talk much of the bayonet; but in Egypt in 1801 they threw stones at each other when their ammunition was exhausted, and one English sergeant was killed by a stone. At Inkerman again the British threw stones at the Russians, not without effect; and I am told upon good authority that the Russians and Japanese, both of whom profess to love the bayonet, threw stones at each other, rather than close, even in this twentieth century. To this stage, then, had the art of war advanced at Elizabeth's accession, but no effort was made to train the national forces according to the latest methods. A few foreign mercenaries were imported from time to time, and a great many English went abroad, and served either in the armies of Spain--which were the most efficient of their day--or in those of the revolted Dutch which, under the Princes of the House of Nassau, were rapidly improving upon the Spanish methods. Thus some ideas of foreign practice crept into England, and a great deal of foreign nomenclature, which still remains with us. Nearly all of our military terms are foreign, drawn mostly from the French, the Italian or the Spanish. Regiment, battalion, colonel, sergeant-major, captain, lieutenant, ensign, cornet, corporal, centinel--all are words borrowed from Latin sources, and one could multiply the number of instances. Pistol and howitzer are Bohemian, relics of John Zizka. Forlorn hope (which has nothing to do with the English word _hope_) is Dutch. Even Shakespeare speaks twice of recruits by the Spanish name _bisoño_, corrupted into Bezonian. Little progress was made in Elizabeth's time, and no more in the reign of James I; but meanwhile a great military reformer arose in the person of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who recognised that missile action was that which must triumph in the future, and set himself to improve the firing tactics of infantry. This he did by reducing the depth of the infantry to three ranks, and forming the musketeers shoulder to shoulder, the front rank kneeling. He then distributed the whole of his battalions into sections, or platoons, of twenty to thirty men each, and introduced the system of firing by volleys of platoons; the usual method being that the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth platoons fired first in rapid succession, and then the second, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth, by which time the odd-numbered platoons had reloaded and were prepared to begin again. Thus a continuous fire was maintained without unsteadiness or disorder; and the system was so good that it lasted until the introduction of breech-loaders. There being many Scots--even whole regiments--and a good many English in the Swedish service, the drill and tactics of Gustavus became known to a number of people in both kingdoms.