between 18 and 60 years of age. The militia may only be sent in exceptional cases and by a law passed through both Chambers and ratified by the King, beyond the frontiers. Their officers, in time of peace, militiamen, are in war time assisted by officers detached from the line, and in 1830 they rendered excellent services to their country.

EDUCATION OF OFFICERS.

From what we have already stated, it will be readily perceived, that the greater part of the Dutch army being in time of peace merely on paper, a paramount necessity exists for having a cadre of officers fully adequate in every respect for the arduous duties that must devolve on them in war time, when they would have to take the field with troops of which the majority have been but partially drilled and then sent back to their homesteads, only to be called out on emergencies.

It has thus been the aim of the Dutch government, since the events of 1830, to form as complete a cadre of officers as possible for all branches of the service, and the foundation of the Royal Military Academy at Breda was considered necessary in order to ensure their having a thoroughly scientific military education. The results have proved in every way satisfactory, and some detailed account of that establishment will, we believe, not be devoid of interest at a moment like the present.

The military academy, formerly a palace of the Princes of Orange, at Breda, is a handsome and extensive quadrangular edifice,

sur

rounded by large grounds, and separated by broad moat from the rest of the town. Within its walls there is accommodation for upwards of 350 cadets, a hospital, a residence for the governor, for the doctor, and three officers in charge of the police of the establishment. Besides this, there is a large riding-school, stabling for forty horses, a barrack for the sergeants attached to the academy, and for upwards of one hundred servants, &c. There is also in one of the wings of the building a handsome library, a collection of models, and in fact every

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other requisite for all branches of the service. The governor of the academy is a major-general or colonel, who has under his orders fortyseven military and civil officers of different ranks, all charged with giving instruction in various

branches of the sciences.

Every year the ministry of

war settles the number of cadets to be admitted to the academy, and the candidates are then examined by a mixed commission of the officers and professors of the academy. As there are generally

many more candidates than vacan cies, the examination is very severe, and boys are admitted to the competition only between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. They must be acquainted with the Dutch and French languages, cyphering, the elements of mathematics, and the rudiments of history and geography. The cleverest scholars are proposed to the minister by the commission and the governor, and invariably appointed. Neither interest nor connexions of any kind avail.

The cadets for the engineers, artillery, and cavalry pay бoofl. a-year (£50); for the infantry only 450fl. (about £38.) They remain in general four years at the academy, but in case of incapacity can be. kept longer or discharged at once from the service. During the last year of their stay at the academy, the cadets hold the rank of sergeant or corporal in the army. The government can remit the yearly fees in favour of the sons of distinguished civil or military officers, who have no adequate means.

The course of study includes the following branches, in which the cadets have to pass a severe examination before obtaining their commissions; and their seniority in the service (in a promotion of the same date) is determined by the results of this last examination.

6. Physics, (a general knowledge of the principles).

7. The rudiments of surveying. 8. Universal history, history of the wars since the sixteenth century, and history of the Netherlands.

9. Geography of Europe, and more in detail of the Netherlands and their colonies, and the neighbouring states.

10. The Dutch, French, and German languages, and a summary of the history of their literatures. II. Rectilinear drawing, and sketching.

12. A thorough knowledge of the regulations of the service, tactics, and the rudiments of strategy. 13. Military law.

14. Infantry exercise and ma

the duties he has to perform, and can directly be employed, as is frequently the case, in instructing the non-commissioned officers and privates of the regiment to which he may be attached. For the establishment of the academy by no means precludes the advancement of those who by their conduct and education may be thought worthy of rising from the ranks. Every year an examination is held at Breda of such unmarried non-commissioned officers, not above 30 years of age, as aspire to the epaulet, and a certain number of them are promoted as vacancies occur, and cannot be filled up by the academy. This examination is comparatively very easy to pass, and does not include officers for the engineers.

As in Prussia, there are no regimental schoolmasters in the Netherlands. Instruction is given to the privates by non-commissioned officers, and to these by the officers themselves-a system which seems to work remarkably well, as this duty is not absolutely forced on the officers, and it is considered rather as a mark of distinction than otherwise, to be designated for it by the colonel of the regiment.

In all branches of the military service, the promotion takes place regularly by seniority, as vacancies occur, up to the rank of major. Only a certain number of commissions are reserved for promotion by choice' (bij keuze), which are given to officers who have distinguished themselves in any way that may fairly entitle them to be placed above the heads of their seniors in the service. Captains, whom the ministry do not think fit to hold the rank of field officer, are allowed to retain their companies or to retire on pensions. No officer can be discharged from the service, unless by a court-martial, without a pension, which can never exceed two-thirds of the full pay ;-the exact amount is regulated by the number of years the claimant has been in the service. Subalterns are not allowed to marry unless they can prove they themselves, or their intended, have an income of at least £50 above their

1856.]

any opportunity of inserting above. The promotion is excessively slow in the Dutch army; lieutenants of fifteen years' standing are by no means scarce, and only the strictest economy will enable a young man to live on his pay, which he can, however, do. There are no obligatory regimental messes; every officer dines where he pleases, generally some half-dozen subs together, at a very trifling expense, or at the tabled'hôte of an hotel. The uniforms are (with the exception of the horse-artillery, which is rich,) plain and neat, and by no means pensive. Officers in garrison at the Hague, and who are expected to attend the court balls, &c., receive

ex

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an extra allowance; anything like profligacy, drinking to excess, or running in debt, meets with the severest reprobation, and is sure to incur dismissal from the service; and where there is so little encouragement given to these vices, they are naturally of rare occur

rence.

Such is the present state of the Dutch army, which we have sketched as briefly as possible, carefully avoiding all comparisons, invidious or otherwise; our only aim was to afford some information on a subject certainly hitherto almost ignored in England, leaving it to our readers to draw their own inferences.

M. P. L.

DURING the thirteenth century

of our era lived and died Shekh Sadi, of Shiraz, one of Persia's most memorable sons. While Europe was sunk in barbarism, or rather was just beginning to emerge from her long sleep, as the ten dumb centuries' which were to make 'the speaking Dante,' drew to their close, Sadi, with his keen sense and poet's heart, was wandering in his derwish dress from city to city throughout the Mohammedan world, everywhere studying manners and mankind, and everywhere gathering wisdom and experience. He travelled in Barbary, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Arabia, Tartary, and India; fourteen times he made the pilgrimage to Mecca; and this wide knowledge of the world leaves its traces in every page that he wrote. 'Long,' he tells us in one of his poems, have I wandered in the various regions of the earth, and everywhere I have spent my days with everybody: I have found a gain in every corner, and gleaned an ear from every harvest."

His

long life was chequered with every variety of fortune; for in those days war was abroad in the earth, and rapid changes were sweeping over the fair face of Asia. The Franks still held part of Palestine, though the enthusiasm of the early

Crusades had long since passed away; and the fierce hordes of the Tartars and Moguls, which had burst forth under Zingis Khan from the wilds of Scythia, were laying waste, under his generals or successors, the fairest seats of Asiatic civilization; and in 1258 his grandson, Holagou Khan, took Bagdad by storm, and put to death the feeble Mostasem, whose name closes the long and glorious line of the Abbasside dynasty of the Caliphs.

Amidst this shaking of empires, individuals of course could not escape. Life and property were fearfully insecure, and a shadow must have darkened every home. Sadi, who long resided at Bagdad, where he held a fellowship in the Nizamiah College, has commemorated in one of his elegies the devastation of the city by Holagou; and in his travels in Syria he fell into the hands of the Crusaders, who set him to work with other slaves in repairing the fortifications of Tripolis. But Sadi carried a brave heart in his bosom, which no threats of adverse fortune could subdue. The dangers of travel but added a keener zest to his enjoyment; for the world in those days was still fresh to the traveller, and every forest and every hill had its adventure and its romance. Science

had not then mapped out sea and land, and stripped travel of its won. der and danger; and Nature rewarded her votary with a far deeper relish for her charms. Life to the traveller was fuller and richer, and his feelings were stronger and deeper; nor was it merely the hills and the woods that breathed their fuller life into his heart, but he learned a deeper sympathy with his fellowman. The fellow-travellers of the caravan were linked by their community of hardship and danger, and heart answered to heart in their intercourse; for the desert solitudes annihilate fashions, and leave men bare as nature around them. These influences wrought deeply on Sadi's character, and it is these which lend such a living charm to his books.

itself it is a book of morals; but this description could never convey to the English reader the faintest idea of its real character. It is a book of morals, but written for the story-loving East, that native home of-romance in every age; and instead of laboured disquisitions and logical systems, we have everywhere life and human interest. Morality descends from the universal to the individual; she steps from the schools to the bazaar; and, instead of dealing with words and abstractions, clothes her thoughts with flesh and blood in the forms of living men.

The work is divided into eight sections, seven of which are So many series of stories and apologues to illustrate some leading point, which gives the title to the section, and unites, as by a thread, the otherwise unconnected series of which it is composed. The book is written in prose; but distichs and

tetrastichs, and sometimes longer poems, are continually introduced to vary the narrative, and also to give force and piquancy to the lessons which it may be intended to convey. In no other book is the beauty of the Persian language so fully displayed; no other author has ever wielded the instrument so well, or tried, like Sadi, all its capabilities to their full. And yet the style is generally simple, and singularly free from that rank luxuriance of ornament which in later times disfigured Persian poetry, and which indeed is the chief characteristic that the bare mention of Oriental poetry, alas! too often suggests to the English reader. From this fault Sadi is generally free, and his language is usually pointed and concise; indeed, one of his peculiar characteristics is the poignant brevity of many of his sayings, which stamps them with a kind of proverbial significance. His poetry is always graceful and easy, with no great power of imagination, but an inexhaustible flow of imagery and fancy; and we frequently find that tender pathos which wins its way to the reader's heart by no forced appeals of rhetorical art, but by its native simplicity and home-felt truth.

But one great charm of the book, as we said, is its being so thoroughly un-Western and new. The characters who flit before us in its stories, and the scenery which forms the background as they move, are alike Oriental; the moment we open the volume we find ourselves in another clime. It reminds us of the view which Mr. Curzon describes from the window of the Alexandrian hotel, when he gazed on the street and bazaar below: Here my companion and I stationed ourselves, and watched the novel and curious scene; and strange indeed to the eye of the European, when for the first time he enters an Oriental city, is all he sees around him. The picturesque dresses, the buildings, the palm-trees, the camels, the people of various nations, with their long beards, their arms and turbans, all unite to form a picture which is indelibly fixed in the memory."

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