'Our life was but a battle and a march, And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless, We storm'd across the war-convulsed Earth.' Still farther to soften the asperities of the scene, the dialogue is cast into a rude Hudibrastic metre, full of forced rhymes, and strange double-endings, with a rhythm ever changing, ever rough and lively, which might almost be compared to the hard, irregular, fluctuating sound of the regimental drum. In this ludicrous doggrel, with phrases and figures of a correspondent cast, homely, ridiculous, graphic, these men of service paint their hopes and doings. There are ranks and kinds among them; representatives of all the constituent parts of the motley multitude, which followed this prince of _Condottieri_. The solemn pedantry of the ancient Wachtmeister is faithfully given; no less so are the jocund ferocity and heedless daring of Holky's Jägers, or the iron courage and stern camp-philosophy of Pappenheim's Cuirassiers. Of the Jäger the sole principle is military obedience; he does not reflect or calculate; his business is to do whatever he is ordered, and to enjoy whatever he can reach. 'Free wished I to live,' he says, 'Free wished I to live, and easy and gay, And see something new on each new day; In the joys of the moment lustily sharing, 'Bout the past or the future not thinking or caring: To the Kaiser, therefore, I sold my bacon, And by him good charge of the whole is taken. Order me on 'mid the whistling fiery shot, Over the Rhine-stream rapid and roaring wide, A third of the troop must go to pot,— Without loss of time, I mount and ride; But farther, I beg very much, do you see, That in all things else you would leave me free.' The Pappenheimer is an older man, more sedate and more indomitable; he has wandered over Europe, and gathered settled maxims of soldierly principle and soldierly privilege: he is not without a _rationale_ of life; the various professions of men have passed in review before him, but no coat that he has seen has pleased him like his own 'steel doublet,' cased in which, it is his wish, 'Looking down on the world's poor restless scramble, Careless, through it, astride of his nag to ramble.' Yet at times with this military stoicism there is blended a dash of homely pathos; he admits,