The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-03-30
Reviews.


DIE AGES Also descriptive notice Of mod
ern weapons. Translated from the "rench
of M. p. Lacombe, and with a preface. notes
and aone additional chapter on arms and
armor in England. BY Charles Boutell, NJ.
A., Author Of English Heraldry."
We have still among US scholars and military
men to whom this book commends itself with
special interest.
The plan of NJ. Lacomb. is evidently Ito
"glye in a concise and popular form general
sssketch of the whole subject Of which he has
ssundertaken to treat. An earnest student, an
accomplished connoisseur Of ancient art, a
ureyerential worshipper of Homer, generally
s.well read in classic literature, but by no
'smeans strong as medieval archeologist, nor
sshas he any sympathy with arts and arms ol
''the middle ages"
We have slight allusion to the discoveries
of NJ. Bouche de Pcrthe and many other anti
quarians OF mighty weapons disclosed by
geological rescarches,) which are confidently
assigned, not only to antedeluvian and prehls'
toric eras, but to periods far more remote than
that accorded to the CT cation of Adam.
These ''primeval men, whose race was run
'sbefore antiquity begun" we will leave hunt
ing their ''big game" and pass as rapidly the
Crock PhalanX and Roman Legion familiar to
every schoolboy;-over the Plum, that most
formidable spear which, according to Monies
quieu, subdued the world, the short Roman
sword or sword-dagger of the times of the
Republic, oil suggesting the same reflections,
the writer fingers lovingly.
Nearly all the details Of the ancient Greeks
military equipment are brought before us in
short passages, or coplous extracts from Lord
Derby's translation of the Illiad. They COM
planned even then of degenerate sons of man.
ller forefathers.
"a rocky fragment then
''Tydldes lifted up mighty mass,
(which scarce tUo men could raise as men are
"But he unaded, lifted 1t with ease,
"With this he smOtc 1Eneas.''
Like the lion in the fable, he thinks some
what different estimate Of Marathon would
have been given If the Persian side of the story
had also been heard, and family makes allow
ance for patriotic Greek eSasgeration.
We know something of this in our brief e1-
perience-thc uncertainty Of historic truth, il
told by our enemies.
s'In the fourteenth century the infantry began
''to rise ont of Its nothingness, and to assume
sln the battle field that Importance from thence
forward continually destined to Increase. The
foot-soldlers and archers of England began 1t
at Crecy, August Goth, 1916. THE first lesson
twas given, and it was harsh one" The
Black Prince, by an inspiration of military
genius, dismountcd his knights and made OF
them infantry with knlghtly arms and armor,
and gave the French cavalry check as COM
plcte as the solid squares of ''perf1de Albion
offered Napolcon's horscmen at Waterloo. We
soc among the illustrations the sword of the
''great captain" Gonsalvo dc Cordova, but no
word of him, or Of Turenne, in this account
of the first formation of that arm of the ser
vice called infantry.
n. Lacombe finds 1t remarkable that all these
complicated devices for the protection of the
combatant should belong to the period which
is called the ''age Of ehlvalry," and that this
term ''chivalry" should be considered to imply
the existence Of the most undaunted personal
courage, coup!cu Win iii althoSt S"'l''o'S uie
regard of life and safety. sin my estimation,
he adds, ''the little modern foot-soldler. in the
''cloth tunic Of his simple uniform, who stands
'sflrm and steady in the face of both rifles aud
s'rfled cannon, approaches nearer the realiza
"tion of the military ideal, and is more truth
ssful impersonation Of the chivalrous, than tfe
s.great baron of the oden time, covered from
shead to foot with an iron sheathlng of mai
sand plate" They certainly had the name,
sschivalry,n in those days; but whether the
thing itself-the chivalrous-is questionable.
Mr.. Boutell feels called upon here to make
defence, not needed we think, of st. Louis
CGur dc Lion, and the Red Cross Knights gen
orally: