the influence of fear, suggested. The emperor himself, after escaping great dangers, and being forced into the port of Bugia in Africa, where he was obliged by contrary winds to remain several weeks, arrived at last in Spain, in a condition very different from that in which he had returned from his former expedition against the infidels.

ROBERTSON.

ORIGIN OF STANDING ARMIES.

A BODY of troops kept constantly on foot, and regularly trained to military subordination, would have supplied what was wanting in the feudal constitution, and have furnished princes with the means of executing enterprises to which they were then unequal. Such an establishment, however, was so repugnant to the genius of feudal policy, and so incompatible with the privileges and pretensions of the nobility, that during several centuries no monarch was either so bold, or so powerful, as to venture on any step towards introducing it. At last, Charles VII., availing himself of the reputation which he had acquired by his successes against the English, and taking advantage of the impressions of terror which such a formidable enemy had left upon the minds of his subjects, executed that which his predecessors durst not attempt. Under pretence of having always ready a force sufficient to defend the kingdom against any sudden invasion of the English, he, at the time when he disbanded his other troops, retained under arms a body of nine thousand cavalry and of sixteen thousand infantry. He appropriated funds for the regular payment of these; he sta

tioned them in different places of the kingdom, according to his pleasure; and appointed the officers who commanded and disciplined them. The prime nobility courted this service, in which they were taught to depend on their sovereign, to execute his orders, and to look up to him as the judge and rewarder of their merit. The feudal militia, composed of the vassals whom the nobles could call out to follow their standard, às it was in no degree comparable to a body of soldiers regularly trained to war, sunk gradually in reputation. The strength of an army was no longer estimated solely by the number of cavalry which served in it. From the time that gunpowder was invented, and the use of cannon in the field became general, horsemen cased in complete armour lost all the advantages which gave them the pre-eminence over other soldiers. The helmet, the shield, and the breast-plate, which resisted the arrow or the spear, no longer afforded them security against these new instruments of destruction. The service of infantry rose again into esteem, and victories were gained, and conquests made, chiefly by their efforts. The nobles and their military tenants, though sometimes summoned to the field, according to ancient form, were considered as an encumbrance upon the troops with which they acted, and were viewed with contempt by soldiers accustomed to the vigorous and steady operations of regular service.

Thus the regulations of Charles the Seventh, by establishing the first standing army known in Europe, occasioned an important revolution in its affairs and policy. By taking from the nobles the sole direction of the national military force, which had raised them to such high authority and im

portance, a deep wound was given to the feudal aristocracy, in that part where its power seemed to be most complete.

France, by forming this body of regular troops, at a time when there was hardly a squadron or company kept in constant pay in any other part of Europe, acquired such advantages over its neighbours, either in attack or defence, that selfpreservation made it necessary for them to imitate its example. Mercenary troops were introduced into all the considerable kingdoms on the continent. They gradually became the only military force that was employed or trusted. It has long been the chief object of policy to increase and to support them. It has long been the great aim of princes and ministers to discredit and to annihilate all other means of national activity or defence. ROBERTSON.

THE PICTURE GALLERY.

WHEN the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without doors, I frequently make a little party with two or three select friends, to visit any thing curious that may be seen under covert. My principal entertainments of this nature are pictures, insomuch that when I have found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters. By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth swims in rain, and all nature wears a louring countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable scenes into the visionary world of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs,

beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate seasons.

I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions; which had taken such an entire possession of my imagination, that they formed it in a short morning's dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather as the first sketch and outline of a vision, than as a finished piece.

I dreamt that I was admitted into a long spacious gallery, which had one side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living, and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.

On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing, colouring, and designing. On ́ the side of the dead painters I could not discover more than one person at work, who was exceedingly slow in his motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches.

I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood before me, and accordingly applied myself to the side of the living. The first I observed at work in this part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair tied behind him in a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex. The toujours gai appeared in his judges, bishops, and privy-counsellors. In a word, all his men were petits maîtres, and all his women coquettes. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up of all glaring colours that could be mixed together; every part of the dress was in a

flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard name, that sounded something like Stupidity.

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream; and one could say nothing more of his finest, than that they were agreeable monsters.

The fourth person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty hand, which left his pictures so unfinished, that the beauty in the picture (which was designed to continue as a monument of it to posterity) faded sooner than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste to dispatch his business, that he neither gave himself time to clean his pencils, nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was Avarice.

Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured. If he drew the portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single hair in his face; if the figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to show themselves by the candles which were lighted up in several parts