flying, the band strikes up "Yankee Doodle" with the most powerful application of the big drum, and a patriotic jollification completes the sacrifices a man makes for his military education. Such an excursion was made during the presence of the Japanese embassy at Washington by the 7th New York Regiment, and created an intense excitement. Of a different description was the tour of the Chicago Zouaves. A number of honest grocers and tailors came together in that city in 1859, donned the uniform of the French Zouaves, and invented a new manoeuvre, which they thought proper to christen "the Zouave mode of fighting." First came a little sharpshooting, and then the formation of a pyramid, one rank kneeling, a second standing, a couple of other men on the shoulders of the latter, and a single man forming the apex. With this piece of folly, which was intended to bring all the muskets into fire simultaneously, they gave performances in several towns. We should not have objected to it from a party of acrobats, but it was unworthy of soldiers, and the worst was, everybody believed in it. In New York, where the whole press talked for a week about no other subject than the Chicago Zouaves, a militia colonel even set to work establishing a similar corps. We wonder the worthy gentleman did not reflect that the entire pyramid would have been overthrown by the wind of a gunshot, just like a child's house of cards.

We may fairly assume, then, that the New York militia would not be of much use in the field, and it is probable that not many of them would be disposed to serve for a permanency out of their own state; in the first place, because it is inconvenient; and secondly, because the democratic element is predominant among them. Things are a little better in Massachusetts and the Western States, where the Republicans have the upper hand, but their forces would not prove sufficient for energetic action. It has, therefore, been found necessary to call for volunteers, and as the Americans have a superabundance of bold adventurers, of men who care little for life, bullies, and half-savage individuals, they can be quickly formed into a dozen regiments, and in a few months, with severe discipline, a respectable army might be raised, which could, however, only be employed in guerilla warfare. These volunteers, to whom the "Wideawakes," or abolitionists, already to a certain extent organised militarily, will supply a handsome contingent, elect their own officers, and then enter the service of the Union, with the pay, armament, and discipline of the regular army. In some cases individuals form volunteer corps at their own charges, and receive from the central government commissions as captains or colonels, according to the strength of the corps. It was so in the Mexican war, and will be so in the South. If the war last any length of time, a spirit will be developed, in the presence of which the hitherto almost unbounded licence, which is called liberty, cannot endure. The sword has the peculiarity of liking to convert itself into a sceptre, and a Washington is not born every day to return it to the scabbard ere it has attained its object.

In conclusion, we may be permitted to offer a few remarks about the United States fleet. During the War of Independence, the American sea forces consisted only of privateers and cruisers, and after peace was signed, these vessels were sold as unserviceable and through a want of money. At a later date it was proposed to build twenty ships of war,

among them being four ships of the line, each of 74, three of 50, and six of 44 guns; but only six were built, four of which had 44, and two 36 guns. President John Adams, especially, deserved great credit for the way in which he improved the navy. When the Americans declared war against England in 1812, their entire naval force consisted of four frigates and eight sloops, with 224 guns and 4000 men; but it was soon increased by arming merchantmen, and managed at times to gain advantages over the foe, though, of course, avoiding a naval engagement. Commodore Rogers, by the end of 1813, had taken from the English 218 vessels, with 574 guns and 5106 men, and, according to our parlia mentary reports, England lost between October 1, 1812, and May 1, 1813, altogether 382 vessels. How many the Americans lost, however, we are not told.

In 1850, the American fleet consisted of eleven ships of the line-the Pennsylvania, of 120 guns, and ten others of 74 guns each-twelve 44 and two 36-gun frigates, a number of light sailing vessels, and seven steamers, of which the Mississippi was the largest, with eleven very heavy guns. Of the ships of the line, only six were fit for sea, and four of the frigates. The Navy List of June, 1858, returned ten ships of the line, the same number of frigates, twenty-one corvettes, and thirty smaller vessels, mounting, altogether, 3301 guns. Of the men-of-war, however, which were all sailing ships, not one was fit for sea; among the frigates, there were only three; of the thirty smaller vessels, but eighteen equipped, while all the corvettes were in readiness. Since then some new vessels have been built, which are spoken of in the highest terms. The number of men-of-war has been restricted, and the screw-frigate made the patternship, and the principle was adhered to that in sea-fights the number of guns is not so important as the heaviness of the calibre. The argument was, that if it was evident that a few well-aimed shots with heavy shellguns would sink the largest man-of-war, it was an act of extravagance to go on building such expensive vessels. In accordance with this principle, the preference should have been given to corvettes, which are both smaller and cheaper than frigates; but other circumstances were taken into consideration, and, before all, the fact that the frigate, owing to its greater length, is a quicker sailer than the corvette.

The new screw-frigates were, till the introduction of rifled ordnance on board European fleets, in every respect excellent ships-perhaps the best in the world. Built on the pattern of the fast clippers, they are nearly twice the length of the 60-gun sailing frigates of the first class, and thus at least seventy to eighty feet longer than the largest English or French ships of the line. As quick as the clippers in sailing, they have, at the same time, the tonnage of three-deckers, and no vessel is better adapted to take masses of troops and ammunition aboard. The largest of these frigates do not carry more than thirty guns, all below deck and secured: they all work on pivots, and can be used either larboard or starboard. Their shell-guns are of extraordinary calibre, and discharge shells nine, ten, and thirteen inches in diameter. It may be assumed that these frigates, owing to their extraordinary speed and the enormous range of their guns, would have no reason to fear a meeting with a single foe, no matter its size. The great revolution which rifled ordnance have produced in naval engagements certainly deprives these frigates of some of

their advantages, but this would only be discovered in a fight with European naval powers.

The forty-two ships ready for sea, with 789 guns, which the Union possessed in 1859, certainly only form a naval force equal to that of Austria. When we reflect, however, that on the outbreak of war the Federal government can charter all the merchant vessels-that the enormous packets that run between Liverpool and New York were subventioned by government on the condition that they should so be built as to be converted into fighting ships at a moment's notice-when we also reckon up the great number of steam and sailing-vessels of the first and second class which navigate the Atlantic and Pacific under the stars and stripes, and which could be speedily converted into men-of-war, and be armed from the well-filled arsenals,—we should hesitate ere we estimated the naval resources of the United States as weak.

The number of merchantmen belonging to the Union was returned in 1851 at from twenty-nine to thirty thousand, with a tonnage of more than five million. In 1811 the first steamer appeared on the Hudson; in 1852 the Union possessed 1450 steamers, of about 450,000 tons, among them being 125 ocean steamers. In 1860, the number of commercial and postal steamers belonging to the United States was said to exceed 2400 (of course inclusive of the river and lake steamers, and they were estimated to represent 729,300 tons). The American ships had upwards of one hundred thousand sailors, of whom more than one-half sailed foreign.

In order to recognise the condition of the two parties in the present struggle, as regards maritime resources, we need only take a glance at their mercantile marine. The tonnage of the Abolitionist States in 1855 was 4,321,951 tons, of which New York had 1,464,221; Massachusetts, 978,210; Maine, 806,605; Pennsylvania, 397,767. The tonnage of the Slave States, on the other hand, amounted merely to 859,032, or little more than that of little Maine, and only one-fifth part of the Northern tonnage. The war navy of a state can only stand in a ratio to its mercantile marine. The merchant service of the Federation is five times as large as that of the Confederated States, and the former has the additional advantage of having the greater portion of the navy at its disposal, while the South has not a single armed ship of any size. We fancy that no doubt can be entertained as to which side suffers the greater injury by the issue of letters of marque. It appears to us equally certain that President Lincoln possesses the power to carry out a strict blockade of at least the four chief ports of the rebellious states-Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans—as well as to hold the forts of Tortugas, Taylor, and Pickens, on the harbour of Pensacola. The blockade will be the best mode of crushing the resistance of the South, for the art of rendering cotton edible has not yet been discovered, and several of the Confederated States for instance, South Carolina and Georgia-cultivate cotton almost exclusively, and must import two-thirds of their meat and flour. They can only do this by selling their cotton, and a vigorous blockade would render that impossible: they must either starve or give in. But the great point is not so much how and if the Confederation will be forced to surrender, but what will happen when it is forced, and by what means it can be compelled to obey the Federal laws, and to remain staunch to the Union. But that is not the question we are discussing at present.

THE SALONS OF VIENNA AND BERLIN.

THE first symptoms of the awakening of society in Berlin in the commencement of the present age, correspond to the era of French domination. That epoch is one of those which, morally speaking, is the greatest in the history of Prussia. She must be contemplated at that moment, if we wish to enjoy the always agreeable spectacle of a nation working all its energies and all its resources, even to the last available, to effect its deliverance. Berlin replied to the vigorous literary impulse of Weimar by a patriotic rising in mass, and it is thus that the two capitals complete themselves the one by the other. The influence of the salon in this movement of Berlin has been depicted by M. Schmidt Weissenfels, in a work entitled "Rahel und ihre Zeit;" but, according to the author of "Les Salons de Vienne et de Berlin," this influence has been much exaggerated. The salon he declares not to be understood in Germany as it is in France. To be at home in company is opposed, he avers, alike to the character and the habits of the German-a statement which, being purely Gallican, may be taken at its just worth.

It is to M. Varnhagen d'Ense, author, soldier, and diplomatist, and to his clever and amiable spouse Rahel, that Berlin is accredited with its first salon. There had been plenty of gatherings before. Queen Sophia Charlotte had gathered round her at Lutzelburg, the Charlottenburg of the present day, the Leibnitzes, and other eminent men of the day; the great Frederick had also his meetings of philosophers; but it was not till Rahel, whilst still unmarried, assembled at her house all that was cultivated and refined in court and city, and at the head of whom were Prince Louis Ferdinand and Charles of Mecklenburg Strelitz, that the salon, in the Parisian acceptation of the word, was really founded. Rahel is said to have begun life with sad trials. She is said to have loved twice, and twice to have been disappointed. Naturally frail, of slight frame and delicate constitution, she would have sunk under those trials, but that the spirit that animated so tender a frame, and which bore her up, enabled her to live, as it were, no longer for herself, but for the group of poets, artists, and titled persons who were gathered around her by the force of her charms and her griefs. She possessed, besides, all those feminine qualities that are so particularly attractive to men. Endowed with marvellous perspicuity, she could see in a moment what was passing in the mind of other persons, and could act with them, and counsel them accordingly.

At the time when Rahel's salon sprang into existence war had ceased, and literary and intellectual questions were beginning to take the place of political debates. Philosophers, poets, and artists were congregating at Berlin. Schelling, the two Schlegels, and Tieck were already there, and were taking possession of the field, either by their persons or their works. The reputation of Thorwaldsen extended from Rome to the Baltic, and the Rhine rocks echoed the complaints of Overbeck. Then there were the two Humboldts, M. de Raumer, and a host of others, who united to render Berlin a kind of metropolis of science, letters, fine arts, and of the genius of all Germany.

M. de Varnhagen was a native of Dusseldorf, and he studied at Hamburg, Halle, and Strasburg, till his young imagination was carried to Berlin by the Arnims, Chamisso, and Novalis. The wars of the Empire gave an entirely new turn to his thoughts. He entered the service of Austria, and fought at Wagram. He visited Paris in the suite of Prince Schwarzenberg, and he afterwards entered the service of Russia, under General Tettenborn, whose memoirs he subsequently indited. Accident having brought him into relation with Hardenberg, he gave up the turmoil of the camp for the more congenial pursuit of diplomacy. He was present at the congress of Vienna, where he became noted for the constitutional tendency of his ideas. He was afterwards appointed minister at Carlsruhe, but dismissed at the same time as William de Humboldt. He does not appear to have taken office again. It was proposed that he should be sent to the United States, but he declined the expatriation; he preferred spending his latter days at the head of all that was most polished, most intellectual in Berlin. It is not that Berlinese society at that epoch had not its faults, its intrigues, its hatreds, and its passions, but it was that, under the dominion of M. and Madame de Varnhagen, it never forgot "les convenances." It never tolerated an impropriety, and this, after all, is the best test of good society. M. de Varnhagen had the advantage, also, of having graduated in the salons of Vienna and of Paris; but so entirely was his mind filled up by the necessities and conveniences of a society made up of forms and ceremonies, that he could not afford to admire anything that did not exist in its powdered and perfumed circle. Thus, speaking of the great Napoleon, he says, "His manners were embarrassed, the struggle of a will in a hurry to obtain its objects, at the same time that he despised the means employed, was to be detected in all his actions. It would, perhaps, have been gratifying to him to possess a less repulsive physiognomy; but then it would have required some little exertion on his part, and he could not condescend to it. I say condescend to it, for in his own nature there was nothing agreeable. There was nothing but a mixture of negligence and haughtiness, that betrayed itself in a kind of uneasiness and agitation. His gloomy and half-closed eyes were habitually fixed on the ground, and only cast sharp and rapid glances around. If he smiled or laughed, only the mouth and lower part of the face took part in it, the eyes and forehead remained unmoved; and when he did bring them into play, as I had occasion to observe at a later period, his face only assumed a more grimacing aspect. The alliance there of the serious and the comic had something in it that was hideous and frightful. I have never, for my part, been able to understand how some people pretend to have discovered traces of goodness and mildness in that face. His features, of incontestable plastic beauty, were cold, and hard as marble, strangers to all sympathy, and to all cordial emotion. What he said-at least to judge by what I have heard over and over again-was almost always insignificant (mesquin) in its nature, as well as in its mode of expression, without wit, without philosophy-utterly valueless. In the world of conversation-in which he had the weakness to wish to be admired-he had worse than no success."

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It is a pity, perhaps, for the repose of the world that Napoleon was not equally unsuccessful in other spheres, but that is a point which is not