of America have already recognised the Japanese right, and this concession has procured for Americans the opening of two new ports. The convention entered into is subject to the concurrence of the other Powers, but the action of the United States will no doubt influence the subsequent decision.

Since then nothing of any very great importance has occurred, and perhaps this may be considered as the best proof of the policy which has been pursued by the administration. Although no extraordinary events have taken place during the time Hayes has been President, every one must agree that he has acted throughout prudently and honestly. He has had the welfare of his country at heart, and his earnest efforts have been directed towards reforms in all those branches of the service where corruption was rapidly becoming the order of the day. It is a moot question whether Hayes will again be nominated as President when his term of office expires. Popular opinion is pointing to General Grant as his probable successor, and there is no doubt that the successful soldier, who has already served twice, will be pressed to accept yet another term of office. If he follows in the path of the great Washington he will refuse, and there is nothing as yet to show that he desires re-nomination. If he does not come forward the chances are greatly in favour of the re-election of Hayes. His party is convinced of his earnestness, and will rally round him. The nation as a whole must appreciate his work, and looking to the fact that his opponents, apart from General Grant, will be run from purely party motives, many will support him to maintain that order which is his aim. In re-nominating and electing Hayes the citizens of the United States will be doing their nation a service. And they might go farther and fare much worse.

[The Fortrait accompanying this Memoir is copied, by permission, from a Photograph by M. Alophe, Paris.]

FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT MOLTKE.

THE

HE distinguished strategist who forms the subject of this biography divides with Prince Bismarck the honour of having founded and established the great German Empire. Diplomacy may be a principal agent in the creation and consolidation of States, but crises arise when the pen must be supplemented by the sword. Without the aid of the finest military genius of the age, the most famous of living European statesmen would have found his task difficult, if, indeed, he had not failed to achieve his great purposes. If modesty and a reticent disposition beseem a soldier, these qualities were never better exemplified than in the case of Count Moltke. In moments when other generals and strategists would have endangered the success of their plans by agitation and excitement, the chief of the German army seemed to acquire only a greater calmness and self-control. His history furnishes a series of unbroken triumphs, due partly to the fact that he has never forgotten the great military lesson that a knowledge of the tactics of the enemy is almost as essential as a well-developed plan of attack or defence. But if Count Moltke has studied the art of being "silent in seven languages," it is not from wanting the power of literary expression. The diaries in which he has narrated the campaigns in which he bore so conspicuous a part, as well as several other works which at various times have been published by the Marshal, demonstrate that he can wield the symbol of peace equally with that of war. Perhaps the most remarkable fact in connection with his career is that he had attained his sixty-sixth year before his name attracted the attention of the world, or before his country was aware of the mighty military genius in her midst.

Helmuth Karl Bernhardt von Moltke was the third of seven sons of a lieutenant-general in the Danish army. His mother was Henrietta Paschen, daughter of the Finanz-Rath of Hamburg. His parents were on a visit to their relative, Helmuth von Moltke, at Parchim, when the future general was born, on the 26th of October, 1800. He went with his parents to Lübeck, where, when only six years of age, he had his first experiences of the ravages of war: the house which the Moltkes inhabited being plundered by the French. The elder Moltke next purchased a country house in Holstein; but another disaster shortly befell him, the place being burnt down just after the grain had been gathered in. The younger Moltke and his eldest brother were shortly afterwards sent to the Cadet School at Copenhagen, but they do not appear to have been greatly enamoured with their new life. At the age of eighteen young Moltke became an officer. Taking with him to Berlin good recommendations from the Duke of HolsteinBeck, the father of the present King of Denmark, he passed the examination, and entered the infantry regiment, No. 8. It was thus that his military career began. It is stated that when boys, under the care of Professor Knickbein at Hohenfield, the favourite pastime of the brothers Moltke was the kriegspiel, or mimic warfare. An anecdote which is related shows how the military spirit was early developed in Helmuth von Moltke. He and his brother

on one occasion placed themselves at the head of a number of peasant boys, the battle-field being a stubble enclosed by a high fence. Helmuth's troops were put to flight, and some were taken prisoners; but quickly rallying his men, he led them to a pond in the pastor's garden, where there was an island accessible only by a drawbridge made of a single plank. The defeated general turned on the enemy, whom he kept at bay with a few of his strongest men, while the body of his troops made their way into the fortress. When the last one had entered, the drawbridge was raised, and victory remained with Helmuth. Thus, as Wordsworth has remarked, "the child is father of the man."

On leaving the Military School of Copenhagen, Von Moltke was appointed page at court for a year, and then became lieutenant of a regiment stationed at Rendsburg. As a result of the separation of Denmark from Norway, the army was greatly reduced, with very little prospect of promotion for the younger men who remained in it. Moltke consequently threw up his commission in the Danish service (losing whatever benefits attached thereto), and entered a Prussian regiment quartered at Frankfort. In 1820 he proceeded to the great Military Academy at Berlin, where he remained for six years. His parents having lost nearly the whole of their property through war and misfortune, Moltke was often in great pecuniary straits, yet he contrived to spare enough from his limited resources to obtain instruction in foreign languages. In the year 1832 he was appointed to the staff, in which service he continued for three years, which were spent in close study. He then obtained leave to travel, and proceeded to Constantinople, where he arrived in December, 1835. He aided the Sultan Mahmoud II. in reconstructing the Turkish army after the European models. He also made surveys for a general plan of Constantinople, and his work being completed in 1837, he visited several places on the Asiatic coast. In the capacity of military adviser, he accompanied the Sultan on a visit to Bulgaria and Roumelia, and two years later joined in the expedition against the Pasha of Egypt. The Turkish army was disastrously defeated at Nisib, and Moltke, whose advice had not been followed, managed to escape to a port on the Black Sea, from whence he reached Constantinople. Having explained to the Sultan the causes of the failure of the campaign, he quitted Turkey in October, 1839, and returned to his old duties at Berlin. In 1845 Moltke published an account of the Turkish campaign. This work succeeded one entitled Letters from Turkey, which is said to have been the most popular of his writings. Karl Ritter, the eminent geographer, wrote an Introduction for it; and a German critic, describing its style, observed: "His language is so vivid in its colouring, and its style so elevated, that we are tempted to say, if Moltke had not become Moltke he would certainly have been a poet." In 1846 Moltke was appointed adjutant-in-attendance on Prince Henry of Prussia, the king's uncle. The prince lived in Rome, and was a constant invalid. Always busily engaged in study of some kind, Moltke occupied his leisure in Rome in making plans and maps of the city and neighbourhood, upon which he was highly complimented. Prince Henry dying in 1847, Moltke became, in the year following, a member of the grand general staff, having been engaged in connection with the command on the Rhine. In 1849 he was appointed chief of the staff of the 4th Army Corps in Magdeburg. He was thence transferred to the 8th division of the army, stationed at Coblentz. In the summer of 1856 he accompanied the Crown Prince on his Russian tour. During this visit he wrote a series of letters to his wife, which were afterwards published. They have lately been translated into English by Miss Napier. To this translation Miss Napier prefixed an admirable biographical sketch of Von Moltke, to which we are indebted for our knowledge of certain facts in the dis