in features and its minute details,--nor the thoroughly English
stolidity with which all complaints were received by every member of the
Government, from the cabinet minister who dictated pompous and unmeaning
despatches, down to the meanest official who measured red tape,--nor the
intense and universal popular indignation which, after a year "full of
horrors," compelled the resignation of the Aberdeen Ministry. Lord Derby
did not, perhaps, overstate the verdict of the nation, when he said in
the House of Lords,--"From the very first to the very last, there has
been apparent in the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government a want
of previous preparation,--a total want of prescience; and they have
appeared to live from day to day providing for each successive exigency
_after it arose, and not before it arose_. TOO LATE have been the fatal
words applicable to the whole conduct of Her Majesty's Government in the
course of the war." The change in the Ministry, however, by no means
cured all the evils which had existed; for, although the sufferings of
the soldiers--thanks in large part to the providential appearance and
heroic conduct of Florence Nightingale--were greatly diminished, still,
as we have seen, the military blunders continued to the close of the
war.

Now, if we do not greatly mistake, the lesson which this country should
learn from the mortifying experience of the English army in the Crimea
is not one of exultation over its lamentable and unnecessary errors, but
rather of indifference to the insulting criticism of a nation which can
so ill afford to be critical, and of determination to profit in every
possible way by those blunders which might have been avoided. The
history of all wars, moreover, should teach us that now and then there
comes a time when to hold the olive-branch in one hand and the sword in
the other, especially if the olive-branch is kept in the foreground and
the sword in the background, involves not only a sad waste of energy,
but is mistaken kindness to our enemies.

Those who have read--and who has not?--the charming story of "Rab and
his Friends" will remember the incident which, for the sake of brevity,
we reluctantly condense. A small, thorough-bred terrier, after being
rudely interrupted in his encounter with a large shepherd's-dog, darts
off, fatally bent on mischief, to seek a new canine antagonist. He
discovers him in the person of a huge mastiff, quietly sauntering along
in a peac