ssion upon another from a distance. Even the long spears which they
sometimes used could evidently have been employed with effect only when
each was directed with a particular aim. When two parties engaged,
therefore, they necessarily always came to close combat, and every man
singled out his adversary; a mode of fighting which was, besides, much
more adapted to their tempers, and to the feelings of vehement animosity
with which they came into the field, than any which would have kept them
at a greater distance from each other.

The details of such personal conflicts amongst more refined nations
always formed a principal ingredient in poetry and romance, from the
times of Homer to those of Spenser. They are, indeed, always
uninteresting and tiresome, although related with the highest
descriptive power; and even in the splendid descriptions of Ariosto and
Tasso there is something absolutely ludicrous in the minute
representations of two champions in complete armour, hammering each
other about with their maces like blacksmiths.

Still, the poets have clung to this love of individual prowess, wherever
their subjects would admit of such descriptions; and, even to our own
day, that habit which we derived from the times of chivalry, of
describing personal bravery as the greatest of human virtues, is not
altogether abandoned.

The realities of modern warfare are, however, very unfavourable to such
stimulating representations. The military discipline in use among the
more cultivated nations of antiquity, for example the Persians, the
Macedonians, the Grecian states, and above all, the Romans, undoubtedly
did much to give to their armies the power of united masses,
controllable by one will, and not liable to be broken down and rendered
comparatively inefficient by the irregular movements of individuals. But
it is the introduction of fire-arms which has, most of all, contributed
to change the original character of war, and the elements of the
strength of armies. Where it is merely one field of artillery opposed to
another, and the efficient value of every man on either side lies
principally in the musket which he carries on his shoulder, individual
strength and courage become alike of little account. The result depends,
it may be almost said, entirely on the skill of the commander, not on
the exertions of those over whom he exercises nearly as absolute an
authority as a chess-player does over his pieces.

If this new system h