last ro longer than shall be for the interest of Russia. When the time shall come that requires it, pretexts will not be wanting for a peace that Austria and Prussia will think honorable, but that they cannot accept, and that will thus be made the means of turning against them the very weapons they had prepared for their enemies, and that may also array upon the other side, the moral sense of the world.

The future historian will find ample materials to enliven the monotony of his December 10, 1854.

pages, in the events of this unnatural and unnecessary war. Following it in all its details, he will record many bloody battles-many "glorious victories "but among them all, he will find none so thorough and astounding in their character, so damning to the fame of the vanquished, or so utterly without precedent and without excuse, as the uninterrupted succession of triumphs over the Western Cabinets, by Eastern Diplomacy.

MRS.

RS. SPARROWGRASS says that summer sketches should not come out in the winter. She thinks what was written in June is not fit to be read in December, and a paper made in July is out of season in January. "The one you are putting in your overcoat pocket, now," she says, 66 was written last August, and I know it." At first I was as much confused as if I had been caught in some flagrant act of impropriety, but I rallied a little, for a lucky thought struck me. "Mrs. Sparrowgrass," said I, "I will put the August paper in print, now; but at the same time request them not to read it until warm weather." This admirable and original piece of finesse pleased my wife highly. "That will do," she said, "but do not forget to tell them not to read it until then." So now, good reader, when you have reached this point, fold up the leaf, and do not open it until Sirius is in the noonday sky.

We begin to enjoy the clouds since we have moved out of town. The city sky is all strips and patches; but the sky of the country forms a very comfortable whole. Then, you have the horizon, of which you get but an imperfect idea if you live in a crooked street; and besides, you can see distant rain storms passing over far-off landscapes, and as the light-winged breeze comes sweeping up and you feel the approaching dampness, there is a freshness and fragrance in it which is not at all like the miasmatic exhalations of a great city. Then, when the rain does come it is not simply an inconvenience, as it always is in town,

but a real blessing, which even the stupid old cabbages know enough to enjoy. I think our musk-melons feel better now, as they lie there in sandy beds sucking the delicious fluid through their long vinous tubes. I think our Shaker corn, as he gives himself a rousing shake, and flings the big drops around him, does so with a species of boisterous joy, as if he could not have too much of it; and Monsieur Tomate, who is capering like Humpty Dumpty on the wall, is evidently in high feather, which is not the case with our forlorn rooster, who is but poorly protected under the old basket, yonder. The rain came from the southwest. We saw the clouds rolling up over the Palisades in round masses, with a movement like puffs of smoke rolling up from the guns of a frigate. It was a dead calm; not a pensile leaf twinkled; the flat expanse of the river was without a ripple. We saw the conglomerated volumes of snowwhite vapor ascending to the zenith, and below lay the Hudson, roughening in the now audibly approaching breeze. Meanwhile the sky grew ashy pale in the southwest, and the big clouds overhead were sometimes veined with lightning, which was reflected momently by the now darkening water. Just below us we heard the quick rattle of the rings as the wood sloops dropped and reefed their broad sails in anticipation of the squall. Everything around us reposed in a sort of supernatural twilight, the grass turned grey and old, the tree trunks changed to iron, the air seemed denser, sullener, sultrier. Then

a little breeze prattled through the chestnuts, and whitened the poplars. Then it subsided. Then the white cloud above appeared a tangle of dazzling light, and a sharp fusilade followed on the instant. Then Mrs. Sparrowgrass got frightened, and said she must go in, and as she aid so, the wind pounced upon her and carried up her sunbonnet at least three hundred feet above the tide water. Then it slammed to every door in the house, prostrated my Lima beans, howled down the chimney, roared and whistled through the trees, tore the dust from the roads, and poured it through our open windows, hurried off the big gate, laid it on my pie-plant, and blew down my beehive, which liberated all my bees, who instantly settled upon our watch dog and stung him so that he ran away and did not return until the following Sunday.

Nevertheless, the scenery around was marvellously beautiful. South of us a grey rain-curtain was drawn across the river, shutting out everything beyond, except the spectral masts and spars of a schooner riding at anchor. The Palisades started up in the gloom as their precipitous masses were revealed by the flashes of unearthly light that played through the rolling clouds. The river before us, ecked with snow, stretched away to the orth, where it lay partly in sunshine, under a blue sky, dappled with fleecy vapors. Inland, the trees were twisted in attitudes strikingly picturesque and novel; the scud flew before the blast like spray, and below it the swells and slopes of livid green had an aspect so unusual that it seemed as if I had been transported into a strange place-a far countrie. Our cottage, too, which I had planned and built, changed its tinted walls to stark, staring white, with window-panes black as ink. From room to room Mrs. Sparrowgrass flitted like a phantom, closing the sashes, and making all secure. Then the electric prattled overhead for a moment, and wound up with a roar like the explosion of a stone quarry. Then a big drop fell and rolled itself up in a globule of dust in the path; then another-another-another. Then I bethought me of my new straw hat, and retreated into the house, and thenit rained! Reader, did you ever see rain in the country? I hope you have; my pen is impotent; I cannot describe it. The storm hushed by degrees, and went off amid saffron flushes, and a glitter of hail. The western sky parted its

ashy curtains, and the rugged Palisades lay warm and beautiful under the evening sun. There it declines, amid melted topaz and rubies; and above it, on one side, stretching aloft from the rocky precipices high up in the azure, is a crescent of crimson and golden fragments of clouds! Once more in the sunlight, and now we will throw open all the windows and let in the cool air.

The splendor falls on castle walls, And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract breaks in glory. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! Blow, bugle! answer echoes, dying, dying, dying!

I have bought me bugle. A bugle is a good thing to have in the country. The man of whom I bought it said it had an easy draught, so that a child could fill it. He asked me if I would try it. . I told him I would prefer not, as my wind was not in order; but that when I got out in my boat, the instrument should be critically tested. When I reached home, I could scarcely finish my tea on account of the bugle. The bugle was a secret. I meant to surprise Mrs. Sparrowgrass. Play, I could not, but I would row off in the river, and blow a prolonged note softly; increasing it until it thrilled across the night like the dolorous trumpet of Roland at the rout of Roncevalles. I slipped away, took the hidden instrument from the bushes, handled the sculls, and soon put five hundred feet of brine between me and the cottage. Then I unwrapped the brown paper, and lifted the copper clarion to my lips. I blew until I thought my head would burst, and could not raise a toot. I drew a long breath, expanded my lungs to the utmost, and blew my eyes almost out of their sockets, but nothing came of it, saving a harsh, brassy note, within the metallic labyrinth. Then I attempted the persuasive, and finally cajoled a faint rhythmic sound from it that would have been inaudible at pistol-shot distance. But this was encouraging--I had gotten the hang of it. Little by little I succeeded, and at last articulated a melancholy B flat, whereupon I looked over at the cottage. It was not there-the boat had drifted down stream, two miles at least; so I had to tug up against the tide until I nearly reached home, when I took the precaution of dropping ar anchor to windward, and once more exalted my horn. Obstinacy is a Sparrowgrassic virtue. My upper-lip, under the

tuition of the mouth-piece, had puffed out into the worst kind of a blister, yet still I persevered. I mastered three

notes of the gamut, and then pulled for the front of the cottage. Now, said I, Mrs. Sparrowgrass, look out for an unexpected serenade.

"Gnar-ty! Gnar-rra-raa-poo-poo-poopen-arr-ty! Poo-poo-ta! Poo-poo-ta! Poo-poo-ta-rra-noop-en taa-ty! Poopen te noopan ta ta! 'np! 'np! Graa-toopen-tar-poopen-en-arrty?"

"Who is making that infernal noise?" said a voice on the shore.

"Rrra-ty! 'traa-tar-poopen-tarty!" "Get out with you!" and a big stone fell splash in the water. This was too much to bear on my own premises, so I rowed up to the beach to punish the offender, whom I found to be my neighbor.

66 'Oh, ho," said he, was that you, Sparrowgrass?"

I said it was me, and added, “You don't seem to be fond of music?"

He said, not as a general thing, but he thought a tune on the fiddle now and then wasn't bad to take.

I answered, that the relative merit of stringed and wind instruments had never been exactly settled, but if he preferred the former, he might stay at home and enjoy it, which would be better than intruding on my beach, and interrupting me when I was practising. With this I locked up my boat, tucked the bugle under my arm, and marched off. Our neighbor merely laughed, and said nothing.

"The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoil:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus,
Let no such man be trusted."

When I reached my domicile, Mrs. Sparrowgrass asked me who that was, "blowing a fish-horn?" I have in consequence given up music as a source of enjoyment since that evening.

Our fruit did not turn out well this scason on account of the drought. Our apple trees blossomed fairly, but the apples were stung by the curculio, and finished their growth by the time they got to look like dried prunes. I had the satisfaction, however, of producing a curious hybrid in my melon patch, by planting squashes in the next bed. I do not know which to admire most-the influence of the melon on the squash, or the influence of the squash on the melon. Planted side by side, you can scarcely tell one from the other, except from appearance; but if you ever do eat a boiled musk melon, or a squash raw, you will have some idea of this singular and beautiful phenomenon.

On the Fourth of July we had company from town. "Dear," said Mrs. S., "have you seen our cherry?" I answered, that I had set out many trees of that kind, and did not know which one she alluded to (at the same time a hopeful vision of "cherry pie on the Fourth of July flitted across my pericranium). As we all walked out to see the glorious spectacle, I told our guests aside, the young trees were so luxuriant in foliage that I had not observed what masses of fruit might be concealed underneath the leaves, but that Mrs. S. had a penetrating eye, and no doubt would surprise mo as well as them. When we came to the tree, my wife turned around, after a slight examination, and coolly observed, she thought it was there, but some boy must have picked it off.

"Picked it off," said I, as the truth flashed in my mind. "Yes," she replied, with a mournful accent, "picked off the only cherry we ever had."

This was a surprise, indeed, but not what I had expected. Mrs. Sparrowgrass, how could you expose me in such a way? How could you, aftor all my bragging to these city people about our fine garden, make a revelation that carried away all the foundations of my pride in one fell swoop? How could you, Mrs. Sparrow grass?

THE

HE subject of our article is so much associated, in the popular mind, with ships, forts, and the preparation and proper distribution of all munitions of war, that it may be thought that we here propose to discuss those questions. But we do not deem it necessary to combat an idea which all history controverts, that a large naval force will ever be able, by cruising in front of our extended coast, to prevent a hostile expedition from landing on our shores.* It is sufficient for our purpose to accept the reluctant admission of the historian Alison, that in the face of greatly superior maritime forces, Ireland was, for sixteen days, in 1796, at the mercy of Hoche's expedition of 25,000 men, and that neither the skill of English sailors, nor the valor of English armies, but the fury of the elements, saved them from the danger. "While these considerations," continues Alison, are fitted to abate confidence in invasion, they are, at the same time, calculated to weaken an overweening confidence in naval supèriority, and to demonstrate that the only base on which certain reliance can be placed, even by an insular power, is a well-disciplined army and the patriotism of its own subjects."

The

Nor do we think it necessary, while the recent vain boastings, now contrasted with the insignificant performance of the allied fleets, is still notorious, to waste argument on the exploded idea that ships can contend with forts. results of such contests in our country, at Fort Moultrie, Mobile Point, Stonington and Fort M'Henry, abundantly show that our sea-board defences, if completed under the supervision of our able engineers, and properly garrisoned, will resist, successfully, any merely naval aggressions. But recent events, showing with what facility large armies are transported by water, as conclusively prove that the great maritime powers will look to their armies to accomplish in future wars what it would be idle to expect from a navy, and it is by the organization of forces "fitted to bring into ac

tion the physical strength of the country with a competent knowledge of their duty and just ideas of discipline and subordination," that such armies must be met. The means by which we propose to accomplish this great object, will leave unchanged the present militia laws of the Union, but we shall endeavor to show in what manner existing institutions may be applied to the great purpose in view, by a simple enactment granting to the States, in the words of the Constitution, the consent of Congress "to keep troops."

The great Francis Bacon has said that "the principal point of greatness in any State is to have a race of military men;" and elsewhere, in his enumeration of the elements of true greatness in a State, he writes: "that it consisteth also in the value and military disposition of the people it breedeth, and in this that they make profession of arms. And it consisteth also in the commandment of the sea." But he continues: "In the measuring or balancing of greatness, there is commonly too much ascribed to largeness of territory, to treasure or riches, to the fruitfulness of the soil or affluence of commodities, and to the strength and fortification of towns and holds." What was made evident to Bacon by the lore of ages is equally true now. If we, as a people, neglect our military resources, do not foster the military spirit of the people, but on the contrary disregard military merit, and even neglect to honor and reward great military services rendered to the State, we cannot breed a race of military men, and are in danger of verifying the assertion of de Tocqueville, in his Observations upon Democracy in America, that "the military career was little honored and badly followed in time of peace." * * That "this public disfavor is a very heavy burden, which bows down all military spirit," and that if such a people should undertake a war after a long peace, they would run a much greater risk than any other people of being beaten."

The existing institutions which we

propose to use as aids in the efficient organization of State troops are the Military Academy, the army of the United States, and the militia of the States. The Military Academy is already in successful operation. The first step, then, towards proper State organizations should be to give to the regular army a system of recruiting in harmony with our institutions and the manner in which all militia force must be collected. It is the several States which furnish the militia force, and the regular army should, therefore, be recruited by States. Let every regiment have its depot in a particular district of country, and with the present rate of pay given to the non-commissioned officers and privates, and the reward of promotion from the ranks be bestowed whenever merited, and we should soon have an army in the different parts of which the various sections of the country would take a lively interest. In an army thus collected, which offered a career worthy of being sought, an esprit-de-corps would soon be developed which we may in vain seek in our present establishment, and such an army, instead of being regarded by their countrymen as strangers in sympathy and pursuit, might be made the nucleus of science and strength, around which the mental and physical force of the country could be concentrated in war. To accomplish this great object, other changes are also necessary, but much lies within the discretion of the Secretary of War, and upon his recommendation it is not doubted that Congres will legislate where legislation is required.

If the idea be just that the skeleton regular establishment is maintained in peace, as a nucleus to be expanded in war, to meet the wants of the country, the President should be careful not so to dispose of that force as to make this great purpose unattainable or difficult when war may impend. If it be possible so to locate the troops as to give them all possible instruction, and, at the same time, not neglect our Indian frontiers, the latter object should not be suffered to override that other most paramount consideration.

Look at any map of the United States, and attempt for a moment to realize the vast extent of our possessions. Bring your mind back to the period when railroads did not afford those facilities, which we now have in a portion of our country, for quickly passing over hunreds of miles, and vou may no longer

consider that military posts in Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon, &c., and on the routes to those distant States and territories, have such means of communication as would enable us to bring together any respectable force in a short period. Bear in mind that the whole army of the United States consists of but one hundred and fifty-eight companies, and that these companies are scattered in posts which dot our immense territory. Realize this, and then answer, is it possible for the small number of troops thus stationed to prevent marauding parties of Indians from passing between these posts and committing depredations either in Mexico or upon our own people? No candid inquirer will assert the possibility! What, then, is remedy? Settlers upon our Indian frontiers must be provided with arms; and the United States Government, besides encouraging Indians to engage in agriculture, must hold tribes responsible for the acts of individuals. Where predatory bands of Indians have been known to proceed against Mexico or our own people, the tribe must be made answerable, and no vain pursuit made after the marauding party. We must severely chastise such tribes, and make them understand that the United States require them to govern and control their young men. That, for the acts of any individuals of the tribe, chiefs and head men are responsible; and that we will not fail, in any instance, to punish the tribe for such predatory acts. An occasional campaign made against Indians to punish them for their misdeeds, would produce lasting effects, and prove far more efficacious in guarding the lives and property of our citizens, than the present system of small posts, which, by the impunity they afford, can only encourage a spirit of adventure in Indian tribes. Another advantage in breaking up the present vicious arrangement of small posts, would be the establishment of schools of instruction for cavalry, artillery, engineers, and infantry. We now have a preparatory school for the cultivation of military science, at West Point; but, if officers of the ariny, after graduating there, are left without means or motives for improvement, and on remote stations suffer their minds to degenerate from want of exercise and competition, the Military Academy will have accomplished but very partially the great object of its institution. If the army is to be made the rallying point of our countrymen in war, it should keep pace