background, red, though visible, is not very much more so than khaki, and is a very much harder object to aim at; because green and red being complementary colors, the red appears to dance on the green as soon as the eye is brought down to the sights, whereas khaki does not. Any one can satisfy himself of the truth of this by direct experiment. Again, red on brown, blue, purple, or reddish yellow, when dotted about, and not in large masses, enters so largely into the composition of these colors-as every colorist knows-that at very short distances it seems to fade into the mass behind, and by no means "to spring at the eyes," as the French say, in the way usually imagined. We will grant that khaki still has some advantage, but deny that it is as great as usually supposed; and, further, we contend that this extreme degree of invisibility is in itself by no means of such importance, against the class of enemies we shall usually have to deal with, as many appear to imagine. In the first place, our average enemy possessing no power of manœuvre, it is more or less immaterial whether he sees our preparations for attack. When it comes to close fighting, the advantage conferred on us by the old red coat can scarcely be underrated. At these distances, aimed fire can scarcely be said to exist; the struggle is really a mental one between

the two forces; and anything which heightens the impression on the mind conveyed by our rush is far too precious to be lightly thrown away. But all the time we are forgetting the original reason which, according to tradition, led to the adoption of the red color, viz., that in the course of an action men get killed and wounded, and blood is spirted about in a very unpleasant manner. After an hour of heavy artillery fire the scene presented by the men fired at is one of indescribable horror-every man is more or less splashed and stained with blood — and at the time it is impossible to tell who is really wounded or merely shamming; and this argument was specially put forward in Austria as a reason for abolishing their old white uniforms-though, by the way, their present grey blue is almost as objectionable as the old one. But khaki in this respect is horrible; the least stair of any kind shows on it; and it was for this reason it was so promptly discontinued in the home army. Clean weapons and smartly turned-out accoutrements are the outward visible sign of valuable soldierly qualities in the soldier, and where these are lost the downward path has been entered on. All military history does not contain an instance of troops who failed through personal smartness; but a large volume might be filled with examples to the contrary.

POST-PLIOCENE FOOTPRINTS. The discovery of human footprints on volcanic rocks near the shore of Lake Managua, Nicaragua, under circumstances which seem to assign them a remote antiquity, has been announced for several years. Dr. D. G. Brenton has described in a paper read before the American Philosophical Society a specimen of these footprints sent to him by Dr. Carl Flint, of Rivas, Nicaragua. The volcano of Tizcapa, which furnishes the material forming the tufas on which the footprints occur, is one of several in the vicinity which have long been extinct, and whose craters are occupied by deep and still lakes. Dr. Brenton's specimen was taken from a quarry on the lake shore at a point where the overlying strata present a thickness of twenty-one feet beneath the surface soil. These strata comprise five well-marked beds

of tufa, beneath which is a deposit of clay, and below this four more beds with other accumulations in the seams of pumice and volcanic stone. A heavy deposit of tufa lying on yellow sand is then reached. This is the last in the series, and bears on its upper surface innumerable footprints, some deeply imprinted, while others are but superficial impressions. As to the age of the footprints, Dr. Flint believes the yellow sand under them to be eocene, but the small shells which it contains are deemed by Professor Angelo Heilprin to be more nearly post-pliocene than eocene. In view of this and the indications furnished by the overlying strata, Dr. Brenton concludes that there is not sufficient evidence to remove the footprints further back than the present post-pliocene or quaternary period.

Science and Art.

The shy windflower will nestle 'neath the trees;

Primrose and violet haunt the mossy bank; Cowslip and kingcup spread o'er the downs and leas,

Robin and lady-smock o'er meadows dank.

The limes will redden and the oaks embrown; To chestnut buds a glistening dew will rise; The feathering alders to the lake stoop down; The virgin hazels ope their scarlet eyes. And then, watch howso patiently we may,

A touch eludes our ken. The beechen tops To-day are golden, willow-wands are grey; To-morrow a green cloud enfolds the copse. H. G. HEWLETT.

ONE more glimpse of the sun,
One more breath from the sea,
One more kiss from my darling one-
Then, Death, come speedily!

One more smile from my sweet,
One more clasp of a hand,
One more sound of returning feet —
Then come, that better land!

One more passionate prayer
To Christ, that he shall be
My guide as I climb the golden stair-
Then come, eternity!

LORD HENRY SOMERSET.

From The National Review. THE FIRST SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

I.

THE first special correspondent sprang not full-armed from the head of Jove, as the confidence of his prognostications, the intimacy of his relations with crowned heads, and our own conviction that it is very kind of him to permit the wearing of either heads or crowns, might lead us to suppose. Before the great Revolution he was- - nay, was he not among the very shadows it cast before it? — and his name was Melchior Grimm.

This name had almost vanished from the minds of men, until the comparatively recent publication of sixteen volumes of the "Correspondance Littéraire," followed by divers memoirs and biographies, the letters of Madame d'Epinay, collected by MM. Perey and Maugras, and last, but perhaps not least, M. d'Haussonville's † curt and somewhat grudging reference to that fascinating woman had reawakened general interest in the brilliant adventurer who was, to her and hers, so faithful a friend. The sympathy with which Grimm inspired his contemporaries may have been partly due to what is now called personal magnetism. Yet surely it would not have decreased and died out so rapidly after his death but for certain passages in Rousseau's " "Confessions confessions in which the writer's morbid | love of notoriety magnified his own vileness, and in which his no less insane ingratitude smirched every name borne by friend or benefactor. Sainte-Beuve paid a tribute to Grimm's "fine intellect, delicate, decided, impartial," to his excellent criticism of "multitudinous subjects... venant toujours le premier dans ses juge ments, . . . a merit not to be overlooked; for nothing is easier to judge than an author when his reputation is made." “Yet,” he added, "justice is never done to Grimm, his name is seldom uttered without some disparaging qualification. I, too, have been thus prejudiced, and when I questioned myself as to the cause, I found that it was based solely on the

Edited by M. Maurice Tourneux, 1877-1882.

+ Le Salon de Madame Necker, par le Comte d'Haussonville.

Causeries du Lundi, 1853.

'Confessions' of Rousseau. But. Rousseau, whenever his self-esteem or his morbid vanity are at stake, has never refrained from lying; and I have come to the conclusion that he has been a liar with regard to Grimm."

The "Correspondance Littéraire,” a fortnightly manuscript journal addressed to the kings of Prussia and Poland, to the queen of Sweden, Catherine of Russia, the duchesses Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt and Louise of Saxe-Gotha (according to Meister, Grimm's secretary and successor, to fifteen personages in all between the Arno and the Neva), is the monument by which Grimm has obtained his lasting footing in French literature, and justified the title we give him in this paper. Yet at the very outset of his career, two of his pamphlets, the "Lettre sur Omphale " and "Le petit Prophète de Boemischbroda," had attracted sufficient attention to account for Voltaire's celebrated query: De quoi s'avise ce bohémien d'avoir plus d'esprit que nous autres?" How came this. son of a Lutheran pastor to be writing and publishing French within the walls of Paris, as glibly and imperturbably as the "General" Kitong himself?

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