July 1860.

And the third is a small record of our Easter Monday’s Review, 1864, alluding to the present universality of the Rifle Movement contrasted with its originally small beginnings on the same spot.

    Surrey Blackheath.

    “Surrey Blackheath! old scene of beginnings
      Humble enough some dozen years back,
    Gather to-day’s rich harvest of winnings,
      Sprung of that sowing in Memory’s track;
    Reap your revenges in honour and pleasure;—­
      Thousands of riflemen arm’d to the teeth—­
    Crowds by ten thousands, in holiday leisure,
      Throng the wild beauties of Surrey Blackheath!

    “We were the first our rifles to shoulder,
      First to wake England (though voted a bore);
    First in this nation who roused her, and told her
      She must go arm’d to be safe, as of yore! 
    Those were the days before corps and their drilling,
      When the true patriot was check’d with a snub,—­
    So, on Blackheath, devotedly willing,
      Stood your first riflemen—­Albury Club!

    “Yes, we stood here, in spite of their coldness,
      Duty’s first marksmen—­whate’er should betide,—­
    Conquering Success—­the sure fruit of boldness—­
      World-witnessed now by this field-day of pride! 
    And though they laugh’d at Tom Wydeawake’s fancies,
      Olives and laurels combine in his wreath;
    For, the world’s peace—­in England’s and France’s—­
      Sprung of that sowing on Surrey Blackheath!”

    March 5, 1864.

Lord Lovelace will remember how much he opposed our rifle-club,—­as in those days illegal, and so the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey might not sanction it:  but now his Lordship is our leading volunteer.  Besides the three ballads above, I wrote seven others which rang round the land, and some of them, as “Hurrah for the Rifle,” and “In days long ago when old England was young,” have been sung at Wimbledon and other gatherings.

It may be worth while, seeing the ballads are hopelessly out of print, if I here transcribe a few stanzas from divers other staves I penned in the early days of Rifledom.  First, from “Rise, Britannia,” before mentioned, which was “written and printed in 1846, and then headed, by a strange anticipation, a stirring song for patriots in the year 1860:”  reproduced in my now extinct “Cithara,” in 1863:  I wrote it to be sung to the tune of “Wha wouldna fecht for Charlie:”  even as afterwards I adapted my “In days long ago when old England was young” to “The roast-beef of old England,” published with my own illustration by Cocks & Co.:—­

    “Rise! ye gallant youth of Britain,
      Gather to your country’s call,
    On your hearts her name is written,
      Rise to help her, one and all! 
    Cast away each feud and faction,
      Brood not over wrong nor ill,