The volunteer corps were all turned out on this occasion, each remarkable for the neatness of its dress and completeness of appointment. The members of these corps also had a trim and dainty air well becoming men playing at soldiers,--a game, by the way, no full-grown biped who regards his personal dignity ought ever to play after arriving at the years of discretion: for youths it is a cheerful and becoming amusement enough; but for fat, full-blown gentlemen! Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the uncomfortable air of ease it is necessary to assume on the occasion; particularly for such as are promoted to the ticklish degree of field-officers; each of whom is most unconscionably expected at one and the same instant to retain possession of a hard-mouthed horse, a pair or two of reins, a sword, a plumed _chapeau_, and his seat into the bargain, having only the ordinary allowance of hands to help himself withal. It is all very amusing for the bystanders to laugh at the cruel scrape their friends are in when so be-deviled in a crowded street on a hot day; but let those who conceive the matter so easy, only get appointed to the dangerous eminence, and try how they like it. Good-humour and cool temper are also indispensable requisites in a commander of volunteer cavalry here; for on this occasion I beheld two or three impatient carmen and restive jarveys very coolly charge upon the flank of the advance of cavalry whilst the troop was filing across the street out of the park, and persist in forcing the line, _malgre_ the civil remonstrance of the combined staff, who nevertheless yielded with the best possible humour. Now in England I have invariably noted that your chaw-bacon, when once he buckles harness on, and has "the blast of war blown in his ears," becomes a very Tartar in his bearing, and is much less conciliating towards his fellow snobs than is your regular soldier, whose trade is war. With us, your yeomen whenever they have a chance, I have observed, most uncivilly poke about the lieges with but and bayonet, or thump and rump them with their chargers, and entice the ill-broken brutes with insidious prods of the spur to swish their tails, if tails they have, into the upturned phizes of their awe-stricken fellows. Here, on the contrary, your volunteers "do their spiriting gently:" all is good-nature and good manners; and a front is diminished, or a column of companies in line of march is eased off to the right or left to make way for carts or coaches, as the case requires, with a promptness which is the more creditable from the fact that the execution of a change in movement is no light matter.