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COPYRIGHT, 1897

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

PRESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY.
LANCASTER, PA.

The

American Historical Review

IN

THE COLONEL AND HIS COMMAND

N the nomenclature of military ranks there is a frequent appearance of meaninglessness that agreeably stimulates speculation. We are set wondering how ideas so definite can have obtained expression so vague or inappropriate. If you have a taste for it, you will smell hidden history and be impatient to take up the scent. And given an inclination for the sport, you cannot do better. There is no hobby that is a more clever fencer or will more boldly fly the most staggering obstacles; and as for country it is some of the finest in the world of letters. A man who has never sipped the delights of old military books — and it is through these the chase will take you - has missed a good thing. There are no others of which you may grow more foolishly fond. For pedantry they are unsurpassed: nowhere can trivialities be found so weightily put or platitude so learnedly supported; and yet continually and in appetizing contrast you may light on shrewd bits of soldierly wisdom, set in a grim kind of humor, and on clear glimpses of the old soldiers' life. You may hear again their swagger and their swearing, their quarrels on trivial points of precedence, and listen to the music of the pikemen's armor as they march, and smell the smouldering matches of the musketeers. Nor can any one deny, and this is a strong attraction, that they are among the most useless and dead of books. Sterne knew them and felt their charm, though perhaps naturally he was a bit ashamed of the weakness and engaged Uncle Toby to ride his hobby. Scott felt it too after his way, and must, I think, have had his pleasant hours with them. The Antiquary shows the hand of a genuine lover, and so does The Legend of Montrose, though to be sure Dugald Dalgetty is a dunce beside Captain Shandy.

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