Battles however which are not isolated, but are fitted into their places in the wars to which they belong, and sufficiently linked together to make them illustrate the political and social changes from age to age which are reflected in the changes of armament, may be a subject of study both interesting and instructive. Detailed narratives of the battles themselves appeal to the imagination in more ways than one. There is the romantic element, not merely the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war," and the feats of brilliant courage which are often admired out of all proportion to their utility, but also the occasional startling surprises. What drama ever contained a more thrilling incident than the battle of Marengo, changed in a moment from a more than possible French defeat into a complete victory, through a sudden cavalry charge causing the panic rout of an Austrian column up to that moment advancing successfully? And there is the personal interest of noting how one man's great qualities, skill, promptitude, forethought, fertility of resource, in all ages, bodily powers also in the days before gunpowder, lift him above his fellows, and enable him visibly to sway their destinies—how the rashness and incompetence of another entail speedy and visible punishment. And behind and above all, is the great fact which of itself suffices to justify the universal interest, that the lives of the combatants are at stake. "All that a man hath will he give for his life;" yet the call of duty, or zeal for his cause, induces the soldier to expose his life to danger, never insignificant, and often most imminent and deadly; and discipline enables him to do this coolly, and therefore with the best prospects, not of escaping the sacrifice, but of making it effectual. The admiration of the soldier which is caricatured in the nursery-maid's love for a red coat is obviously silly, but the demagogue's denunciation of him as a bloodthirsty hireling is equally foolish, and far more mischievous.