The use of tents, like many another classic incumbrance, has been swept away from campaigning by our modern tactics, which originated at the commencement of the Peninsular War, and, arrived at the bivouac, the “lodging is on the cold ground” and _sub Jove frigido_. “L’usage des tentes préservait les troupes des maladies pernicieuses. Tout cela est vrai, et cependant on ne reviendra ni aux petites armées, ni aux sièges de convention ni aux maisons de toile.” (Foy, _Hist. Guerre Pénins._ liv. i.) The commander who makes a campaign with tents is fettered with embarrassments as to means of transport, which must always place him in a state of inferiority to an adversary not thus encumbered. This is one of the great changes wrought by the wonderful genius of Napoléon, which even amidst the new hardships which he imposed, secured almost the adoration of his soldiers. “Ils frémissent encore d’alégresse en exprimant le transport dont on fut saisi, quand l’empereur, qu’on croyait bien loin, apparut tout-à-coup devant le front des grenadiers, monté sur son cheval blanc et suivi de son mamelouck.” (Foy, _Hist. Guerre Pénins._ liv. ii.) At the close of the War, the person of Wellington commanded almost equal admiration. I am a great admirer of General Napier, whom I regard as the counterpart of Thucydides, the soldier-historian of Athens, and to whom may be not infelicitously applied the character assigned to Xenophon (another Athenian narrator of military exploits in which he himself participated) by our earliest Latin lexicographer, Thomas Thomas, the contemporary of Shakspeare: “Xenophon was a noble and wyse captaine, and of a delectable style in wrytynge.” Napier’s style is enchanting and stirs like the sound of a trumpet. My obligations to him are unbounded. But Heaven forbid that his enthusiasm for War should become general, for it is of a truly rabid character:--“War is the condition of this world. From man to the smallest insect all are at strife!” (_Hist. War in the Penins._, book xxiv. chap. 6.) This is a mere reproduction of Hobbes: “The state of nature is a state of war.” I trust that peace will ere long be the enduring condition of this world; and there are happily indications of that approaching consummation. If I sing the glories of the Peninsular War, it is because it was of a defensive character and we struck for Freedom. We may surely now repose on our laurels (as it is phrased), and never hereafter engage in a war which shall not be in the strictest sense inevitable.