tain Proceres of Normandy as being consulted by their duke, and playing a prominent part even with regard to the negotiations of the Norman Foreign office. Even if we believe with Dudo that Richard held as a king, the monarchy of the Norman land,' we cannot believe that he was exempted from those constitutional laws which restrained, not only the hunted and worried king of Laon, but even the Emperor of the Romans and the Basileus of all Britain, from the full exercise of an arbitrary will.

He

We now take leave of Sir Francis Palgrave with our respect for his profound research and acute perception in no way diminished because we have had to deal pretty severely with his style, and to call in question some portions of his matter. cannot, indeed, write history, but he can give the most valuable hints for those who may do so hereafter. He has ever been too one-sided to write history thoroughly well, and he has latterly allowed his tendency to discursiveness and garrulity such full play, as to make him well nigh incapable of rational writing at all. But the sterling ore is there notwithstanding the dross. Little justice as he has done to his own powers, Sir Francis Palgrave is still one of the great lights of modern historical research; for his share in enabling us to realise the grand picture of medieval Europe, he has won a debt of gratitude which fully overbalances his vagaries, his prejudices, and his occasional errors.

ART. VIII.-1. The Views and Opinions of Brigadier General John Jacob, C.B., late Commander of the Sindh Irregular Horse. Collected and edited by Captain LEWIS PELLY. London: 1858.

2. New Resources of Warfare with especial reference to Rifled Ordnance, in their chief known Varieties; including authenticated Weight, Measurement, and Mode of Construction of Armstrong's wrought-iron breech-loading Guns, and an account of their Shells and Fuses. By Dr. SCOFFERN. London: 1859.

3. On Naval Warfare with Steam. By General Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS, Bart. London: 1858.

DURING the last few years such progress has been made

in the manufacture of all descriptions, of fire-arms used for warlike purposes, as in reality to amount to a complete revolution in the whole art of war; while it has been effected so quickly and so quietly, that few are aware of the extent to which the change has been carried, and fewer still can realise either its importance or its bearings on the future. Indeed, until many of the new inventions are brought to the test of actual experience on the battle-field, it is impossible to feel sure that the improvement is as great as may be supposed, and it is dangerous to predict what the consequences of the change may be. Still the progress is, on the whole, so certain, and the subject of such immense importance, that it cannot be without interest to record what has been already done, and to attempt to indicate, however hypothetically, some at least of the results to be expected from these improvements.

In order to be fully aware how startling a change has been made within the last twenty years, it is only necessary to know how little had been effected during the two preceding centuries; and this is easily ascertained, by comparing one of the guns made during the reign of Elizabeth with one of those cast during that of Victoria. Examples of both periods exist in every national collection, and in almost all fortified places; but, except in the chemical composition of the metal, it is difficult to say what change or improvement has taken place in such a weapon. The form is the same in all respects; the mode of supporting the gun on trunnions, the position of the touch-holes, the mode of firing with a match-all remain as they were; modern guns are shorter and less ornamented, and therefore perhaps more handy and useful as field-pieces, but these alterations make

them certainly less handsome, and detract also, to some extent, from the accuracy of aim.

To take one instance among many. Any one who has visited Dover will recollect a very handsome Dutch piece of the sixteenth century, known popularly as Queen Elizabeth's pocketpistol, with this boasting inscription on the pedestal :

'Sponge me well, and keep me clean,

And I'll carry a ball to Calais' Green.'

No doubt the gun brags; but it is said to have thrown a twelvepound ball seven miles; and if the ball were of lead, and fired at a high angle, there is no great reason to doubt that it may have done 80. It is obvious, however, that any such range was absurd for battering purposes, and even as against troops no effectual accuracy of aim could be attained at even a third or a fourth of this distance; while the difficulty of dragging about and of loading these elongated pieces was a serious drawback to their utility. Artillerists, consequently, were led to discard these theoretical advantages, and to shorten their range to the point at which they gained sufficient accuracy, and to the distance at which troops are generally engaged in battle; and it is only at the present day, when the improvement in rifles has so materially increased that distance, that we must revert to the old long range, and, if possible, with improved accuracy of aim.

Muskets have been as little improved as the larger description of fire-arms: those with which our soldiers fought at Salamanca and at Waterloo are identical, in all essential respects, with those which they had used at Blenheim and at Ramillies. Except the change from a flint to a percussion lock, no improvement took place in the small arms of the British army till within the last six or seven years; and the bayonet still remains the same rickety clumsy weapon it was when it superseded what was called the sweynes' feather,' in the ranks of the French army

in 1671.

By some strange perversity of reasoning, although money and skill were lavished on fire-arms when a deer or a partridge was to be brought down, any tool, however rude, was thought sufficiently good when the life of a soldier, or the safety of a kingdom, depended on the issue. Sporting guns and rifles have been improved till they bore very little resemblance to those used by our forefathers; but military weapons have remained the same as they had been in former times. In agricultural implements, in ships, in domestic furniture, and in every conceivable application of mechanical art, amazing progress had been made; but the genius of improvement which has

revolutionised civil society in the nineteenth century, seemed still to have left untouched the instruments of war. So long as all the nations of Europe were content to fight with the same weapons, and according to the same forms, it was of little importance how imperfect these might be, since the relative power of each nation remained exactly the same. As in a duel, if the two combatants fight with swords or pistols exactly similar to each other, and observe rules which apply equally to both, it matters not what those weapons or rules are; the conditions of the ordeal are satisfied: but, as no such stipulations are agreed upon beforehand between nations at war, the danger is that one State may so improve on the rude weapons of another as to acquire at least a temporary advantage. Even if European nations had been content that things should remain as they were in the last general war, it is certain that America would not have submitted to such a state of inferiority. The success of the United States in their first contest with ourselves was mainly owing to the skill with which they handled the rifle; and in their Mexican wars they used that arm with an effect so terrible as to establish beyond doubt its superiority over all other weapons; so that if they had ever come into contact with European troops armed with the less efficient musket, the victory must have remained with them, even supposing the other conditions of their army to have been inferior to the

enemy.

No incident of this sort occurred during the great European war at the beginning of the present century, for the struggle in the Tyrol can only be considered as an episode having no direct effect on the general course of events-and it was lucky for the success of the French Empire that it was so; for, with all his wonderful genius for military affairs, the First Napoleon was singularly deficient in mechanical knowledge, and in the appreciation of the effects of mechanical skill. His success was precisely similar to that of a chess-player who understands the game better than any of his opponents. The rules of the game and the moves of the pieces remained the same before and after these wars; but he beat all who were pitted against him by his extraordinary powers of concentration of mind and means to a given end, and by the intuitive sagacity with which he divined the move his antagonist proposed to make, and saw how to counteract it, and thus win the game. But, fairly weighed, it is astonishing how little he has left that can be said to be a positive improvement in the art of war, of which inferior minds can avail themselves of in different circumstances. So far from the arms of the French having improved in that great struggle,

Napoleon purposely took away the rifles which had been introduced into the service during the early wars of the Republic. The secret of his system seems to have been rapid and unexpected concentration of masses on a given point, combined with great celerity of movements and rapidity and quantity of fire. These he conceived produced moral effects more conducive to victory than could be obtained by destroying a greater number of men by better mechanical contrivances. Judged by the results, he showed in this, as in most other things, his consummate knowledge of human nature; and as the other nations engaged in these wars were content with the same mechanical means, he marched from victory to victory till Europe lay at his feet.

During the exhaustion which followed these great struggles, no effort was made to alter any principle which had been established during these wars till after the siege of Antwerp, in 1832, which may be compared to the slight afterpiece which generally concludes an evening's performance in a theatre Since then, the armies of Europe have been busily engaged in rehearsing new parts; and, judging from such trial performances as have already taken place, when the curtain again rises on a general European war the effects produced will be as striking as they are novel. An entire change will be found to have been effected in almost every department of the science of war, and it will go hard with those who have neglected to note the change, and have not prepared for the new duties they will be called upon to perform.

To

As might be expected from the warlike disposition of the people, and their wonderful military organisation, the first improvements were effected in France. In their early campaigns in Algeria, it was found that the Arabs, armed with the longbarrelled matchlock, could pick off the French officers or men. at distances where the musket could not reach them. fight on equal terms it was consequently necessary to introduce better armed troops than those of the line; this was speedily done, first by the introduction of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and afterwards of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. As early as 1848, the French had at least 16,000 men armed with improved rifles; and not only armed, but drilled so as to render these weapons singularly effective. Their formation was looser, their movements more rapid, than had ever before been practised; they were carefully educated as marksmen, and taught to rely on individual skill, far more than on the concentrated effect of companies or battalions. The complete subjugation of Algeria was the speedy result of the change; and since that time no

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