A bibliography of English military books up to 1642 and of ...

house.' On Feb. 6th, 1597, he was still in the Tower. On July 13th, 1598,
he wrote again to the Lord Treasurer, from Little Baddow, " My poor house
and prison," as he calls it, expressing himself as "content within his restraint,
as though he had all England and Europe to travel in at his pleasure."
In a letter of May, 1 590, Smythe speaks of four or five little books that he
had written, all treating, more or less, on matters of arms. Among the
Harleian MSS." in the British Museum is preserved a transcription of an
unpublished treatise of his, entitled "A Military Discourse, whether it be
better for England to giue an Invador present Battaile, or to
temporize and
deferr the same." It was written in answer to Thomas Digges' letter to
Leicester, entitled "A briefe discourse what orders were best for repulsing
of forraigne force, if at any tyme they should invade us in Kent or elsewhere.'"
47. Fifteen-ninety. Valdes, Francisco de.
The Serieant Maior. A Dialogue of the Office of Sergeant
Maior. . . . Translated into Englishe, by lohn Thorins.
London. Printed by yohn Wolfe, 1590.
Quarto.
A-H in fours, and a leaf of I.
Dedicated by Thorins to Sir John Norris,
President of Munster.— Hazlitt, iii. 63.
The ed. of the original, Brussels, 1589, is always accompanied by the
" Discurso sobre la Disciplina militar " of Londono, and, indeed, one work is
the complement of the other. Valdes and Londono were eminent soldiers
who managed equally well the baton, the sword, and the pen. " El Espejo,"
as Valdes' work is entitled in the Spanish, like the " Disciplina," was written,
probably, about 1568. It is in dialogue, a form much afFe6led by these
early writers, the speakers being Vargas and Londono ; and describes the
office and duties of the Sergeant Major, an officer corresponding to the
modern adjutant, concerning whom the following description is given in the
opening pages :
" The Sergeant Major is an officer, the minister general of
the whole regiment, superintending the Sergeants of the same : through
whom the Master of the Camp, or Colonel, gives the orders necessary for
right government and ordering in
marching, quartering, and fighting, and
things thereunto appertaining." " Everything is admirably explained," says
Almirante, " and the rules laid down are most sensible."
[V. No. 48 and Orig. 562.]
*
Lansd. MSS. Ixxxii. 65, 66, 67, 71. Sedition and Confession.
»
Harl. MSS. 4685.
*
Included in the 2nd ed. of the " Stratioticos," 1590.
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