sentiments produced by chivalry would fain invest them with superhuman perfection. The sermons of the time are sometimes extravagant in the former direction, as when the wife of Pilate is said to have been a monster of iniquity, because she endeavoured, by letting her husband know of her dream, to prevent the crucifixion of our Lord and the salvation of mankind. But in general the preachers give honour to the 'weaker vessel,' and uphold the dignity of marriage; and if, as was to be expected of them in that age of mysticism, they occasionally bestow praise on celibacy, it is the married state which, at least in their popular discourses, is regarded as the normal condition of humanity. Marriage was not to be contracted by a youth before the age of fourteen, nor by a maiden before twelve. The wife was to be the companion and equal of the husband, neither to be his slave nor to rule him; and, according to a favourite mediæval illustration, a token of this equality was given when the first woman was taken, not from the head, nor from the foot, but from the side of man. The mutual respect of the married couple was shown in those days by their addressing each other as Monsieur and Madame (Domine, Domina), after the example, as it was said, of Abraham and Sarah. We have not observed any reference in M. Lecoy's book to the habit, which seems to have been more common in the Middle Ages than in our own, of interlarding familiar conversation with profane oaths. Every nobleman had his own peculiar oath, called juron and solenne juramentum in French and Latin, as surely as he had his blazon or device. If he had not the ingenuity to invent a form of asseveration for himself, he adopted one which was already current. The common people of course followed in this, as in other bad ways, the example of their betters, and the practice of profane swearing became universal. Some illustrious persons derived a sobriquet from their favourite oath. In a rhyme quoted by Brantôme in his life of Francis I., King Charles VIII. was styled 'Par 'le jour Dieu,' and Francis I. Foi de Gentilhomme.'* Several of our own Plantagenet and Tudor kings might have been * The old rhyme is thus given by Brantôme 'Quand la Pasque Dieu décéda, : : [Louys XI.] Similar verses are to be found in the 'Epitheton des Quatre Rois' of Roger de Collerye (alias Roger Bontemps). distinguished in the same manner. In the earlier days of these blasphemous expletives the attempt was repeatedly made to put them down, and laws were passed by Philippe Auguste, Louis IX., and Philippe de Valois forbidding them under pain of the severest punishments, such as flogging and piercing the tongue with an iron. The only effect of this legislation was that some of the more popular oaths were subjected, by way of disguise, to ingenious transformations. Thus Corps Dieu, Ventre Dieu, Mort Dieu, were corrupted, or improved, into Corbieu or Corbleu, Morbleu, Ventrebleu; and still further, in order to obliterate the still significant and offensive termination, into Cordienne, &c., and this form by the ladies was abbreviated into Pardi, Mordi, &c., while the peasants had their Par ma fi' (foi), of which 'Par ma fique,' 'Par 'ma fiquette' appear as by-forms. La Trémouille swore Par la vraie corps Dieu,' Bayard 'Par mon serment;' the saintly Jeanne d'Arc, who broke the fierce Lahire of his coarse habit of blaspheming, swore 'Par mon bâton,' or 'Par mon 'martin.' We might have expected that a fashion so prevalent in the thirteenth century, and so severely condemned by the civil power, would not have been allowed by the preachers to pass unscathed. Possibly in their eyes it stood on the doubtful border between solemnity and propriety, and they may have been willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. In general, however, it would appear that the sermons of that age were plain-spoken and unsparing in their denunciations of vice and immorality. They betray no truckling to the great, no preference either for the rich or the poor. Their rebukes are not expressed in vapid declamation and vague generalities, but often, as we have seen, go very boldly and clearly to the point. Probably the cream of them has been served up in this volume, and the author is entitled to our thanks for having travelled through a somewhat unattractive field of inquiry, and may receive our congratulations that his labours have borne such good fruit. *These particulars are chiefly derived from 'Les trois Reines,' par X. B. Saintine, p. 250. ART. XI.-1. The Defence of Great and Greater Britain. By Captain J. C. R. COLOMB. 8vo. 8vo. London: 1880. 2. The British Army. By the Right Hon. Sir C. DILKE. 8vo. London: 1887. 3. The Balance of Military Power. By Colonel MAURICE. 8vo. London: 1888. TH HE problem of imperial defence grows in complexity with the years. The solution, deferred from generation to generation, becomes ever more and more difficult; and if we, with all the advantages of prosperity and a long peace, cannot attain to it, our successors, living in days of storm, may perhaps despair of the quest. And yet the great problem is by no means insoluble. The steps are clear; no extravagant sacrifices are demanded. The difficulty lies in the want of knowledge on the part of the democracy which is called upon to deal with the matter, in the jarring voices of discordant counsellors, and in a constitutional system framed to suit the requirements of a compact and homogeneous state-some amplified Belgium or Switzerland-not to administer the affairs of a world-wide empire. The problem may be simply stated. Here is a nation fired by a glorious history; spreading over land and sea; multiplying so fast that in ten years the colonies of Canada, the Cape, and Australasia alone will equal in population the Great Britain of the Waterloo era; possessing two-thirds of the steam tonnage of the world and a dominating commerce; maintaining in peace time a total of more than a million of armed men; ruling fighting races of every shade of colour; disposing of inexhaustible resources of the raw material of war, and unrivalled manufacturing power. How is this vast aggregate of peoples, territories, and wealth to be held together under the strain of war? How are the ample military resources with which it is so richly provided to be turned to full account? How are the unworthy panics which every shadow on the wall now creates to be ended for ever? How is the nation to be able once more to assert its just rights with the calmness of conscious strength? To the Duke of Wellington mere defence against invasion at home appeared hopeless. I am bordering on seventy'seven years passed in honour. I hope the Almighty may 'protect me from being a witness of the tragedy which I 'cannot persuade my contemporaries to take measures to avert' are the words in which he betrays despair. Writing in 1850, Sir J. Burgoyne stated: "The military condition of 'Great Britain as regards its very existence as a nation is ' now absolutely awful.' And Sir F. Head at the same period maintained that France, in the event of war, had the will, the intention, and the devised project to take London, and that the then existing means of defence were so contemptible as to render resistance impossible. The long peace following after Waterloo had engendered apathy, and it needed the stern teaching of the Crimean war to bring home to the mind of the nation the utter worthlessness of its military system. The personnel of the army, the regimental officers and the rank and file, came unscathed out of the trial, or Inkerman would have been lost; but higher administration, generalship, all that is implied by 'organisation for war,' that system proved hopelessly incapable of supplying. The natural wave of indignation which followed brought with it many changes. A separate Secretary of State for War arose, and the supply departments were reconstituted. There was, however, no real attempt to reach the root of the gross evils which had been disclosed; and the dual system of the government of the army-treated as a monarchical institution under the so-called Horse Guards and a national force under a parliamentary ministerflourished until a much later date, and survives to this day in the many anomalies of War Office administration. So far no real effort to grasp, or even to formulate, the problem of imperial defence had been made. Notwithstanding the disappointment felt in the apparently fruitless operations of the splendid fleet despatched to the Baltic, the navy, far better administered and far better found than the army, fairly withstood the ordeal of a war in which the strain thrown upon its resources was relatively slight. No attempt to lay down authoritatively its war functions in relation to the empire, or to scientifically adjust its strength to imperial requirements, was ever entered upon. Its increasing inadequacy, as the great nations of Europe proceeded with the reconstruction of their fleets in iron and steel, occupied one set of minds. Home defence intermittently claimed the attention of another, whenever panic inspired temporary activity. The defence of India received the consideration of yet another distinct group, as Russia advanced with rapid strides across the broad plains of Turkestan. The relief of the colonial garrisons proceeded as a matter of mere routine, their strength being maintained in accordance with tradition handed down as a legacy of the needs of other days, or based upon pure chance. The small standing army was, in fact, scattered piecemeal over the world in defiance of the principles of imperial defence and greatly to its own disadvantage. The self-governing colonies were left to their unguided instincts. Canada alone, looking anxiously across the geographical line which separates her from the United States, entered seriously upon the task of creating a real local force organised with a view to home defence. Since the era of the Russian war the whole military aspect of the Continent has changed. New navies have arisen and entered into mutual rivalry. The lessons taught to Prussia by Stein and Scharnhorst have been learned and applied by each great power, till the armed nation' has everywhere supplanted the standing army. The consequent growth of numerical military strength has been enormous, but the advance in all that is implied by organisation 'for war' has been even more marked. The requirements, real or assumed, of each nation have been taken as the sole and absolute standard of preparation, and no effort has been spared to make that preparation complete down to the smallest detail. Nor has any single great power rested content with the standard of preparation once attained. The clearest brains in every army are perpetually occupied in scheming for the perfection of the machine. Thought is, on the Continent, rapidly translated into action, and immediate readiness for war is the one ideal universally recognised. Meanwhile, England has made costly and partial efforts in the direction of defence. The sums asked of the nation have been always forthcoming, but the genius which could insist upon dealing with imperial questions as a whole has been conspicuously wanting; and, while no great private corporation has anything to learn from the methods of the Continent, the officials responsible for the national safety might have learned much from a conscientious study of the military system even of the Swiss Republic. The impression created in the minds of the Prince Consort and Lord Palmerston by the growth of Cherbourg culminated in the Royal Commission of 1860, which has been not unjustly stigmatised as 'very badly constituted for pronouncing on the general principles of defence.' The charter of this Commission practically precluded it from approaching the question of defence from the right end, and the result was inevitable. 'Here was the greatest naval power of the age centred in a sea girt isle and possessing the proudest of naval traditions. Clearly in |