PUBLIC OPINION.
To THE EDITOR OP THE "ElrEcretort.-1 SIR,—Your timely and excellent warning, regarding the habit of English journalists of launching from their easy-chairs hasty censures against distant commanders on matters of military strategy, has forcibly brought bank to my memory a passage from Livy, which Lord Wolseley himself quoted, when be presided two or three years ago over the annual banquet of the Literary Fund. The passage is too long to transcribe entirely ; but scholars, who may like to take down and dust their Livy, will find it in the 22nd chapter of the 4tth Book. Emilius is about to leave Rome to undertake the command of the troops in Macedonia, and Livy puts the following speech in his mouth : " Ves, quam scripsero Senatni, ant vobis, credite; rnmores creditulitate vestra ne alatis, quorum Auctor Demo eastabit. Nam nunc gaidem, quad vnlgo fieri, hoc prmcipue Bello, animadverti, memo tam lamas contemptor est, cujus non debilitari animus possit. In omnibus circnlis, atque etiam si Diis placet, in conviviis sant, qui eao-rcitus in Macedoniam decant, ubi castra locanda sins, sciant; gaze loca prassidiis occapanda, (Iolanda ant quo saltu entranda Macedonia ; obi horrea ponenda ; qua term marl subvehantur cornmeatus. quando bum boste manna conserendas, quando quiesse sit melius. Nec, quid faciendum sit, modo statunut tea, quicquid aliter, quam ipsi censuere, factum est, consulem veluti dicta die accusant. Mee
magna impedimenta ree gerentibus aunt Non sum is, qui non existemem admonendos duces ease, imo cum qui do sum nnius senteutia omnia geret, superb= judico magis quam sapientem."
The General goes on to say, `If my critic will be good enough to
come to Macedonia, I will undertake to provide him with a passage, a tent, a horse, and food' :—
" Si quern id facere piget, at otium urbanism militim laboribus pramptat, a terra ne gubernaverit. Sermonnm satis ipsa pitebet 17rbs."
—I am, Sir, &c., ARTHUR RUSSELL.
Athenceum, February 1Sth.
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