Perhaps, as he faces the
sky, he pictures in the clouds heavily rolling o'er the moon, a mimic
battle, in which his company is in the thickest of the fight; perhaps he
is dreaming of--what? It is hard to tell: it may be of Betty in return;
it may be of a wee sister or dear old mother far away over the
seas--whom, since many years he has not seen, and then, God help his sad
and weary heart! the prospect is a dreary one indeed of ever beholding
"sacred home" again. He has fought well for you in the days of the
Knickerbockers and in the valley of Mexico, and the same brave spirit
adorns the homely bosom still. If it is charge, he charges; stand, he
stands; and should there at any time occur a suspicious retrograde
movement, he'll punch you with his bayonet if you call it by any other
name than that of masterly retreat. Congress, during its last session,
provided a Military Asylum, so that when age or wounds have taken away
his once hardy strength, he will have a peaceful refuge, until--

"Hark! the muffled drum sounds the last march of the brave,
The soldier retreats to his quarters--the grave--
Under Death, whom he owns his commander-in-chief--
And no more he'll turn out with the ready relief."

As we cannot charge Uncle Sam with any extravagant degree of nepotism,
we will commend Tobin to a bit more of the spare regard of the people of
the United States--the "smartest nation in all creation"--a fact which
John Bull pretends to disregard, and, like a traveller lost in the
woods, whistles every now and then, to keep his courage up. In these
days, when his great captains glide into the affections of the people,
and thence into the chair of state, it were well to remember the Italian
proverb, _Il sangue del soldato fa grande il capitano_, which, being
interpreted, means, "The blood of the soldier makes the glory of the
general!"

TO SUNDRY CRITICS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

He _steals and imitates_, with wiry note
The critics squeak, _from Keats, and Tennyson,
Shelly, and Hunt, and Wordsworth, every one,
And many more whose works we know--by rote!_
But how, good sirs, if God created him
Like unto these, though in their radiance dim?
Nothing in Nature's round is infinite;
The moulds of every kind are similar:
A flower is like a flower; a star a star;
And all the suns are lit with self-same light.
How