e old-fashioned; that routine and favouritism in office are
more than a match for the cleverest of officers and the bravest of men;
and that we have almost all our work to begin over again. Now, one great
advantage of the rifle movement is that it throws us back upon
ourselves--that it teaches us all to feel that we have a personal stake
in the defence of the country--that it recalls the martial energy which
we are fast in danger of losing, and makes all panic-fear for the future
impossible. Surely, also, the moral effect of all this on Europe must be
great. The nation that arms itself is always respected. It is the
French army that makes the name of the French Emperor so famous in all
parts of the world. Again, the nation that is always protected is safe
from attack. People do not go to war with strong states, but weak ones.
In the fable, the wolf quarrels not with the wolf, but the lamb. It
ought not to be so, we freely admit; but we must take the world as we
find it, and act accordingly. And the _morale_ of all history is that
there is no such safeguard of peace as the knowledge that a nation has
set its house in order, and is thoroughly prepared for war.

Look back at the olden time, when we triumphed at Agincourt, Cressy, and
Poictiers--when we won for England her foremost place among the nations
of earth. A writer in the _Cambridge Chronicle_ has collected all that
he can find relative to "_The Longbow of the past_, _the Rifle of the
future_," and done good service by its republication under the title
already given.

There is a muster-roll of the army of Henry V. preserved among Rymer's
unprinted collection in the British Museum. The Earl of Cambridge
appears in it with a personal retinue of 2 knights, 57 esquires, and 100
horse archers. The Duke of Clarence brought in his retinue 1 earl, 2
bannerets, 14 knights, 222 esquires, and 720 horse archers. The roll
includes 2,536 men-at-arms, 4,128 horse archers, 38 arblesters
(cross-bowmen), 120 miners, 25 master gunners, 50 servitor gunners, a
stuffer of bacinets, 12 armourers, 3 kings of arms. A Mr. Nicholas
Colnet, a physician, also brought 3 archers, 20 surgeons, an immense
retinue of labourers, artisans, fletchers, bowyers, wheelwrights,
chaplains, and minstrels. Foot-archers were not enumerated, but the
total number of effective soldiers amounted to 10,731. These were the
men who gained the field at Agincourt. Philip de Comines acknowledged
that E