It would be no difficult task to add a hundred instances to those we have mentioned of the occurrence of panics in European armies; but it is not necessary to pursue the subject farther.  Nothing is better known than that almost every eminent commander has suffered from panic terror having taken control of the minds of his men, and nothing is more unjust than to speak of the American panic of the 21st of July as if it were something quite out of the common way of war.  True, its origin has never been fully explained; but in this point it only resembles most other panics, the causes of which never have been explained and never will be.  It is characteristic of a panic that its occurrence cannot be accounted for; and therefore it was that the ancients attributed it to the direct interposition of a god, as arising from some cause quite beyond human comprehension.  If panics could be clearly explained, some device might be hit upon, perhaps, for their prevention.  But we see that they occurred at the very dawn of history, that they have happened repeatedly for five-and-twenty centuries, and that they are as common now in the nineteenth Christian century as they were in those days when Pan was a god.  “Great Pan is not dead,” but sends armies to pot now as readily as he did when there were hoplites and peltasts on earth.  We can console ourselves, though the consolation be but a poor one, with the reflection that all military peoples have suffered from the same cause that has brought so much mortification and so great loss immediately home to us.  Our panic is the greatest that ever was known only because it is the latest one that has happened, and because it has happened to ourselves.  It is idle, and even laughable, to attempt to argue it out of sight.  We should admit its occurrence as freely as it is asserted by the bitterest and most unfair of our critics; and we should recognize the truth of what has been well said on the subject, that the only possible answer to the attacks that have been made on the national character for military capacity and courage is victory.  If we shall succeed in this war, the rout of Bull Run will no more destroy our character for manliness than the rout of Landen destroyed the character of Englishmen for the same virtue.  If we fail, we must submit to be considered cowards:  and we shall deserve to be so held, if, with our superior numbers, and still more superior means, we cannot maintain the Republic against the rebels.

OUR COUNTRY.

  On primal rocks she wrote her name;
    Her towers were reared on holy graves;
  The golden seed that bore her came
    Swift-winged with prayer o’er ocean waves.

  The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
    And open flung his sylvan doors;
  Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest
    To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

  Till, fold by fold, the broidered land
    To swell her virgin vestments grew,
  While Sages, strong in heart and hand,
    Her virtue’s fiery girdle drew.