sang the Laureate, and the storm was expected to come from the French quarter. However, whatever aggressive intentions may have passed through the mind of Napoleon III. were dissipated by the formidable front assumed by the people of Great Britain. The immense improvement which had been recently effected in arms of precision caused irregular troops to assume far greater importance in the calculations of an intending invader than they ever had before; and the same cause, by encouraging fine marksmanship and developing competitive skill at the targets, has imparted to the Volunteers of 1859 a permanence quite without precedent in the history of similar martial movements. [Illustration: _H. Edridge, A.R.A._} {_National Portrait Gallery._ ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D., 1774-1843. Poet Laureate 1813-1843.] [Illustration: _H. W. Pickersgill, R.A._} {_National Portrait Gallery._ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850. Poet Laureate 1843-1850.] [Illustration: _G. F. Watts, R.A._} {_From Photo by H. H. Cameron._ LORD TENNYSON, 1809-1892. Appointed Poet Laureate 1850. His first published verses appeared in a volume of "Poems by Two Brothers" in 1827. He was created Baron Tennyson in 1884.] [Illustration: _G. F. Watts, R.A._} {_National Portrait Gallery._ ROBERT BROWNING, 1812-1889. Poet. His last volume, "Asolando," was published on the day of his death, December 12, 1889. He and Tennyson lie in adjoining graves in "Poet's Corner," Westminster Abbey.] [Sidenote: Question of the Paper Duty.]