congress of commandants meeting at Hythe or elsewhere agree upon some uniform which the government, by giving a year or more of notice, might compel all corps ultimately to adopt, as a condition of receiving government rifles? Or there might be two patterns, say a grey and a red, and each company or corps allowed to choose between them; the former corresponding to the rifles, and the latter to the infantry, of the regular army. Already there are many alike enough for all practical purposes. If (as is reported,) the rifle-regiments of the regular army are some day to adopt grey, it will be a pity if the volunteers do not take the opportunity of going into either red or grey, so as to have two standard colours for the whole military force of the country. But enough of dress: let us look at the men. They are of course above the average, not being of the over-worked portion of the community. One or two there are, remarkably powerful well-made men, the like of whom (one believes) are not often to be seen save in the land of cricket, boats, and bathing; and these are fixed upon at once (though often wrongly, as it proved,) as sure to be good shots. All ages there are, from eighteen to very nearly if not quite sixty. Many are captains or other officers. The instruction begins with Positiondrill; which goes on for nearly a week, to give strength and firmness to the left arm and a correct shooting position. In the pauses there is aiming at the Instructor's eye, or at the little black dots on the barracks (all the walls about have black dots on them as if they had had the smallpox); and all day long is heard the click of the hammer as it falls on the snap-cap. Presently, all are marched up to the lecture-room school-room, and sit down on a form like good boys, while the Instructor names the different parts of the rifle and lock, and then proceeds to catechize each man in his turn. or The lesson over, the squads are drawn up in column of sections. The word "quick-march" is given, immediately followed by "March at ease;" for it is quite clear that the column will not march otherwise than at ease, Volunteers having very different ideas (very few of which are recognised in the Manual,) as to the best way of carrying an "Enfield” on the tramp. An Englishman's march at ease is a very steady tramp, though; and there is something characteristic about it, which makes his nationality recognisable a good way off as he comes in sight over the brow of a Swiss mountain. He generally keeps up an even pace, and always keeps step with the men alongside-a habit for which foreigners sometimes laugh at us, being in general not fond of walking themselves. The column soon turns aside into a field with a target in it, surrounded by the usual smallpox-marked walls. Before each section is a tripod, rest, and sandbag, on which each man in turn lays his rifle for the criticism of the Instructor, at what he considers a correct aim,—the intervals of time being as usual filled up with snapping at the smallpox marks. Then column of sections again, and another half-mile's tramp to the "Shingles," for "judging-distance drill." The "Shingles" are an important feature of Hythe. They occupy a tract of land two miles or more in length, by perhaps half-a-mile in breadth-a corner of Romney Marsh, once covered by the sea; and now an arid expanse of deep beach-shingle, with only a few thin rank blades of grass forcing their between the hungry stones, and here and there, upon an accidental oasis of firm earth, a bush of gorse or furze. On one side is the sea, two or three martello-towers, and a fort (the last just reoccupied for the first time since the last French war). On the other side the greenest of hills, like the Isle of Wight undercliff, covered with rich pastures. way On this shingle one or more fatiguemen are posted at known distances. The sections are told to look at them attentively and observe how much is visible at each distance,-number of buttons, features, or colour of coat; other men are then posted at chance distances, and each volunteer in turn guesses the distance, and his guess is taken down by the instructor. The line tramps noisily and laboriously over the shingles, stepping the distance, which is then measured by a chain; and points given to each man according to the correctness of his guess. At the end of the drill the average of points obtained in each section is taken, and the sections march home in order of merit, the one with the greatest number of points triumphantly heading the column. But it was chance-work, and the section which was first on one day brought up the rear on the next. This completes the morning's work. There is a muster again in the afternoon. More Position-drill, more snapping, more instruction in cleaning of arms, or an excellent lecture from one of the officers of the staff on the theoretical principles of shooting. When this is over, all further drill is voluntary, and each section drills (or does not drill), according to its taste. Some fire blank cartridge (ball is not allowed); some learn bayonet-exercise; and others wisely stick to positiondrill. A bathe in the sea fills up the time till the mess-dinner, which is provided at the Swan for all who have no wives, or have not brought them to Hythe. Thus, or nearly thus, passes pleasantly enough the first week of the course. Messing together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we are soon on friendly terms. Esprit-de-corps springs up in each section, and a desire to obtain a good figure of merit." There is a decided difference between the sections in point of attention to drill and regularity. The "Thefes Scottes," after the manner of their countrymen, are sedate and patient of drill, and should by all known rules of morality have obtained the highest figure of merit. It must be owned, however, that, though they did well, they were beaten by sections far less deserving. Sunday comes round soon, and with it leisure for an afternoon's walk about the country round. The sun of the good Cinque-Port of Hythe set some five or six centuries ago. It had run a good course though, for a thousand years and more, and been a worthy cradle, in Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet days gone by, for the baby English navy-changing its site and moving ever eastward after the retreating sea, as yard after yard, and mile after mile, of sand and shingle were cast up into the roads and port, leaving a plain of arid beach and unhealth marsh, till it was distanced in the chase and left a good mile behind. And now the crack of rifles and whirr of bullets is heard where once rode at anchor "caravels" and "shoters," and wineladen Bourdeaux merchantmen. In Roman days Limne was the port. Enormous masses of the ruined walls, seamed with layers of red tile, lie on the slopes of the hills some three miles from the present town of Hythe. Standing above it, on the top of the steep slope, and looking over Romney Marsh at the distant Fairlight hills, one can almost fancy the sheets of long grass swept by the gale to be the waves of the sea come back repentant to its old haunts. But before a Saxon keel grounded on Kentish beach, Limne-port was dry land, and West-Hythe (as it is now called), a mile south-east, had taken away its population and its trade. A great fight was fought, it is said, on the beach between Hythe and Folkestone, in Ethelwolf's reign, with the Danes retreating to their ships, and a great slaughter of them made, so that their bones lay whitening in sun and rain for many a year, till some one gathered them up, and covered them in Church precincts; and they lie now in huge piles in a crypt of Hythe Church, some of the skulls with a hole in them, as if made by a spear or by the sharp end of a battle-axe. West-Hythe-port, in its turn, was choked with sand and shingle, and was left a straggling suburb to the new town. Yet there still remain there the ruins of a small chapel where, some centuries later, in the Reformation-times, the poor Nun of Kent preached and raved. Thus gradually did Hythe reach its present site, and there, under the Norman and Plantagenet kings it was a flourishing and famous Cinque Port. Close by are the ruins of the great castle of Saltwood, where Becket's murderers passed the night, and whence they rode in the morning to Canterbury to do the deed. In Edward the First's reign the French showed themselves with a great fleet before the town, and one of their ships, having 200 soldiers on board, landed their men in the haven which they had no sooner done, but the townsmen came upon them, and slew every one of them. passage owt of Boleyn; it croketh in 66 so by the shore along, and is so bakked "from the main sea with casting of "shingle, that small ships may come up a large mile towards Folkestone, as in a sure gut." The " sure gut" is gone, but our grandfathers sixty years ago were still of Leland's opinion (though they did not view it in the same light), that Hythe lay "meatly strayt for a passage owt of Boleyn" (Boulogne), and (not feeling quite easy about the Martello towers) they set to work, and dug a military canal along what was once the sea-line. It starts from near Sandgate, and goes north-west for nearly twenty miles, and must have been a work of enormous labour and cost. Whether it would be of any use in case of invasion the military authorities know best. At present it has a reputation only for suicides and smells. Near its south-eastern end, on the breezy top of the cliffs above Sandgate, is the Camp of Shorncliffe-a row of wooden one-storied houses three deep, built along three sides of a rectangle, nearly half a mile in length. Thence it is less than eight miles to Dover castle. So that our coast is pretty well watched thereabouts, one hopes. At But to return to the musketry-instruction. The first week over, and arms, feet, and shoulders trained to the proper position, ammunition is served out, and the sections tramp off to the "shingles," each to its own target. Twenty rounds are fired; and, the day following, the excitement begins. In the first period all are in the third class-that is to say, they fire twenty shots, five at each distance of fifty yards from a hundred and fifty to three hundred yards, at a target six feet high by four broad. the first two distances very few shots miss, and everybody feels sure of getting the fifteen points, which it is necessary to get in the twenty shots to pass into the second class; but at two hundred and fifty and three hundred yards misses are more frequent. When the twenty shots are over, about five-andtwenty unlucky men are short of the number. A doleful group they look at first, when told off into a section by themselves for a. second period in the third class! According to their different shortcomings, they are called winkers, blinkers, bobbers, and pokers, (or lameducks,) which designations must be left to the imagination and appreciation of the reader, as being as unintelligible to the uninitiated as they are patent to the experienced. The General goes down to the beach and comforts them; and by a hint or two many are so improved, that they afterwards pass many of those who had got into the second class at the first trial. The shooting in the second class, kneeling, at distances from four to six hundred yards, goes on at the same time. In twenty shots, twelve points are to be made to pass into the first class; and great is the excitement during the last five shots at six hundred yards, when distance begins to tell, and many are within a point or two of their number but cannot hit, and after a miss or a ricochet, entirely agree with the Royal Irishman (the only representative of his country, the most popular man of the whole party, and the life and soul of the mess,) when he calls out "Bedad! I wish somebody "was kicking me down Sackville Street "just now!" Scarcely less anxious, each for the success of the men under him, are the Instructors. No Cambridge tutor was ever more eager for the success of his pupils, or more untiring in his zeal, than were these good fellows about their (sometimes unmanageable) squads. And here let me bear my humble testimony, as far as my small experience goes, to the excellence of every arrangement, not merely at Hythe, but in all matters whatsoever connected with the Volunteers with which the War-office has had to do. It is really wonderful to reflect how enormous a body of men have been armed and brought into something like organization in a single year by a department of the government already fully occu pied. Truly there has been no want of administrative ability and patient industry here. It is over at last; and the skilful and fortunate pass into, the first class, and shoot at distances up to nine hundred yards. The second class (reinforced by a batch from the third class, most of whom passed at the second trial,) shoot as before in the third and final period, which determines the classification. To get a good class has been the one object of life for the last fortnight, and grave men are as eager about it as if they were boys. Men take their success very differently. A, who is accustomed to be good at all points-a crack game shot, a good cricketer, and a good oarfrets and chafes under his second-class as if he were ruined for life; while B, who with hard reading got only a second at Cambridge, and pulled laboriously in the "sloggers" all his time, has by long experience learned that it is better to content himself with mediocrity, and takes his second-class contentedly, as neither more nor less than he deserves, half believing, with Tacitus, that "felicitas" is part of a man's mental constitution, which is born with him. Most gratifying it is to meet with so much encouragement from army-men. Indeed, the Volunteers have been rather too much complimented, and (except by the small boys in the streets) have had too much respect paid them. It is (or ought to be) rather unpleasant for a young Volunteer officer, who a year ago did not know his facings, to be saluted, as he walks down Oxford Street, by a Crimean veteran with half-a-dozen medals. Cheering it is too to see on the whole (there are exceptions, no doubt,) how little exclusiveness there is; how general the wish that no one should be prevented from joining by want of pecuniary means: "Che per quanto si dice più li nostro, Tanto possiede più di ben ciascuno, E più di caritade arde in quel chiostro." How much better is loyalty than jealousy for equality! What if Rifle Corps should be an instrument for effecting what agitations and monster meetings seem only to have removed farther off? May it not possibly be a greater privilege, a closer bond of union between Englishman and Englishman, to stand, to be ready if need be to fight, side by side in the ranks, than for a man to have the privilege of pushing through a noisy crowd once in every three or four years, to vote that A rather than B, neither of whom he has never spoken to in his life, should go as his representative" to Westminster? 66 How pleasant too are the opportunities which it affords of intercourse between men of different pursuits and occupations, and with whom Dame Fortune has dealt unequally. Not the least satisfactory part of the day of a sham-fight some fourteen miles from home, by no means remarkable for good management, or for ability on the part of some of the commanders, was the tramp home through the short midsummer-night to the time of fragments of songs and choruses, with an occasional note from the bugler by way of accompaniment. Never before did those dull hard black metropolitan roads seem so little dull to the men of the 19th Middlesex as they trudge over them, and the clocks in the ugly churches strike the "small hours one after another, and road-side gingerbeer women make fabulous gains, till one by one the men drop off, (hoping the house-door is on the latch); and the toll-taker on Waterloo-bridge looks resigned and even benignant as the diminished remains of the Company, without offering him a farthing, pass over and get home and to bed by the light of the rising dawn, full of friendliness and respect for their comrades, and not illsatisfied with their share of the last twelve hours work; for the ten pounds weight of arms carried by a full private is no joke on a long tramp: let him who doubts try. Yet they are not more tired or half so head-achy, or in any respect less fit for church next morning than if they had got home two hours earlier, after spending Saturday evening in a stifling theatre. Is it not possible that in a generation or two even government by party may become less prominent in the list of our National Institutions? - that constituents and their representatives may come to be of opinion that time and labour and money spent upon registration committees and conservative associations and ballot societies may be worse than wasted? Five minutes' walk from Palace Yard are foul haunts of disease and corruption, physical and moral, hardly surpassed in London,-corruption so malignant that even the masters of schools and reformatories, with which it abounds, hardly escape the contagion. All this misery chiefly for want of proper drainage and decent dwellings matters surely within the scope of legislation! But how can Parliament attend to such matters? Is not the Reform debate taking up half the session? Has not this loss of time been an incalculable evil? What if modern Radicalism, (the more restless discontented elements of it, at least,) be showing symptoms of decrepi tude, having, for instance, in its extreme need, or second childhood, taken to believing, or pretending to believe, in French Imperialism, and be likely, ere very long, taking a chill in the cold air of Volunteering, to go the way of all flesh, the way of old-fashioned Toryism and Whiggery, like them having done its particular work,-proclaimed its par ticular truth,-on its death to be wrought imperishably into the curious fabric of English creeds and English history? May not this movement-by extending as it does in a great degree, and as it will do, it is to be hoped, far more, to all classes-be a sign of hope that one class is no longer afraid of another, no longer struggling to get the power in its own hands, and thus a period of real union be ushered in, wherein, in the absence of any merely political ReformBills, there may be leisure and inclination for undoubted Reform, financial, municipal, educational, sanitary? The staunch Church-and-State heroes who rallied round the throne, and made glorious the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were not unworthy sons of the leaders of the Reformation. Need the sons of those who carried Roman-Catholic emancipation, the first Reform-Bill, the Poor-law, and Free-trade, be ashamed to follow in their footsteps? 1 1 With some of the sentiments which our respected contributor has thought it right to express in the few preceding paragraphs, I do not quite agree. Volunteering, besides its other uses, will have, I believe, a wholesome effect on our home politics. But I do not know that the nature or the range of that effect is very calculable as yet; nor do I think it desirable at the outset that volunteering should be identified with any one expectation or calculation on the subject-particularly with an expectation that there will thereby be a cessation of interest in any order of political questions. Rather, I think, Volunteers should agree to consider volunteering as a unanimous association to preserve for Great Britain, against foreign force or threat, all that is, has been, or may be, British; in the very centre of which, surely, as Britain's greatest speciality among the nations, is included the right of her inhabitants to be Whigs, Tories, or Radicals, as they see fit, and to wrestle out their views on all subjects whatever by free discussion and combination. The Whig Volunteer defends the right of his comrade to |