Military memoirs are a popular class of literature. If few non-military men make them their chief study, still fewer do not upon occasion willingly take them up and dip with pleasure into their animated pages. The meekest and most pacific, those in whose composition no spark of the belligerent and pugnacious is discernible, yet dwell with interest upon the strivings, dangers, and exploits of more martial spirits. Even the softer sex, whilst gracefully shuddering at the bloodshed and horrors of war, will ofttimes seriously incline to read of the disastrous chances, moving accidents, and hair-breadth 'scapes that checker a soldier's career. The poetical and the picturesque of military life appeal to the imagination, and act as counterpoise to the massacres and sufferings that painfully shock the feelings. Amidst the wave and rustle of silken banners, the glitter and clash of steel, the clang of the brazen trumpet, and hurra of the flushed victor, the blood that buys the triumph and soaks the turf vanishes or is overlooked; the moans of those who die upon the field, linger in hospital, or pine in stern captivity, are faintly heard, if not wholly drowned. The pomp and pageantry of war, the high aspirations and heroic deeds of warriors, too often make us forget the countless miseries the strife entails--the peaceful peasant's ravaged homestead, the orphan's tears, the widow's desolation. Although the public mind dwells upon military matters less in England than in France and Germany, neither of these countries has, during the thirty years' peace, been more prolific than our own in books of a military character. We speak not of strategical works, but of the pleasant and sometimes valuable narratives of individual adventure that have flowed in abundance from the pens of soldiers of every class and grade. Not a branch of the service, from the amphibious corps of the marines to the aristocratic cohorts of the guards, but has paid tribute, in many cases a most liberal one, to the fund of military literature. The sergeant and the general, the lieutenant and the lieutenant-colonel, the showy hussar and the ponderous dragoon, the active rifleman and the stately grenadier--men of all ranks and arms--have, upon hanging up the sabre, taken up the pen, and laboured more or less successfully to add their mite to the stores of history and stock of entertainment. The change from the excitement and bustle of active service to the monotony and inertion of peacetime, is indeed great, and renders occupation essential to stave off ennui. In ruder days than the present, the dice-box and pottle-pot were almost sole resources. In the rare intervals of repose afforded by a more stirring and warlike age, the soldier knew no other remedies, against the _tædium vitæ_ that assailed him. When "wars were all over, and swords were all idle," "the veteran grew crusty as he yawned in the hall," and he drank. Now it is otherwise.