taneous descent on four points. Where would be our second line of defence in that case? Where have we a large armed camp in which to collect our strength, and prepare to crush the invader? In such a case, we should have to fall back on our volunteer riflemen, and, however flattering may be the opinion we entertain of them, we should be sorry to see them take the field unsupported by artillery and cavalry, or without the requisite amount of discipline and drill which imparts so much moral strength in the battle-field.

It is because we put faith in the volunteer movement that we urge and re-urge these vital points. We are sorry to see them going in the wrong direction, and would gladly see them turn back while there is yet time. We only too willingly recognise the admirable spirit which has animated them from the commencement: the patience with which they have endured the weather, and the aptitude they have evinced when brigaded together. But for that very reason we desire to see them striving for perfection, and not stopping half way, for they deprive themselves of much of their value by their exclusive devotion to the rifle. The matter should be taken up in a practical spirit, and we feel assured it could be carried to a successful issue, for we can say from practical experience that artillery is a most fascinating arm. That such battalions can be formed without any difficulty, we have the experiment of Woolwich dockyard to prove, and we want to see that example followed in every county in the kingdom. It is a poor excuse to urge that artillery would only be needed on the coast, for we must not risk all on the hazard of a die: we should take into consideration the possibility of an enemy landing.

To prevent this, it will be urged, we are about to spend twelve millions sterling on the recommendation of the National Commission. The volunteer movement was a step in the right direction, and, had it been carried out logically, we should have heard nothing of these millions to be expended in fortifications. But, in order to be successful, the armament of the nation should be general, and those persons disinclined to arms ought to have provided a substitute, or, at any rate, have subscribed towards equipping the sinews of the country. This has been the case, however, to a very small extent, and the result is, that the volunteer rifles have degenerated to a great extent into clubs, composed of men who cannot devote the proper time to their conversion into regular soldiers. The movement has, in fact, been restricted to a class, and the effect is now too visible. The rifle volunteers cannot be regarded as constituting the true defence of the country. They might prove of sufficient service in the event of an invasion by supporting the regular army, but in other respects they have not filled up the gap; our military estimates must still go on increasing, and the end will be that only the tailors will benefit by the movement.

We are sorry to be compelled to utter such harsh truths, for we have been consistent advocates of the national armament from the commencement, regarding it, as we did, as a cheap insurance paid for peace. But if no saving is to result in consequence of the movement-if millions are to be spent on our fortifications, and our regular army increased, we say, in all humility, that the movement has failed in carrying out what was intended. We hoped to see in it a modification of the Prussian Landwehr system, the cheapest mode of defence ever yet discovered; but, instead of that, everybody seems to have acted on his own account, and that

cohesion which would have assured the vitality of the movement has been sadly neglected. Corps have sprung into existence throughout the country, perfectly careless, as it seems, of each other's presence, but forming close boroughs; the spirit of coteries and cliqueism has been rampant, and we fear that the volunteers will have to begin again if they wish to bring matters to a successful result.

Much of this, we grant, is owing to the want of any authority to regulate the movement. Government could not, or would not, take the initiative, and the volunteers have been left to drift about at their will. The War-office began by throwing cold water on the movement, but, finding it was growing over their heads, they offered no further opposition. But they did not take the movement in hand, and, by laying down certain broad rules, ensure its efficiency, and render it a permanent factor in the defensive resources of the country.

We would not have it supposed for a moment that we are actuated by any unfriendly feeling towards the volunteers who have already joined; on the contrary, we heartily thank them for the excellent example they have offered their fellow-countrymen. All we wish to urge is the absolute necessity of rendering the movement as perfect as possible, by the addition of the other arms of the service. We fully coincide, however, in the spirit which animates the following lines, written by a distinguished member of the volunteer corps:

There never was a time when it was so incumbent on the people of this glorious country of ours to arm themselves-there never was a time when the people were in such need of united efforts to become prepared for any emergency, and there never was a time when those efforts were so nobly made as now. In the beginning of the present century the people rushed into the volunteer force to save themselves from their otherwise inevitable fate of being "drawn" for the militia, or worse, of being "pressed" for other branches of the service. They joined the volunteers, were exempt from the militia, were equipped by government, and cared nothing for the movement. Now they have no pressure from without; but their beloved Queen appeals to their patriotism and their loyalty, their love of country and their home affections, and the respond is one which does honour to them and to her. The volunteers now are volunteers in every sense of the word. They devote their time to the cause; they purchase with their own money their own arms, uniforms, and equipments, and they impose upon themselves restrictions and fines to keep strict discipline and order among themselves, and all this for love of country and for the sake of upholding national greatness and liberty. Those whose means enable them to equip themselves, do so-those whose means enable them to give large sums of money instead, also do so; and those who have patriotism in their hearts, but whose means do not allow of them doing as others, are equipped free of all cost out of the general funds; but all do it with the same patriotic feelings, the same love of their fatherland, the same warm-hearted loyalty to their sovereign.

All we ask is, that the remarks we have thought it our duty to make will be accepted in the spirit in which they are offered, and we sincerely trust that our suggestions, which are the result of considerable thought and investigation, may be speedily carried out. Then-but not till then -the defence of the country may be safely entrusted to the British Volunteers, and we should possess an army capable of withstanding the world in arms against us.

"IN MEMORIAM."

BY MRS. ALFRED M. MUNSTER,

DEAD! well, thy life had little joy enough,

And 'twere no tenderness to wish thee here:
The skies were dark, the way was bare and rough,
Along the path which led thee to thy bier.
"Tis over now- -the struggle and the sin,

The bitter slander, and more bitter truth:
Thou never more shalt quail before the din

With which the world condemned thine erring youth.

I will not weep-I dare not weep for thee;
Tears were unmeet beside so scorned a grave.

I try to joy that death hath set thee free,

Poor wreck! torn, tost so long on sorrow's wave! But when I thus would still my aching heart,

Upriseth all the dim and shadowy past,

And ghosts of buried memories upstart
To see thee lying quiet there-at last.

I mourn not for thy death, but for thy life,

For what thou wert, and what thou mightst have been;

The early promise, and the latter strife,

And, oh! the awful gulf that yawns between.

Tears! Let the healing rain of sorrow fall

For those who blameless live, lamented die.
Thou hadst no hand but mine to spread thy pall,
No friend to lay thee in the grave—save I.

Oh, once beloved! why didst thou plume thy wing,
Untried and feeble, for a prouder flight?
Wealth, station, were not mine to bear or bring,
In those old days which rise to mock my sight;
I had but love to give-and that was thine.

Why didst thou yearn to prove a nobler fate?
Perchance in fame and fortune's swift decline
Thou lookedst back-too late, alas! too late.
But that is past; 'tis true I have not known
Another love to fill thy vacant place;
True that I watched thy course unseen, alone,
Through every phase-short triumph, long disgrace.

Ay! and when idle tongues reviled thy fame,

The burning flush of shame would stain my brow,
To think that what I scarcely dared to name
Was all the lot life held for such as thou.

Sleep dreamless now! and I will school my heart
To think of thee as thou wert wont to be,
Ere in thy soul deceit had claimed a part,

And thou wert still unstained, and true to me.

I will return no more, nor will look back;
From life's wild, weary turmoil thou art gone,
And hopes nor fears no more shall haunt the track
My patient steps shall follow-all alone.

MOUNT OLYMPUS.*

The Thunderer sat; where old Olympus shrouds
His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds.

POPE'S Homer's Iliad, b. i.

ENTERING the Gulf of Salonika or of Thessaly, the Olympus presents itself to the view in all its grandeur. Rising to an elevation of 9754 feet English, it stretches along the coast for a distance of nearly forty miles. It is, indeed, connected with the system of Pelion and Ossa, and is, as it were, a continuation of those two mountains, but a deep and gloomy fissure and abrupt escarpments mark the point where the Peneius cleaves itself a way and separates the two. The Olympus, thus viewed, presents three distinct regions, which succeed one another going from south-east to north-west. We have at first a kind of hilly and rocky upland, attaining some elevation above the sea, yet seeming low in the presence of the lofty summits beyond. Then we have the principal mass of the mountain itself, rising up at once to its topmost crest with immense rapid and continuous slopes. This is the Olympus, properly so called, the culminating point where the Greeks supposed their gods to dwell. It suffices to describe it to refer to the epithets used by the poets of antiquity, and especially by Homer. They designate it as the long Olympus; Olympus with numerous heads, with deep fissures, with sharp peaks; Olympus with innumerable folds; shady Olympus; snow-clad Olympus; shining Olympus.†

The summit of Olympus is a lengthy crest, at whose extremities are grouped great rocks, which surmount it like so many heads, and the sharpest of which rises to the north-east. In the songs of modern Greece, Olympus is still glorified with sixty-two summits. Its flanks are clothed with wood:

Scilicet atque Ossæ frondosum involvere Olympum.-VIRG. Georg.

Dr. Holland (Trav. vol. ii. p. 27) says: "The transient view we had of the mountain from this point (Litokhoro) showed us a line of precipices of vast height, forming its eastern front towards the sea, and broken at intervals by deep hollows, or ravines, which were richly clothed with forest

* Le Mont Olympe et l'Acarnanie: Exploration de ces deux Régions, avec l'Etude de leurs Antiquités, de leurs Populations Anciennes et Modernes, de leur Géographie et de leur Histoire. Par L. Heuzey, Ancien Membre de l'Ecole Française d'Athènes. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères.

† Next to the epithet of μakpós most frequently given to Olympus by Homer, is ȧyavvipos (Il. i. 420), from its being covered with snow during the greater part of the year. (Hesiod Theog. 118) also gives it the epithet of vipoes. Below the summit its rugged outline is broken into many ridges and precipices, whence Homer describes it as oλudeɩpás (Il. 492, v. 754). Pope gives his own free versions of Homer's epithets as follows:

Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise. (Bk. viii.)

Or far, O far from steep Olympus thrown. (16.)

Where vast Olympus' starry summits shine. (Bk. xviii.)
Swift from Olympus' snowy summit flies. (Ib.)

Swift o'er Olympus' hundred hills she flies. (Bk. xx.)

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trees. The oak, chesnut, beech, plane-tree, &c., are seen in great abundance along the base and skirts of the mountain; and towards the summit of the first ridge large forests of pine spread themselves along the acclivities."

The chain of Olympus does not maintain the high elevation of its culminating points to its extremity; it lowers, and rocky table-lands and a lower crest are seen beyond a deep fissure. These belong to the Pierus of antiquity, which has been from all times more or less confounded with the Olympus, and of which, indeed, they are the last prolongation. They extend to the Haliacmon and end in the great plain of Macedonia. Thus the long and lofty wall of the Olympus separates Macedonia from Thessaly, and constitutes the first line of defence of the Hellenic peninsula. The slope that fronts the sea constitutes, with its narrow shore, ancient Pieria, a Macedonian province; whilst its western slopes belong to Perrhaebia, a Thessalian province. The communication between the two is effected by three narrow and difficult passes. The first and most southerly is the defile or gorge of Tempe, through which the waters of the Peneius force their way into the sea. Near the centre of the chain is the lofty defile of Petra, which separates Olympus from Pierus. The third pass is more out of the way; to reach it the mountains of Central Macedonia must be traversed, the Haliacmon crossed away from its mouth, and the pass of Sarandaporus will be reached, situate at the extremity of the Pierus, where that chain is prolonged by other heights to the westward. Low Olympus is not, strictly speaking, a pass, albeit once traversed by a Roman army.

This strong and advanced position (writes M. Heuzey) at the threshold of Greece, explains satisfactorily the part that Olympus has played in history, and how it is that it appears from time to time with brilliancy to pass away again in obscurity. Never was its name greater than in the time of the primitive invasions, at a time when all the tribes who were destined at a later epoch to constitute the Greek people, encamped upon its slopes, or pressed forwards into its defiles. There was the theatre of their first struggles, of their ancient establishments, and of their first station in the long journey which brought them from the regions of the Caspian Sea. So, also, did their imagination preserve an ineffaceable memory of these places. At a later period, when the populations passed off to the southwards, carrying civilisation with them, the Olympus became no longer for several centuries aught but a distant limit between semi-barbarous countries; the gates of Greece were then at the Thermopyla. But, during that long period, it did not cease to be inhabited by people of primitive manners, who dwelt obscurely in its valleys, relics of many different tribes; on one side are the Pieres, remains of the Thracians, who contributed to civilise. Greece ; on the other the Perrhaebi, descendants of the famous Pelasgi of Thessaly. In this point the Olympus resembled the Caucasus, which, placed on the frontier of Europe, on the high road of invasions, preserves far from us such curious relics of the most ancient and most diverse races.

The Olympus naturally reappears at the epoch of the power of the Macedonians, and becomes the principal theatre of their wars against the Greeks, and especially against Rome. Under the Roman empire it is once more lost sight of; it separates uselessly countries that are all alike subjected and pacified, and we must come down to the middle ages, at a time when new invasions inundated the Greek provinces, to find the names of its fortresses and of its passes in historians. Lastly, after the Turkish conquest, it became celebrated as the last asylum of the conquered populations and the country of the Klephtes: in Olympus, say the popular songs, there are as many Klephtes as there are bushes."

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