mustard-seed compared to this mighty growth which now spreads over our land. It is not likely that another man will make out so good a claim to supremacy as he; it is pretty certain, that, if he does, he will not have the opportunity of rejecting the insignia of royalty, and if this should happen, he can hardly forget the great example before him. It is curious to see that the difficulties a general has to contend with now are much the same that were found in the first Revolution: bad food,--the poor surgeon at Valley Forge, whose diary was printed the other day, could not keep it on his stomach at any rate,--insufficient clothing, and no shoes at all, as the bloody snow bore witness,--and among our own New England troops "a spirit of insubordination which they took for independence," as Washington expressed himself. We do not think the New England men have rendered themselves liable to this reproach of late,--and this is a remarkable tribute to the influence of a true republican training. But in various quarters there has been enough of it, and the consequent disorganization of at least one free and easy regiment is no more than might have been expected. A panic or two, with all the disgrace and suffering that attach to such hysterical paroxysms, or at least a defeat, are the experiences through which half-organized bodies often pass to teach them the meaning of discipline and mechanical habit. An army must go through the annealing process like glass; let a few regiments be cracked to pieces because their leaders did not know how to withdraw them gradually from the furnace of action, and the lesson will be all the better remembered because taught by a costly example. Our early mishaps were all predicted, sometimes in formal shape, as in various letters dated long before the breaking out of hostilities, and very often in the common talk of those about us. But, after all, when the first chastisement from our hard schoolmaster, Experience, comes upon us, it is a kind of surprise, in spite of all our preparation. A writer in the present number of this magazine shows us that there is a complete literature of panics, not merely as occurring among new levies, but seizing on the best-appointed armies, containing as much individual bravery as any that never ran away from an enemy. The men of Israel gave way before the men of Benjamin, "retired" in the language of Scripture, in order to lead them into ambush. At a given signal they faced about, and the men of Benjamin "were amazed" (panic-struck) and "turned their backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness,"--took to the woods, as we should say. Their enemies did not lie still or run as fast the other way, like ours at Bull Run, but they "inclosed" them, and "chased them, and trode them down with ease," and "gleaned of them in the highways," and "pursued hard after them." Yet "all these were men of valor."