A Moorish legend, given to us in the graceful narrative of Washington Irving, relates, that an Arabian astrologer constructed for the pacific Aben Hafuz, King of Granada, a magical mode of repulsing all invaders without risking the lives of his subjects or diminishing the contents of the royal treasury.  He caused a tower to be built, in the upper part of which was a circular hall with windows looking towards every point of the compass, and before each window a table supporting a mimic army of horse and foot.  On the top of the tower was a bronze figure of a Moorish horseman, fixed on a pivot, with elevated lance.  Whenever a foe was at hand, the figure would turn in that direction, and level his lance as if for action.  No sooner was it reported to the vigilant monarch that the magic horseman indicated the approach of an enemy, than His Majesty hastened to the circular hall, selected the table at the point of the compass indicated by the horseman’s spear, touched with the point of a magic lance some of the pigmy effigies before him, and belabored others with the butt-end.  A scene of confusion at once ensued in the mimic army.  Part fell dead, and the rest, turning their weapons upon each other, fought with the utmost fury.  The same scene was repeated in the ranks of the advancing enemy.  Each renewed attempt at invasion was foiled by this easy and economical expedient, until the King enjoyed rest even from rumors of wars.

Now this is a pleasing fiction, and highly creditable to the light and airy fancy of the Moors.  It almost makes one sigh that an astrologer so fertile in resources is not still extant.  It is difficult to conceive, indeed, of a more felicitous arrangement for a monarch devoted to his ease, and proof against all temptations to military glory, or for a people wedded to peaceful pursuits, and ambitious only of material prosperity.  But no such fascinating substitute for fields of carnage is available in our degenerate days,—­“C’est charmant, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.”

Nor yet is any useful example furnished by the warlike qualities of the army raised by Peter Stuyvesant for the reduction of Fort Casimir:  not even when we remember that it included “the Van Higginbottoms, a race of schoolmasters, armed with ferules and birchen rods,—­the Van Bummels, renowned for feats of the trenches,—­the Van Bunschotens, who were the first that did kick with the left foot,”—­with many other warriors equally fierce and formidable.  We must, however reluctantly, leave such romantic legends and facetious chronicles, and learn more practical lessons from the sober and instructive page of history.  We shall there find that war means alternate success and defeat, alternate hope and disappointment, great suffering in the field, many vacant chairs at many firesides, immense expenditures with little apparent result, “the best-laid schemes” foiled by a thousand unexpected contingencies, lamentable indecision in the cabinet, glaring blunders in the field, stagnation of industry, and heavy taxation.