The volunteering system of our own day has step by step attained the character of a Landwehr, or reserve force, liable, if the occasion arises, to support the army of the line and the militia. It embraces infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and is constructed on a proper military basis. As in former times, each town or district has its own regiment of Volunteers, which may be concentrated at a short notice by telegraph. In the infancy of the present movement, the peer and the artisan, the gentleman and the shopkeeper, all ‘shouldered arms’ together and marched gaily side by side. Dukes, earls, marquises, and cabinet ministers joined the ranks—Lord Palmerston (then Prime-minister) himself donning the uniform and learning his drill as a private in the London Irish Rifle Corps; while in the London Scottish, the Marquis (now Duke) of Abercorn did the same thing. This was all well and good; but it could not last long, nor did it. Liberty is the precious possession of all classes in this country, but perfect ‘equality’ and ‘fraternity’ such as the above incidents indicated are virtues which have not yet attained to any very great degree of perfection amongst us. And so it came to pass that these noble recruits, whose support at that time to the Volunteer cause cannot of course be over-estimated, were among the first who ‘fell out,’ to make way for those who really meant ‘soldiering.’ Royal reviews and Easter-Monday field-days attracted to the ranks of our citizen army all those who loved volunteering for the sake of making a show; but now that the movement has settled down into real earnest military work, the _true_ manhood of Britain is to the fore—the spirit which looks upon hard work with as light a heart as it looks on pleasure, when there is a lesson to be learned or a great object to be gained. The new movement was national in all its phases. The different corps adopted titles and mottoes which had some distinct connection or other with their country’s history, or with the local traditions of the counties in which they were raised. In the former category are the two national corps we have already named; and in the latter may be reckoned the ‘Robin Hoods,’ with their uniform of Lincoln green, which is the only thing about them, however, that reminds one of the days of Robin Hood and his jovial band.