Not all the memories the past can hallow,
Not all the restless present may despise—
The present hour may go, the past lie fallow—
Can match the future, dazzling to our eyes.
What is to come?

Is it to come, that slavish fetters broken,
Shall strew the land which vaunts of liberty?
Shall freedom's falchion be rebellion's token,
Or bondage tremble on the palsied knee?
What is to come?

Shall war o'er all the earth e'er bathe his fingers
In sorrow's tears, and kiss the cheek of peace,
As was foretold of old by sacred singers,
And earth o'erflush with bountiful increase?
Is this to come?

The vainly proud, the selfishly ambitious,
Shall they o'erride the fortunes of mankind?
Or shall their teachings false, and schemes pernicious,
By honest wrath be scattered to the wind?
Is this to come?

Thou patient, honest toil, take this assurance—
Although of thy bright visions some will fade,
One end alone has faithful stern endurance
That ever God and grateful nature made.
This IS to come!

Reward and true endeavour are near neighbours,
Whom pits and rugged obstacles divide;
And pleasant fancy's glow will cheer the labours
Which leads endeavour to her guerdon's side
In time to come.

BATTLE ARRAY.

PEACE being broken, there are many who
now look to see

Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way.

For some time past, however, quiet people
have consoled themselves with the belief that,
because war has been made deadlier and costlier
by the advance of science during years of peace,
battles by sea and land, if they are to be fought
at all, must henceforward be fought under new
conditions. The issue of a trial of strength, we
are taught to hope, will never again be left
unsettled during many years. In the mean time,
generals and admirals who may direct any part
of such a struggle, need their wits. Much of
the newest military science is about to become
obsolete. The area of battle-fields, extended by
the use of gunpowder, has been again vastly
extended by inventions which assure a marvellous
increase of its effective power. On solid ground,
new forms of battle array will soon be demanded.
At sea, there is an end of the old line of engagement.
The admiral who has steam-frigates to
command and to attack, should he attempt to
repeat Nelson's feat at Trafalgar in Nelson's
way, would bring about the absolute destruction
of his own fleet and the easy triumph of
the enemy.

The issue of a war of principles does not
depend wholly upon generalship. Very much, of
course, is determined by the temper of the
masses of the combatants. But strategy in
planning a campaign, and tactics in the conduct
of a battle, certainly have rescued or ruined
many a state. It is clear, too, that every addition
of a scientific element into the art of war
increases the demand made on the powers of the
general. Against British troops, good generalship
has, no doubt, often been wasted, because,
as Napoleon said, they do not know when they
are beaten. The shock of battle has not seldom
been hurled against a line of them, two deep, so
that they ought to have broken before it;
but they would do nothing of the kind. They
destroy the fairest calculations, by their stupid
obstinacy in remaining on a field until they have
conquered it. They never will have science
enough to perceive when the best military
doctrine teaches them to run, or to retire. The
Duke of Wellington relied much, on this happy
sort of dulness in his countrymen. He made
constant use of deployed lines two deep. "Ah,"
somebody said to him, "but you formed part of
your infantry in column at Waterloo." "That,"
said the duke, "was, because there were soldiers
of whom I was not so sure as I am of British
troops." "Then," it was urged, "the column
must be best, for you felt safe in its solidity."
"Certainly," he replied, "columns are good
also; but that depends upon the ground, and on
the spirit of the troops."

A certain distinctness in our notion of the
history of war, as an art, will help us to understand
some of the forthcoming changes in its
aspect. Only, when we talk of generalship, let
us not forget that, in our own country and our
own time, such things are possible as soldiers'
victories, in which the fortitude of the mass,
though badly generaled, can foil in battle the
best tactics of the adversary. There is
something in brave men, with a good cause, that is
always greater, and not seldom stronger, than
the subtlest military skill.

In the very old time, when our tale begins
(and we are chiefly helped in telling it by
Colonel Graham's recent book upon the Art of
War), in the very old time, there was no skill
supreme even over a mere bodily strength:

Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails,
And stones and fragments from the branching woods.

The hardest hitter with a fist, or club, or stone,
was the best man in battle, and, by right of his
fist, commonly the chief. When tribes of men
fought for supremacy, they butted at, and
wrestled with, each other. They threw stones
and darts, and they soon found that a stone flies
best from a sling, and a dart when it is twanged
from a stiff bow. Ishmael, we learn from the
oldest of books, "grew and dwelt in the wilderness,
and became an archer." The sling is said
to have been invented of old by the inhabitants
of the Balearic Isles (meaning the "skilful in
throwing" isles), who were trained to bring
down with stones from the roof-beams of
their houses, all the bread and meat they got
during their childhood. Seneca says (but
nobody believes), that of old time balls of lead were
sent from the sling so swiftly, that the rapid
movement sometimes caused the lead to melt.
Such was primitive artillery, and it remained
for many centuries in use.