the Down-Easter a distinct type of man from the Carolina planter, and the Kentuckian different from either.

helped us here. Those best known and most read in America - Dr. Draper, for instance are diffuse enough indeed in their introductory chapters. But they The service here indicated for the fugive their strength entirely to tracing the ture historian of American polity is done supposed political causes of the conflict for American armies by the Count of to their roots. Party spirit on the sub- Paris. In the introductory chapters he ject of the negro, we may observe, is still not only describes the contending forces so active in America, notwithstanding with the power of a military critic who his emancipation, that readers there adds practical knowledge of the subject never seem to be tired of the productions which he treats to a theorist's breadth of of those who undertake to prove or illus-view, but he also takes notice of their trate the direct connection of the war with descent from the colonial levies which the Abolition movement. That in its issue it became identical with Abolition seems to be taken for irrefragable evidence that in its beginning it was not less so. And no American writer of weight has as yet undertaken to go deeper into the springs of this dreadful contest, and to show how far the uncertain condition in which the founders of the great Republic, in order to make their own task the smoother, left their prime difficulty of the bounds between Federal and State rights is responsible for what ensued. Nor has any one sought to discover whether the question of slavery or no-slavery was really the essential cause which brought about disunion, or merely the immediate occasion that produced a collision which the elements of an ill-defined Constitution had made certain to occur at some time or other.

fought with varying success under the British standard ́in our contest with the French for trans-Atlantic supremacy; the modification of the American soldiery under the wise and steadfast guidance of Washington in the War of Independence; the local causes which stamped their respective peculiarities on the armies of the Union and Confederacy — all these points are clearly traced out in the introductory chapters in a way that has never been done before. Nor does the Count omit to examine with equal care the peculiar conditions of the land, and of the communications through it, which so largely influenced the course of the struggle. Here, however, other European writers may have been beforehand with him; but he has no rival to fear in his review of the living masses who sprang, as it were, ready armed from the homesteads of the North and the plantations of the South, and whose very

To anaylze the political bearings of the conflict in an impartial spirit would not be a popular work in America, so one-numbers so suddenly raised, so spontanesided is the view still taken there of the ously recruited, have made them a mysgreat crisis in the Republic's history. tery to foreign critics. Some of the lighterAnd yet the parallel case of Switzerland, minded of these have been content to where a secession was put down by force meet the problem which they could not of arms but a few years earlier, should solve by declaring the whole story to be shake the dogmatic belief of Union surrounded by myths begotten of the writers that nothing but slavery could fertile Yankee invention. To hardly any possibly have been answerable for what does it seem to have occurred that colothey now speak of as the greatest of nists, though ordinarily wrapt in peaceful civil crimes. Such a historian as Ban-pursuits, have a readiness for self-defence croft or Motley may possibly hereafter undertake the work in a more philosophic spirit, and we may not unreasonably hope for this service from one or other of those eminent authors since both are now free from diplomatic toils. But whoever is to succeed in it must go much further back in American history than has hitherto been attempted, and must trace the connection between the looseness of the original framework of the united colonies and the rude shock which threatened their disruption. Nay, he must seek in their earlier condition as dependencies the germs of those peculiarities which made

born of the very nature of those pursuits, and that the freedom and activity of municipal institutions in America had infused throughout the people of the States of the Union an earnestness in political matters that was sure to tell powerfully in war, which is after all but the rudest and most violent form of political contest. Probably no one who had not at least been in some new country peopled by men of English blood, where life is more active, property more rapidly accumulated, the race better supplied with all material necessaries than with us, would be qualified for writing critically on the

American War. Certainly no one whose mind had not been carefully trained beforehand could have generalized from the results of brief and partial observation, such as was open to the Count during his short service with MacClellan, with the skill and power displayed in this vol

ume.

To which we may add, as a striking proof of the growth of this arm and its operations as the war waxed old, that the last important body of troops organized by the North was a complete army corps of these mounted soldiers, which advanced into the heart of the hitherto untouched portion of the Seceded States To show that this praise is not too under Wilson, previously one of Sherihigh, we turn to the work itself, and pur-dan's division generals, and completed posely take a passage at random from the conquest of the district between Atthe chapter headed Les Volontaires Fédé-lanta and the Mississippi which Sherman raux, which describes the various arms had passed by in his march on Savannah. of the Northern forces, and their charac- No one in Europe had imagined that teristics. We fall at once upon an ac-America could find horses, to say nothing count of the cavalry, and read as follows:

of riders, for such vast operations. We only very recently learnt from the mouth of one of the chief Union cavalry commanders that calculations were made showing that the most liberal waste of horseflesh that could be allowed for would not have exhausted the resources of the North in efficient animals for full

The mounted volunteers naturally took the regular cavalry as their model, and imitated their mode of fighting, which, as has been said before, approached that of the old dragoon of the seventeenth century, thus bringing about a curious similarity between the old military customs of Europe and those of modern Amer-three years more. ica. But if these horsemen borrowed the car

ready quoted proves sufficiently the The passage of the Count's work alkeenness of his observation; but the strength of this volume, as before noted, lies above all in his just appreciation of the historic causes out of which grew the peculiarities of the American armies. It is difficult within our limits to do justice to his treatment of this hitherto virgin subject; but we will select one special passage to show how skilfully the distinguished author connects his own country's fame with the origin of the really high qualities which the soldiers of the Civil War displayed.

bine of the regulars, it was not because they had to do with a foe as nimble as the Indians, but 1ather because all inexperienced soldiers when they have to choose between cold steel and firearms, prefer the latter, as not compelling them to close with the adversary. Besides, to handle a lance or sabre, a rider must know how to manage his horse properly, and the horsemanship of these volunteers was wretched at the beginning of the war. They did not fire from the saddle like those of the time of Louis XIV., but fell into a habit of fighting on foot, leaving every fourth man to look after the horses. The broken and wooded nature of the ground was favourable to this, and indeed it would not have permitted the grand and rapid movement of cavalry accustomed to depend upon the fury of their charge, had any such existed in America. For the rest, at the beginning of the conflict, the cavalry kept to the troublesome task of feeling the way for the army, and skirmishing at the advanced posts. Difficult as this must be for raw troops, the service was not entirely new to these American cavaliers, accustomed as they had been to an adventurous life, which suited their spirit of individual enterprise. If they had not always the true instinct for war, nor that constant vigilance which is indispen-possession of the New World, these militia sable when in the presence of the enemy, their address and boldness atoned for these defects; and a thousand petty skirmishes which can find no place in our narrative gave them occasion to show that inventiveness of spirit which is never lacking in the American when some stratagem has to be devised or some bold stroke accomplished. At a later period the importance of cavalry developed itself, as to them fell the new branch of war known as "raids" or grand independent expeditions, such as we shall have to speak of hereafter.

It was against our own soldiers [he writes] in the Seven Years' War that the American volunteers, in those days the provincial militia of a British colony, made their first essay in arms. We may remark this, not only without any bitterness, for the flag of the United States since it first waved has never been found arrayed on the battle-field against that of France, but even as a souvenir that makes one bond the more between them and ourselves. During the unequal contest which decided the

received useful lessons in measuring their strength with the handful of heroic men who defended our Empire beyond the seas when abandoned by their country. The soldiers of the War of Independence were formed in this school. Montcalm rather than Wolfe was the instructor of these adversaries on whom so soon fell the task of avenging him. It was in seeking, by long and often disastrous expeditions, to be beforehand with the French power on the banks of the Ohio, that the founder of American nationality served an apprentice

ship in that indefatigable energy which brought | the events of the Civil War, not a whit him triumphant over every obstacle. It was less interesting. And, as the reader may the example of the defenders of Fort Carillon, naturally expect, this part of American checking an English army from behind their history is not passed over without a referwretched parapet, which in later years inspired those who fought at Bunker's Hill. It ence to the services rendered to the raw was the surrender of Washington at Fort American troops by the experience of Necessity, the disaster of Braddock before Lafayette's French contingent. It is fair Fort Duquesne, which taught the victors of to add that no excessive weight is atSaratoga how, in these uncultivated countries, tached by the author to this alliance with to embarrass an enemy's march, cut off his France, and that he gives the chief honsupplies, nullify his apparent superiority, and ours of the success where they properly end by finally taking or destroying his force. belong, to the indomitable energy of Thus, though they were at first despised by Washington. We would willingly have the aristocratic ranks of the regular English dwelt more on certain episodes of that army, these Provincial Militia, as they then were called, managed soon to win the esteem struggle, which is here touched on with as well as the respect of their foe. In this admirable clearness. One of them, the war, so perfectly different from the wars of mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops at the Europe, in these actions fought in the midst close of their three years' service, on the of a wooded and savage country, they already pretext of a grammatical construction of developed all those qualities which have since the terms of their engagement contrary to distinguished the American — address, energy, that assigned them by Congress, and the courage, and individual intelligence. too easy yielding of the latter to their Even those who may differ from the pretensions, is most justly commented on Comte de Paris in his high estimate of as "giving a deep and lasting blow to the effect produced on American soldiers the discipline" of American volunteers. by the early contest with those of France, It served in fact as an evil precedent for will not deny the justice with which he the armies of McDowell and MacClellan. brings out the peculiar features of their And this is but one of many examples of character as warriors, nor the skill with the research and knowledge of the author, which he connects these circumstances of whose introductory chapters we can with the history of the early settlements but repeat that, though intended in the of his own countrymen in that continent first place for French readers, they offer where Frenchmen have long since ceased such a contribution to the study of to hold a foot of ground. Could we fol-American military history as soldiers of low him further here, we should find his every country, and Americans themselves sketch of the War of Independence, and above all, have reason to be sincerely of the influence it exercised in moulding grateful for.

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A REPORT by Commander Cookson upon the guano deposits on the Islands of Lobos de Tierra, Lobos de Afuera, Macabi, and Guanape (in continuation of reports to the Admiralty relative to the deposits in Peru), has just been printed. At the time of the visit of H.M.S. Petrel to the first-named island there were no inhabitants, except a few Indian fishermen, from whom no information could be gained. The island is six miles long and in some parts three broad; the beds of guano there are a considerable distance apart, and are estimated to amount to 600,000 tons. The working of the guano there will shortly be commenced by the Guano Shipping Company at Macabi, and 100 Chinese labourers have already been sent to make piers and erect the necessary buildings. The same company has undertaken the working of the beds on the island of Lobos de Afuera, under a contract with the Peruvian Government, by which the company receives 85 cents per ton shipped,

and defrays the expense of all the necessary works, such as building piers, laying tramways, making shoots, &c. The estimated quantity here is 500,000 tons. The labour employed by the Shipping Company is all Chinese.

THAT we are still somewhat backward in our attempts to imitate the methods of Chinese culture in our seats of learning, may be inferred from an anecdote we have lately received from an eminent philologist. Shortly before leaving the Celestial Empire he came across an old native gentleman of the mature age of 106, who was just about to go in for his last examination. When will our University authorities succeed in attaining a perfection of the examination statute which can be compared with this?

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