It must then be acknowledged to be not improbable that the enemy might land.

And, if he landed, what would he find?
An open country; a rich country; provisions everywhere; not a river but which could be forded; no natural fastnesses such as protect the fertile plains of Italy; no artificial fastnesses such as, at every step, impede the progress of a conqueror in the Netherlands.

Every thing must then be staked on the steadiness of the militia; and it was pernicious flattery to represent the militia as equal to a conflict in the field with veterans whose whole life had been a preparation for the day of battle.

The instances which it was the fashion to cite of the great achievements of soldiers taken from the threshing floor and the shopboard were fit only for a schoolboy's theme.

Somers, who had studied ancient literature like a man,--a rare thing in his time,--said that those instances refuted the doctrine which they were meant to prove.