STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685 .

287

force. The Lords Lieutenants and their Deputies held thecommand under him, and appointed meetings for drilling and'inspection. The time occupied by such meetings, however,was not to exceed fourteen days in one year. The Justicesof the Peace were authorised to inflict slight penalties forbreaches of discipline. Of the ordinary cost no part was paidby the crown: but, when the train-bands were called outagainst an enemy, their subsistence became a charge on thegeneral revenue of the state, and they were subject to theutmost rigour of martial law.

There were those who looked on the militia with nofriendly eye. Men who had travelled much on the Continent,who had marvelled at the stern precision with which everysentinel moved and spoke in the citadels built by Vauban,who had seen the mighty armies which poured along all theroads of Germany to chase the Ottoman from the gates ofVienna, and who had been dazzled by the well ordered pompof the household troops of Lewis, sneered much at the way inwhich the peasants of Devonshire and Yorkshire marched andwheeled, shouldered muskets and ported pikes. The enemiesof the liberties and religion of England looked with aversionon a force which could not, without extreme risk, be em-ployed against those liberties and that religion, and missedno opportunity of throwing ridicule on the rustic soldiery. *Enlightened patriots, when they contrasted these rude levies

** Dryden, in his Cymon and Iphigenia, expressed, with his usualkeenness and energy, the sentiments which had been fashionable amongthe sycophants of dames the Second: —

“The country rings around wilh loud alarms,

And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;lUoulhs without hands, maintained at vast expense,

In peace a charge, in war a weak defence.

Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,

And ever, but in time of need, at hand.

This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,

Drawn up in rank and file, they stood preparedOf seeming arms to make a short essay,

Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day.”

CHAP.

III.