Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCLXX. AUGUST, 1846. VOL. LX. CONTENTS. THE ARMY, 129 MY COLLEGE FRIENDS. NO. IV. CHARLES RUSSELL, THE GENTLEMAN COMMONER. CHAPTER I., 145 THE ROMANTIC DRAMA, 161 THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. FROM UHLAND, 177 THE MINE, THE FOREST, AND THE CORDILLERA, 179 "MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO," 194 MESMERIC MOUNTEBANKS, 223 COOKERY AND CIVILISATION, 238 THE LATE AND THE PRESENT MINISTRY, 249 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. _To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCLXX. AUGUST, 1846. VOL. LX. THE ARMY.[1] When we glance back at the bright page of British military history, so thickly strewn with triumphs, so rarely checkered by a reverse, it seems paradoxical to assert that the English are not a military nation. Such, nevertheless, is the case. Our victories have been the result of no especial fitness for the profession of arms, but of dauntless spirit and cool stubborn courage, characterising the inhabitants of the narrow island that breeds very valiant children. Mere bravery, however heroic, does not of itself constitute an aptitude for the soldier's trade. Other qualities are needful--qualities conspicuous in many European nations, but less manifest in the Englishman. Naturally military nations are those of France, the Highlands of Scotland, Poland, and Switzerland--every one of them affording good specimens of the stuff peculiarly fitted for the manufacture of soldiers. They all possess a martial bent, a taste for the military career, submitting willingly to its hardships and privations, and are endowed with a faculty of acquiring the management of offensive weapons, with which for the most part they become acquainted early in life. A system of national conscription, like that established in many continental countries, is the readiest and surest means of giving a military tone to the character of a people, and of increasing the civil importance and respectability of an army. But without proceeding to so extreme a measure, other ways may be devised of producing, as far as is desirable, similar results.