Oak," and "Will Waterproof's Monologue at the Cock;" one or two of Thackeray's poems; and, say, half-a-dozen of Mr. Allingham's-and if we then allow the "notes" which our memories have borne away from Mr. Austin Dobson's volumes (especially the "Vignettes") to ring softly in and about our minds, we become conscious of a certain similarity. Of course, in all these cases there is a note of joyousness in the poem; but there is also a peculiar lilt both in the thought and the verse. How does this come? In every case that we have tried, we find it comes from joyousness breaking itself a little against a slight obstacle, or an obstacle slightly realized or presented and lightly overcoming that obstacle. There is a sort of discussion, or half-struggle in the poem, and this is what creates its peculiar piquancy. This will be found to hold good in some of Wordsworth's lighter pieces, where we hear quite distinctly the "note" in question. Of course, if there be wit, and humour, and fine painting in watercolour, as there is in poets like Mr. Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson, our enjoyment is all the greater.

Well, poetry of this kind must always be highly artificial in form, and must even tend to rest itself, or take shelter, under forms strictly antique. We find it is so in fact; but what is the reason? Any one who has ever tried to write verses at all similar in kind will know it is because the strict rule of the artificial form helps to break the glibness which might otherwise run into "rime doggerel." We may see this illustrated in the writings of a gentleman who has produced some truly exquisite poetry-Mr. Coventry Patmore. In "The Angel in the House" he has now and then a narrow escape-some will say he does not escape it-of "rime doggerel." In that quaint and subtle poem, the very negligences are really artificial; and in the author's last volume, the recourse to forms which remind us of Crashaw, Herrick, and their congeners, is very marked. Very visible, too, is the fact that, without some such recourse, not even Mr. Patmore's delicate skill could have saved him from occasional "rime doggerel." Take these few lines from a delightful letter of Lady Clitheroe to Mary Churchill:

"It's hard to manage men, we hear!
Believe me nothing's easier, dear;
The most important step by far
Is finding what their colours are.
The next is, not to let them know
The reason why they love us so.
The indolent droop of a blue shawl,
Or grey silk's fluctuating fall,
Covers the multitude of sins

In me; your husband, love, might wince
At azure, and be wild at slate,

And yet do well with chocolate.

Of course you'd let him fancy he

Adored you for your piety!

There now, I've said enough, my dear,

To make you hate me for a year.

You need not write to tell me so.

Yours fondly, MILDRED CLITHEROE."

Here we have the wit, the grace, and other qualities which go to make a good writer of vers de société ; but the verse would have had a "fatal facility," if the artist had not kept up a certain negligence. But negligence is forbidden in fine cameo work; so the reliance of the poet is placed upon highly artificial and often antique forms. He thus attains the security which a poet with a weightier theme, or a longer stretch of ground to cover, attains by other means.

I

F a person uninitiated in historical philosophy wishes to learn what a “survival” is, he may do so by looking at a squadron of horse guards. That force half a century ago dominated on fields of battle: it would now be probably not much more effective than a train of elephants. The bullet from the rifled musket could pierce the cuirass as if it were pasteboard, and the shattered cuirass would only aggravate the wound. The horses, not selected specially for endurance, would hardly carry the heavy riders, with their heavy equipments for a single day through the sort of work which cavalry are now called upon to perform. The regiment of cuirassiers, though still dazzling to the eye, has become, almost as completely as the Beefeaters, a pageant of the past.

The knell of the old-fashioned cavalry was tolled in the Franco-German war at Woerth and Sedan, where the French cavalry charged infantry armed with breechloaders most gallantly, but with a result fatally decisive of their impotence. At the same time the Uhlans were rendering the most memorable services to the German army.

The attention of the Russian Government seems to have been seriously attracted by these facts; and it has offered three prizes, open to competitors of all nations, for a treatise on the History of Cavalry. This has awakened the ambition of Colonel Denison, a Canadian officer who had previously distinguished himself as the author of a treatise on Cavalry which had the honour of being translated into German, and had made an especial study of the uses and exploits of that arm during the American Civil War. The prizes have not yet been awarded, Russian functionaries being no doubt taken up with more pressing occupations; but Colonel Denison has been permitted to publish his treatise without prejudice to his claims as a competitor.

It is of course specifically a history of Cavalry; but the history of Cavalry cannot be separated from the general history of war; and the result is that we have a sketch of the history of war, in a very succinct form, with the salient points well brought out and the principal actions vividly described, interesting in itself, and, to a reader acquainted with general history, instructive in its bearing on the course of politics and the progress of society.

Military history, like general history, has a misty background of primæval antiquity, in which are somewhat dimly discerned the armies of Assyrian, Scythian, Egyptian, Median, Persian conquerors, and those of pre-historic Greece and Rome. In dealing with these periods, Colonel Denison does not always show himself distinctly conscious of the mythical character of the personages, though he puts in an occasional caveat to that effect. This however, is not of much consequence, since the military institutions of a nation do not depend for their reality or character on the founders to whom national legend may ascribe them. From these coarse and primitive bodies of horse, which were for the most part little more than armed hordes upon horseback, Colonel Denison passes to the more highly organized cavalry of Greece and Rome, to that of the armies of Alexander, who appears to have been a great improver of the force, to the annals of cavalry in the feudal era, and to its services in the great armies of modern times, including the peculiar cavalry called into existence by the circumstances, both local and social, of the American civil war. In all cases he gives the general military features of the period and connects them, or enables his readers to connect them, with the social and political circumstances of the time. The accounts of the cavalry of Hannibal, of Scipio, of Gustavus

* A History of Cavalry from the Earliest Times, with Lessons for the Future. By Lieutenant-Colonel George T. Denison, Commanding the Governor-General's Body-guard, Canada; Author of "Modern Cavalry," &c. Macmillan & Co.

Adolphus, and of the French armies in the last century will be found of special interest.

Above all military organizers, whether of ancient or modern times, seems to stand Frederick the Great, whose experimental genius had, among other advantages, that of not being in the slightest degree trammelled by any regard for human life. He absolutely prohibited to the horsemen the use of firearms, and taught his men to rely upon the charge at full speed, sword in hand. To an order prescribing the mode of charging is appended what Colonel Denison calls the inspiriting addition :-"N.B.-If it is found that any soldier is not doing his duty, or is wishing to fly, the first officer or sub-officer who perceives it will pass his sword through his body."

"

Among other improvements in the tactical movements of his cavalry, Frederick is said to have introduced the system of forming line to the front from column by the oblique march of troops or squadrons, across by the straightest line to the position each was to assume in the new alignment. The system, before his day, was to wheel the head of the column to the right or left, and as soon as the whole column was upon the new line to wheel into line. These frequent wheelings and exposures of the flanks to the enemy did not please the king. He wished to avoid showing his flank to the enemy, and to march the shortest way obliquely towards them. When Frederick proposed it to some of his old officers they said it was a thing that had never been either done or thought of. It has been thought of,' said the king, and shall be done.' It was then said that the horsemen would have to be taken to the riding school and drilled for the purpose. They shall,' said the king, and the horses too.' It was then observed that many would get broken limbs before they would be able to perform this manœuvre. What signifies that,' said the king, if it should be the means of gaining a victory?' The experiment was tried, first with a few and afterwards with a larger number, and succeeded admirably. The above, which is detailed in Count Algarotti's Letters Military and Political,' shows very clearly how energetically Frederick pushed on his reforms, in spite of the traditions and prejudices existing in the army in his time."

We should say it did. But some of the generals seem to have had even more "energy" than the king :

"Seidlitz and Ziethen both bestowed great attention on the instruction of the cavalry. After the men had been well trained in the riding schools, they were manœuvred in large masses over rough ground to prepare them for service before an enemy. Seidlitz was accustomed to exercise his regiment at full speed over very broken ground, and men were often killed. Frederick once found fault with him on account of the number of deaths so occasioned. Seidlitz coolly answered, 'If you make such a fuss about a few broken necks, your Majesty will never have the bold horsemen you require for the field.' This anecdote is a striking illustration of the spirit in which the cavalry of the great Frederick were trained and handled."

Of the cavalry of Napoleon, Colonel Denison seems not to have so high an idea as of the cavalry of Frederick, and he pronounces that the Emperor had not a single cavalry general equal in genius to Oliver Cromwell.

In the interval between the wars of Napoleon and the next great war came a military revolution almost as complete as that effected by the long bow in the fourteenth century, though, from the fact that armies had become professional as well as national, not attended with such important social consequences. Arms were invented for the infantry which rendered them, like the English archers in the fourteenth century, practically unassailable by horsemen. In the battle of Woerth, Michel's cuirassiers charged the Prussian infantry, but with a very different result. from that of Murat's charge at Jena. The infantry did not even form squares, but received the charge just as they stood, with the same confidence with which the English archers received the charge of the Scotch cavalry at Homildon. The cuirassiers were almost totally destroyed. Again at Sedan the desperate attempt was made:"In this last action under the Empire the cavalry again proved that they did not lack the courage which has always distinguished the French soldiery. Toward the close of the battle General Ducrot wished to make a last desperate effort to arrest the enemy by a grand cavalry charge, and following it up, to break through hi lines. General Margueritte, with the Reserve Cavalry division, was to have n

the charge, and having broken through the enemy's position, was to wheel to the right and roll up their lines in that direction. The 2nd Reserve Cavalry division, under Bonnemain, was to support this attack, while the several regiments of Divisional Cavalry of the 12th Corps were massed together and brought forward to act as a reserve.

"The whole force moved forward to attack; they swooped down like a whirlwind, threatening to overwhelm the Prussian infantry who were advancing to the attack. The charging horsemen soon burst through the skirmishers and pressed on towards the German battalion, which, in deployed lines and steady formation, received them with a perfect tempest of bullets from the swift-loading needle-guns. Every effort to bear up against such a fire failed. The horsemen, though bravely striving and gallantly returning to the attack, were mown down in such numbers as to leave piles of the dead and dying men and horses all along the front of the Prussian lines. The whole affair was a useless and terrible sacrifice of brave men."

Probably this is about the last cavalry charge against infantry with the sabre. For the sabre Colonel Denison proposes to substitute the revolver, which he thinks may be combined with the impetus of the horse in charging. But the present tendency is obviously to give up charges altogether, and to use horsemen either as mounted riflemen, or as scouts, videttes, and a screen to cover the movements of an army.

It will be singular, if when all the military men of Europe are invited to compete, a Canadian shall win the prize. Whether that is the result or not, Colonel Denison has certainly given us a very readable, and even to the non-professional student very useful compendium of the history of war.

A

THE LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST.*

NOTHER Life of Christ coming so soon after Dr. Farrar's is rather a bold undertaking, yet we believe there is room for Dr. Geikie's work, and that it will find numerous readers. For the last thirty years at least a life of Jesus has been the popular mode of expressing particular views of Christianity, in several cases of a hostile character, but often with remarkable success when the object has not been hostile. No one, we suppose, contemplates making a Life of Christ more interesting than that which we have in the Gospels, but many things may be said in a new reading of that life which will throw light on difficulties and remove obscurities naturally expected in books written so long ago and in a country whose customs were so far removed from ours. Dr. Geikie expresses his object in these words :

"I have tried in this book to restore, as far as I could, the world in which Jesus moved; the country in which He lived; the people among whom He grew up and ministered; the religion in which He was trained; the Temple services in which He took part; the ecclesiastical, civil, and social aspects of His time; the parties of the day, their opinions and their spirit; the customs that ruled; the influences that prevailed; the events, social, religious, and political, not mentioned in the Gospels, that formed the history of His lifetime, so far as they can be recovered." The strict fulfilment of this object is the great excellence of Dr. Geikie's work, and in fact constitutes its individuality. It reads like a running commentary on the Gospels, where the knowledge is lavishly poured out, with great perspicuity of language and lucidity of arrangement. The first chapter after the Introduction is devoted to a description of Palestine, its hills and valleys, its trees and flowers. Then follows a chapter on the state of the world, politically and morally, at the advent of Christ. Dr. Geikie says:

* The Life and Words of Christ. By Cunningham Geikie, D.D. 2 vols. London: Henry S. King and Co. 1877.

"At the birth of Christ, the striking spectacle presented itself in a degree unknown before or since, of the world united under one sceptre. From the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from the mouths of the Rhine to the slopes of the Atlas, the Roman Emperor was the sole lord. The Mediterranean was, in the truest sense, a Roman lake. From the pillar of Hercules to the mouths of the Nile, on its southern shores ; from the furthest coasts of Spain to Syria on its northern; and thence round to the Nile again, the multitudes of men now divided into separate nations, often hostile, always distinct, reposed in peace under the shadow of the Roman eagles. There might be war on the far eastern frontier beyond the Euphrates, or with the rude tribes in the German forests on the north, but the vast Roman world enjoyed the peace and security of a great organic whole. The merchant or the traveller might alike pass freely from land to land; trading vessels might bear their ventures to any port, for all lands and all coasts were under the same laws, and all mankind, for the time, were citizens of a common State."

In this way every subject receives exhaustive treatment-the Herod family, the Rabbis, the Persian Magi, Nazareth, the tax-gatherers, the Roman Procurators, the Jewish festivals and religious customs. The first volume, which embraces upwards of 500 pages, gets but little beyond the beginning of Christ's ministry, while the second volume is occupied with Christ's discourses and the rest of His history. The author has availed himself largely of the critical labours of the Germans, as well as of English writers, but he is never controversial. The work is essentially a popular Life of Christ.

MR

AMERICAN ADDRESSES.*

R. HUXLEY is always fresh and always vigorous. He may often repeat himself, or spread his material over a good many pages, but he never becomes insipid. The intellectual force is ever manifest, even in digressions and détails. At first sight this volume seems only an apology for a book. It consists of three lectures on evolution, delivered in New York, and an address at the opening of the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore. Then there is added, apparently to give the volume consistency in the way of bulk, a London lecture on biology. "American Addresses" serves for a title, and nothing more, for Mr. Huxley is quite the same man in America that he is in England. Change of country effects no transformation of character.

In the Lectures on Evolution everything is said that can be said on Mr. Darwin's side by one who has at his command all available facts and arguments. Mr. Huxley is constitutionally a dogmatist in science. It is not to be expected that he will ever become really liberal—that is, able to see the world from any other point of view than that of the experimentalist. He has got into his groove, as much as the dogmatic theologian or the Ultramontane ecclesiastic; but in these days the most extreme men are occasionally pushed a little off their track, and made to confess that wisdom will not entirely die when they are dead. What a lot we have heard of late about the order of nature, and how have the inferences from this order passed into axioms! Yet let us hear Mr. Huxley. He says

"We must recollect that any human belief, however broad its basis, however defensible it may seem, is, after all, only a probable belief, and that our widest and safest generalizations are simply statements of the highest degree of probability. Though we are quite clear about the constancy of the order of Nature at the present time, and in the present state of things, it by no means necessarily follows that we are justified in expanding this generalization into the infinite past, and in denying absolutely that there may have been a time when Nature did not follow a fixed order, when the relations of cause and effect were not definite, and when extra-natural agencies interfered with the general course of nature."

American Addresses: with a Lecture on the Study of Biology. By Thomas H. Huxley. London: Macmillan & Co. 1877.