is hard to say whether the Germans display their advance more strikingly in organization, in strategy, or in tactics. The French may also afford us some useful lessons of improvement. In small arms they were plainly in advance of their adversaries. In the introduction of the Mitrailleur they had taken a bold step on which no other nation had ventured. Yet, on the whole, it is natural and proper that we should look to the victors for our chief instruction in that great and terrible art of which they have shown such consummate mastery. In seeking for the causes of their success, not one of the three great branches of military science can be safely neglected. Without a high organization, the North Germans could not have put on foot the gigantic armies which they actually brought into the field. Without special adaptation of the old rules of strategy to new circumstances, they❘ could not have moved these forces so as to let their weight have its full effect. Without tactical skill, they would inevitably have failed to reap fully the unexampled successes which their superior organization and better strategy had prepared. For it is an absolute mistake to suppose that they, on every occasion, displayed overwhelming numbers in action, in their collision with the Imperial army (no one supposes they did in their later contests with the Republican levies), there having been at least one great battle of supreme importance, where they fought against a preponderance of force that of Mars-la-Tour; while at another, that of Forbach, they were certainly not much, if at all, superior in strength to the French corps they there defeated. We shall now, however, speak chiefly of their organization. It is needless to say, that, during several months of the last year spent in close observation of their armies, I saw many things that impressed upon me the readiness, the completeness, and the practical nature of that organization on which is based the greatest empire, as to military strength, which the world has ever seen. But the incident which struck my imagination most was a visit, partly of ordinary ceremony, and partly in search of information, made to a certain officer, chief of staff to a general in high command, whose name I do not repeat here, but merely say that it is one which is known throughout Europe as that of a veteran justly distinguished for being a thorough soldier. The colonel of whom I speak particularly, I found to be a fine-looking military man, of pleasant aspect and open manner, skilled in the theory of his profession, and apparently not the less acquainted with every detail of each arm over which he had to watch, so far as my questions, which were answered with the most perfect frankness, could enable me to judge. He was responsible to his chief for all the daily working of that great machine, an army corps in its full strength; and this, too, quartered in a land politically hostile, and yet not governed by martial law a position, perhaps, the most trying which a soldier of fine qualities can be placed in. His duties would oblige him to communicate officially, not only with the heads of departments in the corps itself, but with numerous civil functionaries, some of French origin, others imported from Germany. And yet he could find time to converse leisurely with a stranger desirous of picking up all possible information, to answer specific questions clearly and in detail, and to avoid the least show of hurrying his inquisitive guest away, who left him, therefore, only when pressed by his own natural desire not to trespass unduly on this genuine courtesy. The secret of this ease of manner and hospitable bearing was revealed in that which struck his visitor so forcibly, the moderate nature of his ordinary day's work. Three letters on his table to answer, and but two registers to look over, formed, with the addition of a visitor's book in the passage outside, what may be called the whole morning's stock-in-trade of a functionary whose first duty it was to think for twenty-five thousand men, instead of going over other people's work who could be trusted to do it for themselves, or taking their duty altogether out of the hands of his subordinates to perform it himself in the hurried manner, which so many here will recognize, of an able man overwhelmed with the multitude of self-imposed details. Let any one of this audience think of what he knows of our chief military offices, or of those of France (should he happen to be acquainted with the working of the military machine as it has been managed there for the last fifteen years of the twice-revived and twice-destroyed empire), and he will realize for himself one main cause why the German staff-officer is more able to act with the full powers of his judgment at critical moments than his compeer in other services. Realizing this, he may naturally wish to hear more of the manner in which the decentralizing principle has been applied in the German system, to strip high office of those terrors of toil which in other armies oppress it. Now, no one, I think, will assert that English officials are, man for man, inferior in integrity, diligence, and patriotism, to those of any other nation. The key to such superiority, as is asserted by the Germans, must lie in their organization, of which it will be well here to speak a little in detail. All well-read Englishmen know something of the great change in Prussian military institutions which occurred after 1859, the stimulus, beyond any doubt, being those French victories in Italy, which for a time forced Prussia and Austria to consult for each other's security -as at the famous Töplitz interview of 1860-against the menacing power of the Second Empire. But comparatively few have heard that besides the military revolution accomplished in the strengthening of the regular army at the expense of the Landwehr, and thrusting the latter altogether out of the first line, a change hardly less important was carried out in the system of mobilization. True, this had already long since been conducted by corps, a corps to every province; but whereas until now the corps on its peace footing had been sent into the field to be made up thereafter to complete war fitness, from the depôts far be hind, it was resolved thenceforth that mobilization should in each case be a business completely and wholly carried out locally by local authority, so that the corps, if required, should go forth from its province a perfect machine, and its chief-handing over his charge thenceforward to a deputy, who would be responsible for all the further supplies which re-enforce it might give his undivided attention to his field duties. The change was great, and its effect has been greater even than the authors had hoped. Being present with the German armies in 1859, and a close observer of their proceedings, I was struck with the confusion and irregularity with which the troops arrived at their various quarters on the Rhine. Of course, this was more noticeable among the contingents of the minor States than in that of Prussia; yet it was everywhere visible, even to the eye of one who could look no more closely than an ordinary traveller was allowed to do. We Englishmen, even in an "alarmist" story, could hardly have been in a more portentous hurry and flutter to put one hundred and fifty thousand men into the field. And the reasons of this, which I did not then fully understand, were mainly in the crossing of orders between the different mobilized corps and the various provinces from which they were severally hastening, to get their troops equipped and re-enforced to war strength. Solferino came, before the German army was ready, or its masters fully determined to throw its weight into the field against the victorious French. So the Peace of Villafranca was signed by Napoleon_with Austria alone, and the inevitable contest which Baron Stoffel was not alone in foretelling, was postponed for ten years more. But the lessons of 1859 were not lost on the King of Prussia and his counsellors; and the great truth was fairly grasped, and became part of their military creed, that a peace army, scattered through a dozen provinces, can only be effectively mobilized without difficulty, and used without delay, by insisting on its being sent, fully equipped, into the field, and by giving its provincial or corps commanders, in order to attain this object at once, the largest discretion in the matter of organization consistent with their subordination to the central authority. This principle once fairly grasped, each chief of a corps is expected to be ready within a certain time known to be sufficient; and once thus ready, his command becomes a compact, complete unit for military purposes, moved by a single word, and hardly more interfered with in its interior economy than a battalion would be with us had we an army in the field. In no other way could the masses of men be brought to the enemy's frontier which were collected in 1866 and 1870 to attack Austria and France, with the machine-like order which conceals, if it do not altogether prevent, mistakes, and gives to the astonished world the appearance of an organization that has attained the unattainable in human affairs- perfection itself. I have spoken of my official visit to a high Prussian staffofficer, and the astonishment produced on my mind by the absence of nearly all detail work from the cabinet where I was received, and of all hurry from the manner of the colonel who entertained me. This struck me as a sort of revelation, and never left my mind; and when I came back to England, before the winter, the first thing I read was a descrip ion in Macmillan's Magazine of the hurry and worry within and without our War Office, which preluded the autumn manœuvres, contrasted by a clever writer with the calm confidence of the Prussian staff under the sudden excitement of the battle of Forbach. This article, which I met with by chance, seemed to be a sermon on the text read by the absence of petty work from the office of the chief of the staff visited some months before upon the Continent. For how the Prussians have reached this quiet confidence of working, lies not in the individual superiority of their officials, but in the system of their employment; under what it is the fashion to call decentralization, but which really consists in throwing the proper responsibility on the proper men. We are obliged to resort to this more practical form of government in India, though neglecting it at home; but in fact, our Indian Empire would infallibly break down instantly of its own weight, if we applied to it the lumbering and antiquated practices under which departments in London are carried on. The War-office clerks, whom the Macmillan critic laughed at for sitting up all night to muddle the work which could only be managed properly on the ground at Aldershot, are a type of one system. The Prussian general, sitting tranquilly at the window at Saarbruck, who had never seen a French soldier under fire, and yet received unmoved the brief reports which told him that he was engaging in the first pitched battle for sixty years between the Teuton and the Gaul, is a representative of the other. Gen. Goeben could afford in that instance to keep his attention from being absorbed in the details of the skirmishing along the Spicheren heights, and to give it to the more important question of the support of the corps so suddenly engaged, because he was trained to a method of employing bodies of disciplined men which supposes that all those put into places of charge will rise to the level of their responsibilities if fairly left to meet them. He had been brought up in the grand school of the corps organization, which Moreau introduced originally; which Napoleon, though a great centralizer, adopted for his own, and so struck the most deadly blow at centralization ever felt; but which it was left to King William and his minister to improve into the grandest instrument of war that man has ever disposed of. The advantages of this principle, as applied to the army corps, have been so fully recognized, both in theory and practice, that it has been carried on beyond the corps in both directions, above and below it. Hence the formation, for strategic purposes, of so-called army commands, into several of which a great army, composed of numerous corps, is in time of war distributed, and of which there were five ultimately in France, when the hostilities were closed. Having thus decentralized their corps, and also provided a war system under which the head-quarter staff would not have the burden of communicating personally even with the chiefs of all these great units, but only with the intermediate commanders of armies, the Prussian organizers have of late much further utilized their experience of the vast advantages gained by divesting the chief agency in war of detail work. They have carried the principle of individual responsibility downwards within the corps, through its various elements. The division generals exercise much more authority than was originally sketched out for them, and but few cases of supply and discipline need go beyond them. The brigadiers have less of this responsibility, but the regimental commander (a functionary not hitherto existing in our military system, though his creation seems now to be contemplated) has very great personal control over his three-battalion command. This again leaves the battalion commander often in an inferior position of responsi bility as compared with ours; but, on the other hand, the company-chief is a much more responsible and independent person than our captain—as befits, indeed, his larger command and recognized state as a mounted officer. But even when all this is stated, we have by no means exhausted the process by which the Prussians have relieved the chiefs of their army from the minor cares which no single man can undertake-as Napoleon attempted in Russia for half a million of soldiers, and really perform For, besides the subdivision for strategical purposes into army commands, so few in number as to avoid all confusion and difficulty in the conveyance of orders from headquarters, and under chiefs empowered and competent to carry these out, by detailing their various corps accordingly, the division of labor has been carried a stride farther by the establishment of separate Etappen (staff) commands, which are organized for the special purposes of keeping up the supply and communications of the armies in the field. Formerly, the greatest anxiety of a generalissimo was directed to these lines, and his active forces were constantly being weakened by detachments made to guard them. Now a Prussian commander advancing against the enemy is relieved from this by the system which gives the custody of the line of communication to a special staff, whose ore business it is to attend to this important duty. A very great indirect advantage of this division of labor is, that a vast number of the reserve officers, chiefly from the middle classes, civilians in time of peace, but available for war service at the country's need, make excellent Etappen officials, though too old, or otherwise unfitted for the harder duties of the field. Thus I have heard of a certain Elappen station commanded by a veteran reserve officer with the noninal rank of major, seventy-two years old, whose adjutant had the ripe experience of sixty-nine summers; and it was added that they both performed their simple duties very efficiently indeed. Finally, to relieve still more the working-staff of the army during the heat and anxiety of war, each post that it is of importance to maintain at home is, from the first hour that the corps begins to move from its province, filled by a deputy acting with full powers. By these officials the whole further business is carried on of keeping up the supplies of the great machine which has gone forth completed, and thus the strain is taken off those who lead it in the field, and who may henceforth give their undivided care to its active conduct. Even a second-rate man, starting thus lightly-weighted, may well perform such feats of activity as would have worn down any ordinary leader under the system through which Napoleon and his marshals administered their commands sixty years since. Add to the advantages thus gained for the corps commanders, the still higher freedom from administrative duties of every kind which the army commanders enjoy, their only care being how best to direct corps by the movements of the great masses under them, so as to follow out the general design issued from head-quarters, and we see at once that the Germans have reached the practical working of the system of personal trust in personal exertion, which the Archduke Albert, in his fine essay, "On Responsibility in Time of War," has recommended to his own nation for adoption. The idea of a special link in the chain of responsibility between the corps leaders and the chief of the whole army is by no means altogether new. Napoleon was forced to it by circumstances in 1813, when Ney twice held such an intermediate command. But it was more systematically adopted by the American generals in 1863-4, when Sherman marched upon Atlanta, at the head of two united armies, under Generals Schofield and Thomas, whilst Grant simultaneously invaded Virginia with two more, under Meade and Burnside. As in the late war, when the first and second German armies blockaded Metz, and the third and fourth united to invest Paris, so the generals of these American armies exercised full powers as commanders-in-chief, except in subordinating the general disposition of their forces to the orders of the supreme head, thus releasing Sherman and Grant from all care of details, and leaving them free to give their whole minds to the higher functions of command. The advantage was just that with which the Emperor-king, or Von Moltke for him, enjoyed when controlling the whole theatre of war in 1870, from a single chamber at some wayside inn or obscure château. This system may possibly have its disadvantages. It has been especially pointed out that when two armies under different heads unite on the battle-field, as did those of Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles at Forbach, and those of the Crown Prince and the Prince of Saxony at Sedan, the conjunction might very possibly lead to the crossing of orders, through jealousy or accident, and the result be peril or disaster. The case of the Austrians at Solferino, where their army acted in two great wings, under Schlick and Wimpffen, and these two generals, as well as their chief the Emperor, sent contradictory and confusing orders, is pregnant with such a moral. All one may here safely say is, that the evil did not show itself in the Prussian operations in either of the instances already cited, nor in the still more critical case of Mars-la-Tour, where Prince Frederick Charles, beginning the battle entirely with his own command, received most effective support in the course of the day from Barnekow's division of the Eighth corps, which belonged to the army of Steinmetz. Possibly the perfect discipline of the Prussians may account for this; but the fact that royal blood was in each case united to high command, could hardly have been without some influence in so loyal an army. At any rate, the advantages of this new sub-division checking, as it does, through intermediate hands, the movements of the corps far more effectually than the old Napoleonic plan of sending each its orders daily - are held in Germany to outweigh any such theoretical defect. The confusion that ensued on Leboeuf's trying to cover the French frontier at the outset of the war with eight disseminated corps, each receiving its orders from head-quarters, is hardly likely to justify the contrary view to disinterested critics. The new arrangements for the more complete division of responsibility, just described, facilitate greatly, whilst greatly influencing, strategy. A careful review of the leading features of the war of 1870-71 would plainly illustrate the advance of strategic science made by Von Moltke, aided by this distribution of his invading force into several armies operating on different lines, a principle adhered to up to the last, whilst the chief staff-officers in the field were kept from the harassing cares of supply, by the system of Etappen lines, and of deputies in their offices at home. It will be enough here since we have not space for more to cite the masterly movements by which the French force round Metz was detained there by the First and Second Armies, whilst the Crown Prince, with the Third, constantly turned its flank, ready at any moment to wheel northward, and strike the fatal blow which Mars-laTour and Gravelotte made needless; or the still grander operations which United the Third and Fourth Armies round their doomed prey at Sedan; in order to show the power of combination exercised with such tremendous instruments, acting under the will of a clear and farsighted chief. Time would altogether fail us did we turn to strategical details now, much more to the interesting tactical lessons which the new system of war affords, and which it was my privilege a year since to be the first to expound to English officers. To-day we must be content with our brief review of the most modern and most improved organization - the highest example of its kind ever offered to the world's study. We live in an age of which it has just been said by Lord Hobart, Cobden's professed expounder, that peace is no more than a military truce. We may well, therefore, congratulate ourselves that the country has found a Minister willing and able to grapple with that important problem of the organization of our scattered military means which presses on the nation. If the result be but to make real the force of reserves we have hitherto reckoned only on paper, it will be a splendid achievement indeed. I took occasion some years since to urge on the Volunteers the necessity of bringing their discipline up to a proper standard, and pointed out the besetting sins of that description of force as illustrated in the American armies, and set. forth by a distinguished American volunteer. Merely to wish to be an army, it was then affirmed, is not to be one. But the power to reform the force, it is now evident, must come from above; and the task is one that needs a statesman, for the Volunteers have scarcely at present the power, if they had the will, to do what other friendly advisers, besides myself, have long since urged on them; and not merely to wish to be, but to be, disciplined and trained up to that necessary standard which would make the existence of the force a defence, rather than, as hitherto, a snare to our country. Then, indeed, might the nation write on its gates the noble text of Gustavus Adolphus, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Surely, better do this than accept the gamester-like advice of such dangerous writers as Mr. Vernon Harcourt, and stake the whole honor- nay, the very life of the empire on a single throw of the die with our fleet. tion. VICTOR HUGO'S "L'ANNEE TERRIBLE." TILL now, since the publication of "Les Châtiments" M. Hugo has done nothing quite worthy of his early reputa"Les Misérables," "Les Travailleurs de la Mer," and "L'Homme qui Rit," were productions of undoubted merit, although but too often open to ridicule; but while we admired the many magnificent passages that are to be found in those works, we failed to discover in them the highest qualities of the author of "Notre Dame de Paris." It appeared as if an unfortunate propensity for metaphysical considerations robbed the reader of M. Victor Hugo's principal fascinations. Antitheses became hopelessly ludicrous by their obscurity, and for the last ten years the public has been fain to accept an enigmatic style, which, at times, is utterly incomprehensible, and waited in vain for something that would bring back in his full vigor the Hugo of old days. Circumstances have helped the poet; the political misfortunes of France could not but awake in him the feu sacré which inspired "Les Châtiments." He has worked indefatigably during the terrible events of 1870 -71. We have now before us the results of his labor-a volume of poems filling no less than four hundred and thiry pages. This time we have, indeed, no reason for discontent nor disappointment; for no production ever offered such a wonderful variety of subjects, together with perfect ensemble, as "L'Année Terrible." The title tells clearly enough the subject of the volume: it is a series of powerful poems on the principal events which occurred between the capitulation of Sedan and the insurrection of the Commune. It relates the hopes, sufferings, and disasters of Paris during its two sieges, the horrors of civil war, the unwonted cruelty of both parties, and the consequences of grievous political mistakes committed by those who successively ruled the destinies of the nation during a year of revolution. "L'Annee Terrible" partakes of the character of " Les Châtiments" "and "La Légende des Siècles" it links, as it were, the two works together, and forms with them a lyric poem on the largest scale. The romantique poet has divided his work into twelve parts,just like a classique,- corresponding to the twelve months between August, 1870, and July, 1871. We find on the first page a dedication to Paris, followed by a short note, which informs us that the poem included among its various subjects pieces on the state of siege, which the author has deemed it prudent to keep back, although their publication is to take place as soon as circumstances will permit. The poem has a prologue, "The 7,500,000 Ayes," which was originally printed in the Rappel. Although rather obscure at times, it is a powerful protest against the empire, and demands pity for those whose ignorance maintained it during a quarter of a century. We do not think that M. Victor Hugo was ever particularly happy when discoursing on certain political subjects; his splendid imagination is so far from at home on such occasions, that the reader must allow the poet the almost unlimited indulgence to which such a mind has a claim. Yet it is impossible to be blind to the sombre energy which is the principal characteristic of this prologue. The month of August includes only one poem, entitled, "Sédan," which may be taken as the sequel of "L'Expiation" of "Les Châtiments." Never did the poet aim harder blows at the empire: there is throughout a tone of calm indignation, together with a pitiless hatred that is really terrible. This piece is commendably free from the slight triviality in which M. Hugo occasionally indulges, and forms a fit opening of the book. September is more extensive, and contains several short poems, which are a striking instance of M. Victor Hugo's marvellous power; in the one entitled "Prince à Prince-et-demi," patriotism shows itself in passionate outbursts, to which the exquisite address, "A Petite Jeanne," stands in vivid contrast by its grace and sweetness. In the following months, the principal events of the siege are told; and the poem in this place has the appearance of an epic record. Every thing that was remarkable during that painful period is commemorated in "L' Année Terrible." We notice here "Choix entre deux Nations," "Nos Morts," and especially "Le Pigeon," where M. Hugo devotes a score of touching verses to the bird which (as he says) "bore under its wing the destinies of France." There are also one or two bombastic addresses to the Germans, which would be considerably the better for sobriety of expression. Then we come to the light and charming "Lettre à une Femme par Ballon monté," in which the daily incidents of the siege, the novel fare of the population, the appearance of the dark streets, deprived of gas, are dwelt on with a dignified gayety and pleasing familiarity. The poet speaks again here of his two grandchildren, George and Jane, for whom he seems to have all the love which he felt for his deceased son Charles. In January and February we have the capitulation of Paris and the conclusion of the peace. M. Victor Hugo expresses in the strongest terms his indignation at the conduct of the Government of National Defence. The verses on the Treaty of Peace are by no means the best in the book. In March, a family misfortune struck the poet: Charles Hugo died; of his premature end, the father speaks in the same pathetic strain in which, in the pages of the "Contemplations," he lamented his unfortunate daughter, Madame Vacquerie, who was drowned at Havre with her husband. The seventh canto treats of a critical period; the insurrection of the Commune engrosses M. Victor Hugo's attention. From this point, in fact, the work becomes exclusively political. "Paris Incendié" is a masterpiece of energy and versification: "Les deux Trophées" is a plea for the Vendôme Column and the Arc de Triomphe-the one on the eve of destruction, the other furiously battered by the Versailles shells. M. Hugo defends the conquered. While he deprecates the excesses of the insurrection, he deplores the cruelty of the Versailles troops, and says that vengeance must breed vengeance and hatch new cataclysms for the future. "A Ceux qu'on Foule aux Pieds" is perhaps the most striking portion of "L'Année Terrible: " M. Victor Hugo certainly never expressed finer sentiments in finer language. From recent publications, it was to be expected that the readers would be entertained with personal accounts of M. Hugo's expulsion from Belgium, after the raid which was made on his residence in Brussels; indeed, the French poet has always more or less identified his person with his works, and put himself conspicuously forward. In this particular case, however, he does so modestly, betrays no anger, hatred, or passion. His language is throughout remarkable for its dignity and modera tion when the writer alludes to himself; but in this canto we notice a relapse into a bellicose patriotism which many will be inclined to think calculated to produce the worst results on the masses. M. Hugo clamors for "la Revanche," by all means and at any price; and he does so in verses which must inflame Frenchmen in the highest degree, because of the passion, eloquence, and evident sincerity of the writer. We are glad, however, not to find in this, or any other part of "L'Année Terrible," the name of Napoleon the First, for whom M. Victor Hugo so illogically professes the greatest admiration. It is obvious that if he has not eschewed his idol, he has, anyhow, reconsidered some of his views. The eleventh canto contains, besides miscellaneous pieces, a satire of intense and hardly justifiable bitterness on Gen. Trochu. M. Victor Hugo is not accustomed to make such direct personal attacks; but it appears that the late Governor of Paris ventured on a lively criticism of M. Victor Hugo as a National Guard, in a legislative speech. This insures him a place in "L'Année Terrible," not a very enviable one, whatever may be the justice of the writer's attack; for M. Victor Hugo's sarcasms are cutting in the extreme. This is his conclusion: "L'amère histoire un jour dira ceci de toi : The principal feature of the twelfth canto is "Les might form a separate volume. Innocents," a poem which, from its extent and quality, To sum up, Lastly, the book closes with a fine dialogue between "The Old World and the Tide," supposed to be the explanation of the author's object. We ought also to mention, as a curiosity, an address to Henry the Fifth. The republican poet congratulates the crownless offspring of the Bourbons on having refused to abandon his flag. "L'Année Terrible" may be classed among the most powerful works if it be not the most powerful of M. Victor Hugo. The whole constitutes an ardent appeal to patriotism, concord, and mutual indulgence, an appeal to the better sentiments of the writer's fellowcountrymen. The book is a continual protest against vio lence; and, with one exception, an invitation to internal and external fraternity. We have detected not a single word against those who directed the defence of Paris until the war is at an end. The poet betrays indomitable, and at times injudicious, patriotism; but is strictly faithful to his policy of conciliation, at any price, in presence of a foreign enemy. This new book must ever remain a record of a fatal period in French history, and as one of the triumphs of French modern literature, whatever may be thought of the writer's political or theological opinions. GARDENING AT LILLE. IN early summer, the rhythm of the railway-train from Calais to Lille beats pleasant music, though somewhat monotonous, -a pastorale in A flat, imbued throughout with quiet sweetness, to be marked "dolce" if arranged for the piano. To my mind, it nearly marked the measure of Haydn's "With verdure clad the fields appear, Delightful to the ravish'd sight," which I involuntarily kept humming to myself, as when one is haunted by the ghost of a tune. But it really is a well-sustained movement, allegro moderato, with ever-recurring themes (almost amounting to a refrain) of emerald pastures, lowing herds, slow-creeping streams, tufted pollards, tall elms, sometimes clustered into clumps, sometimes ranged in rectilinear rows, hedgeless fields of corn coming into ear, and market-gardens outspread before the towns and villages. Such is the burden of the song, the hymn of labor which man addresses to a bountiful Providence. The occasional fiori The ture interspersed along its current, are patches of lilacflowered popies (grown to make salad-oil from their seed), sweet-scented areas of blossomed beans, and white lilies floating in every pool and river. The farther you advance, the more cheerfully you find the earth to be singing with gladness. On quitting the main line of rail, in order to take that which leads into the city, the locomotive makes a long ad libitum cadenza, the train, meanwhile, counting a pause. The gap in the fortifications by which it enters Lille is the double bar which closes the passage. whole strain has not been long enough to tire, but quite long enough to make you glad to listen to something new. Many people are likely to pass through Lille this season, on their holiday trip; for Lille is on the way to the Rhine, and divers other pleasant places. If fond of gardening, they may halt there with advantage for half a day or so. Lille can show gardens untouched by the ruin which has devastated those of Paris. Even supposing the poor Parc Moneçaux put to rights again, who can forget that on that velvet sward, so many men were fusilles, beneath that other smooth turf so many more were buried, and though it is said they were taken away, they may be there still; that, on the edge of that flower-border, the wicked old woman sat down, refusing to budge farther, saying that if she was to be shot, she might as well be shot there?-and she was shot, together with her lame husband, who begged her, by letting him hobble to the Place Vendôme, to prolong his life by the length of that halting pilgrimage. No: the gardens of Paris must still be haunted; their flowers, for a time, must owe their brightness to having been manured Iwith human blood. Poor Parc Monceaux! once the trimmest of trim Parisian gardens; perhaps the most highly-finished horticultural gem in Europe; over-finished even, with the smooth, elaborate hardness of a Flemish still-life picture, or a bouquet of porcelain flowers. One looked at it with the same sort of wondering curiosity as is excited by Chinese carvings in ivory, or other efforts of patience that have taken years to accomplish. Give me rather a broad, effective sketch by one of our landscape-gardeners, from Capability Brown downwards. But there it was, comparatively small, as one of the public walks in the centre of civilization; which smallness tempted its managers, instead of making it picturesque, to polish it up to the highest possible pitch, with grass-plots bright as any in the Emerald Isle, the result of perpetual watering with artificial dew, and with expensive plants lavished with a profusion which was called reckless, until it was discovered that the public money might be even more recklessly spent. What say you, for instance, to a bed of caladiums, an oval guessed to be ten yards long by five yards across, at the middle, costing, to fill it from the most reasonable nursery-man's, not much less than fifty pounds? All that was. Fuit. It is only now beginning to to try hard to be once more its former self. A change, too, has come over Lille and its gardens; but happily it is a change only in name, showing the transitory nature of all things French. Lille, like most important towns, towards the close of the Second Empire, has been considerably demolished, rebuilt, and enlarged. The re sult, as it stands at present, is a happy combination of the new with the old, still in the way of farther completion. Meanwhile, the Rue Napoléon, really a noble street, has become the Rue Nationale, the Boulevard de l'Impératrice, is re-christened the Boulevard de la Liberté — O`Liberty, what things have men done in thy name! The Jardin de l'Impératrice is now the Jardin de Vauban; and the Jardin de la Reine Hortense well, I am not quite sure that the Queen Hortense has been pushed aside to make way for any citoyen or citoyenne. The really old streets and places retain their original names; and towns in this part of France have often droll ones. Lille has a Rue des Chats Bossus, a street of hump-backed cats, while St. Omer has a Rue de l'Ane Aveugle, a blind ass street. Lille also coincides with St. Omer and Dunkerque (though not quite to so great an extent) in lodging work-people in cellar dwellings. There are cellar shops, even cellar flower-shops, cellar restaurants, and cellar tippling-places. Doth not Maria retail eatables by platefuls, to be consumed subterraneously on the premises, if such be the true interpretation of "A la Cave Marie on donne à manger par portion"? Perhaps even this Maria, like Sterne's, may whisper to some favored customer, "Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio." The Grande Place of Lille is the small but sightly heart and centre, which gives the impulse to a wide-spread circulation reaching extremities far beyond the circle of fortifications. On market-days it used to be crowded; but the erection of spacious covered markets in different parts of the town, has relieved it of all inconvenient plethora or congestion. Walk from the Grande Place up the Rue Nap no, Nationale, and you will come to a public garden, to the right, which is a sort of preface to the other gardens. Enter; look round; and criticise. The place is nicely kept, in respect to neatness; some of the combinations may be taken as experimental in point of taste, as all gardening must be, more or less. There is a bed of white-leaved centaury, with a broad border of Harry Hieover, a dwarf geranium, much in fashion in Paris before the wa', with flowers approaching the orange nasturtium in color. Mem. I am trying as a substitute for this centaury, both in masses and as a border, a native seaside plant, the horned poppy, Glaucium flavum or luteum, which has white, downy, deep-cut leaves, canary-yellow flowers, and a curious long seed-vessel, which gives it its name. This horned poppy, being perfectly hardy, deserves the patronage of amateurs, and all whom it may concern. Collect the seed during your seaside strolls; sow in the open ground, and prick out the young plants where they are to remain. There is a bed of double geraniums-scarlet Gloire de Nancy, and pink-faced Mme. Lemoinne; but they don't tell as bedding plants. In wet weather, the faded heads of flowers, brown and mouldy, remain upheld by the withered stalks, like used-up quids that had been tossed aside after exhaustion by some brave militaire. The only remedy for this is hand-picking, as soon as the flowers have lost their fresh ness. There you behold a bed of pansies, whose flowers, singly, are good for little or nothing, ill-shaped, ill-marked, meagre, though of a clear, honest blue, but which are pleasingly effective, as a whole, because they are all the same variety, and of the same identical tint. Compare this with any collection of pansies (in which the object is to have the flowers as varied as possible), as seen from a distance, which you may remember beholding, and you will learn - though perhaps you knew it before- that mixed and parti-colored pansies (that is, either of diverse colors in each flower, or a mixture of different self-colored flowers in the same bed), produce no effect beyond that of a dingy patch upon the grass. To obtain from them any satisfactory result, in masses, you must combine, either in beds or in ribbons, selfs of the same identical hue. In fact, one object in visiting gardens like this, is to study the effects of experimental combinations of vegetable hues, and to glean hints respecting horticultural contrasts; to learn what low, trailing plant will make a suitable carpet and undergrowth beneath taller specimens; what foliageborder will best become what middle of flowers. Those broad patches of gray produce their effect; so do those tufts of variegated-leaved dahlias; so does that combination of india-rubber shrubs and golden-feather pyrethrum, the one above, and the other below. How do you like that oval mound of glaucous-green echeveria rosettes, bordered with alternanthera, whose leaves are beginning to assume the hue of badly-pickled red cabbage? It is a floral salmagundi and decidedly curious. What do you think of that fringe of begonias, on the shady side of a clump of shrubs? How do you approve of the employment of rhubarb as an ornamental plant? Is it not too suggestive of pudding and tart, to be made conspicuous in a place like this? But as for that, you will see, in the town, angelica, grown in boxes as a window plant- and a plant of dignified presence it is. At the very entrance of the prefatory garden, you may remark both the economy and the appropriateness of doing |