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LONDON: PRINTED FOR G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, AVE MARIA LANG. 1823. ^0/ %m pa. . ^ > « •*;* ^' r. f" . • 7 ' M 8IC OPORTET AD LIBRUM PRASERTIM MI8CELLANEI GENE- RIS LBGENDUM ACCEDERE LECTOREM UT SOLET AD CON- VIVIUM CONVIYA CIVILIS. CONVIVATOR AM«|yiTUR OMNI- BUS SATISFACERE : ET TAMEN SI QUID APVONITUR QUOD HUJU8 AUT ILLIUS PALATO NON RESPONDEAT^ ET HIC ET ILLE URBANE DIS8IMULANT, ET ALIA FERCULA PROBANT, NE QUID CONTRISTBNT CONVIVATOREM." ERASMUS, I * " Printed by Thomas Daviion, Whiteftiars, London. CONTENTS. Page DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT 1 LITERARY PROMOTION 19 TITLE-PAGES ..... 43 THE DAY OF BADAJOS 63 EMILY MILBURNE .... 83 THE DISBANDING .... ... 109 THE WEST INDIES .... 135 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS 155 A WELCOME VISITOR 185 MILITARY LIFE 205 UNFORESEEN PLEASURES 235 TEMPLETON 255 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE 297 INDIAN WARFARE .... 319 CHARITY 361 THE ART OF RISING .... 385 A WORD AT PARTING . 407 1 ''f \%' DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. ■ " Thise bachelers singen, alas ! Whan that they find any adversitee In love, which n'is but childish vanitee. And trewely it sit wel to be so. That batchelors have often peine and wo.' Chaucer. " What do you think of marriage ? I take 't as those that deny purgatory ; It locally ^'^ntains or heaven, or hell ; There's no t-urd place in't." Webster. B tW:, ^ DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. When, after a wandering and busy life, I retired to half pay and a cottage on the con- fines of Berkshire, I anticipated the realising of those visions of happiness which had cheered my mind amidst the pain and gloom of the past. That calm haven of repose was now within my view, for which I had sighed, after many a long march and rainy bivouac, for full twenty years ; and I was never again to submit my spirit either to the caprice of command, or the irksomeness of military detail. I lost not a moment in settling my accounts with the regimental agents ; when, having made purchase of my rural retreat, B 2 \ DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. ! ■J i I and, by placing the small residue] of my property in the funds, converted it into wherewithal to assist my modicum of half pay and pension, I hurried down to take possession of my box, with all that fond im- patience which urges a lover to his mistress on the morn that is to place the seal to his happiness. I may congratulate myself, by the way, that this same seal was never put to my felicity; and that the Fates have not superadded a wife and seven children to rheumatic gout and the loss of an eye. But, waving such digressions, I was not long settled in this new abode, before I began to perceive that my bark, after weathering all the tempests of the ocean, was yet in danger, even on those waters which I had fondly pictured as one eternal calm. I was shortly compelled to acknowledge, that he who flies to retirement only shifts the scene of his troubles. When the ceremony of receiving and re- turning the visits of my neighbours was over, DISASTERS TN UETIREMENT. 9 and I began to mingle in their society with all the sociability of country dinners and six- penny whist, my first cause of vexation arose. It was from a source which a sexagenarian might well have hoped to avoid. I unfor- tunately became acquainted with the family of a gentleman of small income in the vicinity, whose " res angusta dorm** were not lessened by a long train of daughters. They were now verging towaiis the age which would entitle them, in the phrase of an old comrade of mine, to the brevet rank o^ mkre-de-Jamille ; in other words, they were on the brink of that period of old maidenhood, when the juvenile title of miss is discarded from very weariness of its sound. But neither the young ladies, nor their experienced mother for them, had yet forsaken the desire of matrimony : but the feehng, like that of Satan in Milton, was seldom mingled with hope. I shortly found myself the object of assaults, for which I was long unable distinctly to account. I had not only general, but a long series of particular. 6 DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. invitations to the house: the ladies were charmed with the narrative of my various peregrinations and adventures; and Miss Bridget, the eldest of the sisters, was, above all, the attentive listener to my thrice-told tale of the battle of Vittoria, where I had exchanged an eye for a pension. Her lovely fingers had worked the black silk patch which shrouded my loss; even the flannel protections for my rheumatism were the gift of her talents as a sempstress ; and a good- natured friend hinted to me her declaration, that, " considering all the service he had gone through. Major Ravelin was really young for his time of life. She doted on a soldier, and knew not a prouder object for woman than to bless the retreat of the ve- teran.'* The old lady, on her part, took frequent occasion to glance at the domestic virtues and talents of Bridget, and noticed the late transition in her spirits from youthful gaiety to the extreme of pensiveness : she wondered what could have induced her to DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. 7 exchange her former apartment for one which commanded a view of my cottage«~- " With the exception of diat little charming villa of yours, major, we have really not one touch of interesting landscape on that side of the house ; while the room she lately occu- pied overlooks the whole of the lovely valley of the Thames." But the dulness of my apprehension was proof even against this attack ; and when afterwards, over a bottle of my port, the father, who really is a good sort of man, partly warmed by th6 nectar of my friend Carbonel, and partly at the in- stigation of his better half, had remarked how much the comfort of my house, and my own happiness, would be enhanced by the nameless witchery of female presence, I cut short the harangue in which he was pro- ceeding, by observing, that it might be so, but that having had a commanding officer for some seven and thirty years, I was now resolved to spend the remainder of my days without one. I never think of the impene- 9 DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. trable stubbornness of my faculties on this occasion, without inwardly comparing them to the rock at Fort Christoval, which our engineers battered for a fortnight, before they discovered that it was not a brick wall. I was, however, doomed to a much longer siege than the French suffered us to hold against that work ; and upon me some im- pression was finally made — I mean upon my comprehension; for my heart was immove- able; it is usually of sufficient toughness at sixty in these matters, unless it be softened into second childishness. I happened one morning to call at my neighbour's, and found mamma and Miss Bridget at their work, with a volume of Shakspeare on the table before them. The mine was charged; and when the opportune affairs of the minage had summoned the old lady from the room, it was sprung! " We have been reading Othello, Major Ravelin," said the maiden. "How interesting the great poet has rendered his Desdemona!" DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. 9 " The lady, however, madam, appears to have had rather an eccentric taste/' ' ' ** Do you really think so ? It is the roman- tic feeling of our sex to lose the recollection of every thing else in ardent admiration of the courage and sufferings of the warrior, who has bled for our safety, and in defence of his country. Shakspeare has evinced his insight into this trait of our character, when he makes Desdemona insensible to the repul- sive exterior of the Moor ; how much more difficult it is (a sigh) for us to resist the union of heroic qualities, with the manly form which bears only the ravage of war on its front !" Here was Desdemona herself with a venge- ance ; and I must have been " brute beast*' indeed, in the elegant phraseology of my old Serjeant, Cobbett, to misinterpret the allusion of my charmer. The whole truth flashed upon me like lightning ; and I would freely have given my next quarter's half pay to be transported to the worst billet in Spain, so that I might but escape this tremendous tite" 10 DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. d-tete. My guardian angel» in the person of the damsers father, appeared just in time to extricate me from the fate which seemed inevitable. I had sat some moments in all the agony of despair, endeavouring to whistle the Grenadier's March, which died away on my lips into the cadence of the Dead March in Saul, while the lady continued responsive by her sighs ; and should assuredly have been betrayed into some ejaculation of un- easiness, that she might have accepted as a proof of diflSdent passion. I never before shook my neighbour so heartily by the hand, whilst I trembled at my escape from matri- mony, of which he had been, for his own peace, so luckless an instrument; and I rushed out of the house with a firm resolu- tion, which I have since most religiously observed, never again to enter its baleful doors. It was many months after this catastrophe before I could endure the presence of any maiden female of a certain age; and I shall DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. 11 assuredly never again trust myself to morning visits, where there is a possibility of being exposed to the same hazard. The dangers I had passed gave me a horror of society: for every one is aware how difficult it is to visit in the country without encountering a squad of old maids at every point. In default of other occupation, I was now induced to become farmer. Here a thousand vexations and losses awaited me ! My factotum of a servant, who had faithfully followed my for- tunes during a great part of my military career, and whose discharge I had procured on my own retirement, was promoted to be the bailiff of the farm, both because he had driven the plough before he was fired with martial ambition, and I could securely rely upon his honesty. No man knew better than Havresack how to load a baggage mule, con- vert a tough ration into passable soup and bouilli, or give its utmost splendor to his master's uniform on a field day; but with these and similar accomplishments, he proved -> 12! DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. i ■¥^ r-'^ but a sorry bailiff. In the heat of a summer's day, my mowers or reapers could at any time cheat him, over their beer, of half a dozen hours of battles, marches, and counter- marches, during which the work stood still ; they had always exemption from their toil as the price of listening, while " thrice again he slew the slain.** Besides, he had himself so many aniversa- ries of battles and sieges to keep, that he was never effective on my agricultural strength for above three days out of the seven. I soon ceased to bestow reprimands upon the poor fellow j which he was always ready to receive with humility, standing d la f agon da militaire, with his heels together, and his hands by his sides in the position of " atten- tion ;** for I found that he had full as much genius for farming as myself. I caught more than one fit of rheumatism by turning out after my labourers in a foggy morning; was cheated with great regularity at every market; and laughed at, moreover, among \ DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. 13 my brother farmers, for the military air with which I sat my horse at a cattle show, and for the capability for imposition which all my bargains afforded them. I soon grew heartily sick of farming ; disposed of all my live and dead stock; made one journey to London to sell out a moiety of my little funded capital ; paid my agricultural debts and losses with its assistance ; and was so thoroughly out of humour with the troubles of a country retirement, that I verily believe I should have been by this time in sworn brotherhood with Simon Bolivar, if I could have left the rheumatism behind me as a legacy to my neighbours the farmers. I dare say, I should have had at least the rank of colonel, or brigadier, if I had converted the remainder of my three per cents into money, and mortgaged my pension, to carry out recruits for the liberating army of Venezuela. I should, it is true, have returned in rags, as many of my countrymen have done ; but my half pay would have protected me from actual -.. H 14 DISASTERS IN KETIREAIENT. f :: and direct starvation, and I might have died a general officer in the Columbian republic. However, perhaps it is as well, as things are, that I am still in my own box : there is a time for every old soldier to quit the stage, like the gladiator of yore. " Armis HercullB ad postern fixis, latet abditus agro." After the disasters which I have recounted, I remained for some time in a state of torpor in my solitude ; took a retrospect of my whole life, and found that it had been but one series of disappointments and vexations. I derived some benefit, however, from this survey of the past; for I gradually cured myself of my antipathy to old maids, and indignation against farmers. By setting in review order all the cross chances of my military pursuits, I could easily muster suf- ficient to make me hold my civil misfortunes but as nothing in the scale. First, there was the appointment of young Silversop, of the ill 4- DISASTERS IN HETIHEMENT. 15 Guards, to a vacant company in my corps, while I was the senior lieutenant, and of six- teen years standing; nine of which I had passed in West India duty. What was the loss of five thousand in the three per cents to this galUng injustice? Then, great as were the sufferings which I underwent in my Ute- a-Ute with Miss Bridget, they were at least sooner over than my durance in a French prison from 1794, until my redemption thence three years afterwards; and the Walcheren fever and ague were more violent in their effects, and the fits of more frequent recur- rence and greater inveteracy, than the cold perspirations with which I was occasionally attacked at the remembrance of my escape de vtnculis matrimoniu In short, I succeeded in reconciling myself to my present state, by conjuring up all the hardships, all the injus- tice and afJronts from command, which had befallen me in seven-and-thirty years. I dis- covered, upon calculations of great minute- ness, that, considering the total amount of 16 DISASTERS IS RETIREMENT. I hit ! pay withheld from me, by the promotion which belonged to my right having been given to another ; all the losses which I had suffered from the vagrancy of pay-serjeants, and the bad debts of men of my company ; all the accidents, by death and otherwise, to my horses and baggage animals in the Penin- sula ; the plunder of my baggage, twice by the enemy, and once by the Portuguese ; that, considering all these, and other items innu- merable, I had lost full one-third more by the service than by three years of bad crops and inexperience in farming. Since these results of reflection, I have become, comparatively, a philosopher, and regard the world, " but as the world," — like my quarters for the night; which, whether they were excellent or execrable, must be quitted with the next dawn. I have no longer a part to perform on its stage, but may yield myself up to the enjoyments of friendship, and the indulgence of my own humours. Of the former I am not wholly DISASTKllS IN Ur/nUKMENT. 1 *► ;.« 17 bereft ; for my cottage is occasionally cheered by the presence of some one among those of my brother officers, who, like myself, have done with the active duties of their profession. Over our glass, we are never at a loss for re- collections of old scenes and old companions, to wear away the evening, when we are tired of dozing over our game of chess or back- gammon. But I am sometimes also solitary. I then discuss my pint of port in the quietude of my own parlour, compose myself to sleep with a Tucuman segar, and have no other avocation than the privilege of an old soldier, to dream over the events of other days. If, on such occasions, I obtrude my reveries upon the public, to wile away a weary hour of gout or ennui, I shall promise myself their indulgence : if I am prolix and tedious, who is otherwise at sixty? I have found that my sword made an indifferent ploughshare ; and, for aught I know, I may be as unsuccessful in exchanging it for the pen : but this last is a weapon which, in our age of literary pre- 18 DISASTERS IN RETIREMENT. t ' tension, is in every hand, and will therefore appear the less strange in mine. There it will, at all events, be an amusement to my- self, and shall be also, at least, harmless to others; if it have little point* it shtll carry no venom. I" , hi ' t <:r" '( w \ I i LITERARY PRO]\ OTlv N. " God 's a' me ! wh at will you do ? Why, old ma* er, you are not Castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate, ha !' Ben .< vsoN. " It is written, that the shoemaker should meddle wrin hia £> y«Nl; and the tailor witl^ his last ; the fisher with his pw-^ '/^t :^ SliAKSl'EAIlE. c2 LITERARY PROMOTION. It never entered into my dreams that I should one day figure in print j and if my excellent preceptor, who, some time about the year 177^, sent me forth into the world with the declaration that I was the idlest dog and the worst scholar that had ever troubled his patience, were to rise from the dead, and behold the first number of my lucubrations, his hair would assuredly stand on end at the prodigy. I was, in truth, early fated to disappoint the hopes of my family. My mother was a very good woman, in her way, and, moreover, of ancient race — on which circumstance she prided herself -M LITERARY PROMOTION. ii Si 'I II il not a little. Unfortunately for the peace of my juvenile years, she numbered among her ancestors a learned divine, who had inflicted upon the world sundry polemical folios ; and after this pillar of orthodoxy did I receive my respected christian appellation of Humphrey. In bestowing this name upon me, my mother had, in the aspirations of her maternal ambition, predestined me to rival her great-uncle, the bishop, in learning and orthodoxy ; and it grieved her, poor woman, to the soul, when she was compelled to ac- knowledge, that there was little prospect of her blood flowing through the veins of a second church dignitary, in the person of her son. I believe, however, that she con- soled herself with the reflection that I inhe- rited not my stupidity from the maternal side ; and I remember her once rousing my father from his afternoon's nap, to inquire, with some asperity, whether there had ever been a clever man of his name. — " I wonder, Mr. Ravelin, to whom Humphre}/ is indebted 'i|! LITERARY PROMOTION. 23 I for the obtuseness of his faculties ; of this I am sure, that my house cannot be accused of having transmitted an utter deficiency of intellect as an heir-loom to the present ge- neration. The^ were never a corpulent, drowsy family, Mr. Ravelin." " For their sakes, my dear, I am sorry for it ; for when people get into years, if they are contented and good-humoured, they are very apt to get into flesh also." Now my mother presented as remarkable an extreme of leanness, as did my father of comfortable obesity. I am here reduced to confess, that she swayed with absolute com- mand in the domestic garrison, and very rarely had her quiescent partner the resolu- tion to venture upon such a retort. If any one be inclined to censure my garrulity in thus exposing a family secret, I pray them to observe, that the grave has long closed over the matrimonial disagreements of my parents, and that my loquacity is consequently harm- less. — I verily believe, that my horror of W- ^24 LITERARY PROMOTION. IP i|! If ii r j'l I ir i»' si wedded life might be traced to a recollection of certain of their domestic scenes, of which I shall now say no more. When the dulness of my intellect was supposed to be sufficiently fixed and mature, many a consultation was held, and many a family council rose in indecision, before it could be determined what path of fame I was to tread. My tutor was only decided upon one point, that I should never be qualified for a learned profession ; my mother was puzzled ; and it remained, after all, for my father to discover the road for my provision. He remembered that his grandfather had served in Marlborough's wars, with the re- putation of a straight-forward honest soldier, whose brain was never oppressed by a multi- tude of ideas, and had yet been mentioned with credit as the first man who entered the breach at some siege in the Netherlands, where he terminated his mortal career. It was therefore no longer a doubt that I might succeed as well as my great-grandfather; LITERARY PROMOTION. 12.5 and an ensigncy was accordingly procured for me, after the common custom of every English family, where the blockhead of the generation is infallibly thrust into the army. It has happened, however, that, unlike my paternal ancestor, I have brought away my bones from the sieges of the times, with somewhat less of distinction, and more of good fortune ; and, malgrk, the lawn sleeves of the bishop of my mother's line, may live to rival him in the somniferous qualities of his pen. Be that as it may, I question whe- ther the heart of the worthy prelate ever dilated with greater extasy over the most ponderous of the tomes which issued from his capacious brain, than did mine on the appear- ance in print of the first of these my lucu- brations : not when, after twenty years of wearisome subaltern service, the Gazette met my delighted eye which announced the promotion of Lieutenant Humphrey Ravelin to be captain of a company; not when I perused the official order for my return to m if S6 LITERARY PROMOTION. i England from the roasting of nine summers under a Jamaica sun, did my feelings mount to such an acme of joyousness, as at the instant I cut open a number of a highly popular monthly miscellany, and suffered the light to smile upon the first-born of my literary bantlings. It was a moment of ex- quisite rapture; and I should cheaply pur- chase such another with the loss of my remaining eye. " Go thy ways, honest Humphrey,** soliloquized I ; " for thou hast at last attained to true distinction ! What is the honour of being twice mentioned in the despatches; what is thy companionship of the Bath ; what is the frothy eulogium which thou sharest in the sagacious Mr. Phillippart's Military Calendar, in common with two thousand field officers of every degree ; what are all the pomp and circumstance of war, to the dignity of authorship ?** It was almost too much for me ; and the exultation of the minute lifted the even strata of my habits from their old direction with as much vio- LITERARY PROMOTION. 27 lence as ever a convulsion of nature acted upon incipient order, and threw back the globe into chaos. I was only awakened to calm reflection, after this intellectual earth- quake, by accidentally overhearing an ob- servation of Susan's (my cook), that she had never seen master in such a quandary. " For certain, Jonathan,** said she to my factotum Havresack, " you should go to the doctor about it : he is a friend of my master's, and might come to see him quietly, without saying that we sent after him." "I am afraid, Mrs. Susan,** rejoined Jona- than, in a significant tone, " that the doctor can't do my poor master much service. It's all come of too much reading and writing, Mrs. Susan. How I wish that Major O'Grady could be here now to cheer him a bit with his comical stories and jokes ; for if some- thing does not soon happen to make a change in my master's ways, it will end in no good." There was a pathos about the intonation of the concluding words which startled me Q8 LITEHARY PROMOTION. '; 1 with the co!9viction, tliat I had been guilty of several extravagancies in the course of the day, and I saw that it was necessary to restrain the transports of feeling under which I was agitated, unless I was desirous of being pinioned into a strait-waistcoat by the con- siderate kindness of my well-meaning do- mestics. I had, therefore, by dinner-time, succeeded in somewhat recovering my wonted composure; but appetite was out of all ques- tion. Though I was naturally a little angry at the imputation which Jonathan had cast upon the sanity of my mind, I could not avoid being amused with the rueful expres- sion of countenance with which he regarded me from time to time during my nominal repast. But I was touched also by the me- lancholy of his air, and loth to keep his affection in suspense. I therefore, after my manner, entered into conversation with him, and we fought the battle of Corunna over together. Warmed by the subject, overjoyed to perceive that I was able to converse as LITEK *Y PROMOTION. 29 rationally as usual, Jonathan's weather-beaten face rapidly thawed into its customary good- humoured inanity, and he left me to my segar with the impression that my case was not so bad as he had feared. As soon as I found myself alone, I eagerly took up the Magazine again, and once more admired myself in print. There are hours of happiness, when we see every object in its liveliest colouring; when the landscape glows with its softest verdure ; when the sun rides brightest in the vault of heaven ; when all nature appears to the eye of enthusiastic delight in holiday attire. Such an hour was it that I now spent over my segar, in the contemplation of the earliest of my literary attempts. It was reasonable that the neat little volume which contained it should have its share of approbation ; and I regarded the number with greater complacency than I had ever looked into a periodical work in my life. " Really, a well executed frontispiece," said I, " and an entertaining piece of biogra- fiO LITERAllY PUOMOTION. phy of ; and why should not the m portrait and memoirs of Humphrey Ravelin occupy the same station in some future num- ber ? — the late Humphrey Ravelin, Esq. major in the service, and author of several perioiiical tracts, would be no contemptible title for an engraving handsomely executed, with the trophies of war and literature playing around it." The thought sent the blood through my old veins in a swifter current, my heart beat high, and the clouds from my segar floated in redoubled volumes. " It may in- deed be so !" cried I ; " and that good-for- nothing dog, my nephew, might, if he pleased, make it a very pretty bit of family history. But, alas ! what will it avail, when I am no longer on earth, to enjoy the sweet incense ? And what, after all, is this so much boasted immortality of fame ?— a word, a sound, a breath embodied in an image, which grown every day more faint in recollection of the contemporary generation, and then vanishes utterly from the world both of matter and LITERARY PROMOTION. ai thought ! Who now is Caesar, or Charlemagne, or Gustavas ? what more than a word, which belongs as much to the pointer or war-horse, his namesake, as to the mighty spirit by whom it was once borne ?** But the genius of posthumous vanity came to my aid, carried me round to the elation from which I was rapidly descending, and again I soared in all the luxury of imaginary immortality. But another stumbling-block lay in my path — How would the loss of an eye be tolerated in a portrait? It was impossible ; the thing was out of all calculation ; and it needed a muster of every atom of philosophy in my composi- tion to reconcile my self-love to the idea that the limner's art could never be made to contribute to the decoration of my works. I however comforted myself under the unfore- seen disaster (perhaps it was useful in mo- derating the excess of my new-born pleasures) j and I have since in a great degree regained the serenity of my habits, with this change only of condition, that I feel the conscious 3Q LITKRAHY IMIOMOIION. dignity of the man of* letters swelling within me. But, having thus taken the field as uii author, I would not let it be imagined that I intend to build the superstructure of my fame upon these lucubrations. They, indeed, will be found only, as old Montaigne has some- where characterized his own essays, *• gro- tesque pieces of patchwork, put together without any certain figure, or any order, connexion, or proportion but what is acci- dental." Possessing this one quality, in com- mon with the writings of true genius, if any one shall deny that the resemblance, in my case, goes farther, there is no help for it. But I have said, that I rest not my claims to literary honours upon these idle reveries of my solitude — I am engaged in a work of far other pretensions, and one which, as it will at once display my professional reading, and be of signal benefit to the service, is likely, if I live to finish it, to procure for me no common reputation. I have resolved, to be candid, to publish upon the advantage of MTEUARY PROMOTION. S'3 < obliging the infantry in our armies to discard the bayonet, and return to the use of the pike. I have no doubt of proving the supe- riority of the old weapon, which was so unadvisedly thrown aside in the seventeenth century; and have made sufficient progress in my book to foresee that it will form two handsome, hot-pressed, quarto volumes. Havresack (for I have converted the old musqueteer to my way of thinking, notwith- standing his lurking prejudice for " brown Bess*"), Havresack and myself have been engaged in a series of interesting experiments in the garden, upon the difference in the physical momentum of the pike and bayonet, when impelled by the same arm. The truth is, that a military book, without a detail of experiments, is now-a-days nothing. I have remarked the scientific air of profundity which * Having been asked what Havresack's sweetheart has to do with ray experiments, I find to ray surprise that there are people in the world who do not know that " brown Bess" is the cant' or rather pet term, of our soldiery for the companion of their fatigues, the instrument of their glories— the musket. 34 LITERARY PROMOTION. Yi ■i I (tf i is gained by a grave statement of certain ex- periments in & modern military work, where Carnot (ft Frenchman), who had always until then been esteemed an engineer of splendid abilities, is clearly proved to be a jackass* Now this is done entirely by spreading some targets in a meadow, and firing stones at them ; which is certainly a practical mode of trying the effect of shot, aiid a sensible one into the bargain; because ati author can be present at the work, and not run his sconce into any danger, as men foolishly do by seeking expe- rience in the field. Perceiving then the value of experiments, I caused several bull- hides to be stretched across my garden upon a frame, much to the astonishment of the workmen who erected it. With these pre- parations, and by pressing an occasional gar- dener, whom I employ, into the service for an hour out of each day's labour, Havresack and myself are able, with his assistance, to form a file three deep ; in which order of density we can rush upon the hides alter- LITERARY PROMOTION. 3^ ilfttely with pike and bayonet, to ascertain the comparative motn^ntum of these arms. We have discovered— but I am rashly anti- cipating results which will appear at their proper season with more ecMt in my great y/irotk itself. While engaged in these active operations in the field, I am at the same time sparing no exertion in my inquiries into the exact nature df the Grecian pike of the phalanx ; of the Macedonian, similarly used; of that employed by the Romans under the empire; of the pike 6t lance of chivalry; of that of the Mique- lets and Swiss infantry, and of the days ot Gustavas Adolphus ; and, finally, of the pike of the Irish rebellion and radical insurrec- tions. I have perused, compared, and col- lected, four hundred and fifty-seven authori- ties of greater or less weight, and shall be able to rival the " Decline and Fall" of Gibbon in the number and variety of my marginal references. I shall, doubtless, thus leave a deep impression upon the world of 30 LITERARY PROMOTION. my learning and research ; and, as I am credibly assured that, among modern authors of celebrity, the practice of reading books before they are quoted is exploded, as a. tiresome and unprofitable labour, I shall be careful not to violate the spirit of my age in this respect, whenever it suits me to cite an authority, upon trust, at second or third hand. I have now collected materials enough for two, or even three quartos — if I should, find it desirable to add a third volume; and am consequently under no apprehension of a deficiency of matter in my book. But I have still appalling difficulties to encounter : I am as little at home in the business of composi> tion as Johnson would have been at the head of a troop of hussars, or Addison in the instruction of a drill-squad. As I am not indifferent to the ambition of acquiring an elegant style, I am excessively perplexed by the unwieldiness of my periods, and the obstinate confusion of my sentences. If I attempt to render them more clear in one LITERARY PROMOTION. 87 point, the effort is sure to throw another into darkness j if I change an expression, to avoid repetition of a word, I infallibly sink into a similar predicament with the substitute : to escape from ambiguity, I rush into tautology; to attain terseness, I sacrifice ease. I am, consequently, sometimes on the brink of de- spair, and often think of the mortification I shall suffer in this unhappy particular of style. I anticipate something 'of the same kind that occurred to another military writer of this age, some twenty years back, and shortly afler the publication of his history of a cer- tain campaign. " An interesting work that of yours upon our late African expedition," said the general who had succeeded to the command, and accomplished the objects of the service, to the author at a large dinner party in England. " I am proud that it has your lordship's approbation,** was the reply of the happy author. — " Oh, perfectly ! but what will you give me to do it into English?" i 88 MTEllARY PROMOTION. I pray in God no man may make a similar proposal for a translation into my own tongu? of my book on the u?e of the pike. * I have, as I before hinted, a nephew, thf »U P!th?r instruct tion; and thence he was despatched to tHe Univer3ity, to season his acquirements with the cu3tomary dose pf classical pedantry and dogmatical assurance* He m now sjtudyiug for the bar, a»d favours me with au ocus imaginations of the worthies of the olden time. Peace to their souls ! book- making hid a smack of artisanship, even in their days.— I doubt whether, with all our pretensions to superior j^we^^e, we have im- proved upon the quaint allurements which beamed from the honest countenances of their lucubrations. , : i " Before it be determined how much a title- page shall promise, regard must be had to one circumstance — whether the work be a genuine profit and loss speculation of trade, or if some value be foolishly ascribed by the author to literary reputation. The latter must be a case of very rare occurrence— books are books, now-a-days, only by their weight in guineas; and manuscripts may at last come to be sold like cheese, by the pound avoirdu- pois. Then will future Don Juans vie in price with the rankness of Neufchatel ; and evangelical sermois be banished, with double TITLE-PAGES. 94| (GloUcp'ter, from the tables of the rechcrchis. But to return to the question — money versus reputation : if the defendant does not suffer judgment to go by default, some caution will be necessary in preparing the setting forth of the title-page. There is nothing like putting a case by analogy j and it is just this:— A man has little character to lose, and wishes to exchange what remains of it for the best sum it will bring ; he sets out on a swindling expedition, with the final prospect, if he escape a voyage to Australasia, of carrying his earnings 10 America. He therefore makes a splendid appearance, hesitates at nothing to effect his purpose, profits the fruits of his roguery, and sings the * populus me sihilat* to the roar of the waters, upon the deck of aa American packet. This is one side of the case. Take the other : — An individual prizf3s reputation much, and honesty morej or, at least, he knows that hoi^esty alone can secure permanent reputation — he is therefore careful to hang out no false colours, and to pass for 56 TITLE-PAGES. m no more than he is. If this will not apply to the manufacturer of title-pages, there's an end to all analogy — Verbum sat. "But, after all, the mere announcement of contents in a title-page is the rudest portion of the manufacture : it is the tact of awaken- ing pleasing associations which forms the elegance of the art ; and there is an elegance in every art. * Och! see how iligantly he sends it along,' said an Hibernian to me at a foot-ball match, as a player, with the frame of a coal-heaver, shot the ball to the skies. I suppose that the poetry o< the thing was in the ascent of the leathern orb. Who, after this, will deny that there is room for the dis- play of tasteful elegance in the composition of a title-page? There are, indeed, subjects to which it is impossible to refer without summoning the shadows of romance and en- thusiasm from the depths of our souls. The glories of antiquity ; the chivalrous splendour which, after centuries of murky darkness, beamed on the middle ages; the combats, TITLE-PAGES. 57 the loves, the song of the knight and the minstrel ; even the cloistered gloom of the convent, and the vaulted roof of the cathe- dral, all hold the power of enchantment over us, if but a word should recall them to the imagination. It makes the fortune of a book if its title have but the most distant allusion to them, be it on^y well timed. " Something of this kind is there in the title- page of Mr. Mills' * History of the Crusades j' and it may form no bad illustration of the magic spell of a word. We pass over the fubject matter of the title — * The Crusades,' — and even therein is embodied many a thrilling conception of all that is imposing, enthusiastic, and brilliant in history — we pass over this; for the word lay in the author's path — the feature was ready cut for him, and he could not choose but stamp it on the phy- siognomy of his book. But mark how the whole countenance is moulded; observe how the title is wound up to a climax : — * The ^8 TITLE-PAGES. History of the Crusades, for the Recovery and Possession of the t .if' * Hoi? UnrOi: .''ni-'J7'i.i " There is a talisman in the very words; their sound is of hooded pilgrim and palmer grey; of deep-toned fervent devotion ; of the •brazen note of Faynim war;' of scorching climes, and toilsome wanderings: even the venerable text in which ; hey are clothed has all the solemn religious grandeur of the Gothic, and appeals to the sense like its own fretted aisle and pointed window. — This is a very jewel of a title-page. ' ' '* ! ;<; - ^ " These, then, are some of the assiociations which it is highly desirable to call up, if they can opportunely be pressed into the service. But there are others, though of humbler character, yet of scarcely less powerful in- fluence over the feelings; such as address themselves to our remembrance of the domes- tic enjoyments, the ordinary amusements of TITLE-PAGES. 59 life, and, particularly, to those among them which may be termed national pleasures. For instance, where is there a happier title to string a bundle of essays together than the * Winter Nights?* — It is perfectly irre- sistible ; no man who loves the warmth, the comfort, the blazing fire of his family circle on a January evening, will refrain from pur- chasing the book; and yet, where shall we wade through a more insipid mixture of com- mon-places than in the pages to which these terms of fascination are the lure ? Though it even stop there, however, there is some- thing in the talent of carving out engaging countenances for books. * Shakspeare and his Times,' is a fine head from th( same chisel, attached to a literary abortion — the head of an Antinous with the body of a Caliban. * Shakspeare and his Times !* what a glorious title ! Wild Will himself, all the host of worthies of the Elizabethan age, pass in array before you in all their gorgeous splendour. If the division of labour should 60 TITLE-PAGES. IM i i^'ii It ■'M ever extend into literature, and the com- position of title-pages become as distinct a branch of trade as the making of watch- springs, he of the Winter Nights, and of Shaksfeare and his Times, will stand at the pinnacle of art. " Enough has been said of the associations wh' h it is desirable to rouse j at least, enough to give the book-maker his oue : for, as to an enumeration of them, they are as many, and as various, as the pleasures of this deceitful world, and thei/ are many and various, let the over wise and the grave opine as they may. It is time, then, on the other hand, to declare what allusions a title-page should shun ; and these, again, are as numerous as the pains, and disgusts, and sorrows of life. But nei- ther do they need an illustrative catalogue to mark them. * Happiness ; a Tale for the Grave and the Gay.' — The grave answer, that they do not read novels ; and the gay, that what is suited to the giave suits not them. Here are ill-timed, ill-paired associa- m TITLE-PAOES. 61 V tions jumbled together; here's running upon both Scylla and Charybdis with a vengeance ! Never was a title-page so admirably consti- tuted to please nobody; and for this simple reason, that it has pretensions to please every body. Neither * the grave nor the gay' can banquet on their favourite dainty without swallowing theii bane in the same mouthful. " I have almost dor 3 with title-pages," said mv nephew; " not that lit'Je remains to be observed, bu that I have neither time nor inclination to say it. There is no tearing so important a subject to tatters, be assured, my dear uncle. But, before I take my leave of thee, if thou desirest to be a maker of books, let me counsel thee, as thou wouldst prosper in th}' railing, to slight not even the art oi'ja^ta' position for the words in thy title-pages. Trust not their arrangement to the composi- tor ; yield not so weighty a matter to another; look to it thyself. A title-page should be a perfect picture. The brilliant quotation must shed around the splendid and fanciful lights i 62 TITLE-PAOES. of a Rembrandt ; or the elegant allusion be- stow the holy calm of a Claude upon the piece. Here one part of the subject must be subdued and in shad^ ; there another thrown into broad relief; truth of perspective, fore- ground, and distance, all must be there. That title-page is worse than useless, which possesses not the power to charm the eyes and warm the imagination of the beholder." My nephew ended ; and though he did not, like the angel in Milton, leave his voice so charming in my ear as to make me think him " still speaking," yet family kindness induced me to promise him to record his speech among my lucubrations, and thus give him that im- mortality which the commentators on Shak- speare enjoy. " The things we know are neither rich nor rare. But wonder how the devil they got there." THE DAY OF BADAJOS. Now speak, old soldier. The height of honour ?" " Rather to suffer than to do a wrong. To make the heart no stranger to the tongue; Provoked, not to hetray an enemy. Nor eat his meat, I choke with flattery; Blushless to tell wherefore I wear my scars. Or for my conscience, or for my country's wars ; To aim at just things; if we have wildly run Into offences, wish them all undone; 'Tis poor, in grief for a wrong done to die; Honour, to dare to live and satisfy." Massinoer. THE DAY OF BADAJOS. ** To-morrow, sir," said my faithful valet, Havresack, placing the boot-jack and slippers before the arm-chair in which I was dozing over the pages of my favorite Folard, " to- morrow will be the day of Badajos ; this night, nine years ago, I was lying by your honour's side on picquet before th.. wails of the old castle." . ** True, Havresack," said I, as I drew off my boot, and exchanged it for the luxury of an easy shoe ; ** and, as times go, we are not a whit less comfortably quartered at present than we were on that same picquet." F 60 THE DAY OF BADAJOS. " For that matter,** rejoined my factotum, " I suppose it's all for the best, as Mr. Scruples tells us J and it certainly is time for us old soldiers (it*s a name your honour's not ashamed of), to have done with marches and out-lying picquets : but for my part, if I had ten years service off my back, and the same master to follow, I should not mind to be again on that covering party with our lads. — It was a cold night, and the ground none of the driest, for we had a rainy siege of it ; but it was a fine thing, as we lay there, to hear the drums of the garrison beating their tattoo with the music sounding quite close to our ears, and to think how soon we should be among the rascals. You'll remember, sir, how hushed and quiet every thing was after the French- men's tattoo had done sounding; except now and then a volley from our batteries^QU t'other side the town.** ' * . " I do, indeed, remember it all, Jonathan,*' «aid I, '* and can never forget it; for poor Desmond was wrapped in the same boat-cloak THE DAY OF BADAJCS. 67 with me, and it was his Jast picquet — ^the last night upon earth that he was ever to reckon as past." " Ah!" cried Jonathan, shaking his head, " poor Captain Desmond was, indeed, a brave gentleman, and I wish, with all my heart, for your honour's sake, that he was alive to see the 6th of April come round again. It's curious now, I've known many of our officers not take it so much to heart for a single day when a companion has been knocked off, as you do his loss after the years that are gone by.'* With this half address, half soliloquy, Jonathan Havresack left me to my own re- flections; and fancy rapidly carried me back through many a changing scene of my wan- dering life: much of the cheerfulness and vicissitudr of which had been shared with poor Desmond. It is, indeed, true, I ex- claimed, that the constant presence of danger leaves us little room for thought of thof - who have fallen ai : id usj true, that the herd of a regiment can bear the mortpl ;is- f2 #■ 68 THE DAY OP BADAJOS. solution of their friendships without lasting regret — almost with ladifference. Yet why reproach th^i professioj of my youth and of my age with more insciLsibility than the rest of the world? Why fix that taint upon a branch, which belongs tr the stock? Do we not witness the same beartlessness through all the mazes of soci;;ty? Do we not every where see the early leaf that is touched by the frost wither and die, and yet leave all its fellows as green and as blooming as ever? He must have been singularly ill-fated, who has passed through the ranks, and found not the open heart and generous hand of a brother soldier to succour him in the hour of need. I recalled to memory the efforts of disinterested friend- ship which had so often cheered me in the rough path of my profession, forswore the misanthropy of a monient, and slept soundly until morning. As soon as Havresack awoke me at my usual h()*!i, which is none of thv earliest, seeing u I have neither reveillez nor field- i^- THE DAY OF BADAJOS. 69 day to rouse me, he inquired, with that sort of respectful familiarity which is the inoffen- sive privilege of the old soldier and trusty domestic, whether the day was not to be wel- comed with my customary regard for such occasions ; observing, that he had no doubt it would be a busy one at the regiment, with old Bligh, the mess-waiter, to whose functions he perhaps inwardly likened his own. ** I should have asked your honour,"he continued, ** about it last night, but you were thinking of other things than keeping up the day." ** We should not, however, neglect it, Jonathan; and you must invite my friends of the club, if they will excise the suddenness of the bidding." " I was thinking so, sir. — There's the navy captain, his man tells me, has left his quar- ters, and gone on business to the Admiralty, but the other gentlemen will be at home •/' and Jonathan speeded on his errand, in which he was successful. " Before I had quitted my chamber, he* had '! liH 70 THE DAY OF BADAJOS. returned from his rounds, and was busily occupied in furbishing up the buttons of my regimental coat. They were worn much more by the periodical polishings which honest Jonathan delighted to bestow upon them, than by the use of the garment itself; but it was nevertheless a point upon which both he and myself were entirely agreed, that it was onl/ a proper tribute of respect to the regi- ment to dine in full uniform upon the dies fasti of their glories. When I called for my hat, to take my ordinary morning stroll, I discovered that his zeal had gone yet a step farther : he had decorated the brim of the peaceful chapeau bourgeois with a sprig of laurel, and as he gave it into my hand, " won- dered that I had never ordered a regulation- cap from Hawkes's j for," added he, glancing at the laurel, " it does not look so well as it used to do about the grenadier feathers; but it's all one ; the laurel is neither in the hat nor the cap, any more than the brains lie in the wig." THE DAY OF BADAJOO. 71 "You're right, Jonathan," said Ij "and however it may be, we will have the laurel where, on this day, it best becomes it to grow." And I took the sprig from my hat, and placed it over a small picture of the gallant PiCTON, which graces the walls of my sanc- tum. " If ever true and valiant soldier," con- tinued I, apostrophising the portrait, "merited the wreath of glory, it was thou ! Surely, when the breath of detraction is spent, and the clouds of CLvy have rolled away, thy star shall be seen in thi axy of honour." " I hope, your honour," said Jonathaxi, who had been silent the while, " that we may giv Sir Thomas the credit he deserved — and it was, indeed, not little, as you say — and leave enough, too, for us all besides ; all the Badajos men in the regiment will be wearing their laurel to-day." " And so will you also, I hope, Havresack," replied Ij for 1 saw his drift, and was loth 1 I 72 THE DAY OF BADAJOS. ( i." I to mortify the poor fellow ; " you did your duty as well as the best of them, and may claim a share of their honours — But who have we to dine with me to-day?" " Mr. Scruples, sir, and lawyer Benson, and the Doctor, and the 'squire Harrison, and Mr. Richards" (the father of my Desde- mona), *' will all be here." " You told them five o'clock, military time?" " I did, sir." " And you'll not begin yourself to celobrate the day, Jonathan, until we '-ave dine I, you know." " I shall be on duty, sir," was the laconic and significant pledge of sobriety. The dinner hour came, and with it my punctual guests, excepting only the 'squire, who at length walked into the room in a full suit of local militia regimentals, in which he had bedecked himself for the occasion in compUment to me. Jonathan, who had dis- carded his livery for the day, and shone also i . 1 I THE DAY OF BADAJOS. 7S in scarlet, now announced the meal, and we sat down in perfect good-humour. I shall not stop to detail the various conversation which passed in the intervals of the more im- portant avocations of the table; suffice it to say, that the parson pronounced my dinner to be excellent, — the lawyer chirped, — the doctor cracked his jest, — the 'squire was as comfortable as the unusual nature of his habiliments would permit, — and my friend Richards was not less cordial than if I had accepted the fair hand of Miss Bridget. When the cloth was removed, the general hilarity was not a jot diminished by the appearance of Jonathan with two magnum bonums of some real Douro, of my own importation from the Peninsula, expressly reserved for such occa- sions, a white napkin, and my ne-plus-ultra corkscrew; for I am careful to hold to the good mess practice of drawing my own corks. I attribute it entirely to the generous qua- lity of the wine, which is always, when taken in moderation, an infallible antidote against IM MM ml Hi V ml i! I 74 nil'; DAY OF UADAJOS. ill-temper, in proportion to its excellence, that the harmony of the evening was not in- terrupted J for Mr. Scruples and the lawyer were violent antagonists in politics, their opinions being about as opposite as the north and south poles. The lawyer, who is an irascible little man, took umbrage at the Tory addition made by the parson to a standing toast; and it was with some difficulty that we succeeded in diverting the conversation into a fresh channel. Indeed, to do my other guests justice, they were of singularly happy temperament in politics ; the doctor and Mr. Kichards being quietists, and the 'squire with only one decided opinion upon public questions, which, as it related to the Corn Bill — and he well knew my extreme antipathy to the detested subject of agriculture — he was careful not to disturb my tranquillity by broaching before me. I accordingly inter- rupted the controversy between the rival politicians, by proposing a bumper, which I said I was sure they would all readily drink — fi nil THE DAY OF DADAJOS, to the memory of the gallant Picton, who had 80 largely contributed to the glories of the day we were celebrating. The toast went round; but the lawyer then inquired if he were not the same General Picton who had behaved so cruelly and illegally in the West Indies. " The same," replied I, " who was so cruelly and unjustly slandered in the occur- rence to which you allude." ** The application of torture hath always been contrary to the law of this land," re- joined the lawyer ; " and, with all due respect to your honourable profession. Major, the military commander must ever bow to the mandates of the law." " Cedunt arma togce" added the parson ; " for though it be lawful, as our excellent Articles declare, for Christian men to bear weapons, and to serve in the wars, the eccle- siastical and civil powers are supreme." " God forbid! my friends," exclaimed I, ** that in our country of freedom, the military 76 THE DAY 07 BADAJOS. power should ever rise above the strong control of the law ; but Picton had not the option of obedience to the mild jurisprudence of England. He was the governor of a Spanish island, which had only surrendered to our arms by a capitulation, securing to its inhabitants the laws and customs of Spain* Torture was among them, and he was unable to resist its employment without violation of those legal rights which you prize so highly; he was the helpless instrument of cruelty, which was revolting to his nature. Blame, if you will, those who granted the capitula- tion, which gave to a British soldier but the alternative of submission to a barbarous prac- tice, or breach of national faith ; not the man who was afterv ards seen in the crowded hospitals of Flushing, as active and benevo- lent in performing the duties of humanity, as he was cool and undaunted in the field. And let us not suffer our imagination to be de- luded by any false glow of sympathy. The person upon whom the vengeance of the laws THE DAY OF BADAJOS. 77 fell deserved not the name of woman; her brutalities were matter of public shame; she was fit to represent Moll Flaggon in the play." " We have heard. Major Ravelin," said the doctor, " that the general was a severe disciplinarian." " Discipline," remarked the military 'squire, drawing himself up, " is the soul of an army." " You are correct, Captain Harrison ; and no man was more sensible of its importance than Picton : he was never more strenuous in maintaining it than when it was requisite for the protection of the peaceful inhabitants of the theatre of war." - " With your honour's leave," said Havre- sack, who had just entered with our fourth magnum bonum, and, attracted by the con- versation, had placed himself behind my chair, " with your leave. Sir Thomafj was sometimes a little too hard upon a poor soldier. Your honour may remember, when I had a fowl in 78 THE DAT OF BADAJOS. h^-t my knapsack for your dinner, at that pass in the Pyrenees, where there was nothing to be had for love or money, how he was for sending me to the prevot, but for " " Jonathan," said I, ■' never mind that at present, but go and finish your ale by your birth at the kitchen fire. — That poor fellow," continued I, as he left the room, "could never understand that it was right I should want a meal, while food was to be procured in any man- ner; and I could only cure him of the habit of catering for me — lawfully or unlawfully — by discharging him from my person, and turning him into the ranks f r a month, as a proof of my displeaHure. Yet, with this confusion of right and wrong in the licence of a campaign, there breathes not an hor ester soul than Jonathan Havresack. He is right: Picton was certainly unforgiving to the marauder; for he was ever alive to the honour, and watchful in maintaining the fair charaiiir of the British army. Though his prospects were cruelly blighted, and his path of hont/iif THE DAY OF BADAJOS. 79 crossed and overspread by all the rankling thorns which can lie in the road of our pro- fession, his ardent and zealous nature still urged him on, and carried the veteran to the field of death with the enthusiasm of youth. No injustice could extinguish the passion for glory which burnt within him : no denial of reward, no unmerited disappointment, could check the vehemence of that devoted attach- ment to arms which, in others, expires with the dreams of boyhood, but in him terminated only with the willing sacrifice of life at the shrine of duty. If t\vd poison of slander, while it embittered his happiness, would throw a transient hue of misanthropy over his temper, they who beheld him, and knew his unworthy sufferiiigs, could know also how to excuse the ravages or misfortune on a noble spirit. If, in the prosecution of the service, his bearing was not always unmingled with impatience or irritation, how shall we won- der that he could not tamely submit to be thwarted by men whom he felt to be as far r 80 THE DAY OP BADAJOS. 1^': IV If: ' ■# beneath him, as the creature of sluggish clay- is below the majesty of intellectual being ! He loved and cherished the soldier : but he appreciated the true objects of his profession too highly to countenance forbidden licence or crime. He taught every corps of his divi- sion to prize his applause, and to feel shame and dread of his displeasure. He perfectly understood the character of the soldiery, and knew how to work upon and humour their very eccentricities. He had indignantly stig- matised the inveterate disposition to plunder which mark*^ an Irish regiment of his divi- sion, but a fpw days before their impetuous gallantry in action drew from him a burst of involuntary and animated eulogium. — * Well, General !' cried a voice from the ranks, with th€ accent, the humour, and the characteristic sangfroid of the Hibernian, * is it rascals and plunderers we are now?* * No, my lads,' was the ready reply, * you are now, indeed, worthy of the mime of British soldiers.' "That this name should be ccupled as much THE DAY OF BADAJOS. 81 with high discipline and honourable conduct, as with courage and daring, was his unceasing endeavour. For this his memory should have our lasting gratitude; for until the grave had closed over him, he was denied half the well- earned reputation of his zealous career. His life was one undeviating course nf ardent devotion to the service, and his death was a fit close for such a life. Yet that unhappy and misrepresented affair of Trinidad hovered over him like a cloud to the last ; the victim of unfounded calumny, no soldier ever realized more truly the observation of Clarendon : — * So fatal are all misfortunes, and so difficult a thing is it to play an after-game of reputa- tion in that nice and jealous profession.'" I was proceeding ; but on looking for the assent of my guests, I found them in tranquil slumber around me. The cessation of my harangue broke the monotony of their repose, and they awoke to separate for the night. r . i! '.'■ '[<"> 'r - V ;, :;('•' i • ■ i. ■ if. , f »1\' Mr EMILY MILBUKNE. " Ncught is there under heav'n's wide hollowness That moves more dear compassion of mind Than beauty brought t' unworthy wretchedness." Spbnseb. " Can he who loves me, whom I love, deceive ? Can r such wrong of one so kind believe. Who lives but in my smile, who trembles whUe I grieve?" Crabbz. G 2 r KV ■ fi'li ^ i-fii' r PI ' si fli .Mil Ell Jjl. 4 1 M i EMILY MILBURNE. It was some time in the autumn of '1 809, immediately after our return from the fatal expedition to the marshes of the Scheldt, that it fell to the lot of a portion of my regiment to be quartered in the beautiful and romantic village of E , in one of the most pic- tureque districts of the west of England. We had suffered severely from the baleful con- sequences of the climate of Walcheren ; and brought away with us all the remains of a disorder which, while it reduced the body to tKe last stage of weakness, was remarkable for Liiinting the mind, beyond the ordinary effects of disease, with a gloom and depression of r^l 8G EMILY MILBURNE. spirits tVat extended almost to the verge of insaiiuy. When placed on shipboard for England, there were few of our number who had not been attacked with the fever ; and we were only roused from the despondency and indifference to life which marked the malady by our landing on the shores of Devonshire. Never did the lovely verdure of our native land seem to smile such a welcome — never did the upland swell in such softness, and the varying tints of the copse hang in such luxuriant beauty around us, as when first we exchanged the barren sands of Flushing, and the confinement of a sickly transport, for the green hill and dale of our happy island. In- stead of being sent into garrison, we were distributed for quarters of refreshment into different villages; and at the close of our last day's march, the detachment to which I belonged drew up before the principal public- house of the little township of E to receive their billets from the head constable of the place. While this dignified depository of EMILY MILBUHNE. 87 civil authority, who also exercised the useful craf> if a cordwainer, was busied in performing his magisterial functions with suitable gravity of of^ce, I amused myself with look'^jr at the ie about me. No one but l!-e fto^dier, las been tossed and buffeted round the «*id at the sport of fortune 5 none but the wanderer, who has been doomed to undergo every change of climate, and to mingle with every variety of the human species, can fully appreciate the glowing feelings with which, after absence and suffering, a man once more recognises such a picture of English country life as now presented itself to our delighted eye. Within about three miles of our destina- tion, the line of march had diverged from the main road to enter the fertile valley, at whose extremity stood the village, with its scattered farms and cottages, sheltered by the hanging woods, and bold outline of a range of hills, which swept like an amphitheatre round it. As the small detachment, followed by its baggage-waggon, slowly wound through the o> y IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 k&IM |2.5 -.,. I 2.2 1.1 ^ IL25 i 1.4 Photographic Sciences Corporation ^/ ^^*^^^ 6^ «■ 23 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 872-4503 "^ ■w *'^- EA^ILY MILBURNE. i*. * tifirow rdadj'-^tlie hedge-rows of which here and th6re closed' over our route, and for the - moment lent a sombre hue to thelandscape»~- ■ the rays- of the setting sun were just gildii?ig t the grey spire of the church,, and cheering us, at every opening which discovered it, with ' the assurance that we drew towards the end ' of our march. Before we halted, the whole - village had turned out to have a view of the ' \^ sogers," and were congregated about the : green ; which, with its speading elms, afforded the general spot of assembly for business or pleasure-^the seat alike of the fair, and the ' holiday wake. A party of countrymen had been smoking their evening pipe over a tankard, upon the bench at the door of the public-house, and were now good-naturedly offering a share of their ale to our poor fellows 'f whose appearance gave too certain warrant that they had with difficulty escaped with their bodies from the charnel-hoiise. The village gossips were drawn together in t. knots, regarding the sallow countenances of ■^^ *>i Ar EMILY MILBUBNE. 89 our men with the eloquent eye of female pity; and rural politicians were shaking their heads at the want of judgment and foresight which could send the flower of the land thus to wither in the pestilential marshes of Wal- cheren. Even the pert chambermaid of the little inn seemed for a moment, forgetting her habitual smirk and giggle, to regard us with a sober look of concern, which was reflected on the broad shining face of her fellow-servant, John Ostler; while the only spectator in whom our party appeared to awaken no interest was a sharp-visaged, ferret-eyed personage, *-whom I inwardly set down as the attorney of the place,— standing with his hands in his pockets under the arch- way of the inn, and viewing the whole scene with an air of calm, self-satisfied contempt. ^ I was still engaged in surveying the groups of village idlers, whom our arrival had at- tracted to the spot, when I was politely accosted by a stranger, with an apology for forcing himself upon my attention. He was ♦ 1/ '^fi go EMILY MILBURNE. 4? >yi•*/ jLriJ .•.■juui^i; njH" It It is SO rare an occurrence with a military man to experience attention or hospitality in England, that the address of the stranger at first excited my surprise ; but there was an earnestness and sincerity about him which made it impossible to doubt that he meant his offer to be accepted, and that to reject it would be to distress him. The exterior, too, of the little inn before which we stood was not such as to promise even its mediocrity of entertainment to above the one half of our party; and I felt, with the languor of one who had just wrestled with disease, that the calm and repose of a private house were tempta- tions irresistible. I accordingly thanked the old gentleman, with a warmth inspired and merited by his conduct, and told him that I 92 EMILT MILBURNE. 4'<- t would avail myself of his friendly propo^l, in the spirit in which it was made^ with the proviso, however, that my intrusion should continue only until I could select a lodging among the houses of the village. He replied, with a smile, that we should do as we pleased ; but that he hoped to induce us not to shorten the gratification he should derive from our presence. There was in our detachment an officer, who had joined the corps from another regiment immediately previous to our em- barkation for the Scheldt; a man between five-and-thirty and forty years of age, with nothing remarkable in his person or address, but apparently of inoffensive gentlemanlike demeanor. We had hitherto seen little of him J for shortly after we sat down before Flushing, he had been seized with fever, and remained utterly incapacitated for duty during the bombardment, and our subsequent continuance on that service. He was still an invalid; and, as the stranger insisted upon extending his hospitality to a second of our A SMILY MILBURNE. 93 party, I introduced Mr. Danville to him for the purpose. He was, excepting myself, more advanced in life than the rest of hiis companions ; and it was my object to choose the most sedate among them. I knew him only as an acquaintance; but the state of his health gave him a claim to the preference. Little did J imagine, as we entered the tran- quil dwelling of the kind-hearted old man, that I was the harbinger of despair and death to its innocent inmates ; little did I then know the ungrateful, the merciless villain, whom I ushered beneath the roof where all was har- mony and peace. Twelve years have now mingled with the current of time, since our entrance into the vale of E brought desolation upon the happiest little circle within its limits y and many a changing scene of toil, privation, and bloodshed have since passed before me ; yet neither the deadening influence of these twelve years of existence, at a period of life when every hour takes from the acuteness of recollection, and every ^i^ ^ EMILY MILBURNEw feeling gradually loses its intensity; hot all the hardening effects of a profession of danger, and familiarity with the horrors of warfare, have been able, in any degree, to soften the keenness, the bitterness of regret, which fills my heart at the reflection that I was the un- fortunate instrument, of ruin to the hapless family of Milburne. It is a black tale of perfidy, and I shall pass with a rapid hand over its disgusting details. ' - ''♦ ^"^ ^ •"*'* y Our host, Mr. Milburne, was the son of a London merchant of substance, who would have engrafted the spirit of mercantile en- terprise upon the classical education which he had bestowed upon the youth: but the young man found business incompatible with his habits and tastes, and resigned both his place in the firm and the prospect of his father's accumulated wealth to a younger brother. A relation had fortunately made him the heir to a decent independence, of which the displeasure of his parent could not deprive hitn; and upon this was Milburne EMILY MILBURNE. 95 contented to rest his hopes for the future, his wants, and desires. He married ; and, at an age when others are most eager in pursuing their career of ambition or avarice, retired to his books, and the tranquil possession of domestic pleasures. He knew little of the world ; and for many years was happily even ignorant that a bitter drop was to be found in the cup of existence. The loss of the partner of his enjoyments was almost the first of his sorrows; and if he afterwards found ought to alleviate the stroke, and to throw a gleam of sunshine on his solitary path, it was that the bounty of Heaven had yet reserved for him two daughters, in whom he might fondly hope to trace the lineaments and virtues of their mother. The eldest of these girls was just nineteen, and the youngest scarcely more than a child, when he opened his hospitable doors for our reception. Un- happily for him, our residence was fated to be longer than I had intended when I con- sented to pass a few days within his cottage* ■':..,^|puf I'- ■■?T«^«TT'" 96 EMILY MILBURNE. It occurs with the fever and ague of Walche- ren, as with other diseases contracted in campaigns in unhealthy climates, that the malady is most sensibly felt when a state of repose and inactivity has succeeded to the necessity for exertion. We had scarcely be- gun to experience all the comfort of the transition which a few days had produced in our situation, when both Mr. Danville and myself were visited with a dangerous relapse of the disease, the ravages of which we had so lately surmounted. Nothing could exceed the humane attention, the tender care which we received in the crisis of our illness from both Milburne and his lovely daughter—, Gracious God! that their solicitude should have met with such a regard. For days and weeks, during which the father and daughter watched over my bed with unceasing anxiety, I was deprived of all knowledge of what was passing about me ; and when the violence of the fever had subsided, the light form of Emily Milburne floated like a shadow before EAIILY MILBURNE. 97 me among the first perceptions of returning consciousness. Her ministering aid ceased not with the moment of danger; and as I slowly recovered my health, she was still the angel that cheered me in those hours of mor- bid dejection which attended the return to convalescence. My companion had been in still more imminent peril than myself, and the result of his disorder was yet doubtful. He, in consequence, claimed the greater portion of her attention ; but it was only shared — as well as that of her father — in common with myself. I knew not why, but I soon found the presence of the artless girl so necessary to my comfort, that I became peevish and irritable whenever she left me. I felt all that sweetness of joy which the hero of chivalry experienced when his couch was watched by the mistress of his heart*. In a moment of solitude, I ventured to analyse the sensations which, at fifty, made a girl of nine- teen ever present to my reveries, and, for the • Travels of Theodore Ducas^ vol. ii. p. 98. H 98 EMILY AIILBURNE. only time in my life, would have given worlcb to have recalled the lapse of twenty summers. But it was in vain : I had already chosen my lonely course, and had gloomily resolved, like the sceptic mentioned by Wordsworth, to go " sounding on a dim and perilous way." I thenceforward thought of Emily but as of one whose happiness I would have laid down my life to ensure. She was, indeed, innocence itself; and there was not a movement nor action of her life which did not speak the utter guilelessness of her character. Her father, I have said, was little versed in the ways of the world ; but she had never even mingled with it ; and the few families of the vicinity formed the extent of her acquaint- ance with her species. But why am I fondly lingering over the contemplation of all that she was? I was soon to behold her no more! and had scarcely regained my usual strength, before an order reached me in the tour of duty, to join that battalion of my regiment which was serving in Portugal. I • 'A KMILY MILBURN£. Oi) obeyed the summons ; and quitted the habita- tion where I had, without introduction, with- out a claim, found ail the soothing blessings of friendship. Poor Milburne wrung my hand with feelings which, while they in- effectually struggled with utterance, told me more eloquently than volumes, that I had acquired another friend upon earth. His daughter, too, strove not to conceal the sorrow with which she bade me adieu. I lefl Danville still an inmate in the house. His recovery had been surprisingly slowj but the delay did not excite my suspicion at the time. As we had seen more of him, there was apparently more to esteem. Mild and delicate in his attentions to the daugh- ter, grateful, but frank and manly, in his car- riage towards her father, he enjoyed their full friendship and confidence. The villain was even then, when apparently still stretched on the bed of sickness, secretly plotting the ruin of the lovely creature who had assisted in rescuing him from the grave j he was even 100 EMILY MILBUllNE. then meditating the blow which was to strike to the earth the man who had loaded him with kindnesses. He was the cool calculating libertine, who could patiently set his deep- laid snares, and mark their operation in deli- berate observance of the event. His years denied him the usual plea, bad as it is, of the resistless vehemence of boyish passion : but time, while it took from the impetuosity of youth, seemed, with him, to have extin- guished also every particle of remorse or pity, and to have instructed him but the more effectually how he should entangle the victims of his profligacy. He succeeded but too well; and by the tender, yet respectful assiduity of his attentions to the unsuspecting Emily, and the semblance of warm attach- ment which marked his intercourse with her father, he acquired such an influence over her mind that, spite of the disparity in their years, he taught her to rest her innocent affections upon him in the unbounded fulness of early love He was not slow in discovering «•*• EMILY MILBURNE. 101 his power — but an union with the poor girl was farthest from his intentions. He chose his opportunity, and was suddenly ordered off on service. — At that moment, when the agonising fear of losing him for ever had stifled every better feeling, he persuaded her, that, while honour forbade him to quit his profession at the hour of his call to its active duties, it was vain to expect her father's consent to her becoming his wife, as long as he remained in the service ; but, that if she would elope with him, once united, no dif- ficulty would follow in obtaining the parental forgiveness. In an evil hour, the infatuated and too credulous girl yielded herself to his guidance, and quitted the haven of her purity, with the delusive hope of an early return to its protection ; to throw herself at the feet of her father, and implore his blessing as the wife of Danville. Poor victim ! she did indeed return, but not until every earthly hope had been blasted ; not until her beauty had lost its charm, and her seducer had de- -'■», 102 EMILY MILBURNE. serted her for ever. She had no sooner com* mitted her honour and reputation to his trust, than having thus beyond redemption inveigled her into his power, and succeeded in triumph- ing in her fall, the remorseless monster for- sook and spurned her from his side. In every moment of dissatisfaction or spleen for several years, I had invariably resolved upon forswearing the farther pursuit of a pro- fession, which denied the enjoyment of pre- sent ease, and yielded no promise of future advantage ; but never was I so strongly deter» mined upon seeking the first occasion of quitting the ranks with honour, as when I turned my horse from the gate of Milburne's dwelling, to follow the march of the party which I was to conduct to embarkation for the continent. Our voyage to the walls of Lisbon was rough and tedious, and little calculated to put me in better humour with my lot. But, soon after we joined the army, commenced that retreat from the frontiers of Portugal which terminated only at the lines «■''/• M^)-, :f^-^ .a-. ■§** / EMILY MILBURNE. 103 of Torres Vedras. It somehow happens, that the excitement of a campaign has always the effect of stirring up the embers of that enthusiastic devotion to the service which has illumined the early career of the soldier. The winter of 1810-11 was pregnant with events. I had found, too, at the head-quar- ters of ray regiment one with whom my friendship knew no intermission until it closed with his life. I entered then, once more, with interest into the scenes in which we were engaged, and almost forgot my vows of abjuration against " the tented field." Not that Milburne and his daughter were less frequently in my thoughts and recollection. To the former I wrote regularly, and heard often in return. Their days continued to pass in the same tranquil round of occupa- tion as when I had been of their circle- Danville still remained with them, and was the frequent theme of regard. But, after some time, the letters of my hospitable old friend reached me no morej still I persevered T»W. 104 EMILY MILBURNE. in writing, and still came there no reply to all my solicitations to know that they had not entirely forgotten me. The tide of war had rolled again to the frontiers of Portugal ; I consoled myself with enumerating the thousand chances of miscarriage of letters, which were thus superadded to the difficulty of correspondence j and impatiently awaited the arrival of Danville, who, I knew, had already been summoned, and must be on his way to join us — from him I should hear the latest intelligence of the welfare of our friends. At length the scoundrel came, and met me with well acted warmth j but when I questioned him respecting the family at E — J there was an evident embarrass- ment in his manner, for which I was at a loss to account. " They were well — at least, he believed they were j for he had quitted E some time before he left England." " Had he not heard from them?" — " No: Milburne had never written." rf! EMILY MILBURNE. 105 It W0S strange; something must be wrong; and I wrote yet again — but to no purpose. I had felt disposed to show kindness to Danville when he joined us ; but to my sur- prise, he appeared to be constrained and uneasy in my presence, and I saw him there- fore but rarely, unless when duty threw us together. At last, the dark reality was un- veiled. We were one evening drawn from our tents by a report that a draft of recruits from home were marching into camp, and that a party for our regiment were among them. We crowded round the fresh-comers, to learn the latest news from old England — Danville was among the inquirers. " Bad news for you, Mr. Danville," said one of the women accompanying the party, and whom, on her stepping forward, I recognised as a girl that one of our men had married at E ; "bad news for you, sir; Miss Milburne, poor lady, is dead, and the old gentleman gone out of his mind !" " In the name of mercy !" exclaimed I, " what is it fp] m 106 EMILY RflLBURNE. you mean?" " Ah ! Major Ravelin, ask him what I mean; ask him that brought ruin upon the sweetest lady that ever the sun shone upon — it was a black day for her when the soldiers marched into the village, and a worse when you left her poor father's house.** I turned towards the fiend, but he had slunk off— my brain was on fire — I followed him into his tent, and felled the monster to the earth. If my friend, observing the scene, had not pursued me, and interposed his arm, that hour had sent the seducer, with his unrepented crimes upon his head, to the tribunal seat of judgment-^but he yet lives ; and they who know the tale of darkness, and will recognise the actor, may say if the whole picture be overcharged. Your systematic libertine is ever a man of honour; and the seducer would have washed out a blow in my blood ; but it was ordered otherwise, and he received the contents of the pistol which I raised in self-defence. I would not willingly, after my first moment of EMILY MaBURNE. 107 reflection, have rid him of life. Before he recovered from his wound, he had effected an exchange into another regiment, and has never since blasted my sight. . ' When I could bring myself to question the woman, I heard from her lips the details of the melancholy story of which she had already ' related the close. The wretched Emily had found her way back to her father's dwelling — but she entered it broken-hearted. The old man reproached her not. He had taken to his bed; but her return, fallen as she was, brought a ray of comfort to his agonised soul — she, at least, had not resolved to abandon his old age. He even strove to speak con- solation to her — ^but there was none left upon earth ! She could not behold the grey hairs which she had dishonoured; she could not look upon her innocent sister — of whose child- hood she should have continued the bright example, the stay, and support; she could not think of what she had been, and what she was, and endure to live. It needed but f 108 EMILY MILBURNE. a few short weeks to bow her to the grave 'f and the same hour which released her gentle spirit from suffering robbed her parent, in mercy, of the light of reason. The helpless child, who at one stroke was thus deprived of father and sister, found a pitying hand to protect and cherish her — ^but who can restore to the orphan the natural guides of her youth? / i' * ( ' "'•.rtr ■ *t-j ?■»■ ,.','> ''J •■'t. '.' i y''\^ "?o-, r 1: ; :-';;nv/ \ ( K. \ THE DISBANDING. " If we do meet again, why we shall smile ; If not, why tlien this parting was well made." Shaksfsabe. " Who no revenue have, but their good spirits. To feed and clothe them." ShAK8PEAR£. •jfo,> x THE DISBANDING. I HAD not been quietly settled in my re- treat above twelve months, when I one morn- ing received the following letter from the regiment* Havresack had, secundum morem, laid the letters of the morning on my dress- ing-table, and the first thing which greeted me, on turning out, was the welcome sight of my friend O'Grady's hand. I opened the epistle with the same pleasurable feelings as are inspired by the sight of an esteemed and warm-hearted being, and read as follows : ** D£AR Humphrey, " We are smashed at last. Almost before this reaches you, the second battalion 1V2 THE DfSHANDINO. will be no more. Orders have just arrived to disband us on the next 24th. With two montiiM' pay in our pockets, and the world before us, we shall be turned adrift to discover a corner of tlie globe where half-pay will distance starvation. Here the race wouh^ br- grievously against some of our unfoirun^e lads; and any where, I fear, 'twill lv> hnrdly contested. For myself, I have v( • ugh to jog on to the end of the journey ; but it . eems like parting life and soul, to break up the harmony of the best set of fellows that ever fate and good companionship drew together. — I wish I had followed your example six months ago, and had it over. " Yours ever, " Peter O'Grady." I had read and turned over my friend's epistle, in sorrow and vexation, half a dozen times, before I 'A,a.s r -^.cious ;^what I was doing, when Havresack abruptly entered the room with my newspaper in his hand. " Bad ri^ivB- N'jl ♦ % THE DISBANDING. 113 ■^ news, sir/* said he, shaking his head and holding up tlie paper, " very had news— they've done for the second hattalion." I took the paper peevishly from him, with somewhat of the unreasonable anger \Mi.ch moves us against the messenger of evil tidings and there read I ample confirmation of ^^ hat in fact needed none. We used at the im s, as I believe most other regiments did to tai. e in the very worst paper that is printed, merely because it had a practice, then peculiar tt itself, of regularly reserv ing a corner for mih- tary intelligence, pompc usly set forth under the head of "The Arm v.** Some clerk at the War-Office was probably in the editor's friendship, for he certain y, at times, could retail early and authentic information of mili- tary interest; and when of this commodity there was none to be had, w hy the space was excellently filled with an extract from the last Gazette, a catalogue of deaths or resignations from the last Army List, or a pnfFof the ser- vices of some Scotch regim I'm sick of them, Humphrey. " Then,'* said I, seizing the moment, ** why need you go farther for your winter-quarters, than the shelter of this roof?" O'Grady shook his head— " Why not?" said I, replying to the tacit negative. " We will live in perfect personal independence. I will keep my sanctum to myself, and you shall have this room for yours. You shall bring 124 THE DISBAND )ING. if your own man, and Susan shall cook for us in common. We shall meet only as often as we have the desire to do so. We'll knock up a kennel for your pointers ; there are plenty of birds, as you know, about the farm j and, for summer, you shall find capital angling in the stream which skirts the copse yonder, where o\'iquo laborat Lympha fugax tr.^pHlare rivo. You shall have line sport with the trout j and, to enjoy it the better, we will build you a fishing-house after the fashion of honest Izaac Walton's friei'dy Master Cotton. You shall be the learned Piscator, O'Grady, and I your disciple." " No, no, Humphrey," cried my friend, " say no more of it. I see what you've been at, but your plan would never do. Think no more of it, I beseech you, — it would never do. If we were permanently shut up together, we should soon fancy ourselves tired of each other. It is in human nature to do so. We THE DISBANDING. should mutually pronounce ourselves <> be two tiresome prosing old dogs. We are stocks of too aged and stubborn a growth, to make way for the capricious direction of each other's gnarled and fantastic branches. We must not be planted too close ; we may love, from time to time, consociare ramoSy but it won't answer for us to cramp and jostle each other with every breeze that sways us. Don't think of it, Humphrey. I will come and give you many a benefit, and wherever I settle, you must do the same by me ; and there let the matter rest, for I cannot consent to trench upon the independence of your retreat." I saw my friend was not to be shaken, and away, with a sigh, went the day-dreams of the last week. He might be right, too ; it was at least in vain to attempt to move him, and I changed the subject, by asking the par- ticulars of the event which I had just wit- nessed. " I assure you, Humphrey, it was bitter work, though we tried to make light of it. # 126 THE DISDANDINO. and had been long expecting it. They gave us but short warning, too. When we met on parade, after the colonel had told us the con- tents of the order, we all endeavoured to laugh the thing off; but every joke fell desperately flat, and only made the matter worse. It was very little better at mess, though that soul of good-humour and cheer, old D , in capacity of treasurer, insisted upon the neces- sity of our finishing the remains of a pipe before the evil day; because, as he said, it would be beneath our dignity and reputation for good-fellowship to bargain with the wine- merchant about taking back any remnant, any thing less than untouched pipes. So it was resolved to get through it — but the wine had not its usual flavour with us. ' How many things by season season'd are To their right use and true perfection.' " The next day, when the boys had had more time to think of it, faces grew yet blanker. What worse evils, Humphrey, can stare a man in countenance, who has not a sixpence THE DISBANDING. 127 of his own, and has passed his life in a regi- ment, than the penury of half-pay, and the separation from every friend he has in the world?" " True, true," cried I, " and poor S— would feel that. — I wonder how the devil I came not to request you to induce him to be of your party here.'* " Why, I did take upon me to ask him for you, Humphrey, but I could not prevail upon him. His pride and irritability grew stronger as the day approached. It seemed as if he looked upon the question as an insult, if you aske THE DISBANDING. fools, Ravelin, for there were few dry eyes among us. We appealed to the bottle for a cheerful parting, but our success was but in- different. I determined to see no more of my old comrades, since separate we must, and they had not risen from their last meet- ing, when I stole away and threw myself into the chaise which was to bear me towards your cheerful nest." I s THE WEST INDIES. " Dependants, friends^ relations. Love himself^ Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie. The sweet engagement of the feeling heart. But Tain their selfish care : the circling sky. The wide enlivening air, is full of fate; And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs They fall, unbless'd, untended, and unmourn'd." Thomson. THE WEST INDIES. The West Indies are the grave at once of the physical and moral qualities of our army. The character is no less liable than the frame to suffer by residence in a climate, where vice and disease, debauchery and death, go hand in hand. Inasmuch as related to the private soldier, every effort seems, until very lately, to have been made to strengthen the debasing influence of a West Indian life, by utterly depri\'ing him of the shadow of hope that he might one day return to his native land. If he were well conducted through years of faithful servitude, no prospect of discharge, no retreat in old age was before him : if he were 138 THE WEST INDIES. temperate, it was only to prolong a miserable existence, with the heart-sinking assurance that it must terminate at last in hopeless banishment. Those links of regard and hu- manity, descending from officers to men, which are the natural result of long service together, and contribute so beneficially to soften the rigours of military discipline, were loosened and destroyed ; for the officer knew that until the ravages of the climate should have carried off the last remains of the private soldiery of his corps, and reduced the regi- ment to a skeleton of officers, it was vain to expect a recall to Europe. Who will feel surprise, as human nature is constituted, that the health of the soldier should have grown into a matter of indifference to those whose period of exile could only be determined by his death ? Nay, more : who will refuse to believe, that it became an object of impatient desire that the ranks might be thinned as speedily as possible, to accelerate the moment of release for the survivors? THE WKST INDIES. 189 On the instant that a regiment was ordered to the West Indies, ahnost every officer who possessed interest or money hastened to quit it, and the sole care of the remainder was to shorten the duration of a hated duty; while the soldier yielded to his fate, and felt that his death-warrant was signed. It was pre- determined that he, at least, should never revisit the shores of his country; for, if he buried the last of his companions, he must still be drafted into the ranks of the next regiment which arrived to supply a fresh harvest to the destroyer. All this could produce but the one result : — Debarred from hope, and broken in spirit; taught to view himself as an outcast from Europe, and fallen in pride below the rest of his profession, the soldier rushed inevitably into the most bru- talising extremes of intemperance, to which the n:.Lure of the climate, and the abundance of spirituous liquors, gave in themselves no feeble temptation. Indifferent to character, punishment lost half its effects: careless of 140 THE WEST INDIES. life, when existence was scarce worth pre- serving, the example of the victims of de- bauchery around him inspired neither caution nor dread. Much of this frightful sum of misery has, of late years, been diminished, by the practice of relieving regiments on West India duty in quick succession; and it is impossible to speak too highly in praise of the benevolence and sound policy which have occasioned this and numerous other ameliorations in our service. But yet the Sugar Islands are, and while in our possession must ever be, the plague spot in our military geography — the active and never-failing source of evil. No regiment returns from the rum-shops of the West Indies such as it quitted England. However watchful the discipline, however short the period of service, sobriety and good conduct will be found to have flown the ranks, and to have left the terror of the lash as the sole security against crime. Nor is it amongst the private soldiery alone THE WEST INDIES. 141 that we have to trace the injurious effects of West India service — few military men, of wliatever degree, have benefited by a long residence in tlie country. To the attentive observer, the old West Indian is as marked a variety in the shades of professional character, as is the sot, the spendthrift, or the sensualist, in private life. Several causes might be as- signed for this unfavourable influence upon personal qualities; but perhaps the most powerful have their origin in the licentious tone of manners and life in the islands, and in the indifference with which they who have become habituated to witness the virulence of disease are led to regard its mortal attacks on their most intimate associates. It is difficult for the man who has never emerged from the bosom of English society to form a correct idea of the utter disregard of temperance and decency which prevails almost generally throughout the islands. — Intense heat is made the excuse for unlimited indulgence, at all hours of the morning, in 143 THE WEST INDIES. the use of intoxicating liquors; while the small proportion of our own countrywomen, and the listless insipidity of the Creole, render an abandoned intimacy with the female part of the slave population as common as it is disgraceful. One universal profligacy per- vades the land; and he who visits it as a soldier in tlie heyday of youth and passion, and in the midst of the license of a military life, must be singularly fortunate, or ad- mirably firm in principle, if he escape the contagion. And few do escape it, who have gone early to the country, and remained in it late ; few who return at all bring with them an untainted mind and gentlemanlike habits. You may mark the fruits of lengthened so- journing in that land of moral pestilence, in the confirmed flush of intemperance which has stamped the countenance, and often in the tarnished coat. If the old West Indian possess not in England the means of unre- strained gratification in his favourite propen- sity, his insatiable thirst must be indulged at THE WEST INDIES. 143 the expense of his other necessities. Regard- less of that respectability of outward appear- ance, which in the soldier of fortune is so often the mantle of honourable poverty, he must nightly drain " potations pottle-deep," even if he want the clothing to his back j and he will dread not the reflections of the morning, for they too can be steeped in the draught of intoxication. I have served under a Jamaica sun; I have been in the same garrison with a corps which had lately returned from a twenty years* residence in the West Indies, and I invariably observed the same charac- teristics in the rummer (as the military "West Indian is cantly, but expressively, termed). In the latter case to which I refer, no stranger ever found his way to the board of that regi- ment, no one was personally acquainted with the individuals of a body of officers who dis- graced the service by the meanness of their appearance. They cared for no companion- ship beyond themselves, and knew no other enjoyment than the power of compressing 144 THE WEST INDIES. midnight and noon into the compass of the same debauch. After this, it need scarcely be said, that the purity of female society — that spell which alone ' ■ ■ " doth procure . Great warriors oft their rigour to repress. And mighty hands forget their manliness," would have been poison to them; they knew woman but as the degraded victim of appetite. These are among the consequences of having mingled much in the abandonment of West Indian m&nners ; but even more baleful workings upon the feelings and disposition are wrought by the very nature of the climate. We are never improved by too close an ac- quaintance with horrors; the stroke of fate will lose much of its awfulness in the fre- quency of the visitation. In healthy com- munities, the occurrence of dissolution, in its ordinary shape, is a wholesome lesson j there is a solemnity in the call of one individual of a society to his long account, which never failii to awaken deep and serious reflection in THE WEST INDIES. 145 the survivors; it must have a tendency to render them wiser and better. But in coun- tries like the West Indies, where the destroying angel being always active, the average waste of life should make him more terrific than in the health-breathing regions of Europe, death appears, on the contrary, to pass without warning, almost without notice, to the living. I am acquainted with a striking and curious exemplification of the power of scenes of mortality in that country to harden and debase the heart. I heard it from the lips of the person who fell under its effects. I shall conceal his real name : but a man of warmer or kindlier feelings I know not. When the French Revolution obliged the adherents of the monarchy to expatriate themselves, or to submit to the new order of things, the regiment of hussars, to which young Florian belonged, chose the former alternative; and, making their way to the frontier with much difficulty, joined the Austrians under Marshal Clairfait. They L 146 THE WEST INDIES. served for some time with the allies, acquired considerable reputation b^ their valour and discipline, and were consoled under the 'readful necessity of turning their arms against their native land, by the conviction which they felt, whether well or ill-founded, that they were engaged in a good cause. Floridn was not the last man in his corps to evince enthusiasm or spirit in the field, and he rapidly rose to the command of a troop. He was one gloomy night in Novem- ber at the outposts in Flanders, musing over a fire which had been kindled in a deserted cottage, when he was informed that two strarxgers — countrymen of his own^ — wished to speak with him. They were introduced : and briefly stating that they were officers in the Prince of Condi's emigrant corps which had just been disbanded, from inability for their farther maintenance, they solicited him, as the first of their nation upon whom they had fallen, to procure them permission to serve in his corps as volunteers. They were fine 111 THE WEST INDIES. 147 young men : to turn them forth on the world on such a night was impossible : and, though Florian told them that he knew his regiment could receive no volunteers, he kept them' to share his accommodation until morning. The night passed heavily away; and, as Florian lay stretched before the fire, with all the fond recollections of youth and home chasing each other through his troubled breast, as if in mockery of the exile to which, with his brethren in arms, he was doomed, he became the involuntary listener to a con- versation which was passing between the two strangers. Their fate was similar to his own, but it was yet more dreary — they had not even the cheering support of companions in adversity : they were outcasts and friendless, with no gleam of hope for the morrow, which was to throw them upon the loneliness of a foreign land. Florian was touched with their situation, and interested by their deportment; and when the dawn brought a release from duty, he hastened to his colonel, exerted all m 148 THE WEST INDIES. his infl 3nce and eloquence in their behalf, and, as a personal favour to himself, procured them the desired permission of serving as volunteers in his troop. They proved not unworthy of his efforts, and soon attracted notice in the regiment by the gallantry of thfcif conduct. — Of one of them the career was fated to be short. '.'■■..■: I ': I '1 The two volunteers had not joined the regiment many months, when the emigrant hussars formed part of the rear-guard of the retreating allies ; and, at an interval of halt, Florian's troop had directions to support some infantry in the defence of a ford. The enemy made no attempt to farce it; but a patrole of their cavalry appeared on the opposite bank, and seemingly emboldened by the inactivity of Florian — whose orders were to remain on the defensive — drew closer towards the ford, and insulted their opponents by gesture and defiance. Florian was irritated by their challenge, and impetuously led his troop across the ford to attack them. They THE WEST INDIES. 149 fled over a hill. He pursued them, and only reined in to perceive that several squadrons of the enemy had ^ jen drawn up under cover of the hill, to await his falling into the snare, and were now closing round his little band. He and his men knew the fate that was before them if captured ; and suddenly wheeling about upon the squadron which interrupted their retreat, succeeded, by one headlong and desperate charge, in cutting a way through them, and regaining the other bank of the river. A single individual only was left in the hands of the enemy — it was one of the two volunteers. His horse had fallen, — he was disarmed, and made prisoner. His captivity was soon at i\ close ; the French had no quarter for the *' emigrant traitor," — and they led their prisor er to the summit of the hill behind which they had lain concealed, and there shot him before the eyes of his com- panions. Hyppolite and Florian, the unhappy friends of the victim, beheld him turn towards the river to wave his last adieu to his com- e 150 THE WEST INDIES. rades before he received his death ; and they together vowed revenge wherever their arm could reach the murderers. The regiment had afterwards more than one opportunity of vengeance, and their sabres drank unsparingly of the blood of their countrymen. Hyppolite and Florian were ever foremost in the work of retribution: the former gained a com- 1 Jssion in the regiment, and they became warm and r'ncere friends. When Austria could no longer contend with republican France, the corps of emigrant hussars entered the British service, and were shipped off, on the retuvn of our arm} from the Continent, to serve in the expedition against Saint Domingo. In that frightful climate the band of comrades, who had no longer a country or a home but in their own society, began rapidly to diminish in numbers by the malignancy of the fever of the island. Every hour, since the tragical end of the young volunteer, had given strength to the intimacy between his companion and Florian 5 THE WEST INDIES. 151 and when the prospect of restoration to the bosom of their country grew daily more faint, and the wide ocean was interposing its barrier against the exiles, they drew but the more closely, one to the other, for solace and sup- port. Many a time, in the deep quiet and coolness of the tropical night, did the two friends escape from the crowded cabintopace the deck of the transport together j to pour out their melancholy recollections of severed ties and early affections, to seek mutual com- fort and sympathy, and to swear eternal re- gard and friendship in their banishment. When arrived at their destination, they were inseparabh> ; and the strength of youth and good constitutions seemed to promise them exemption from the malady, under which others were sinking around them. But Hyp- polite was soon detached into a different part of the island. Before the friends parted, half in seriousness, half in the thoughtless boast of vigorous health, they resolved, that if one fell in the country, the survivor should be his 1.52 THE WEST INDIES. heir. They exchanged a paper of their agree- ment; and Hyppolite quitted the head-quar- ters of the regiment for his station, where he was fortunate enough to procure a lucrative staff appointment, and to amass a considerable sum of money. ' / ; ; Meanwlnlc the mortality increased among the troops ; they daily perished in numbers : ^ the hospitals became overcharged with the miserable sufferers, and the different canton- ments were one scene of raging disease ".nd maddening despair. The banquet and the couch of death were scarcely divided by the walls of the same house : there was revelry in one cham- ber, and the groans of dissolution in the next ; and when the friends met again, they had been hardened by the constant presence of suffering and death, almost to a change of their nature. Hyppolite was then attacked by the fever, — and four-and-twenty hours placed him on the verge of eternity. So fami- liar, and such a thing of nought was death become, that Florian, though he paid him the THE WEST INDIES. 153 offices of friendship, could not shut out the recollection that the decease of his friend, whose recovery was now hopeless, would make him master of the independence which the other had acquired ; and he felt a mo- mentary satisfaction that it would enable him to fly from the charnel-house. But when he saw poor Hyppolite awaiting his last hour, and heard himself styled by him the brother of his adoption, all the better feelings of his breast, which had been lost in the dreadful scenes around him, returned with their full forre. He rushed out of the room in an agony of self-reproach, brought with him the cursed paper which he had formerly ex- changed with Hyppolite, and tore it into a thousand scraps. " Great God ! what a wretch have 1 become, that I could for a moment recollect that horrid agreement," was his exclamation. His friend raised himself from his pillow, and beckoning to his servant, said, in a firmer tone than seemed possible for his situation, *' Remember, Franifois, what I 15-1 THE WEST INDIES. now tell you, that all that I leave belongs to my friend. — To whom else could it belong, than to the only being who has given me a place in his heart since we left our unfortu- nate country?** But the friends were not severed. It is pleasing to add, that Hyppolite recovered, where recovery was rarely known, and that Florian, who is tow the respected father of an English family, when he related these cir- cumstances, told me that he had passed a "^ happy month two years ago with Hyppolite, who is a superior officer in the Garde du Corps of the French king. ^^^ 9 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. " Let it appear that he doth no chatige his country mannen for those of foreign parts ; hut only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country." Bacon. ^i-^ ♦ ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. M. ■ ■-■;:■; ^■'■- ■■ '■■ "■#> ■*.■■*•^■- When a native of these islands has been yellow-dried, cayenned, curried, and liver- worn for a score of years, in an East Indian atmosphere, he resembles a genuine matter of flesh and blood, homebred Englishman as little in his tastes and opinions, as in the visible qualities of his corporeal nature. If you " survey mankind from China to Peru,** you shall nowhere discover two beings more dissimilar, ia habits and feelings, than the untravelled country gentleman of England, and the Anglo-East-Indian ; they are about as opposite as roast beef and mullakaiaivny , I question, indeed, if a voyage to the moon 158 AN GLO-EAST INDIANS. * would produce a greater transformation than is effected by doubling the Cape ; or whether a man might not return from a ten years* re- sidence among the Anthropophagi, " whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,** with a larger residue of English habits than he could preserve unimpaired, for the same pe- riod, on the banks of the Ganges. When, therefore, a family arrive from long sojourn- ing in the East, to exhibit their accumulated wealth, and shiver out the evening of their days under our pale northern sun, they are as in- capable of amalgamating with the society to which they return, as if they had never issued from its bosom. There is no dove-tailing the sandal and satin-wood of their manners into the sterling, but polished, oak of native growth: no growing the plantain and the cocoa with the hardy scions of our native forests. I am never in company with an East Indian, that I cannot at once detect him among a hundred; he is sure to stand out in relief from the figures around him. The ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 159 mannerism of studied refinement, the inde- scribable air of conscious importance, and the confidence of his pretensions, all proclaim, as plainly as though he should speak it, that the man has condescended to revisit his country, with a thorough contempt for such of its bar- barous inhabitants as have not been civilised by a voyage to Bengal. From my distant connexion with a family who are within this sacred pale of Eastern re- finement, I had, some time since, a particular opportunity of observing the whimsical con- trast which a party of East Indians afford to the general tone of English society. I was honored with an invitation to dine at the house of one of their Indian acquaintances. The scene was Cheltenham, that hot-bed of extra-bilious valetudinarians from every pro- vince of Hindostan ; and the party, as may be imagined, was principally composed of the caste. There was, indeed, besides myself, but one individual who took from the select and unadulterated character of the assembly; » '. m 1(50 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. and the healthful glow of his countenance told, that he in nowise belonged to the species among whom he was thrown. As, at the Indian hour of eight, we together left the fragrant air of a July evening, and entered the room where, in a blaze of candle- light, the Eastern party were assembled for dinner, I could have fancied that, in default of living guests, yawning graves had yielded up their imprisoned inmates to fill the seats of the banquet. I looked around : and in the sallow visages, the sunken cheek, the dead- ened and yellow eye, which, wherever I turned, were before me, could discover no assurance that I was not gazing on the tenants of the charnel-house. But that the beings moved and spoke of things earthly, I should have watched, like " the fair Imogene," for the ** worms to creep in and the worms to creep out," from the surfaces of those ghastly countenances. But a few minutes before, and I had seen the sun set in all the glory of a bright sum- ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 161 mer*s evening, and had hailed his departure as the first moment of relief from the intense heat of the day. But I now found myself in a crowded apartment where, while every breath of air was carefully excluded, a Christ- mas coal fire was blazing with relentless fury. I raised my hand to my eyes with an involun- tary belief that I had been dreaming of sum- mer ; and, after rubbing them with something of amazement, was confirmed in the idea, by observing that the ladies were wrapped to the ears in their Cashmere shawls. I was per- suaded that I ought to feel cold, and had just, in imitation of a gentleman who stood next to me, spread my hands to the blaze, when my eye caught the figure of the home-bred Englishman, fixed in the coolest niche of the room, and, like Niobe, all dissolved, though not in tears. Nature then asserted her sway, and opened my every pore in a congenial flood. The announcement of dinner had unusual charms, for I i-rusted that a ci singe of situ- M riit-r»T 162 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. ation must produce an improvement of atmo- sphere; but, alas! the dining-room rivalled the other apartment in the magnitiide of its fire, and the steams of a iuimptuonu dinner put the acme to my distress. iJV)r 'h:sh and blood to support the heat was impossible j it became at length too g! ei;t even for s^m and bone " How stupidly backv/ard are people in England in their noiions of comfort!'* drawled out a languid lady who sat on my right ; " there is no existing in this room without a punkaJu' Of the nature of this in- dispensable I was piofoundly ignorant, but I so powerfully felt the impossibility of breath- ing, as to assent, without hesitation, to the remark. I should here observe, that I have since discovered a punkah to be a swinging frame of wood, fastened by hinges to the cieling of Indian apartments, and edged v ith a deep flounce, as the ladies term it. This winnow- ing machine is kept in motion by a servant ; and, provided it doe; nut crush both table and ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 163 company by its fall, which sometimes hap- pens, has the agreeable effect of a large fan. In the absence of this punkah, whatever it might be, I ventured to suggest the opening of a window as a succedaneum j with the pro- tection of great coats and shawls, the pro- posal was carried, without dangerous conse- quences. But this trifling incident led to an animated philippic on the climate of England, in which every one joined but my home-bred friend and myself. The said climate was universally pronounced to be execrable ; and we heard, with astonishment, that there was scarcely a day in the year in which it was possible to take the air, without cold or rheumatism ; and, indeed, I soon discovered that I had hitherto formed an estimate, er- roneous in toto, of the advantages of living in old England. A splenetic looking personage, on my left, observed, that " bad as the cli- mate was, and he did not see how it could be worse, that was not among the lightest of his objections to the country. If the absence of iGl. ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. sun, the prevalence of east winds, and the in- terminable rains, would even permit an en- durable existence, the enormous expense of supporting the meanest establishment, would forbid every approach to enjoyment. You may in India," said he, " keep your Kitmut- gar, Cousumah, Hiscarrah, Bobitchee, Dho- bee. Sirdar *, and a dozen palanquin bearers, for less than it costs you to maintain a single English footman. I have been only three years at home, and have been compelled to put down, in succession, my second groom and two footmen, to escape total ruin." The complainant paused, and every tongue proclaimed his distresses to be a subject of real commiseration, for each had some similar pri- vation to recount. Im;iiked down the sufferer, in my own mind, as some man of high birth and fortune, who had spent the best years of his life under an eastern sun, in the service of * These are respectively the footman^ steward (or butler), running-footman, man-cook, washer-man, and valet of an Indian establishment ; but I do not pretend to correctness of orthography in detailing the titles of these gentry. ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 165 his country, and now found it difficult, from the pressure of the times, to support the establishment to which he had always been accustomed. But I heard, on the following day, from one of my relatives, that Major L***** was the son of a blacksmith in a Perthshire hamlet, had accompanied a Scotch officer to India as a foot-boy, subsequently en- listed into the Company*s artillery, obtained a commission by regular conduct, and finally booed himself into a lucrative employment, and the acquirement of a fortune, which, though large, did not in England enable him to keep a greater train of domestics than his coach- man, groom, two men out of jry, and a footman.'— Zfiwc illcB lacrymce. But there were other grievances than these of climate, and " the enormous expense of maintaining the meanest establishment in England,** to be detailed ^^'^ore the measure of dSsagremens could be tilled. A lady of the party, somewhat past the splendour of her bloom, and whose neck shone in contrast ^-^^ 1(JG ANGLO-KAST-INDIANS. through the snowy texture of a Dacca muslin like a satfron-coioured silk, declared hat it was by no means in prices alone that England had changed since she had first left it for India. " The tone of manners," ob- served «5^"^, "is so lamentably altered, that really you now never meet with a man in society, unless he has been in India^ who is not a downright bear. You see none of that attention to our sex which used to be the characteristic of an English gentleman. A giggling girl is at present the only female who meets with commc: civility in a ball- room.** How my friend and I — the two bears ^' "'o had never been in India — looked under our ursine classification, it booteth not to declare. We boi e it as we might, and listened, with very asinine patience, to the general tirade agains; the society oimere Englishmen, which the po ion of the assembly, who were by C'» esy called fair, now rattled like hail- stones about our cars. Ohe! jam satis est. c ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 1(37 I endeavoured, at the first pause, to gain exemption from farther reproach, by giving a turn to the conversation, and succeeded, just as the lady in saffron was commencing a third harangue in the same strain. Bat, if vitu- peration of England, and " mere English- men," (for that was the'phrase for the bears,) were to be avoided, there was no alternative but a transition to India and Indian subjects. I chanced to name a friend of mine of the very common appellation of Smith. This was immediately the signal for a score of questions — " Was he related to the Smiths of Cawnpore?" " Was Smith, of the Native Infantry, any connexion of his?" " Was I sure he had never been in India himself? " " Smith ! there was a gentleman of that name at Delhi in 1812." "And there was another at Agra, in the following year.'* Then there arose a contention whether Smith of Delhi, and Smith' of Agra, were the same person or not ; i and before this weighty point could be decided, mi/ friend Smith, and the anecdote which I was relating. 4 108 ANOLO-EAST-IMJIANS. were entirely forgotten ; the party were deep in Indian recollections and Indian small talk. My brother " mere Englishman" fell asleep, and I listened through two heavy hours to the wearisome detail of persons, places, and things to which I was profoundly indifferent — for the simple reason that I knew not a syl- lable of any of them. I quitted the house, with a secret determination, to which I have since faithfully adhered, never more to set my foot in an assembly of Indians. " Very odd peopie these D- -*8," said my mere Englishman to me on the following morning; " very odd people; eastern in their ideas, eastern in their manners, eastern in the very temperature of their rooms, and in their language, which must convert a luncheon into tiffiriy a stool into a morah, a note into a chittj/t and the Gloucester mail into dank. These Indians make a perfect Calcutta of Cheltenham. * Non possum ferre, Quirites Graecam urbem ' " There is positively no comprehending the iQ ANOLO-EAST-INDIANS. 169 hodge-podge of Hindostanec "and English of which their dialect is composed. One should have a Moonshee and the Hindostanee gram- mar for a twelvemonth to be able to under- stand them. Very odd people ! but, somehow or other, your East Indians are all very odd people.** And such, I believe, is the involuntary remark of every man who is thrown into society with the Anglo-East- Indian ; but no one has yet cared to inquire into the causes of this peculiarity of character and manners in persons who have had the same birth-place, the same parentage, the same early feelings and impressions, the same education with ourselves. I shall therefore endeavour to trace some of the sources of the striking alteration in habits and opinions which a few years' residence in India has such power to effect. As I am disposed to attribute no incon- siderable portion of this change to the opera- tion of physical causes, I shall commence % 170 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. with some remarks upon the influence of the climate of India on the habits of the English resident. The intense heat in that climate is such a temptation to, and excuse for, in- dulgence, that not one person in a thousand has resolution to combat with the vis inertice of a relaxed system. Every one who has yielded himself a prisoner in the Castle of Indolence, is ready to lie at the gate, and allure the passing stranger to share in his captivity. No young man, therefore, can land in India without being immediately assailed with the comfortable doctrine, that any degree of exertion or employment beyond what may be unavoidable, is entirely out of the question, and by no means to be at- tempted. The youthful stranger soon dis- covers that the sole business of life in that voluptuous country is to yield to the climate where it invites to sensual indulgence, to disregard its warning where it teaches the necessity of temperance, and to evade its in- conveniences by the ministering aid of every ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 171 invention of luxury. Is he in civil life? No one would be so unreasonable as to require a painful exertion of duty at his hands. Is he a soldier? His splendid marquee, his host of servants, his indispensable pipe of Madeira, must accompany his march. It is a recorded and undisputed fact, that in the late Mah- ratta war, undertaken by the Marquis of Hastings, our British army of twelve thousand men was attended in the field by upwards of one hundred thousand camp-followers. But we shall be told, that in that climate it is im- possible to move without a train of supplies, which, though in northern countries justly regarded as luxuries, are there but absolute necessaries to support the stamina of the fainting European. This is but the plea of pampered indulgence. The late Dr. Clarke, the celebrated traveller, has left a striking illustration of the degree to which the " Per- sici apparatus" of our eastern armies is necessary to their support. He visited the camp of the British army of Egypt in 1801 j 172 ANGLO-EA^T-INDIANS. he there found the simple subaltern officers of the corps which had arrived from India by the Red Sea living in a luxury and splendour which were unknown in the quarters even of the generals of the army from the Mediterra- nean. Yet all were under the same sun, and engaged on the same service. And way is it, that in tiie West Indies, where the heat is at least as great as in the East, and the climate beyond all comparison worse, we never hear of those elaborate refinements of luxury which are pronounced to be requisite to existence in the meridian of Calcutta? I'hat even in the East the bodv r,;n endure exposure to fatigue, and the mind exercise its noblest functions with unimpaired vigour, has been abundantly proved by numerous examples, which it would be unnec^nnaty i(y particularize here. But were I challenged to name an instance of the latter description, J would cite that of the illustrious Sir William Jones, who, amidst the arduous discharge of his judicial duties, would suffer no int^ffU]^' ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 173 tion to the labours of study and the classical recreations of an elegant genius. Nor should we be justified in attributing the early ter- mination of his brilliant career to the effects of the course of life which he observed in the East ; for in the pursuit of letters and science some of the Company's civil and military servants have emulated his industry, without presuming to rival his splendid talents, and without suffering the same un- timely extinction of their own. Yet, not- withstanding such pro-fs of the possibility of preserving English habits under an Eastern sun, what is more common than the declara- tion, that the climate of India forbids exertion, under penalty of death? Sunken in indolence, and buried in sensual luxury, how shall we wonder that a transition to an English atmo- sphere overwhelms the nampered and sickly East Indian with the miseries of a broken constitution, with incurable spleen, and sullen discontent ! While the course of indulgence usually 174 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. followed by the Anglo-East-Indian is incapaci- tating his frame for an encounter with the bracing qualities of our temperate seasons, the moral climate of India is rendering him equally unfit for a residence in our region of freedom. What old East Indian can deny the charge that, twelve years ago, not one gentleman in a hundred was innocent of the crime of beating his native servants upon every ebullition of temper or caprice? What shall we say of the tone of society where such a practice cculd be viewed, not only without abhorrence, but as a recognized privilege of the European master? And if this excite the honest indignatio.i of every uncorrupted heart, what feeling shall we reserve for the more monstrous fact, that such brutality was not confined to our own sex, hut that women — -English women, reader — of education and rank, could be found to share in the guilt of habitual tyranny. Imagine, if you can, the bashaw in petticoats raising her delicate hand, in passionate violence, against the cring- ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 175 ing Asiatic who has dared to misinterpret her commands, or execute them with the awii- wardness of trembUng and officious zeal! These instances of the chastisement of ser- vants by ladies were not general, it is true ; but neither were they uncommon : and that such unfeminine cruelty should never have been followed by expulsion from the society of their gentler sisters, speaks volumes on the state of our Indian manners. I may be told, that this custom of personal correction of native servants is now on the decline ; and I believe that it is so : for I well remember the indignation which was expressed in a party of East Indians some years ago upon this subject — indignation, not at the outrage against humanity, but at the protection afforded by the laws of Bengal to " a black scoundrel," who, having been beaten by his master, had lodged a complaint with the district magistrate, and obtained a summons for the petty tyrant to answer a charge of assault. It seems, that the natives. 176 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. having gradually acquired some insight into their privileges, are no longer the willing slaves of yore; and an amelioration in the tempers of masters may therefore have been produced by this dawn of independence in their servants. But the distance between the European and the native population is yet immeasurabi:; ; and unnumbered centu- ries of chartered rights are requisite to de- stroy that genius for slavery which is inherent in the Asiatic. *' Saheb" and " Beebee Saheb," master and mistress, are, to the Hindoo, terms of unbounded reverence — almost of adoration. The puny infant of the European is taught to receive the homage of the native domestic almost before it can articulate ; and is thus converted into a tyrant in embryo. If these bantlings of despotism were not early sent to this country for education and health, a few generations would give to India a Creole population, more overbearing, dege- nerate, and vicious, than that of the West Indian islands. Even at the tender age at M^ liW- ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 177 which children are transplanted to England, there is abundant reason to mark the influence of Indian impressions. I had some years since a little ward from the banks of the Ganges consigned to my care, brimful of bad habits and waywardness. Of many peculiar traits of Indian education, one more particu- larly struck me. — I was walking with this child, soon after its arrival, when a country- man gave me a passing salutation, which I returned. " What for you touch your hat to that man? he no gentlemans,** was the remark of the young Bengalee, in its broken English. After the Anglo-East-Indian has been long habituated to the unbounded servility of the Asiatic, he feels the independence of the lower orders in England intolerable. He would feel disposed to resent the insolence of a peasant or artisan who should brush past him in the street without performing the salaam, as an act of insufferable audacity against his dignity. He really appears to have forgotten N 178 ANOLO-EAST-INDIANS. altogether that any fellow creature who is under the rank of a gentleman can possess a right beyond the privilege of existence, which is enjoyed in common with the lower world. I remember once travelling on the roof of a coach with a relative who had just landed from India, when, in passing a country seat, the coachman pointed out the spot as the estate of a gentleman, between whose game- keepers and some neighbouring poachers an affray had lately occurred, which had ter- minated in murder, and in the consequent execution of two of the poachers. Whatever may be the difference in opinion upon the principle of the game laws, every one, it might be imagined, must unite in deploring a system calculated to produce such fatal results J and this was the general tenor of the feeling expressed when the fact was re- lated. But the East Indian drily observed, that the catastrophe was the " natural conse- quence of suffering the lower orders to have fire-arms in their possession : they had no ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 179 business with arms in their hands ; they could not require them in cultivating the soil or following their trades ; and he was surprised that the law did not make it felony for them to have weapons in their houses." The good- humoured coachman gave the nabob a look, in which anger and a smile of contempt were curiously blended. He seemed to be thinking aloud, when, after a moment's silence, he said, glancing at the sallow hue of my rela- tive, ** But I suppose that the gentleman has been among the slave-drivers in foreign parts." I detest politics, and have no wish to intro- duce the subject here ; but it is impossible not to ftk-l, that if a systematic plan should ever be formed against the liberties of this country, the despotic opinions which we im- port into the national society with a numerous class of wealthy proprietors from the East would be scarcely a less powerful aid in exe- cution of the scheme, than the enormous n2 riiiMMHMMi 180 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. patronage which flows into the channels of government i'roni the ;a!ne source. One of the most fatal concomitants to a residence in India is a freedom from the ordinary rules of economy. Such is the abundance, and such the cheapness of every article of provision, and so low the rate at which a numerous horde of servants can be maintained, that the East Indian is almost entirely absolved from the necessity of atten- tion to those domestic cares which cannot, under any fortune, be neglected in England without final embarrassment. But after the extravagance with which in India the super- abundance of wealth is usually lavished, and the magnificent scale of establishment main- tained by every individual in that country, the East Indian becomes so disqualified for the prudent regulation of income in Eng- land, that I believe it would be difficult to find one instance where a family, in the first years after a return from the East, do not ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 181 exceed their resources, however Inrge they may be. This is often Hie secret cause of the dis- content which so frequently induces the old India' t< "eak f-^^rth into peevish complaints on the fit es of a transition from enjoy- ment i. t privation at home. But there is yc jeper source of vexation and disappointment. —The best European society in India is usually made up of individuals from the middle ranks of life in this country, and it rarely occurs that a man of noble family or connexions is to be found in the number. When, therefore, people in India gradually rise to high and lucrative appoint- ments, they become first in consideration in the circle wherein they move, and receive a degree of homage which, in England, is scarcely offered to the highest hereditary aristocracy. But when, after being thus taught to acknowledge no superior, and with difficulty to tolerate an equal, the proud and wealthy East Indian revisits his native u: ^, ^<.^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^ *<^^ 1'^^ €^^4^ ^o 1.0 I.I I^|2j8 125 ■50 ^^* 2.2 S lis li^ — 6' '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTW.N.Y. U580 (716) 872-4503 \ 4V ^ i \ \ X '/.. ^ % \ % ^ ^ 182 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. country, he suddenly discovers that his glory is eclipsed ; that, to use a homely, but expres- sive phrase, he is nobody in the land. His wealth is rivalled by thousands ; his Asiatic dignity will barely secure his admission into the coteries of the untitled gentry: from the privileged entrees of high life he is absolutely excluded. This is the living fountain of his mortification and spleen, and bitter as worm- wood to him are the waters. Hence it is, that burying his chagrin among the brethren of his tribe, he finds the " sola voluptas selamen- que mail" in contrasting the splendour of his eastern reign with the fallen majesty of his present condition. He finds a kindred feeUng in all the magnates of India who, in our northern regions, have dwindled, hke himself, into little men j they retire, in offended dig- nity, from the middle station of EngHsh society, because they cannot climb to the highest posts of aristocracy, and stand aloof from the rest of their countrymen in self- chosen, Brahminical soHtude. With them, :^M ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. 183 whatever is without the circle of Indian con- nexions is beyond the limits of humanity. With them, if you have neither been in India, nor are going there, nor have Indian relatives, you are of the scum and offscourings of the earth. Of their own importance they have very much the same idea as the lady of St. Helena, who inquired if the arrival of the Indian fleet did not render England very gay. She, poor soul, had at least the excuse of reasoning by analogy: she saw the effects which were produced upon the monotony of existence on a barren rock, by the casual appearance of a few ships, and knew not why it should be otherwise in England ; but these people live in the world, and take no lesson from its experience. The attempt would be hopeless to convince them that they do not stand at the pinnacle of refinement and polished elegance. Indian society, in our British community, is an ** imperium in impe- no"— one great egotism, appealing to itself as the infallible standard of excellence, and 184 ANGLO-EAST-INDIANS. alike ludicrous and intolerable to others. I never come in contact with a limb of this irritable and hypochondriac body that I do not bless the " auream mediocritatem" of my lot. If wealth can only be acquired under an Indian sun by the sacrifice of constitution, moral and corporeal, by the loss of native habits and of native feelings, who would ex- change an English cottage for the revenues of Hindostan! ^ i ^i* • '^ • ' '' ■■"' : ^ ^ r ■ .// ; • t # •Hf * A WELCOME VISITOK. ' The general joy of the whole table." Sh aksfease. He was famous in his profession^ and had great right to be so." Shakspeark. » li' ,1-' ;r- ,i/;t;i 't: V.K'Jii 7'« ■' ' ' A WELCOME VISITOR. '^'-■■' . :: >...^ ■•[:.. '/v *' '. 1 ilV i Oi..! ■■'■■\i ■ '}'i;.rr- ,' I ■ I J •■ i.v. .. • . .. iy.' Of all the calm pleasures of my retreat, there are, at least, none equal to the enjoy- ment of conjuring up the memory of the past. It is a volume lying ever open for inspection, and the perusal of which can neither fatigue nor disgust. It is a storehouse in which the imagination delights to seek her materials for every mood of gaiety or gloom, contentment or misanthropy. In my hour of careless cheerfulness, the lofty aspira- tions and romantic ambition of boyhood flit like splendid visions around me in the bright- ness and warmth of their early colouring. The chill of many winters melts from before 4^ 188 A WELCOME VISITOR. 0" them, the languid current of my blood again flows with the rapidity of youth, and I pass fp once more, in fancy, through the luxury of feelings unchecked by disappointment, unre- strained by reflection. If, in recalling the day dreams which held dominion over the spring of my years, some untoward thought should chance to break in upon the train of mental fiction, and throw the sombre reality of after life, like a stumbling-block in my path, I wake from my reverie only to smile at the recollection that such things had ever power to lord it over the decisions of reason. But I cannot escape the petty accidents of existence, or the infirmities of age ; and there are times, when a passing cloud will over- shadow the sunshine of my content, and cast a temporary darkness upon my solitude. At such moments I recur to the past for relief, and can extract from its varieties the antidote to my disorder. True it is, that seven-and- thirty wearisome years of military servitude A ^VELCOME VISITOR. 189 have yielded neither reputation nor profit. But my necessities, at least, do not rise above my possessions; and what " fool to fame" can declare as much? Of all those who started with me from the goal, who out- stripped me in the race, how few are there left to whom the peaceful retirement of my sheltered cot might not seem an object of envy! How many proofs cannot memory afford in the fate of contemporaries, that the soldier who has closed his vocation without encountering the breath of detraction, may indeed esteem himself fortunate, though he purchase his immunity by the sacrifice of every yearning after glory? Let the can- didate for renown launch into the deep with a favouring gale and a flowi? g sheet ; let his voyage be swift and prosperous, and success hover o'er his prow, until the promised haven be in view ; who, even then, shall guarantee him against the treacherous rocks, the deadly quicksands, which encircle its entrance, and lie in wait for his sure destruction, where the ■^ ■MMiiii 190 A WELCOME VISITOR. i" consummation of every hope would appear at hand ? I have marked the course of the aident and zealous soldier; have followed him through his career of advancement and growing reputation, until fortune had con- spired with desert to crown him with distinc- tion. I have seen him praised, caressed, flattered, overpowered with acknowledgments of his merits : — but, fortune has ceased to smile on his exertions; vicissitudes, beyond his control, have mocked his efforts and ensured his failure — what is he then? No longer the gallant talented leader; but a butt for malignity to strike ; a mark, to which the finger of calumny may direct the odium of the common herd; who, true to the voice of the satirist, are yet in every region the same, ';■:)!- "—— Sequitur fortunam, ut ^semper, et odit , ,, Damnatos. — — " It is because the recollections of a long military life teem with pictures of blasted m A WELCOME VISITOR. 191 hopes, and fruitless ambition in others, that I have learnt to value my own security, how- ever humble the station which has left to Humphrey Ravelin but the unaspersed cha- racter of an old soldier. These, then, are some of the benefits for which I am indebted to the lessons of the past; and they often thus shed amusement, and, it may be, mental correction, over my reveries, in the season of that indolent repose which is fast rounding off my years into eternity. But it is not in solitude that we can taste all the delight of again travelling in imagination over the scenes of youth and of manhood. The good fellowship of old com- rades is not more instrumental in adding fresh lustre to the ruby of the claret, and fresh zesr lo its flavour, than is the communion of congenial souls in throwing the loveliest tints upon the lights of memory. The meet- ing of old friends, and the interchange of allusions to old times, are surely among the most exquisite of human pleasures; and they 192 A WELCOME VISITOR. are those which, as we approach the terminal tion of our earthly pursuits, have power to charm us the longest. The fewer the objects which still survive to call forth our expecta- tions or wishes in the brief residue of our journey, the greater the variety of those busy scenes through which we have toiled in all the excitement of hope, doubt, and appre- hension. We turn, therefore, rather to the past to renew an interest which the events of other days have yet strength to awaken, than to a future, which can yield but the quiet monotony of indifference. Let not, then, the sexagenarian be reproached because he is the ** laudator temporis acti:" the past is to him only what the future is to the generation from among whom he must shortly disappear. I never live over again through the adven- tures of former years with so much fulness of enjoyment as when my friend O'Grady surprises me with a visit, and takes up his quarters at my fireside, in the well founded conviction that his presence is hailed with as 1 A WELCOME VISITOR. 193 much satisfaction as the appearance of the sun after a rainy bivouac. O'Grady might be adduced as a favourable ensample of a character which, where it is really found, is among the choicest ornaments of society — the Irish gentleman ; the man whose national fire and vivacity have been tempered and chastened by education and reflection, by knowledge of the world, and long acquaint- ance with its vicissitudes; whose impetuous courage has been soflened, by a kindly heart and sound judgment, into polished urbanity and unoffending dignity; who has learnt to restrain the impulses of an open and generous nature by the stern rule of integrity : a delightful and a safe companion, a sincere friend, and an honest man. An early com- rade of mine used to say that the land of the shamrock yielded two very opposite produc- tions for exportation ; the gentleman from Ireland, and the Irish gentleman. Of the latter I would ask no better specimen than 0*Grady; and whatever could be crowded "'???!'" 194 A WELCOME VISITOR. into the reverse of the medal might serve for the other. ' .; ;» - Many are the hours which, in the society of my friend, have been numbered among the most cheerful portion of existence, and I would fain believe that the last of them has not yet flown from my grasp. His con- versation is like the wampum belt of the In- dian to my military reminiscences. He is the faithful chronicler of every regimental occur- rence of the last thirty years ; can make a biographical sketch of every individual who has served in the corps during that period ; trace him through his early and subsequent fortunes; give you some unerring charac- teristic trait of the man ; and, in short, paint him and his whole story to the life, with the pencil of a master. , _^: . There is no one who can bandy recollec- tions with me like O'Grady j and, in the in- tervals between his visits, my cottage seems almost a desert. Not that I am altogether without society, but there is no repository of A WELCOME VISITOR. 195 the adventures of other days to equal my old chum. My nephew, to be sure, is a tolerable listener, but he cannot assist in awakening the train of remembrance ; and he has besides an incorrigible habit of falling asleep in the midst of the most interesting narrative. Add to this, the greater part of the short period which he is able to pass under my roof is ex- hauster! in scouring his brain of the learned dust and cobwebs which he gathers from law tomes during his residence in chambers. When the fellow first comes to me his head is completely addled ; his conversation is made up of nothing but the poison of professional jargon ; and his merriment goes no farther than the last new pun of some facetious bar- rister. When I offer to show h'm the pro- gress of my great work on the pike, during his absence, he knows no more than his pointer where we left off before, though it should have been in the midst of one of my most entertaining dissertations; and he is many days in the house before his cudgels are ready o^ 196 A WELCOME VISITOR. for controversy upon some question of the wars of antiquity — the only military subjects on which, using the cant of his vocation, he declares himself ** prepared to join issue with me.*' Argument, in truth, is happiness to him; but he prides himself, like Parson Adams, in his ignorance of modem times; or, which comes to the same thing, of modern tactics, for they form the principal attraction of history; and I am perfectly persuaded that he would be puzzled to answer how the discipline introduced by Gustavus Adolphus differed from the practice of the Black Bands of the sixteenth century, or any other question of equal simplicity. And, indeed, O'Grady himself is too apt to treat the philosophic history of tactics with indifference ; and, rush- ing into the contrary extreme from my nephcAv, to date the rise of real military science from the commencement of the Pe- ninsular war. But he, at least, qualifies his opinion with the confession, that he is not so deeply read in these matters as myself; while «. "?i] A WELCOME VISITOR. 197 the young lawyer, with classical insolence, will wrangle by the hour for the maintenance of any extravagant tactical paradox, as long as you leave him on the vantage ground of anti- quity, and will mouth Xenophon, Thucydides, and Polybius, with all the pomp of refutation or proof. He knows I am not a Grecian, and, I believe, avails himself of the circum- stance to wrest his author, as it suits him, to his argument j for I once detected him in en- deavouring to prove two diametrically op- posite propositions from the same passage, in The Retreat of the Ten Thousand. If I were five years younger, I should assuredly begin again from the grammar, were it only to expose the pretensions of the puppy; but this is unfortunately now too late in the day; and I am obliged to yield, in silence, to the torrent of unintelligible quotation in which he may please to drown me and the strongest of my arguments. In his last sojourning with me, and since he has discovered the use of this heavy ar- ■# « "■^/^■^'-'vr'r'^rf^. ■ - 198 A WELCOME VISITOR. tillery, with which I am totally unprovided, he has become more dogmatical than ever* For three or four evenings we had been closely engaged at our usual points of con- test, and, as he amused himself by systema- tically contradicting every opinion which I advanced, the argument gained a spice of acrimony at each sitting. One more en- counter would, I verily believe, have obliged me to quarrel with the jackanapes ; but an agreeable interruption saved me from a ne- cessity to which I should have been loth to submit. In the tite-d-tite of the preceding evening he had been yet more than usually obstinate; and I had, after breakfast, just taken down a volume of Livy to convince or convict him, though he declared that he would submit to no other authority, on ancient tactics, than the Greek writers, when Havre- sack put his head in at the door, with a joyous grin of satisfaction, and shouted out that Major O'Grady's tilbury was driving up to the gate. ^iS}.t/-- *- A WELCOME VISITOR. 199 «* I am glad of it, with all my heart," said my nephew, following the musketeer out to welcome the guest ; "we shall have some capital sport if he has brought his double- barrel." ■ ••' •'•^■•--■-•: •■ ■- -1- ■;■• ; ■ '■ ■ ■>' "I wish from my soul," exclaimed I, as I hastened after him to give my friend the pump-handle shake, " that 0*Grady would turn to the study of ancient warfare. I would fit him out in Guichardts, Folards, Caesars, Livies, Allans, and Vegetiuses, in endless array. It might be to some purpose to dis- cuss these matters with an experienced soldier, who does not pride himself by profession in selecting the worst side of a case." ** He must read Polybius and Xenophon in the originals though, uncle," rejoined young latitat, "before he can pass judgment on these subjects." Havresack was already at the gate ; and, receiving his old officer with an obeisance something between the brisk touch o* the hat of the valet, and the formal military salute 200 A WELCOME VISITOR. «» of the soldier, hoped he saw his honour in good health. " Wolfe looks for all the world as well as if he had never been out of an English sta- ble," said Jonathan, with an approach to fami- liarity, in which he is accustomed to indulge towards both O'Grady and myself; " but he seems, too, as though he did not much fancy being in harness," added he, as he stroked the mane of the old charger, who stood pawing the ground and snorting in the shafts of the tilbury. " Perhaps not, Jonathan," said 0*Grady ; ** but you see that, like us all, in these piping days of peace, Wolfe has * fallen from his high estate.* " Jonathan comprehended enough of my brother major's observation to follow it up with an expression of pity. " Poor fellow ! he shall have a good billet and full ration, your honour, depend upon it, while he stands in my charge/' laying an emphasis on the epithet of self-importance. ** Soh! Wolfe, soh! stand, my brave boy; your honour'll have me take care of the old campaigner, too, .•T«*^7'/ • A WELCOME VISITOR. 201 (throwing the camblet cloak over his arm), that you used to say all the waters of the Tagus might run over without getting through. It has seen some hard weather in its time, that's certain. You '11 remember the picquet on the Pyrennees, sir j there was wet enough any way to try it that night, if the French had left us quiet to get our fill of it — You've not forgotten that same night, Major O'Grady, when I was on duty with your company ?" There was, indeed, little chance that my friend should forget it; for honest Jona- than never failed to revert to the circum- stance, with great regularity, on the return of each one of O'Grady's periodical visits. The truth is, that Havresack had shown particular gallantry on that occasion ; and, though he did not care to speak of his own exploits, he had a secret pride in the recol- lection, which oozed out through the chinks of his loquacity. " You have brought your Manton with you, I see. Major," said my nephew, taking 309 A WELCOME VISITOR. the fowling-piece from the tilbury. " Ay, my lad, to be sure; and I hope you have reconnoitred the birds for us, and that the coveys are as good as when they lived at free quarters on my friend Humphrey's domains: it was right that they, at least, should derive some profit from his farming; for I never could learn that he got any himself." A groan was rising, ab imopectore, within me at this reference to my agricultural disasters; but it evaporated into a laugh and hearty greeting, when I saw the cheerful expression and irresistible merriment of O'Grady's coun- tenance. There are men who have, somehow or other, the art of invariably leading good humour in their train, who can never be met without pleasure, nor quitted without regret; and O'Grady is one of them. Such a temperament is twice a blessing — ^to its possessor, and to the fellow-beings among whom he is cast. 0*Grady*s corner at the mess-table was ever the nest of hilarity; at the party, or in the I' >i A WELCOME VISITOR. 203 ball-room, the spot where he stood was the nucleus of a circle of humour and witticism : there was no being tired by his side on a march, or splenetic in his tent afler its con- elusion. " Still in our ashes live their wonted fires." And more than a spark has been preserved to illumine the walls of my cottage. When 0*Grady comes— comes with him the best day's sport for my nephew, and the best evening's lengthened chat for myself. Even Havresack is conscious of the benignant effects of his presence, and emulous to in- crease them. He knows that this is the period to have the young lawyer's sporting paraphernalia in the highest order, and my pony in his most respectable appointments ; and when the day is past, and we draw from the social board to the cheerful fireside, that this is the time to give peculiar care to the well-decanted bottle, the crackling blaze, the neatly swept hearth, and the close-drawn curtains. SCI rei th th MILITARY LIFE. ''Glory, alas ! is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering tomb— is the defaced sculpture of the inscription, which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim — are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably, that ye may make others miserable !" Romance of Ivanhoe. MILITARY LIFE. The feeling may be a selfis . one, but there is certainly nothing which so much enhances the fire-side attractions of a N( vember even- ing as the consciousness that the pitiless tem- pest is raging without. " Now this," said my nephew, as he drew his chair round from the dinner-table to the chimney corner, and spread his hands to the blaze, ** now this is what I call comfort 5 and comfort is the only name for it, for the thing itself is n ) more to be had among the people of any other country but old England, than the term is to be found in their vocabularies. I would rather hear the wind howling and moaning as it does 1 ;; '"W 208 MILITARY LIFE. round the house, the sleet rattling against the windows, and see the glories of that roaring fire, than lie under the shade of the palm, with all the zephyrs of Italy, and all the odours and perfumes of the East breathing around me." Much of the irritation which I had felt at the late argumentative obstinacy of my nephew had vanished before delight at the arrival of O'Grady ; and, if the truth must needs be confessed, the last atom of spleen had been dissipated by the exhilarating effects of a good dinner. The subjection of mental feelings to corporeal influences is a humiliating doctrine, but it is, nevertheless, a sound onej the stomach is a more faithful barometer of the changes in human temperament than we are always disposed to admit. My nephew had just uttered the same reflection that had been passing within me. " You are right, quite right, my boy Yed- ward," said I, " and it's spoken like a true En- glishman ; but you have omitted the crowning MILITARY LIFE. 209 enjoyment of the scene — a friend, and a glass of this nectar of the real Douro to give him ; you forget Horace's precept how to cheer the gloom of the winter night. ■ ■ Benignius Deprome quadrimum Sabinu, merum diota." C( Horace is the only one of the ancients,*' said O'Grady, " who seems to have had a notion of real comfort. He must have been a rare pleasant fellow in his time, though he was not the best of soldiers. I never feel the delights of a winter evening without thinking of that ode — one might almost swear it had been written by anticipation for our climate." We had struck a chord together ; it was evideint that our minds were in tune for en- joyment, and we were soon deeply engaged in that animated and desultory conversation which throws such a charm over society, after the various and less social employments of the morning. 0*Grady was quite in his ele- ment; one topic succeeded another; from p SIO MILITARY tIFE. gay to serious, fVom serious to gay, he had still the anecdote, the lively illustration, the playful and spirited commentary for each. The fund of his experience of life, and insight into human nature, was poured out in rich exuberance of humour. My nephew drank of its abundance, and was almost tempted to love the vicissitudes of a profession which could yield such a harvest of adventure and variety. " The life of a soldier,** said he> ** with alt its privations and tossings to and fro over the world, must be one of unfailing excitement and interest. A man may toil» and, perhaps, eventually figure at the bar, gain reputation and wealth, and terminate by find- ing himself on the bench, and yet not know a tenth part of the enjoyment, which is the inevitable consequence of the very crosses and evils of your military wanderings. If the war had lasted but a few years longer, I might have been spared the drudgery of studying moot points, and ransacking obsolete judgments, and been a happier fellow into the bargain.** B: MILITARY LIFE. m ** You are a blockhead, Ned," cried I, " and have not the sense to know when you are well. There never was a boy of sixteen who assumed the helmet of a soldier, with all the fumes of romance and glory fermenting in the brain that it covered, but, before he was six-and-twenty, would give his ears to exchange it for the skull-cap of any decent calling under heaven." *' Unless, Humphrey," added 0*Grady, ** he should be conscious that his military habits had already incapacitated him for any thing better than to lounge away the morn- ing on the sunny side of a barrack-square^ and the evening over the mess-tables ; and, whether conscious of it or not, if he try the experiment, it's ten to one but he will discover the truth of it. How common is it for a maa to be full of disgust at the service, forswear it for ever, and sell out with many a cynical expression of joy at his emancipation from the slavery of discipline ; and yet — within two or three short years — to return to it again I' a 212 MILITARY LIFE. at the bottom of a regiment, with the comfort of finding himself just at the point from whence he had set out some twenty years before; in the station, but without the hopes, the elasticity, the prospects, of youth. All this is bad enough, but if you throw a wife and family into the scale, you will have weight to sink the poor devil for ever. Farming is usually the hobby-horse of your retired soldier; and (without offence to you, Humphrey), a . pretty business he in general makes of it. You remember poor D ; he was heartily wearied of dragging a squad of children over the world ; he would retire. Three thousand pounds, the sale of his commissions, laid out in land, would give him four per cent., and it would be odd indeed if he could not make twelve more by farming it himself; sixteen per cent, upon three thousand pounds made near five hundred a year — nothing could be clearer — and five hundred a year, on a farm, was equal to eight any where else ; besides the independence of being a gentleman farmer. MILITARY LIFE.., 213 having a horse for himself, a gig for Mrs. D ,and fresh air for the children. He could not delay the execution of so fair a scheme for an instant ; the permission to sell and a purchaser were both soon obtained, and D became the happy possessor of per- sonal freedom and three thousand pounds. You may remember, Ravelin, how overjoyed the poor fellow was." " As well,** exclaimed I, " as if it were but yesterday. I fancy I see him again as he stood on the parade on the day that he left us. I have before me all the easy nonchalance of his recognition of the commanding oflScer; the slight bow, the air with which the riding- whip struck the bourgeois top-boot, the folded arms, the half hum, half whistle, of new-born independence." ** Well ! he bought land at twice its value, because he took a liking to a lath and plaster cottage, with a green viranda, which stood upon the property, turned farmer, and ruined himself. Unluckily for him, he could not , •«^' !214 MILITARY LIFE. afford to purchase experience. Your Case, Humphrey, was a joke to his : you could lose two or three thousands, and scramble out of it: you had no wife and children at your heels." ! * " Thank God !'* ejaculated I, " there was indeed reason in my friend's remark." " But what became of poor D ?" in- quired my nephew. fi.r ^ " I will tell you. I had been one of his subalterns, he had taught me my duty^ and I was on terms of intimacy with him. For a time after he quitted us he was a regular cor- respondent, but at last his letters ceased; and so obstinate was his silence, that I only learnt by accident that he was not proceeding prosperously. Some years had passed when, at the opening of the war of 1803, our corps marched into Dublin garrison, and, on the day after our arrival, I mounted my first cap- tain's guard. A party of a newly-raised regiment were on the same duty with me, and, in one of the subalterns of my charge, I MILITARY LIFE. £15 recognised my old friend D— , so much altered by misfortune and care that I scarcely knew him. He found the stripling ensign of former days now his senior officer, and the change in our station was perhaps, at that moment, equally painful to both. You will not be surprised that he shunned the society of his old companions, and that tlie embark- ation of his new regiment for foreign service was a relief to him. The rest of his story is soon told ; he closed a life of disappointment in one of the early affairs of the war, and left his widow and orphans to the common lot of a soldier's family— the vain struggle against pride and poverty." I could have summed up the little narrative with the fact, that the generous heart of 0*Grady had assisted in softening the dis- tresses of the helpless family of D , but I knew that the tribute would pain him, and was silent. " However,'* proceeded O'Grady, endea- vouring to rid himself of the painful recoUec- 216 ^ MILITARY LIFE. tion which had stolen over him' for the moment, •« it is not always misfortune that urges a man to a second launch into the service. The in- veterate love of idleness, or rather that ennui which is the necessary punishment of an un- limited indulgence in it, tempts many an old fellow back again into a profession, where there is just as much to be done as will pre- serve one from dying of inaction. They had a paymaster in the regiment (he with the face which you used to say, Humphrey, had 'saved you a thousand marks in links and torches,' as Bardolph did the fat knight of yore) ; he had sold out too, but came back to the regiment again in six months, from very weariness of himself, with a petition to be put on the strength of the mess as an ho- norary member. They humoured him, until he succeeded in kiUing the paymaster with midnight sittings, and stept into his shoes for lack of better employment." /'• .. " You have had your hit at us military farmers, 0*Grady," said I ; " you have for- % MILITARY LIFE. 217 gotten another of the favorite resources of the soldat en retraite, the trade of the wine- merchant.** ; >'i' , ir v- ' .. "There's a prospect for you, Edward,** rejoined my friend ; " throw Blackstone and Coke to the dogs, serve your apprenticeship of twenty years to the art of slaying — I, scevas curre per Alpes- — and end your career in the permutation of wines ! I hope, how- ever, that you will be more successful in the undertaking than S of ours. He went on half-pay, dropt the title of captain, and established himself, as the phrase goes, with the encouragement of all his military friends. Three things, it was evident, were requisite to ensure his success; to deal in good wine, to give long credit, and to extend his connexions by keeping open house for all officers and their friends who might honor his London residence with their company. He did all these things; dealt in capital wines, without understanding, or at least practising, the mysteries of compounding them, gave credit to others until his own ^1 V'i 918 MILITARY LIFE. Was exhausted, and found it impossible to ask gentlemen for their money who dined with him regularly twice a week. He, you may imagine, was soon gazetted ^to a bank- ** It's natural enough, major," said my nephew, " that the staple commodity of good cheer should form an attractive branch of commerce to the gentlemen of the army.** , " Quite professional, I assure you ; and the hankering may be traced through all ranks of the service. We had a countryman of mine, a soldier in the regiment^ one Teddy O'Brien, a fellow of some notoriety among our worst subjects. He had the good luck to seize upon some hundreds of doubloons in the plun- der of the field of Vittoria, and the better for- tune to keep them. The money was funded, his discharge purchased for him, and he at- tained the summit of his earthly ambition, — to keep a poteen tavern in his native village, where he assembled his Irish cousins to the sixteenth degree, and drank himself to death, much about the time that he drew his last MILITARY LIFE. 819 twenty pounds from the stocks j— it just suf- ficed for his wake.*' ^^w ' : ♦> '• i .ix. ) ii\}u\ .v I had oflen had occasion to observe that an impression was made upon my nephew's imagination by tlie military anecdotes of O'Grady ; and that an evening's colloquy with my old comrade never failed to produce some laudatory remark from the young lawyer upon the joys of a soldier's life. But he now, in listening to O'Grady's reminiscences, seemed warmed even beyond his customary state of excitement, into the expression of the desire which he more than half felt to follow the vagabond trade of arms. He had already once broken forth into an eulogy of its advantages, and a pause in the conversa- tion gave room again for the same workings of his fancy. ' ** You may talk as you will, uncle," said he, after the reverie of a few minutes, " of the disappointments, the vexations, and hardships of your profession, but they are not worth mention, when you consider the pleasures to 220 MILlTAllY LIFE. which they give birth. All the enjoyments which other men turn aside from their or- dinary callings to attain are to be found inseparably mingled with the very duties of your station. You make the grand tour of the world, as a matter of course ; you cannot avoid the opportunities, which others seek in vain, of becoming in turn acquainted with the manners, the opinions, the secret history, as it were, of every people upon the face of the globe J in your wanderings, the curiosi- ties of nature and art are forced upon your attention ; you are thrown, at home and abroad, over land and ocean, into situations peculiarly calculated to expose every shade of human character; and against all this right pleasant, all this rare and salutary food for the mind, you would set the petty rules and endurances from which no choice of profession could purchase exemption. Noj if you fly at no higher quarry, if you pass over all the enchantment of fame and distinc- tion, if you prize not the meed of honour MILITARY LIFF. 221 from your fellow men, the softer tribute of admiration from the fair, the * high place in hall and bower;' if you hold all these things as nothing, there is yet enough in the study of mankind, in the collision with the world, in the changes and chances of military adven- tures, to render the apprenticeship to arms cheaply gained by the sacrifice, as Major O'Grady has it, of twenty years, be they the best of one's life. Why, the delight which you experience in talking over the events of your career is proof in itself of the enjoy- ment which marked your course. All you have told me, of the desire of individuals to quit the service, only exposes the love of novelty which is inherent in our nature." ** The same spirit," said O'Grady with a smile, " which would sometimes transmute the lawyer into the soldier." " Our inclination to prose over the past," added I, " proves nothing ; you never knew a man who had escaped shipwreck or thieves, but had a secret satisfaction in making a I 222 MILITARY LIFE. three hours* tale of his perils. You see nothing but the high-coloured picture of things, Master Edward, and think them all very attractive ; you're the eye peeping into the kaleidoscope, and we the worthless peb- bles which are tossed about for your amuse- ment at the combinations that we form. There are fifty evils in the military profession, any one of which singly would be sufficient to disgust a man for ever with the service. Take first of all, the insolence of power. No matter what a man may feel that he has within him, he must be at the beck and nod, at the mercy of his commanding officer, even though he should know him to be the veriest dunderhead that ever wheeled a platoon. He has just the pleasant alternative of bowing his neck to the yoke, or of living in petty warfare with a superior, at the hourly hazard of forfeiting his commission by some sudden burst of indiscretion. If he has neither money nor interest, he must expect to be passed by every thick-pated fellow who has MILITARY LIFE. ns either. All the zeal, all the discharge of his duties, will be unavailing to spare him this keenest of mortifications-^I call it keenest, because the very pettiness of a slight is often its aggravation. " When 0*Grady and I were subalterns together, a company was offered for sale, which he did not choose to purchase, because he was the senior lieutenant of the regiment* and might shortly expect promotion without the sacrifice of money. The son of a London grocer had not long joined us, with the profits of figs and ginger at bis command, and he did purchase over our heads. On the very day on which his appointment appeared in the Gazette, we were all three invited to dine with the commanding officer. His lady — the commission of her husband was her sole patent of gentility — insisted upon placing the grocer at the head of the table. He wished to wave the intended compliment, but it was in vain, • Captain L ,* said the host, pointing to the place of honour 2^4 MILITARY LIFE. with an emphatic pause upon the newly- acquired dignity, * Captain L , pray move up — Gentlemen, will you seat your- selves ?* with a glance at the subalterns. " We had an indolent eccentric fellow in the corps, who chanced to incur the displeasure of the commanding officer, and, for a long while, underwent all the purgatory of tyranny, until a fortunate chance made him inde- pendent of the service. He quitted it, and could for some time feel an enjoyment in perpetuating the recollection of professional annoyances, to enhance the charms of the contrast. His servant was daily required to awaken him at an early hour, to apprise him that the commanding officer had sent him to know why he was not at the field-day. * Tell the commanding officer to march to the devil,' was the usual reply, as the freed victim turned on his side for another nap.** ** However irksome obedience may be,** observed my nephew, " every one may hope to command in his turn.** v MILITARY LIFE. «2,5 ; " And the prospect of such advancement/' replied O'Grady, ** is almost as bad as the state of subordination itself; for, except a commanding officer has the rare talent of uniting firmness and decision with the art of winning men's minds, the old requisites of the suaviter in modo, fortitcr in re, his life must be past in a series of childish struggles for power, and incessant heart-burnings and squabbles with his officers. The consequence is, that men are often as much tired of com- manding as of obeying. Many an officer retires in disgust from the head of a regiment, or remains in command only to be corrupted by the exercise of authority." " Let us pass," continued I, " from the galling burthens which obedience imposes upon us ; it is endless to enumerate them ; and no one can know how they wring the withers but the jade that has borne them. Let us pass to some of what you term the pleasures of our wandering life — the comforts of a transport, par eaemple" : Q s«a MILITARY LIFE. " Name them not, Humphrey, for God's sake," said O'Grady; " I have nausea at the very idea." .."What a pretty section," resumed I, " would the voyage in a transport afford for the * Miseries of Human Life!' — Stock laid in for an ordinary run of six weeks; contrary winds; the voyage proves just as long again; wine, porter, tea, fresh provisions, completely exhausted; reduced to breakfast on oatmeal, dine on salt junk, and wash it down with a single glass composed of your ration of bad rum and worse water; half starved, and at the acme of ill humour. " Or, turning out, as squeamish as you please, on a blowing morning, obliged to go on deck while the cabin is prepared for break- fast; find the deck wet and slippery, with a chilling rain upon you, aided by a decoction of tar and water from the shrouds." '* Then," added O'Grady, " after swallow- ing your breakfast, and just as you liave re- turned on deck one degree more comfortable MILITARY LIFE. in Stomach, to be wetted to the skin by the first sea which the vessel ships ; told for your consolation that salt water never gives cold." ' *' Or what think you," said I, " of meeting to windward on the companion ladder with some awkward loon of a servant, who on a lee lurch empties the contents of a slop-pail upon you? Suppose you escape such an ablution, a sudden pitch of the ship sends you down by the long run every step of the ladder, hitching into the joints of your back- bone like the cogs of a wheel, until the whole is as bare as the back of a sutler's mule. But, waving these, and a thousand other disasters, take the unavoidable annoyances of a military voyage; some eight or ten of you crowded together in the same cabin, where you must sleep, eat, drink, shave, wash, dress, &c. &c. all in common, in one close apartment, without relief or rational employ- ment." " Yes, all this is unavoidable, indeed," said O'Grady; ** and, to be serious, you may sum q2 €J 238 MILITARY LIFE. it up with the fact that the confinement of shipboard is a trial too severe for the best dispositions j that it is rare to close a voyage in the same harmony and good fellowship which prevailed before its commencement; that men become mutually wearied of and dis- gusted with each other ; and that the infirmi- ties of temper must too frequently be expiated at the first port by the ultima ratio, the last, and were there an alternative, the worst, resource of polished society." " But a soldier,** said the persevering lawyer, " is not always at sea : the proper mode to look at this part of his life is to con- sider it as the means by which he arrives at the enjoyment of visiting foreign shores, and the distinction of serving his native country." ** Very fine in theory,** rejoined I, " but widely different in practice. It is one thing to talk of the honour and renown of a cam- paign, but quite another affair to witness the real details of the business. The duty of encountering the enemy is the least part of MILITARY LIFE. active service. It is the harassing march by day, the sleepless bivouac by night, the frequent want of warmth, rest, and food, exposure to the inclemencies of climate, and the ravages of disease; all this it is which fill ms tl e total of a campaign — not the parade and pomp of arms, not the enthusiasm of glory nor the intoxication of victory." " True," cried my friend ; " and the mise- ries of the campaign might yield a yet longer catalogue than those of the transport. For instance : encamped on any heights — among the passes of the Pyrenees, to wit — on a stormy night j your tent carried away about your ears — ^your head broken by the fall of the tent-pole — left shivering in your shirt — no shelter, and find that the most indis* pensable part of your dress has been whirled away with your tent : or, after a march of five leagues, arriving at sunset at a village, where you expect to halt ; just speculating what rein- forcement the place can afford to your rations, when you are dismayed by the appearance of 3TO MiLlTAKY LIFE. a staff officer to order you three leagues farther before you can hope to rest for the night.** ** Bad enough,** ejaculated I, " but not worse than a night-march in toto; scarce able to sit your horse from fatigue; fall asleep on his back, though you know he has an inveterate trick of stumbling; suddenly awoke, by finding yourself sprawling in the mire with the beast rolling over you. *' Horses and baggage mules are the be- setting torments of service — always some accident among them ; roused, perhaps, by your batman, before the bugle, with the news that one of your vicious brutes has broken during the night from his picketting, and lamed his fellow by a kick ; obliged to put all your baggage on one animal; too much for him, — he breaks down in the midst of the march, and you lose him, baggage and all, for ever and without remedy : or, anxiously looking out, after a march, for the arrival of your luggage, canteen, &c.; your batman meets you with a lengthened visage; crossing MILITARY LIFE. a swc'.Ln Portuguese torrent, your mule has slipped his footing, and sailed down the stream with part of your chattels on his back ; roll yourself in your cloak for the night in a pleasant mood. " It will be rendered more agreeable if, after broiling your ration of beef, you find it as impenetrable to your teeth as the hide of the bullock from which it came, and which you know has been killed just two hours — no other food to be had. " Perhaps you have consoled yourself by the recollection that you have a bottle of capital brandy reserved in your case to afford a glass of grog for your segar ; on searching for it, find it drained to the last drop ; your servant is half drunk, but of course as inno- cent of the deed as a lamb." ** For pity's sake, stop, Humphrey," ex- claimed O'Grady; ** you have not conjured up a tenth part of the miseries of campaigning, and I have already laid in a stock of melan- choly at the recollection of them to last me % 232 MILITARY LIFE. ^1 for a week. No, talk not] of the delights of service — for a regimental ofl5cer,'at least; he is harassed and worn out in body, until his mental energies become extinct; he dege- nerates into a mere animal, and can feel no interest, no curiosity, at what is passing around him, except as connected with provision for his corporeal necessities. Hence is it, that not one man in a hundred can give you more idea of the country, of the military scenes even in which he has served, than the beast that has carried him through them. " But,** added my friend, as he rose and took his bed candle, " if you will have us speak to you seriously, my boy Edward, of the evils of our profession, they consist in none of the things of which we have been prosing : — they are to be found rather in a course of dissipation and idleness, upon which it is impossible to look back without unavail- ing regret and self reproach ; and, where this waste of years has been chequered with the toils and hardships of service, there is com- MILITAHY MIE. 233 inonly little reward in store. A life devoted to the pursuit of any other profession is usually crowned, towards its decline, with the blessings of competence and the assiduities of children ; but the soldier can hope to reap no fruits from his exertions — he must end, as he began, in the poverty which is the heir- loom of the soldier of fortune. If he marry to catch at the joys of domestic life, he will find them blighted by the chilling touch of penury j for, sine Cerere et Bacchojriget Venus, He can hope to leave no provision to his children, and to afford them no alternative but to follow a career at which his memory sickens. But should he be more wary, and avoid the cares of a family, he must go down to the grave — if no ball has its billet for him — solitary and unlamented." p ^ jj-. ; > U) 'lU ,-u;':: ' 'JJ'iis .-M h i (<* 1 Mi ' ) i J . t , -1 t t V ij t.= 'i^ u It. ■»i If! ■- v« \f' ,i ■* a :"% UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. " Smiles on past misfortune's brow Self-reflection's hand can trao ; And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw A melancholy grace." Oll.AV. '■'it O I M- '.■'-.' i . UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. ^ P r ' ■ U ■ ■ ■ '.^ - Throughout this world of business and of t;are, the sun shines not upon so idle a being as the retired soldier. His whole life has been but as one long campaign : at its opening, the same bright hopes, the same restless fire and impetuous activity; in its progress, the same fruitless toil and baffled ambition; at its close, the same exhaustion, contentment, and repose. He has, then, literally nothing left on earth to perform, and holds his tenure of existence upon the easy conditions of eating, drinking, and sleeping in the com- fortable rotation of every four-and-twenty hours. If it suit his mood to wile away ^238 UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. the intervals between these interesting avoca- tions in the reveries of a solitary ramble, the excitement of conversation, or the quiet en- joyment of a book, he is free to indulge in the favourite propensity, but no one would dream of requiring exertion at his hands; he is chartered in indolence, and useless by pre- scription. I must own, that I revel in the luxuries of such a state, and wanton in the freedom with which I can range over the country sur- rounding my habitation, chained to no formal observance of hours, chilled by no recollec- tions of neglected duty, and satisfied with the conviction that, while my pursuits are innocent towards others, they need be no more than amusing to myself. Mounted on the phlegmatic pony, which has borne my weight since the day whereon I suffered my old charger Marlbro* to withdraw, like his mastei, from the seiTice, and dismissed him to slumber out the remnant of life in the undisturbed possession of his paddock, I •-.*, '4.. UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. S39 have long ago explored every green lane and by-road within a day's march of my quarters ; am become familiar with the countenance of every carter who drives a team in the neigh- bourhood ; and am well known to every vil- lage urchin that begs a penny of the pass- ing stranger. But there are haunts among which my honest quadruped, Fag, is unable to transport me J and through these am I reduced to wander by ^the aid of my legs alone. Many a day, therefore, do I leave him to his stable, and to the society of Havre- sack, with whom, next to Marlbro' and my- self, he^is a principal favourite; while I saunter along dingle and meadow, by wood and streamlet, wherever the fancy of the hour and the attraction of the scenery may guide my path. No wonder, then, that I have searched out every secluded nook, and pried into every retired spot in the vicinity ; that each pendent birch and majestic elm are in the number of my acquaintance, and the w ^t 240 UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. m curling smoke of every humbleroof the land- mai '": of my rambles. ' . It was in one of such pedestrian excursions, about three years ago, and nearly as long- after I had settled in the country, that in following a path which I had not before chosen, as it appeared to lead to nothing but a mere farm-house, I stood unexpectedly before one of the neatest cottages that I had ever beheld. The agreeable surprise of dis- covering such a termination to a track, which I had frequently passed without curiosity, enhanced not a little the interest of the place ; but it scarcely suffered from a more deliberate inspection. In its first state, it had evidently possessed no other characteristic than that of the common dwelling of an English farmer. Its tiled open porch, rough-cast walls, huge rafters, low ground story, and overhanging upper windows set into the roof, all preserved the warrant of its primeval purpose ; but the light finger of taste had strayed over its ru.le UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. 2'U proportions, and blended the rugged projec- tions of its outline into harmony and softness. The clematis and tender jasmine clung about the porch, the China rose and honeysuckle flaunted round its pillars ; here, a spreading vine covered the bare walls of the house and clothed them in verdure ; there, the thick ivy concealed the harsh nakedness of a gable. Every point about the building told of refine- ment and elegance; yet in nothing was there a violation of the simple style of the farm- house. The windows were still latticed, but they were curtained, and at every breeze admitted the fragrance of the mignionette which grew in boxes beneath them. The paling which encircled the little green before the house was apparently tlie same that had originally stood there, but then it was care- fully painted, and maintained in the highest order, while a hedge of sweetbriar and roses had been trained to grow up behind it. The green itself was too small to admit of much embellishment, but the turf was closely shorn, K 242 JJNFORESEEN PLEASURES. and lay like 'a carpet before the little flower borders, which enjoyed all the shelter of the walls of the building, and threw up their offering of mingled sweets and brilliant co- louring. I was so chained to the spot by its loveliness, that I remained for some time unconscious of having posted myself just before the gate of the little lawn, on which I leant to examine the scene before me. I was reminded of the rudeness of my intrusion by the appearance of a fine chubby boy, who had seemingly escaped from the side of his nurse, and came running out upon the green. He was followed by a lady, who overtook the little truant, and laughingly led him by the hand back into the house. I had but a glimpse of her counte- nance and form; for I hastened to withdraw on recollecting the impropriety of my keeping the station where I had unthinkingly lingered j but I saw enough to observe that her air was light and elegant, and that the band of time had made no ravages on a beautiful person. UNFORESEKN PLEASUltES. 443 I will not attempt to dp- y, that my inclination had been earnestly awakened to learn some- thing of the inhabitants of an abode which bespoke so much of interest for its inmates ; nor was the feeling by any means lessened by my transient view of the graceful being whom I had just seen, and whose figure accorded as strikingly with the chaste and simple decorations of the place, as it would ill have harmonised with the pristine rudeness of the peasant's dwelling. And here let no one smile at the inquisitive spirit which moved me ; the indulgence of my curiosity is that one of the privileges of my idle retirement upon which I set the greatest >alue — and who would, at any age, wish fo the power of regarding the lovely with indifference? I was not slow in inquiring among the neigh- bouring cottagers, and of my own acquaint- ances in the vicinity, the name and condition of the inhabitants of a house which had so much captivated my imagination ; but I could collect very scanty information on the subject. r2 U4> UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. All that was known I learnt, and it amounted only to this: that seven or eight years prior to the period at which I had visited the spot, the farm-house in question had been taken, without its land, by the present occupant ; it then wore a very different aspect from the neatp'iss which had since distinguished it; and the singular circumstance that such a residence should be chosen by an individual, who, under the extreme plainness of his apparel, could not conceal that he was a gen- tleman, was so fertile in mystery, and excited so much suspicion, that the stranger only succeeded in convincing the farmer who was to be his landlord tiiat he was in earnest in his proposal of tenanting it, by paying down in advance the small amount of his first year's rent. He soon took possession of his bargain, with his family and a single servant; and, after trial, procured a lease of the house. It was apparent that he and his wife had no wish for society ; and even their residence was scarcely known in the neighbourhood until. UNFORESKEN PLEASURES. Cl-I in the second year after their arrival, the doctor of our village, who is, ex officio^ a retailer of small talk, and was my principal informant, was upon some occasion called in to attend the family. He entertained no doubt that they were people who had mingled in good society; for they knew the proper amount of a fee, and the most delicate mode of tendering it ; but his attempts to be on terms ofgood acquaintanceship with them had been met by a cold civility which could not be mistaken. They had converted the inte- rior of the farm-house into a picture of com- fort, but their household was still composed of but the one female domestic ; in short, the doctor could only conclude that they were very proud, poor, and genteel. I longed to be acquainted with these people — to be poor, and have gentility to maintain, is a case usually too familiar to a military man ; to be proud, is the only shield which can guard the poverty of the gentleman from being trampled into the dust. I longed to know them ; for S^A m M I 24.G UNFOllESEEN PLEASURES. I could appreciate the feelings that kept them aloof from observation, but I would not for the world intrude upon their privacy. An accident obtained for me that introduc- tion which I might otherwise have despaired of receiving, and to it have I been indebted for some of liie happiest hours that I have known in the six years of my retirement. I had found, that near'[the path leading to the house was another, which, without running so near to it as to render the passage of individuals at all annoying to the family, afforded a view of the cottage, with an occa- sional picturesque opening of r ther scenery. It became among my favourite strolls ; and I was one evening carelessly pursuing it, when I was overtaken by a heavy thunder-shower. I had just compounded with my indolence for a complete soaking, with three or four days of flying rheumatism, and was leisurely proceeding at my usual pace, when I was passed by a gentleman, who, seeing my plight, offered me a share of his umbrella, and, until UNFOllESEKN PLEASURES. «47 the shower should be over, the shelter of his roof, from which he said we were only distant a few minutes' walk. I accepted the proffered kindness, and entered with him the porch of the cottage of which I have been speaking. His politeness would not suffer me to halt at his threshold, and he introduced me into the room where sat the lady whom I had seen on the lawn, with three of her children about her. She rose at our entrance, and received me with easy attention j had a smile of affec- tionate welcome for her husband, and soli- citude for both of us, lest we should have suffered from the weather. But we had not; and, as the rain still fell heavily, and there was no departing, we soon got into cheerful conversation. If I had before been struck with the exterior of the house, how much more was I now gratified with the appearance of every thing within it. It is inconceivable what miracles had been done by tasteful judgment, and apparently with little cost, in the low dark rooms of the farm-house. The M 248 UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. unpapered walls of that wherein we sat had borrowed elegance from the beautiful execu- tion of a border of leaves and flowers, which was painted along them ; and book-shelves, neatly suspended by ribbons, and filled with a very small, but well-chosen collection, gave the air of intellectual cultivation, which books, as the sure indicati( "^ of habits and tastes, never fail to bestow upon an apartment. In one corner stood a piano j in another, a table, with materials for drawing, sketches, &c.; while the finished productions of the same hand, which were plainly framed, and broke at intervals the sameness of the colouring of the room, afforded proof of no mediocrity of talent. But the charms of the whole were in the living picture before me. My host and his wife were yet in the prime of their days. His features were not handsome, nor did he enjoy any particular advantages of person — but spirit and mind were beaming in his coun- tenance, and the calm polished dignity of his manner spoke the man who had moved II UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. 249 much and early in the world. The impression which a moment had given me of his wife was confirmed as I had a better opportunity of forming a judgment of her. Nature had moulded her in loveliness, and she was now precisely at that age when a woman is most charming, and at which the maturity of wit and intellect is blended with the undiminished lustre of younger years. They had r bloom- ing family around them ; and tV«ere was enjoy- ment and gaiety in the very s ght of the three little laughing faces which crowded about my knee as soon as it was found that I had genius for play. When I had sat about half an hour, which passed like five minutes, I had the mortifica- tion of seeing that ih^ rain had terminated, and was succeeded by the most provoking sun- shine in the wjrld. I, of course, rose to depart, and uttered my thanks and apologies for the intrusion, as becomes a man upon such occasions, but my new acquaintance would not hear of my going. I would surely "% n m # ,'^' 250 UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. take my tea with them before my walk home, of between two and three miles; for I had casually mentioned who I was, and the place of my residence. I needed little entreaty to remain, and the evening passed delightfully. In the course of conversation, my entertainers spoke of the metropolis, of fashionable life, and of characters of notoriety, with perfect familiarity, but not a syllable fell which bore relation to themselves, or their own share in scenes in which they were evidently so well versed. The husband was a chess-player; and when his little prattlers were summoned to bed, and their mother apologised for the necessity of leaving us for a few minutes, he challenged me to my favourite amusement. We fought long and earnestly, au^ I was surprised and ashamed when, on rising from the game, I observed the lateness of the hour. I set off on my return, but not before I had yielded my promise of renewing the contest on an early day. The thunder-storm, to which I stood obliged for the cheerfulness UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. 251 of the evening, had been followed by all the deep and silent calm of a summer's night, and a splendid moon was riding high and full in the vault of heaven as I slowly paced my way homeward with that tranquillity of spirit which the pleasing society that I had just quitted, and the stillness of the hour, were so well fitted to produce. Havresack had not been altogether easy at my absence, but he was somewhat reassured when I appeared, and left me for the night, with only a doubt whether, though I had escaped the effects of the rain, the night air had not been quite as dangerous an exposure to the attacks of my inveterate foe the rheumatism. " Your ho- nour,** said he, *' might as well be at the old work of picquet and bivouac again as making these marches by moonlight.** Notwithstanding honest Jonathan's fears for my health, I had finished a late breakfast on the following morning without the slightest symptoms of the enemy, and was deeply engaged in the delightfial occupation which _r* 352 V^FOR£S££N PLEASURES. is afforded me in the compilation of my great work on the Pike, when my factotum an- nounced " a strange gentleman," and, to my surprise and gratification, in walked my an- tagonist at chess of the preceding evening. He was afraid, he said, that from the unso- ciable character which they must bear in the vicinity, I might be tardy in prosecuting an acquaintance to which chance appeared to have led, contrary to their general wish of avoiding society ; and he had therefore called to convince me that both he and his wife were really desirous of knowing more of mej if, indeed, he added, I could feel any pleasure in the sameness of visits where I should meet with none but themselves. When people are mentally determined to be acquainted, it is the easiest thing in the world to become so. My evenings were more frequently passed under the roof of my new friends than at home; but I had now and then also the privilege of doing the honours of my own cottage to them. As my intimacy with Mr. ^* UNFORESEEN PLEASURES. 253 Templeton increased, and ripened into friend- ship and confidence, I remained no longer in ignorance of the circumstances which had buried him and his amiable partner in their present solitude. They were principally told by himself, but I shall relate them as briefly as possible, without following the order in which they were communicated to me. :.t- .,fc.i..i 'H? :* ■> ^ f i «■,) 4 < •ij;*.ai^';nr; •■ 1 Hioi,; ./lU ^^ S;>K{: i'Vjnm -'S' li'K.I^ K-i/t.i iJ^ 'iLJ0T- 'U»> 1i';r|! ;^--v'i TEMPLETON. " By some especial care Her temper had been framc'd, as if to make A being, who, by adding love to peace. Might live on earth a life of happiness." Wordsworth. ^^'^'ii ..:' .¥ ■ j,\* ••* I TEMPLETON. M It was early the misfortune of Frederick Templeton to be placed in the uncontrolled possession of wealth. At the age of eighteen, with no guide but his own unsubdued pas- sions, and no warning voice to guard him from error, or protect his inexperience from the designing, he was launched upon the world with a host of temptations in his path, and without a single check upon the boundless indulgence of every inclination which might rise with the caprice of the moment. He was an only son, had lost his mother before he could know her value, and was first ihe petted boy, and then the favourite I-' m •*# QdS TEMPLLTON. companion of his father. Frederick had even in childhood given indications of no com- mon abilities; and, despite of the perni- cious tendency of the unlimited fondness of his parent, shone as a school-boy with that distinction of talent which, at the moment, is perhaps of all others the most delightful source of gratificatior to a father ; because it gives room for confident anticipation of future eminence, and excludes the reflection that not one blossom in a hundred may mature into fruit. Frederick had passed to the University, and just gathered the first earnest of acade- mica! honours, when a rapid and sudden ill- ness carried his father to the grave. The catastrophe was so unlooked for, that there had been time neither for a will nor the appointment of guardians ; and, after the first violent burst of grief had expended itself, the youth found that he was the unrestrained master of a very considerable fortune. While his father lived, Frederick had evinced a pride TEMPLETOJJ. 2,59 and satisfaction in meriting his praises, which had counteracted the evils of education ; and many a boyish irregularity was prevented, from consideration of the pain which it might occasion to his parental solicitude : but, with the loss of his influence, every excitement to honourable exertion, every bar against indo- lence and consequent dissipation, seemed at once to have forsaken him. He quitted theUni- versity and the business of preparation for the bar, and plunged headlong and deeply into the revels of fashionable life. The transition, however, was not immediately effected- with- out some inward upbraidings, and n^iny en- deavours at self-persuasion, — while pleasure was really his sole object, — that he could pro- secute his general studies with more ad- vantage in the quiet of his own residence, than v/ith the interruptions to w 'M he was liable from his acquaintances at college ; and that it was useless to waste his time in quali- fying himself for a profession of which he was independent, which shackled the mind, s 2 ;,|-^ -ements, and where there were so many hungry adventurers to decrease the prospect of success. The fallarr r/" ill this was shortly exposed : the " study," which was fitted up with much pomp of intention, was that among his rooms which he entered most rarely; and one of his contemporaries, who had originally given less promise of talent than himself, had borne away the laurel of classical honours at the University, and was yet able - » display maJ\ dry sound law and professional tact in hi first speech at the bar, which was made on the very same day that Frederick lost three thousand pounds at Ascot. But long before thia circu Instance occurred, Frederick had gained time to reconcile himself in a great degree to the unworthiness of the course which he v pursuing, and he felt no more than 1 i twi ige of a moment, when he learnt the favourable career of his old schoolfellow Holton. Every hour saw some diminution TEMPLETON. 361 of his patrimony, and brought some cause for future repentance. The profusion and waste of an extravagant establishment, and a train of unprincipled servants, were assisted by his losses on the turf; to which he had addicted himself, not because it agreed with his tastes, but merely that it gave additional ^clat *o the brilliant outset of a man of ton. He was fast approaching towards the period at which he was to reap all the fruits of his imprudence; but it was decreed, that the pangs of remorse which he was to suffer should be aggravated by the reflection, that he had involved an innocent being in the same abyss of poverty with himself. However he might labour to mar her work, nature had designed Frederick Templeton for better things than the mere heartless, despicable creature of fashion ; and, before he had yet imbibed the fulness of that utter, remorseless selfishness, which is the never- failing characteristic of the man of pleasure, he had conceived an ardent attachment for ■■ I.' «6« TEMPLETON. one of the most amiable of her sex. Louisa Somers was, like Templeton, an only child, an orphan, and born to the enjoyment of a large fortune. Her father left her under the guardianship of a maternal uncle, who had been the warm and intimate friend of the elder Mr. Templeton, and now beheld with concern the vortex of dissipation in which his son was entangled. To divert the young man, if possible, in some measure from worse occupations, he had been always earnest and pressing in his invitations to him to spend a portion of the year at his residence in the country, and there Frederick had frequent opportunities of meeting with Louisa. They had, indeed, as children been playfellows, and a strong and mutual passion had grown up with their years. Every time after Frederick had visited at her uncle's, he returned to the metropolis with resolutions of amendment, which were destined to be as regularly stifled in the contagion of the society from which he had not strength to extricate himself. TEMPLKTON. 263 Yet they were no feeble attractions which fihould for ever have weaned him from error. With a share of personal charms, uncommon €ven in our favoured land of pure and health- ful beauty, Louisa united an extraordinary degree of talent and mental energy, which had been carefully assisted by every advantage of judicious education. To Frederick the lovely girl was alternately the grave and playful monitress, long before she was sensible how deeply her own happiness was committed in his course. She had been taught from early associations to regard him somewhat as a brother, and he now listened to her admo- nition with the pleased attention of one who finds himself an object of interest with the being whom he loves most upon earth. He vowed all reformation, all change that could be desired, if she would be ever at his side as his guide and counsellor ; and he extorted a promise, that whenever he should give sub- stantial proofs of a serious determination to withdraw from his career of dissipation, he II t IMMi 264 TEMPLETON. might hope to call her his own. She would hear of no concealment from her uncle, and he was made acquainted with their attach^ nient. The information was to the anxious guardian a source of poignant regret ; he de- spaired of the young man's rescue from habits which he could not approve. From such a connexion he saw nothing but misery in store for his niece — all whose worth he most fully appreciated — and he made one powerful effort to dissuade her from the encouragement of Frederick's addresses. To all his representa- tions of the young man*s wildness, of his dis- sipated pursuits, of his extravagance, she had nothing to oppose but the hope, that for her sake he would no longer be what ymth and thoughtlessness had made him. The guardian perceived that his arguments had power to distress and pain poor Louisa to the soul, but none to remedy the evil — there was too much in the picture thot he drew of which she could not deny the fidelity ; but when in such TEMPLETON. ^65 cases did reason ever prevail over the enthu- siastic feelings of a girl of eighteen ? He saw sufficient to convince him that whatever he might obtain from her deference to his wishes and her almost filial affection towards him, it would be in vain at the time to attempt to destroy the effects of his own imprudence in introducing Frederick so frequently into his family. Her good sense told her all the errors of her lover ; and yet, with their sum upon his head, she could not conceal that without him there would be no happiness for her. Her uncle was glad, then, to compound the matter by promising to yield his consent to their union, if a probation of twelve months should be found to confirm Frederick's sin- cerity in reform. The condition was gladly accepted, and the period passed with some appearance of favourable change. The name of Templeton blazoned but once in the Newmarket meetings, and then it was a horse which he had already pledged himself should run, and he could not i itti ^66 TEMPLETON. in honour withdraw him. In three accidental morning calls which the uncle made on Frederick in town, he had but upon one occasion found him in bed at two, from the effects of the preceding night's debauch; and there was an air of rather more regularity in his household. These were, perhaps, the dawnings of an amelioration which it could scarcely be expected would at once appear in fulness, and Louisa strove to hope the best; but there was still something to see, and much to hear, that grieved her beyond expression ; and she had often to sigh at the reflection how far Frederick Templetoh, with his talents, with all that nature had lavished upon him, how very far he was from that which he might be. At length, the twelve months were ovtr, and without producing either of the altera- tions which the fond uncle had rather prayed for than hoped. Templeton was little other than the man of two years before, and i^M;sa was unabated in her attachment to him; with TEMPLETON. 267 this difference only, that she was infinitely less sanguine in the belief that her influence would entirely overcome what she could not behold with indifference, until she should be his wife, and then, she thought, much might be done — and his wife she did become. Her uncle gave her away at the altar, with the observation to his family, that she was now committing the first rash folly of her life, and that ho feared she would long and heavily suffer for it. During her infancy and youth, he had watched over her welfare with the eye of a father, and his last act of guardir.n- ship was to secure the settlement of her pro- perty upon herself. Louisa had been brought up a good deal in retirement, and was accustomed to centre every wish and to seek everv pleasure in home ; but Templeton had so long moved in the world of fashion, that the feverish excite- ment r-f splendid dinners and crowded assem- blies had become almost indispensable to his happiness. In the early days of their mar- '' h:- '1 1!^ ''\ ^'fh\ ♦i yS ' I Jiil ■ranaah' V A*«M 268 TEMPLETON. riage, he was all tenderness and afTection to her, and she could do no less than sacrifice her own tastes to his. To please him^ she entered into scenes whence it was impossible that she could derive gratification; and their whole life grew into a whirl of heartless gaiety. They were never alone for an evening, and met rarely during the day. To rise un- refreshed and without appetite to a mid-day breakfast, to yawn for an hour on a sofa, saunter through the fashionable lounges of the morning, return just in time to dress, and close the day in the monstrous absurdity of an eight o'clock dinner, and half-a-dozen routs, composed the life which Templeton endeavoured to convince himself presented the only chance of earthly felicity. From sharing in so fruitless a search for its attain- ment, Louisa received a temporary respite in the birth of their first boy. Frederick was at first delighted with the little stranger, but his avocations kft him no leisure to play the father — such a round of engagements, he TEMPLETON. 2G9 could rarely spare time to see even his wife, and she was frequently for days without be- holding him, except in the five minutes of morning inquiries how she had rested. Ofte.i did the bitter tear of wounded affection fall over her slumbering infant, while its father was mingling in the loud laugh and insipid jest of his vapid associates. Not that he was really indifferent to his amiable wife j for his attachment to her was at bottom as warm as it had ever been, and, could he have witnessed some of her solitary moments, he would have been stung to the quick ; but it was that his habits had rendered him unconscious that he was guilty of neglecting her by an absence which appeared to him unavoidable. Very shortly after the birth of her boy, a real misfortune befel the young mother in the death of her uncle. The worthy man had observed the course into which Templeton had drawn his wife, with an aching heart. He could not blame her j for he knew her too well to imagine that the life she was induced ■iT*MWWlliJWUWWI 270 TEMPLETON. to lead could be congenial to her own inclina- tions, and he understood the motive of her compliance in follies which must be foreign to her choice. He saw her more seldom than his fondness for her would have caused him to wish ; but he declared that it was more than he could bear to witness the uncom- plaining melancholy that would frequently steal over her for the moment^ and the sources of which he had no difficulty in tracing to this mode of life and the negligent conduct of her husband. In his will he spoke of her with the warmest remembrance, and left her a memorial of his affection; while he be- queathed to her boy a large legacy, to be paid, with its accumulated interest, when he should arrive at the age of five-and-twenty; but the name of Templeton was not even mentioned. The only allusion to him was in the avowal that he left the legacy to his grand- nephew, and not to his beloved niece, that the extravagance of others might not leave tlie boy wholly a beggar. TEMPLETON. 271 This was the first direct conviction which was forced upon Louisa, that a continuance in their present style of expenditure must terminate in ruin ; for she rightly argued that her uncle was not a man to record so strong an expression of his opinion on the subject without good grounds. Yet hitherto she had scarcely perceived the approach of the storm. There had at times, indeed, been some dif- ficulty, when money was suddenly required for payment of bills ; but her husband had only d d the inattention of his steward, and the requisite sums had been finally pro- cured. A very few months, however, had followed the decease of her uncle, when more unequivocal symptoms of impending em- barrassments manifested themselves to prove the correctness of his predictions. There had, in fact, been no bounds to the over- whelming torrent of dissipation on which Frederick had chosen to embark them: one expense entailed another, the evil increased with frightful magnitude, and the farther II 272 TEMPLETON. they advanced to the brink of ruin, with the more infatuation did he rush bHndfold to- wards it. Clamorous duns multipUed round their doors, and it became daily more difficult to repel them. At first, Templeton had laboured to conceal their real situation from his wife ; and as long as thore had remained a stick to cut down on his estate, or an acre of his own to mortgage, he had been tolerably successful in veiling her eyes to the precipice on which they stood ; but things were ap- proaching too near their climax to continue the delusion, and, when the truth was some- what bared to her observation, he no longer wore the mask of cheerfulness. He was gloomy and irritable, torn with shame and remorse, and unable to repress the indulgence of ill-humour, even to the gentle creature who would have soothed the bitterness of his anguish. Still the ball and the rout blazed with undiminished frequency and splendour, under the roof which contained hearts tor- tured with a crowd of harassing feelings. TEMPLETON. 273 u ** The world, at least," said Frederick, " must .:o^ see that we suffer; appearances must yet be supported."— Strange weakness! as if the very attempt to deceive the world by per- sisting in extravagance were not the most infallible means of hastening the dreaded exposure. Louisa drank deep of the draught of misery in the brief period which now drew their fashionable life to its close ; she looked around her for comfort, and all was a blank ; beggary seemed the inevitable lot of her children (for she had already given birth to a second boy)j and her husband, her natural protector, on whom she should have rested for consolation c.:id solace under every afflic- tion, to whom she should have looked up for counsel and exertion, was himself the cause of their misfortunes, and totally incapable of arresting their destruction. It was then that the native strength of mind and decision, which marked her otherwise feminine soft- ness of character, came to her aid, and roused T i 274 TEMPL3T0N. her into that energy of wr eh the enfeebling influence of habit seemed to have bereaved her husband. — She was soon called upon for the test of her resolution. Every expedient of raising money had been exhausted by Frederick's necessities, and yet his wants were only the more impor- tunate ; but the principal of his wife's fortune remained untouched, though the income from her estate had been long anticipated. He had been hitherto restrained by pride and better feelings from suggesting that this means of relief was still in her hands ; but the crisis of their fate had now arrived, and the sale of her estate could alone enable them to hold their place in society for another hour. The proposal to sell the property was broached to her, and conveyed as the alterna- tive between a gaol and the support of their establishment. To his utter astonishment, she gave, though with mildness, a firm and decided negative to the proposition. She had wound her feelings to the point where a TEMl'LETON. 275 sense of sacred duty told her it was fit she should stand, and she was not to be shaken. ** No, FrederiL. *' was her reply, " I cannot, must not, rov^ nt to nut the finishing stroke to our ruiu n iici ol our children. If this last hope £( 'iti re be sacrificed, if we dispose of the ( .icans of support which is left to our family, we may, indeed, lind the power of continuing for some time longer in our present station, but it is impossible to blind ourselves to the conviction, that we only delay, and do not avert, the ruin which is before us. I will cheerfully — Heaven knows how cheerfully — support all privations, go through all humiliation with you — and I can foresee that there will be many trials of pride for us — but I cannot, will not put my hand to a deed which is to rob my helpless babes of their all." Sui*prise and indignation at this first refusal which she had ever opposed to his wishes, and doubt of her attachment to him, were the first feelings which flashed through the mind T 2 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /ML// 4r ^3^ M 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^128 |2.5 •^ I2i2 12.2 Ui UK us MUu U 11.6 0%. % w '/ Riotographic Sdraices Corporation 23 WBT MAIN STREfT WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 h] b; hi u; ft ai ti CI o Vi S( d MODERN EXtRAVAGANCE. Mi' He must be but a careless observer of human nature who has failed to perceive that by far the greater portion of earthly misery has its origin in the unreasonable wishes and unfounded expectations of the sufferers: very few of those who would number themselves among the unfortunate can with justice at- tribute the evils of their condition to any cause which may not be found within their own bosoms, or traced in their own actions. Yet so natural is it to man to seek every where, rather than within himself^ for the secrets of his unhappiness, that it is rare in- deed to meet with an individual who is , in iOG MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. unable Uf astign a thousand reasons for every reverse of fortune, without the shghtcst im- plication of his own judgment or pnulcnce. We are all surprisingly acute in discerning the particular foible, or error, that has en- tailed calamity upon a friend or an acquaint- ance ; all wonderfully dull in comprehending the occasion of our own miscarriage in the pursuit of happiness. This eagerness for sei/- justification extends through every gradation of vice and folly j but it is eminently exerted in the excuse of those violations of strict rectitude, which do not alarm the conscience, because the}' do not appear to amount to actual crime. There cannot be a stronger exemplification of such a disposition to place the consequences of our imprudence to the influence of external causes, than the readiness with which, in an age of universal extravaga.cOv the idea has been seized, that the gene 'u . ratarrassmeut of private circumstances is attributable solely to the pressure of the times. Wherever, by WODEUN EXTUAVAOANCE. 801 indulgence or viniprovidence, income is ex- ceeded, and distress produced, we can account in no other mode i'ui the ruin of our afi'airs, but by declaring t'lat every convenience and necessary of life is so frightfully risen in cost, that it is impossible to live in the v-ountry upon limited means. We talk as if we had preserved the careful independence and honest economy of our fathers, and in tread- ing in their steps had found the smoothness of the path overgrown with otlior thorns than our own wilful hands had planted in the way. We are unwilling to remembe , that if prices have doubled since the days of our infancy, there has also been a tenfold addi- tion to the imaginary wants of all classes of society J and that the increase of income upon both proprietory and professional pro- perty has, at least, kept pace with the advance of those prices. If the desires of each of us went no farther than those of individuals of the same rank in life did fifty years ago, we might find existence in Old I- fi •I 302 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. England such as they found it. But we have been for years pressing onward in the career of extravagance, and striving to over- step the limits of our condition, until every order of persons has learnt to regard with contempt what were once deemed the com- forts that properly belonged to ^heir station. A very hasty glance at the present con- stitution of society will enable us to confirm the truth of this assertion. Take, for exam- ple, the country gentleman, whose condition was formerly as much the boast of our island as the spirit and industry of her peasantry — What is he now? More highly educated, more polished, certainly, than the country gentleman of the last century, and not less honourable and moral in general character; but no longer the master of the mansion whose doors were open to the neighbourhood in the honest pride of rural hospitality j who lived upon his estate, and could securely spread his board with the blessings of plente- ousness, because he aspired to no modern MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 303 elegance of style, and looked for few luxuries beyond the produce of his lands. But the country gentleman of the present times must have an equipage, and a train of liveried and unliveried domestics to rival in splendour the establishment of an earlj his family must be seen every year at a crowded and expensive watering-place, and in the metropolis for some months of the fashionable winter. He must entertain, not his country neighbours and dependents, but the circle of those who move like himself J and he must not be outdone by any in the beauty of their furniture or the sumptuousness of their dinners. If difficul- ties and debts then gather around him ; if his family are compelled to desert the paradise of an English country retreat, and the name- less enchantment of an EngHsh home, for banishment abroad, he is convinced that the pressure of the times has obliged him to reside on the continent, and can trace his embarrassments to no other source. What is the style of the merchant of the ff 'm BKi 304 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. day? Does he regale his friend with the ancient cheer of a joint and a bottle of port, under the same roof with his counting-house? Is it the sign of a dies albus with him when " two puddings smoke upon the board?" No; he has his country villa, and his town house at " the west endj" he and his numerous guests are thoroughly versed in all the myste- ries of the Almanac des Gourmands, and can quaff nothing below the quality of Chateau Margdt; all the wines of the universe must be found on his table or in his cellar; and, if his name be to grace the Gazette, he has, at least, lived like a man of spirit. The retail tradesman has stepped into the place which the merchant occupied of yore ; for he can no longer live with the same meanness as his father, and must substitute his wine and dessert for the porter and pipe of the Cockney of old. Insolvent acts are mighty allies to the style of the modern trader. The farmer has now, too, his ambition of ** living like himself j" and his well-bred daughter would , vt-. MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 305 shudder at the simple idea of a diniiere/2 masse, with ploughmen, dairy-maids, and carters, at twelve o'clock. Not old Jack Falstaff'himself, with a flask of his Sherris sack before him, would be a greater curiosity than farmer Flamborough over his tankard of nut brown, and his daughters in their red topknots at hot-cockles upon the floor. Yet Goldsmith painted from the models which society could then afford for his bewitching pencil, and such as even our memory may call up from among the shadows of infancy. I may perhaps be reminded, that an in- creased itch for expense is not the only altera- tion in manners since the times of the good Vicar of Wakefield ; and that the advance in information and refinement is full as remark- able. I may be told, that this advance has naturally diffiised a taste for more elegance than was demanded by the grosser appetites of a former age ; but, surely, education has lost its utility, when it unfits us for the moderate enjoyment of such comforts as are X ? f I i'' mi Ik !=? ■'ii s'lu 306 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. within our legitimate command : surely, igno- rance is bliss, and wisdom folly, if knowledge cannot teach us to turn to mental resources for the requisites of happiness, and to extract from our condition the pleasures that it is calculated to affori!, without grasping at those which fortune has placed beyond our reach. But it is needless to pursue the comparison of the present with the past, and to wander through all the gradations of society, to prove how we have deserted the wholesome pru- dence of our fathers. I shall therefore con- clude this subject with some account of a visit which I lately paid to a family in one of the midland counties, who appear to me to present a picture from whence not a few of my readers may receive an useful hint. Their residence was, when I knew it, in my younger and gayer days, what might now be "styled a farm-house of the better order; and, together with about three or four hundred acres by which it was surrounded, formed the property of the family. They had possessed it MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 307 for several generations, and were a good sam- ple of the order of the lesser country gentry, or superior farmers, who cultivated their own land, and experienced all the blessings of easy circumstances without the attendant evil of idleness. The father of the present proprietor was the friend of my school-days, and we were attached to each other with all the warmth and sincerity of youthful feelings. But, as we drew towards manhood, various causes, which it would be useless to particu- larize, conspired to separate us, without diminishing the ardour of our mutual friend- ship ; and the events of my life so ordered it, that my first visit to the house since boyhood was upon the occasion of which I have spoken. I was then induced, at the pressing invitation of the son of my old friend, who, after the death of his father, had married and settled upon the property, to become once more a guest under the roof where I had spent some of the merriest hours of a chequered life. I accordingly set out upon my expedition; and x^ iH'jIi 308 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. happening to have no companion in the coach which conveyed me and my portman- teau, I had full leisure for the indulgence of my own cogitations. Insensibly I fell into a train of reverie which, connecting my present journey with its destination, brought me back to all the scenes of ray youth. I was again, in imagination, let loose from school, and passing my Christmas with my sworn crony at the old house. Every spot where we had shared in mischief or play was fresh in my memory in the colours which it had then worn. The little lake, on whose surface we had skaited together; the great doors of the village church, where we had daily made the old building ring to our game of fives; the cottage of the dame, whose cats our terrier, Snap, the arch enemy of the feline race, had so often worried in our merciless sports; the forge, where we had many a time provoked the surly smith, by hiding his tools or spoiling his fire, all stood before me such as they had once seemed. Then came the house itself^ — MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 309 the old-fashioned parlour, the crackling wood fire, the plain good cheer which reigned within its walls and triumphed despotically at Christ- mas; the kitchen, with bacon, fishing-rods, and fowling-pieces, all pendent from the roof, and the warm chimney nook, to which we had frequently retired from the parlour, to carry on in security our plots of mischief, or enjoy the uncouth merriment of the farm servants. These recollections all arose as if the occur- rences of my subsequent life had been but a long and wearisome dream, and they the reality to which I had suddenly awakened. When, at last, I had broken the charm in which I was bound, my mind still dwelt upon the scenes I was about to revisit. I forgot the altera- tions which must have arisen from the hand of time, and the yet more powerful influence of new manners and tastes, and involuntarily expected to find every thing such as I had left it many, many years before. As I drew near to the end of my journey, this illusion li; ii'; Irii ' its 310 MODERN KXTftAVAOANCE. Was Strengthened by the sight of an ancient oak, which a turn of the road brought to my view. It still stood, as of old, dividing the entrance of the village into two, and seemed scarce to have felt the touch of age — but it was the only memorial of the past; every thing* around it was changed, and I could with difficulty have traced on the spot those haunts of which the pictures were so strongly painted in my heart. When I alighted at my friend's gate, and looked with an anxious eye for the rough-cast dwelling, with its lat- tices, and the bow-window which had distin- guished the parlour, the green meadow in front, and farm-yard behind, I beheld in its place an elegant mansion, with a viranda en- circling its lower story, and pleasure-grounds extending in front and on both sides, in all the beauty of landscape gardening, with roses, and the endless variety of flowering shrubs, blooming around. No farm-yard was still to be seen ; for tiie offices in the rear were carefully excluded from view by the screen MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 311 of plantations that shrouded the wings o . the house. I was greeted with all the sincerity of welcome by iny host, as the early friend of his father ; and on entering was introduced to his lady, and received with the same cor- diality. But I was no longer in the dwelling of other days. The old parlour, and the style of its furniture, were no more; mirrors and pictures, Grecian sofas, and Turkish carpets, appeared on all sides. " You must, my dear sir, find great changes since you were last under this roof,'* was the observation of my host. *• Great, indeed," replied I, looking around me. " The house," said he, " re- quired complete alteration to make it habit- able with our notions of comfort. We have been obliged to throw down a side wall, to build out from the only parlour which it pos- sessed in my father's time, and so to form a drawing and dining-room. I have converted the former kitchen into a library, with a study for myself, and added a new one, with patent steam ranges, and so forth, to the back of the liii fSBm 3\'2 MODEUN EXTRAVAGANCE. house. It is now comfortable, though still confined.** I concluded that he must have farmed very advantageously, to be enabled to carry on such expensive works, and observed, that I had no doubt he was an excellent prac- tical farmer. — No: he had found that the business of the farm interfered very much with his pursuits; it left him no tiaic for his books, and he had given it up, and procured a tenant for his land. The lady added, that, besides this, the superintendence of his la- bourers had so confined him, that they could never leave home for a fortnight. His grand- father, thought I, never went beyond the county town in his life, and only so far to a grand jury or an election ; but I said nothing. He told me he had half-a-dozen friends and a batch of claret for me; and we at length sat down to a superb dinner. Two men servants, and corner dishes of plate, were other con- comitants to an entertainment which would have made his grandfather's hair stand an end at the profusion of his polished descendant. aiODEIlN EXTRAVAGANCE. 313 The conversation at table was pleasing and spirited, and I had more than one occasion of observing that my host possessed some in- formation and talent. But still it was all in the manner of our days. Elegance and re- finement of mind, rather than strength of intellect; an imagination that merely skimmed the surface of things; superficial acquaintance with every subject, but depth of research in none. He talked with animation, and bore a considerable share in every topic of the even- ing; but, whenever an incidental remark could betray the tone of his mind, it was out of unison with the air of easy enjoyment which he assumed. An inward dissatisfaction and inquietude would, at intervals, break through the semblance of his gaiety, and discover a breast ill at ease. France was mentioned; and I found that he was about to remove thither with his family. He was over careful to impress upon his hearers, that the many advantages which the continent afforded for the education of his children were the tempta- ' ' -"-■•.■ ■» ! 11! I ■i .!;i (il .314 MODKRN EXTRAVAGANCE. tions that induced him to the measure of removal. A few minutes afterwards, the mention of a late public meeting was the signal for the declaration of his poHtical feel- ings. When I heard him assert that the ruin of the national affairs was at hand, I feared that his own were embarrassed: when I listened to his prophecy, that the general overthrow of property was inevitable, I was strengthened in my suspicion that he had himself little remaining to lose. The evening at last was consumed, the guests took their leave, and I retired for the night to my chamber. Being sleepless, from the train of ideas which rushed over my mind, the ob- servations that I had made since I arrived at the house mingled with my other thoughts. Malgr6 some things of which I could not approve, I was pleased with my host : he ap- peared open and generous in temper, much attached to his wife and two infant children, and she to him; and I felt real pain at the conviction that they must be ruining them- MODERN EXTIIAVAOANCE. 315 selves, and were probably already in difficul- ties. 1 reflected that he had only the same property as his forefathers, and did not, like them, improve his income by farming with skill and industry. I considered that it was certainly not more easy to live now than for- merly, and that his predecessors would never for a moment have aspired at a tenth part of the display of riches which I had just wit- nessed. There was no room to doubt that ruin must ensue. I formed my resolve upon my pillow, and in the morning, using the privilege of age and long friendship towards the family, I drew from the husband the real state of their affairs, and became acquainted with a detail which made my very heart ache. They were irretrievably in debt ; the present was without hope, the prospect of the future insupport- able. The fairest side of the picture was sufficiently gloomy; but I thought it yet darker, when he assured me, that they had nothing to reproach themselves with ; that 316 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. they were obliged to preserve such an appear- ance as became their rank in life; that in a country like England, under the curse of distress and overwhelming taxation, neither they, nor any whom they knew, found it possible to live upon a moderate income : in short, that they were the victims of the times, not of their own extravagance ! I had de- signed to assist them with my counsel, and such little aid as I could offer — of the latter they accepted ; and it barely enabled them to escape from the horrors of imprisonment by flight across the channel. My advice was yet more ineffectual; for it left them precisely of their former opinion, that they were guilt- less of the work of their ruin. A heavy mortgage is now foreclosing on their estate ; and if the bounty of Heaven were to bestow a second property upon them, the same train of expense, outward gaiety, real misery, dis- grace, and banishment would attend them ; for adversity has failed to convince them of their errors. ^W^- n MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. 317 Thus is it that we can deceive ourselves. Thus is it that thousands can sacrifice prin- ciple, competence, and inward peace, in the mania for expense, while they steel their minds against the conviction that their own folly is the living fountain of their distresses. If the signs of the times must be looked to for the causes of pecuniary embarrassment in private life, they are to be found in the deser- tion of the wholesome economy of former days by all classes of society, and by the middle orders in particular. They are to be sought in the general disposition to grasp at indulgences which our means do not warrant. Luxury and profusion have become the deities of our hearths j the desire of vying with su- periors, and outdoing equals, the only ambi- tion of English hospitality. The reproach which the satirist applied to the degenerate matrons of Rome may, in our times, and in our country, be equally shared by the sexes — " Nulla putlorem Paupertatis liabet ; nee se nietitiir ad ilium m m. 318 MODERN EXTRAVAGANCE. Quem dedit haec posuitque modum ; At velut exhaustil redivivus puUulet arcil Nummus, et fe pleuo semper tollatur acervo Non unquam reputant^ quanti sibi gaudia constent." 11 *• It- INDIAN WARFAKE. " Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways. Where beasts with man divided empire claim. And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim." Goldsmith. ^tiiill '^IV' INDIAN WARFARE. ■;\11:S1 Many circumstances of deep and romantic interest are attached to the events of our alliance with the Indian Tribes, during the last war in the Canadas. Of these, some are already before the public; but there are others which, though known to, and capable of being authenticated by, hundreds of living witnesses, have remained hitherto unrecorded. They are already rapidly passing into oblivion ; for no hand has yet been put forth to arrest their flight and chain them to the page of history. J shall therefore be excused if I de- vote a paper of these my lucubrations — short- lived and fleeting as they must themselves be Y ii-il '•m^ -iV' 39,^ INDIAN WARFARE. regarded — to the attempt to perform a task which others have neglected to execute in a more durable manner. However I may have wandered through the mazes of fancy, I shall here confine myself strictly to the region of fact ; and, if I encroach on the domain of the historian, it is merely because he has himself abandoned it, where romance might have combined with truth, to scatter flowers over his course. I shall, then, need no further apology for laying before my readers a brief — and, it may be, a rude and imperfect — sketch of some of the peculiarities which, in our own times, have distinguished the mode of warfare and character of the North American Indians. The greater part of the incidents which I shall relate may at least claim the merit of novelty ; and, for the rest, I shall be content to run the hazard of repeating several par- ticulars which have already been told, if, by their admixture with what is new, some de- gree of connexion is gained for the detached .r' ■-*>.. INDIAN WARFARE. 323 parts of my narrative. For the correctness of the following statements I can securely vouch : whatever fell not under my own ob- servation is given upon authority which it would be impossible to doubt for an instant ; it is by no means requisite to particularise it here, r ut it assuredly need only be named to be implicitly credited. Throughout the whole extent of the im- mense continent of North America, the hand of man has left not a vestige of antiquity. In those boundless regions, no gigantic structure of infant reHgion, no mouldering witness of human genius is preserved, to kindle the sacred flame of enthusiasm, or awake the solemn aspiration of communing with the mighty dead. There, to the reasoning sense, all is fresh, and new, and redolent of this dayj there, to the eye of romance, all is coarsely material, flat, tame, and uninteresting. There is to be found but one link which binds the present to the past, but one monument of other times, and that monument is a livijig Y 2 1 f '■11 l''"t" ,1 |i"vi;r h '^MMi \^ f.yw. iwm I iHI 324 INDIAN WARFARE. ruin. The existence of the Indian Tribes is become to America what the shattered column, the broken arch, and the falling cloister are to the old world. The iron hand of time has not made deeper ravages on these, than the relentless cruelty of civilized man has inflicted upon the wretched remains of the aboriginal children of the lake and forest. For above two hundred years, the Indian nations of North America have maintained an unceasing struggle against the oppression and encroach- ment of the white. But the devotion, courage, and fortitude of their warlike tribes have been exerted in vain. Driven succes- sively from every possession by the superior knowledge and power of the merciless usurper, they have been chased to the remotest forests; systematically debased in character, and thinned in numbers and physical strength by the insidious supply of spirituous liquors, they have dwindled to a miserable remnant, which, in the course of a few generations more, will utterly disappear from the face of the INDIAN WARFARE. 3^25 earth. The poHcy of the American Republic has been, t*»id is, to destroy them;— tliey have been made the victims, not the pupils, of civilization. It might be imagined that, with the ad- vantages possessed by the member of a civi- lized community, it were only necessary to bring the savage into contact with him, to graft on his nature all the benefits of culti- vation, without entire loss of the few virtues which original simplicity had given to him. But it is a melancholy truth that, in almost all cases where the people of newly discovered or uncultivated regions have been thrown into communication with Europeans, they have imbibed all the worst vices of their in- structors, without receiving one virtue of civilized life in exchange for those which they have lost by the intercourse. No race of men have furnished a stronger, or, for them- selves, more fatal illustration of this fact than the Indians of North America. It is im- possible to conceive human nature lower in iff m i.< : !>*l i S2G INDIAN WARFARE. the scale of depravity, than in the case of the few tribes who have escaped extermination to live among the Canadians and people of the United States. Utterly sunk in filth and intemper- ance, they have not preserved one spark of the warlike spirit of their fathers ; and re- semble the hardy and untameable bands who so long resisted the colonists of the New World as little as the Sybarite did the Spar- tan ; or as they do the tribes who have still maintained their independence and bravery in the country west of the Missisippi. Just in proportion as the different tribes, who ex- tend from Montreal, in Canada, to that river, are less in the bosom of European settlements, do they rise in character, or rather remain with most features of resemblance, to the old fathers of their forests. Of the Indian people generally, as our allies in the late war in America, those dwelling in Lower Canada were entirely useless ; the Six Nations higher up, in the country lying between the Lakes Huron and Ontario, were of some service ; INDIAN WAHFARE. rj«7 but to the tribes at the head of Lake Erie, on the western shores of Huron, and from thence towards the Missisippi, is the preservation of Upper Canada, in the first years of the war, mainly to be attributed. When, in 1812, hostilities commenced be- tween Great Britain and America, several of the Indian tribes were already at war with the United States ; and others hastened to join them when they found a prospect of suc- cess from the co-operation of the British. The Indian nations are not wanting in sa- gacity to discover, that nothing short of their extermination will complete the views of the American government ; and self-preservation and the thirst of revenge united the majority of the tribes in the desire of seizing any fa- vourable occasion of exertion against their common enemv The Six Nations, who have been settled for many years in the heart of the British possessions, and in a district per- fectly unconnected with the great Indian country, joined our forces on the Niagara. A'- "ft P *,..♦ w}^ u\ 328 INDIAN WAUFAUR. These Indians are the descendants of the tribes who, in the P>ench Canadian war, were the followers of the celebrated Sir William Johnson. The country about the Hudson and Mohawk rivers was then the seat of their habitations j but as they subsequently, in the war of the American Revolution, embraced the cause of our government, the greater part of them, at the peace of 1783, removed to the British province of Canada, where lands were assigned to them. At the opening of the late war they were principally under the influence of two Eu- ropeans ; whose history would furnish a me- morable example of that singular and un- accountable attachment to savage life, which is so frequently the consequence of any length of residence among the Indian people. Of these individuals, whose names are Givens and Norton, the first is a man of talent, of perfectly gentleman-like deportment and man- ners, and of considerable general information. He was originally a captain in a British INDIAN WAKFAIIE 'hich 1( artered regular regiment, in Canada. When his corps returned to Europe he accompanied it ; but, after a few years, quitted the service, and eagerly re- visited the forests of Upper Canada, where he settled, and became afterwards extremely serviceable, by his thorougli acquaintance with, and control over, the Indians. He did not utterly forsake the haunts of civilized society, but his inclinations, his tastes, and his feelings had contracted almost as much of the tinge of the Indian character, as they had preserved of European colouring. In his or- dinary hours he was a safe and amusing com- pan' in; but I knew an officer who narrowly tstaped being tomahawked in his barrack- room, though intimate with him, by foolishly inducing him to take the hatchet and knife from his trunk, and to perform the war song and dance when under the mfluence of liquor. He worked himself up to the usual pitch of Indian excitement, until, breaking forth into the maddened yell and ungovernable frenzy ii ■]' ■\ -w ' V\ ■gm 330 INDIAN WARFARE. of the native warrior, he would have scalped his companion, if he had not been timely rescued from his hands. Norton was highly respectable in conduct, and distinguished by a singular mildness of character, with which was combined all the determination, without any of the ferocity, of the Indian. Going a step farther than Givens, he actually lived among the Indians, and mar- ried one of their women. Both of these extraordinary persons are yet living. The country which the great body of the Indian people had yet been suffered to retain when the late war commenced, extended from the north-western frontier of Canada along the shores of the vast lakes of Huron, Michi- gan, and Superior, to the higher parts of the Missisippi. The tribes nearest to our pos- sessions were naturally the first to join us. The Ottawas, Chippewas, a few Poottawalta- mies, and Winnebagos were earliest in co- operating with us in the summer of 1812; and they commenced by closing round the # ifr INDIAN WARFARE. 331 rear of the American force which, under General Hull, had entered Canada from the north-western frontier. They began to col- lect in numbers in the country behind De- troit, from whence Hull had already advanced in prosecution of his invasion ; and the news of their motions seems at once to have para- lysed him. He fell back into Detroit, and, not daring to attempt a retreat through the line on which they had assembled, he remained passive, until his surrender to a few hundred British regulars and Canadian militia. This event, and the occupation of the Michigan country, of which Detroit is the capital, opened a direct communication with the settlements of the different tribes, and rapidly promoted the alHance with them. The politician knows that circumstances fully justified our alliance with the Indian nations ; and indeed self-preservation rendered it indispensable. Besides our vast numerical inferiority to the enemy in the first years of the war, it is no reflection upon the high cha- '.;it!t 332 INDIAN WARFARE. racter of our troops to observe, that in the western parts of Upper Canada, where the country is very partially inhabited, and still covered with boundless forests, they are neither calculated by their habits nor disci- pline to contend with the rifleman of Ken- tucky. And here the Indians have as much advantage over the Kentuckian . as the latter has over the British soldier; the assistance of those warriors was therefore invaluable to us. It would perhaps be impossible for any one, who had never witnessed it, to form an adequate conception of the appalling nature of a conflict with the Indian on his proper theatre, among the dark forests of his native land. To the Americans, in the events of 1812 and 1813, on our north-westfern frontier, the Indians were the same terrific and in- visible foe that, sixty years before, had struck horror and dismay into the followers of Brad- dock. The Indian standard of glory is the infliction of the severest loss upon an enemy, with the least possible injury to himself. It %* INDIAN WARFARE. 33i is therefore a point of lionour with him, in action, to cover his person most effectually from observation ; he never fires without changing his position, and his aim is so fatal that, at every flash, he brings a victim to the ground. Bodies of Indians have thus been engaged for hours, in the woods, without showing a man of the force which has dealt death among their enemy. So overpowering and awful is the solemn gloom of an Ame- rican forest, that to an European, under or- dinary circumstances, the effect is a strange sensation of loneliness and inability to move in any direction without being im.mediately bewildered ; and, if the American settler be infinitely more habituated to the scene, it must yet have possessed no common terrors even for him, when every stump and tangled thicket, in front, in rear, and around him, was in turn the lair of the crafty Indian. A circumstance which occurred in the first month of the war will afford some idea of the dexterity of the native warrior in skirmish. -'i 334 INDIAN WARFARE. After Hull's advance into Canada, the little iTiver Canard for some time separated our troops from the enemy. Its banks were over- grown w -h long rushes and rank grass, and the Indians, frequently crossing it in their canoes, found cover to watch every motion of the enemy's outposts. One morning a small picquet of twelve or fourteen Americans were sent forward to the river to reconnoitre, and were observed in their advance by a single Indian, who lay concealed among the rushes. He marked out one of the party, fired, and killed him. While the smoke of his rifle was dissipating, he had already crept round to the rear of the picquet, who had just time to pour a volley into the spot which he had quitted, when a Fecond shot from behind them brought another of their companions to the earth. The fire of the party was ineffectually re- peated, and immediately followed by a third buUet as deadly as the two first, from an op- posite quarter. Then, believing themselves surrounded, and panic-struck at the unerring # INDIAN WARFARE. 335 discharge of their enemy,the party precipitately retreated, and left the field to the Indian. The surrender of Hull had been shortly preceded by the accession of the tribe of Wyandot or Huron Indians to our alliance. Inhabiting the banks of the Detroit river, or strait, these people form a singular exception to the degeneracy which usually attends the intercourse of the Indian with the white. The Wyandots have all the energy of the savage warrior, with the intelligence and docility of civilized troops. They are Christians, and remarkable for orderly and inoffensive con- duct ; but, as enemies, they were among the most dreadful of their race. They were all mounted ; fearless, active, and enterprising ; to contend with them in the forest was hope- loss, and to avoid their pursuit impossible. They were led by Roundhead, who, next to the celebrated Tecumthe, was the most di- stinguished and useful of all the Indian chiefs. He was a firm friend to the British alliance, and his death (from natural causes), in the I 111! ' Ail wl #■»«?. 'W 1^^ 336 INDIAN WAKFAIIE. autumn of 181' was a serious loss to our affairs. How materially the Indian body contri- buted to the surprise and total destruction of the American corps of Generul Winchester, which, after Hull's surrender, was advancing against the same frontier in the winter of 1812-13, is already sufficiently known. That brilliant affair was, however, preceded by an act of daring resolution on the part of an In- dian, which deserves to be recorded. While the Americans were lying, before their de- feat, in their quarters at Frenchtown, the native warriors were ever hovering about them, and one evening, at nightfall, a single Indian silently and deliberately entered the place unobserved, and lurked at the door of a house, in which were several of the enemy's officers, until one of them came out, when he stretched him lifeless by a blow on the head from his tomahawk, scalped him, and bore ofi' the trophy to his associates in triumph. After Winchester's defeat and capture, the INDIAN WARFARE. SSJ next service in which the British and Indian forces co-operated was the siege of Fort Meigs, situated on the American .ores of Lake Erie. The number of native warriors who had ap- peared in arms against Hull's and Winches- ter's troops had never exceeded five hundred; but such was now the effect upon the general mind of their nation, of the success of the British on these occasions, that, in the ex- pedition against Fort Meigs, full twelve hundred of their fighting men were present. The whole of this force, without possessing any formally constituted leader, was, in fact, under the absolute guidance of one man — the master-spirit of his race, the heroic and ta- lented Tecumth6. Of this high.y-gifted in- dividual, who, it has with truth been said, " united in his person all those hevoic qualities which romance has ever delighted to attribute to the childrei u£ the forest, and with them in- telligence and feeling that belonged not to the savage," I shall here offer some slight account. z li! tii 338 INDIAN WARFARE. "■:'•(, . Among the tribe of the Shawanees, inhabit- ing the country about one hundred miles to the south of Lake Michigan, there were two brothers, who, a few years before our war with the United States, had gained great in- fluence over their fellow warriors by qualities usually most valued in savage life. The one, who had persuaded the tribe that he possessed what in Scotland would have been termed second-sight, was known among them by the name of the Prophet, and seems at first to have been the favourite of the two ; the other, Tecumth^ had, without the aid of such in- spiration, raised himself to the situation of a chief by his tried hardihood, and that natural superiority of genius which, sometimes in civilized communities, and almost always in a rude state of society, will challenge de- ference from common minds. The tribe, under direction of the Prophet, ventured upon hostilities with their old enemy, the backsettlers of the States ; and for some time carried on a most harassing contest against ■ ■:'L. INDIAN WARFARE. 339 them, after the Indian mode of warfare. At length, however, lulled into security by con- fidence in the supernatural powers of their Prophet, and neglecting that caution which is generally so marked a trait in the Indian character, they were surprised by an American corps in the dead of the night, on the banks of the Wabash, and almost annihilated. Te- cumth^, with a small number of v^arriors, escaped, the massacre j but it is probable that the survivors were too few to preserve the separate existence of a tribe ; for, while he swayed the whole Indian body, Tecumth^ could scarcely number a score of immediate followers of his own people. If it be recollected that the Indian chiefs are almost always old men, and that the spirit of clanship is as strong among them as ever it could have been in the Highlands of Scotland, it will appear no small testimony to the su- perior qualities of Tecumth^, that, before he could have been forty years of age, and almost without followers or tribe, he should have z2 Vy are, pro- bably from the nature of their country, strik- ingly distinguished from all the other tribes of the woods, in their readiness to fight with- out cover. They were unaccustomed to the use of fire-arms ; but the bow was, with their unerring arm, scarcely less destructive a weapon. The arrow which they used was of peculiar construction. Its triangular and jagged head of iron was cemented to the shaft by fish glue, which, melting in the wound it occasioned, by the warmth of ihe blood, would cause the shaft to separate, and leave the head to rankle in the part. In the INDIAN WARFARE. S5l field, the Sieues were much better lodged than any other tribe. Instead of the rude wigwam, or hut, they used a tent of deer- skin, with an aperture at top, which the Eu- ropean soldier would not have disdained. Their encampment possessed an air of clean- liness and comfort not generally found among an Indian nation; the fragrance of the shu- mach from their pipes was substituted for the villanous compound of odours which usually floated in the wigwam ; andtheSieu would wel- come the stranger who entered his tent with all the dignity and ease of true politeness. A finer body of men than their warriors were never seen; tall, muscular, and active; they brought all the advantages of physical strength to the aid of the mental energy and courage which they possessed in no orainary degree. They have one institution which, I believe, they share in common with no other tribe of their countrymen. When a chief among them has gained reputation by his martial deeds, he is selected, with his own consent, to form one iiy I 352 INDIAN WARFARE. of a band of " devoted" men, who are bound never to turn their backs upon an enemy in the field of battle. These men dress them- selves in white vestments, prepared from the skin of the deer. Many instances are on record of their undaunted firmness and steady perseverance onward, though certain destruc- tion be before them ; when they are wounded, and cannot walk, they crawl forward, so that the spot on which they breathe their last may mark their punctual performance of the mi- litary vow. Their obligation does not compel them to undertake every perilous duty; but, whatever they enter upon, they must effect or perish. At the attack on Fort Sandusky, among the few Indians who did not desert our troops, was a " devoted" man ; he was wounded, and still crept towards the enemy until, on the failure of the assault, his compa- nions brought him away by main force. The exploits of a handful of British troops bad hitherto, in conjunction with the Indians, protected the north-west frontier of Canada INDIAN WARFARE. 353 agains': an enemy, always numerically supe- rior; but the period was fast approaching when the naval efforts of the Americans on Lake Erie, and the neglect of the Governor- General uf the Canadas towards that division of his command, were to turn the tide of suc- cess. The British naval officer, who was at the head of the flotilla on that lake, was obliged to meet the enemy under every dis- advantage, notwithstanding the little assist- ance which the officer who commanded the land forces on that frontier was able to affijrd him; and the event that ensued was the cap- ture of the whole of the English s juadron, after an obstinate engagement. Upoi is disaster, a retreat of the troops became un- avoidable, to prevent the Americans landing a superior force in their rear; and it was fore- seen, that to induce the Indians to retire with them, and to quit their old haunts, would be attended with much difficulty. An assembly of their chiefs was, however, held at Amherst- burgh, where the general, by the mouth of . ■' 1 i. ml 354. INDIAN WARFARE. his interpreter, opened the business to them, and proposed their accompanying him in his retrc? ra > movement. The Indians were ']0Di< \\ hut prepared to expect such an inten- tion of withdrawing from that frontier ; but they received the proposal with the greatest indignation, uiiu cuiir>idcred the measure as a desertion of them. Tecumth^ rose to reply to the interpreter, and nothing could be more striking than the scene which then presented itself. The rest of the assembly seemed to wait with the deepest attention for the delivery of his answer; whilst, holding in his hands a belt of wampum, or beads, which, by tlieir colours and arrangement, form the Indian record for past events, the instruments of his rude and unfettered eloquence, he proceeded to address the B itish general in a torrent of vehement and pathetic appeal, for ^which the wi;d oratory of savag*: tribes is often so remarkable. His speech, of -.vhich a transla- tion was pr served, is too long for insertion in this pla. < . ' he chief began by recalling 11 INDIAN WAUFAUE. 355 fVoni his wampum the events of the war in which they were engaged, and alluded, in a strain of violent invective, to a circumstance twenty years before, wherein the Indians conceived that the British, after encouraging them to hostility against the Americans, had deserted them in the hour of need; and he inferred that there was now a similar design. In the name of his nation, he positively re- fused to consent to any retreat, and closed his denial with these words : — " The great Spirit gave the lands which we possess to our fathers — if it be his will, our bones shall whiten on them: but we will never quit them." After Tecumth^'s harangue was concluded, the council broke up, and the British commander found himself placed, with the few troops which composed his force, in a most critical situation; for there was every reason to expect that the numerous Indians would not confine their indignation to a mere dissolution of the alliance. To convince Tecumthe, in a private interview, of A A 2 m ii , '^1 !> t Utl!l M' .'W6 INDIAN WAHI'ARK. tlie reasonableness and necessity of retiring, seemed the only mode of extricating the (ittle army from their dilemma; and it was at- tempted with success. In a room with Colonel Elliot and Tecumth^, a map of the country was produced, the first thing of the kind that the chief had ever seen j and he was in a very short time made to understand, that if they remained in their present position, they must infallibly be surrounded by the enemy. It was only necessary to persuade the reason of Tecumth6 to ensure his con- sent, and he undertook to prevail on the tribes to embrace the measure which he now saw to be unavoidable. It was one more example of his talent and influence, that, in spite of all their prejudices and natural affection for the seat of their habitations, in less than seven days from the holding of the council, he had determined a large portion of his nation to give their co-operation to the step, of all others, which they had most violently op- posed. The close of Tecumth^'s mortal INDIAN WAUFAUK. .357 career was now at hand j and after some days of retreat before many thousand Americans, the resolution was taken of giving them battle on advantageous ground on the river of the Thames. The spot chosen was a position crossing the road towards Lake Ontario, and resting on the river. The British were liere drawn up in open files in a straggling wood, which prevented any attack upon them in regular order; their left secured by the river, a gun flanking the road, and their right ex- tending towards the Indians, who were posted where the wood thickened, so as to form a retiring angle with them, and to turn the enemy's flank on their advance. This dispo- sition was shown to Tecumth^, who expressed his satisfaction at it, and his last words to the general were, ** Father, tell your young men to be firm, and all will be well." He then repaired to his people, and harangued them before they were formed in their places. The small band of our regulars, discouraged by their retreat, and by the privations to I P t'' I m i'li ir I I m 358 INDIAN WARFARE. which they had long been exposed, gave way on the first advance of the enemy, and no exertion of their commander could rally them. While they were thus quickly routed, Te- cumth6 and his warriors had almost as rapidly repulsed the enemy; and the Indians con- tinued to push their advantage against them, in ignorance of the disaster of their allies, until their heroic chief fell by a rifle ball, and with him died the spirit of his followers, who were put to flight, and pursued with unrelenting slaughter. The Americans showed their re- spect for Tecumth6 in full as barbarous a manner as a hostile tribe of his own nation could have done under similar circumstances. The skin was flayed from his lifeless corpse, and made into razor strops, one of which the late Mr. Clay, of Virginia, a member c'. the American legislature, prided himself in pos- sessing. Who, in contemplating the life and death of this untutored savage, can forbear the reflection, that he only wanted a nobler sphere, and the light of education, to have :^^**^' INDIAN WARFARE. 359 left a name of brilliant renown in the annals of nations ? These are the peculiar qualities of a race who are silently, but rapidly, vanishing from the map of existence. These traits of Indian warfare and character present human nature to us in wild and interesting contrast to the artificial frame of civil society. An old retired soldier, who lives much in recollection, may sometimes be prolix ; but his garrulity will surely be pardoned in recording some of the last exploits which fate had reserved for the ** red children of the lake and the forest,' >» 111 ;■ ! ii CHARITY. • In all the parish wif re ,,as there non That to the offring before hire shulde gon. And if ther did, certain so wroth was she That she was out of alle charitee." Chauceb. n 11: II I I '{ m CHARITY. Ever since the unceremonious repulse which I gave the warm and tender assaults of my hapless Desdemona, I have become com- paratively an object of indifference to the fe- male society of our village. It was soon cir- culated through their coteries, that " Major Ravelin was not a marrying man," and their doors no longer flew open at my approach. What mother of a family could aiford to throw away her attentions upon an inveterate old ba- chelor? What despairing spinster would waste a smile to illumine the unproductive flintiness of his nature? I sunk into a cipher; and ve- rily believe that nothing but an occasional little mi m ill :.'. 364 CHARITY. fHe, which I give at my cottage, has saved me from being shunned as a barbarian. But this homage of my fealty to the sex is accepted in lieu of personal service; and I am content with the compromise, by which I escape from more serious evils, with no worse consequence than a martyrdom of quiet for a few days in the year. By the young ladies it is argued that, as long as he gives dances, even the bachelor of sixty is an animal not wholly to be despised; while their prudent mothers are more wisely agreed, that next to the man who is a suitor himself, he best serves the cause of matrimonial speculation who is readiest to convert his domicile into a mart for the ex- hibition of their disposable wares, and into a place of congregation for guUable bidders for the same. But if I am thus tolerated only by the one sex, I am viewed by the other in a far different light. I may without vanity affirm, that, throughout the male society of the place, I am the person of greatest consideration. The CHARITY. S65 precise reason for this estimation in which I am held it is not for me to determine; but the fact is indisputable, and it would seem as if several causes had assisted in producing it. In the first place, though small and unpre- tending in themselves, and necessarily con- fined to male creatures alone, my dinner parties are pronounced — and by the married men in particular — to be irresistibly pleasant. It must be, I suppose, the excellence of my wine — of my bin of the real Douro— which can thus reconcile them to the absence of their partners ; for I have nowhere perceived their countenances dilate into such comfort- able expansion of merriment and ease as under the roof of my bachelor's dwelling. However surprising it may appear, I have known men break out into the catch and the glee at my table, in whom, to view them un- der the affectionate control of their mates, you would as little expect to meet with the genius of song, as to detect the notes of the skylark in the hen sparrow. I used, in com- ) i i m i- '.it 366 CHARITY. pliment to my guests, when I first settled at my cottage and began to return the dinners of my acquaintance, to make a point of giving " the absent ladies*' as the lirst toast on removing the cloth ; but my friend Richards once whispered me that it wore too formal an appearance, and bade me observe its effects in the silence that followed. I saw that he was right, discontinued the practice, and have never since found any interruption to the hilarity of my parties. He who can hold out the expectancy of comfortable dinners to his acquaintance need scarcely ask for a stronger bond of influence over their affections. But I am also much regarded as one who has seen a great deal of the world, and valued, like madeira, for the different latitudes in which I have been tossed and shaken. It is a very general notion, that the farther a man has gone from home, the wiser he must be, and that his head must have gathered wisdom, as a snow-ball does bulk, by distance. I am accordingly re- CHARITY. 367 verenced as an oracle upon most questions of opinion, and am careful to maintain my re- putation by the deliberate gravity and dig- niiiei reflection with which my sentiments are broached. Added to these causes of the respect wherein I am held, there is yet another which has given an exalted idea of my judgment, and, it may be also, rendered me an object of some envy among certain of my acquaintance. I allude to the good seamanship with which I have steered my bark clear of the rocks, the shoals, and the quicksands of matrimony, and brought her with flying colours into the haven of my repose. This it is which has mainly gone to establish a belief in the infallibility of my wisdom, ir nd occasioned me to be ap- pealed to for opinion and advice upon the manifold occurrences of complaint and griev- ance which are wont to disturb the domestic tranquillity of my less fortunate neighbours. I always listen to the melancholy catalogue of their vexations with the utmost patience; •i^ * n m \<:\ r '! 368 CHARITY. and, if I can, assist them by such hints for tno amelioration of their lot as suggest them- selves to me. But I have found ; I easier to avoid misfortune myself than to extricate others who have already plunged over head and ears into the abyss ; and there are very many emergencies in which I can offer neither consolation nor relief. Still I listen — for this, at least, I can do — and even the relation of sufferings will often rid the patient of some of the acuteness of pain. I do not know how it is, but I invariably find that I am most disposed to hear the complainings of my (Darried acquaintance when I am myself under « lie influence of rheumatism or gout. I some- limes think that it is because sympathy for distress is at those periods most sensibly awakened within me by my own bodily feel- ings ; but this will not at all account for the fact, that I am constantly more reconciled to my own infirmities after listening to the tale of matrimonial afflictions. I am there- fore fearful that something of a less dis- CHARITY. 369 •fc* interested motive is at the bottom of my attention to their griefs. An involuntary reflection that there aro worse tilings in the world than the eiu^urance of corporeal mala- dies will, spHc ' "" myself, oblige me to extract a ray of seh-run m from the misfortunes of my friend If, indeed, tl asters of my wedded acquaintances would permanently reconcile me to the visitations of my own tormentors, I should have little lack of relief. Every day teems with some fresh detail of annoyances, of which I am made the confidential de- pository. No one married man relates his grievances to another; for the story would infallibly go round from his friend to his friend's wife, and from her again to his own, until it rebounded in thunder upon his de- voted head. I am, therefore, the only secure receptacle for grievances, and they are poured unceasingly into my accommodating ears. I have lived long enough in my retreat to dis- cover that there is, after all, a very equable B B 1 m m I It; I IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^*^% />>' C V\^ A I/. U.. 1.0 I.I l^|Z8 |2.5 !!: ii£ 12.0 ^ IE L25 i 1.4 1 1.6 "^^'J Photographic Sdesnces Corporation \ .J ,v <^ ^ 33 WIST MAIN STREET WEaSTER.N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 v^ V ^ ■/. 6^ Ik 370 CHARITY. division of suffering among my neighbours, and that the most favoured of their number have, sooner or later, wherewithal to alloy the sweets of the hymeneal cup. As the case of my friend Sober is the newest, and not the least distressing that has fallen under my ob- servation, I shall give some account of it here. . .^ Until lately, I held Sober to be (myself excepted,) the happiest person in the circle of our society J for his situation seemed to ap- proximate the nearest to my own. He had no children; and a wife of so tranquil and easy a temperament that, next to absolute freedom itself, he was as well off as a man could be. For the first ten years of his durance in vincuUs matrimonii he had scarcely a moment of care. He farmed, sported, and rode all in moderation ; and, being a perfect quietist, lived with Mrs. Sober in calm unin- terrupted good-humour: if her pursuits did not interest him, they were, at least, not opposed to his comforts. This happy tran- CHARITY. 371 quillity is at length, however, entirely at an end ; for, after getting tired, in succession, of lap-dogs, monkeys, and parrots, his better half was, about twelve months ago, seized with a fit of charitable exertion from which she has never since recovered. ' " The instant that I heard of her malady, I had no difficulty iri tracing it to its source. I had, indeed, for some time previous, ob- served with amazement how much the ladies of our village and neighbourhood had in- creased in their benevolent inquisition into every cottage, and bestirred me to discover the occasion of such new-born activity in pious avocations. I was not long unsuccess- ful in my researches. There had arrived in the village a widow lady of exceeding sanctity of manners; who, without totally excluding our little society from the benefit of her acquaintance, was understood to decline fre- quent interchanges of civilities, from the in- terruption which they occasioned to more serious duties. The poor demanded her con- B B 2 S72 CHARITY. stant care and watchful superintendence; and the only portion of her time which she did not devote immediately to them was occupied in exhorting the ladies of the place to a participation of her labours. If, in ex- citing their laudable emulation, she was led to make her own good deeds the unceasing theme of discourse, I have no doubt it pro- ceeded entirely from zeal to induce others to imitate her virtues, and not at all from any spirit of vanity or love of religious fame. She, in truth, ever spoke of her own merits with singular humility J and it must therefore have been a painful effort of duty which com- pelled her to introduce them so frequently to notice. Mrs. Hypercant, however — for such is her name — soon revolutionized the female inhabitants of our village. Charity alone was in vogue; it was present under every shape, and in every hour; it was mixed with the ordinary amusements of society, in the same manner as physic for children is administered in sweetmeats. Balls to clothe the naked CHARITY. 373 were succeeded by amateur concerts to feed the hungry J the mornings were passed by the young ladies in manufacturing articles of fancy work for the benefit of the poor, and the evenings by their admirers in raffling for the produce of their unwearied piety. Thus benevolence and dissipation, industry and gallantry, charity and gambling danced hand in hand round the place. How then could Mrs. Sober fail to take the contagion of fashionable virtues? ;^ It may appear extraordinary, that an in- crease of philanthropy and benevolence to- wards the whole species should entail a mar- trydom of domestic enjoyment upon any individual of the community; but poor Sober soon discovered to his grief that there was too much of truth to be found under this seeming paradox. His wife's charity was so far from beginning at home, that it never came near it. He suffered, however, in si- lence; and it was many months after the wreck of his quietude, before I became ac^ i\ n 374 CHARITY. #n. ■m quainted with the change. He had at length an opportunity of unbosoming himself to me. In one of the very worst nights of the last winter, I had just before bed-time drawn my arm-chair close to the fire, and was listening very composedly to the wind and sleet which howled round the house, and rattled against the windows with unusual violence, when I was roused by a knocking at the door, and much surprised at seeing my friend Sober walk into the apartment, cased in a complete armour of icicles. From the rueful expression of his countenance, and his appearance alto- gether, I was at first apprehensive that it must be some unexpected and dreadful oc- currence which had drawn him forth on such a night. I was half fearful of inquiring the cause of his visit; but he reassured me, by saying that he had only been as far as the blacksmith's, and called in to sit half an hour with me on his return. Havresack ex- tricated him from his great-coat, I recom- mended some inward lining as a protection CHARITY. 375 against the cold, and my valet placed the necessary apparatus upon the tables. When he began to thaw under the genial influence of cogniac, I asked what in the name of wonder could have taken him to the black- smith's, in such weather, and at such an hour. " A false report that the fellow had broken his leg, with which some village urchin had imposed upon Mrs. Sober." " I thought that in such a case the doctor would have been the most useful personage to have de- spatched to the man's assistance." " Yes, so he would : and Mrs. Sober had sent the horse and servant off for him ; but, in the mean time, nothing would content her but he must himself walk out to discover the extent of the accident." " Very kind of her," said I j " and you have had the satisfaction of finding that the blacksmith's legs are as sound as your own." " Yes : and of being laughed at into the bargain for my trouble, I suppose, by the scoundrel and his boon companions, whom I found carousing over their ale — I i m ¥ f!; 876 CHARITY. wish the rascal's neck had been broken in- stead of his leg, which was not." I saw that something had ruffled my quiescent friend, and observed, by way of palliative, that he must, at all events, derive pleasure from the consciousness of having intended an act of charity — I had touched on the chord of his grievances. "Charity! my dear major; for God's sake, name not the word, for it has led me the life of a dog for the last six months '* He then burst forth into a pathetic enumeration of the mode in which the peace of his domestic hours had been utterly de- stroyed, by the unbounded rage for charitable donation which agitated his wife. The story of his misfortunes would be voluminous; I shall only repeat a few of the circumstances upon which he touched. He told me that the first symptom of Mrs. Sober's malady occurred one day at the dinner hour. The Sobers are punctual people ; and quarter after quarter had succeeded, to the husband's surprise, without the lady's CHARITY. 377 appearance. At last she came, and he ven- tured to inquire the cause of her delay. " I have been better employed, Mr. Sober," was the reply ; " and it is really quite heart-rend- ing to think how ill we can bear to wait a few minutes for a meal, while those poor Hodges are almost entirely without one." It was a just reflection, thought he, though its applica- tion to his impatience might have been spared. He pitied his poor neighbours, and ate his dinner in silence. At the vestry-meeting next day, heleaint that Dick Hodge was the most drunken vagabond in the parish; that his wife was an arrant jade, and that they had parochial relief to a greater extent than many others in the pd,rish with much larger families. " Still," thought he, ** a feeling heart is a delightful trait in a woman; my wife was right in intention;" and he went home cheerfully to his fireside. He found Mrs. Hypercant occupying one side of the chimney — his wife the other — the table co- vered with linen and woollen for dresses — 378 CHARITY. and the two ladies busily engaged in cutting out shirts and petticoats, the shreds of which strewed the floor. He was told by Mrs. Hy- percant that the season promised to be dread- fully severe — a fact to which his own distance from the fire made him keenly alive, and that Mrs. Sober's benevolence would draw down the blessings of the neighbourhood upon their dwelling. . She kindly promised to dis- tribute the articles for his wife, as fast as they could be made, to spare her the trouble. " To clothe the naked," said my friend to himself, " is a Christian duty; but why rob industry of a part of its earnings, by making up these dresses themselves, instead of em- ploying those to do so who gain a livelihood by it? we can well afford the cost of their labour; and, when the clothing is made up, T think my wife might just as well use her own judgment in its distribution. This Mrs. Hy- percant, however, is certainly most active in the cause of charity." The same reflection was again powerfully impressed upon his mind CHAIUTY. 379 the next day, when, happening to meet that lady, she showed him some broth which she was herself carrying under her cloak to a sick man, and begged a pound of him for a poor family who had been burnt out. ' ' From this period, the intimacy of the two ladies increased, aiid his house has become the charitable depot of the parish. Mrs. Hy- percant is president of a lying-in society, of which his wife is treasurer, secretary, and, I believe, generally paymaster, to boot. Poor Sober was, at first, under serious alarm, when he saw baby-linen making up in the house j but was assured that it was not for home consump- tion : and, indeed, he soon found, that it was intended to encourage population in the vil- lage. The habits of his house have been re- versed : caudle and soup for the poor are in eternal preparation ; and he protested to me that it is work enough for two servants to carry cargos of comforts for the sick back- wards and forwards. " All this, my dear friend," said the unhappy man to me, " I ' 1 ! i 380 CHARITY. think I could bear ; but, in charity to fellow- creatures, even care of the lower world is disregarded. The cat, for a long time, has had no food but such mice as she can catch ; and both she and my old pointer Basto are so piteously lean that it is wretched to see them. I dare not give the poor dog a morsel from my plate, as formerly, lest I should meet with a reproof for wasting on him what my fellow-beings would be glad of; and the cook, who is grown as charitable as her mistress, positively refuses to spare my poor favourite a bone, because every thing is wanted for the soup for the poor.** I heard these, and many other similar de- tails, without interruption j for my friend was evidently much relieved by the recital. But when he had drawn his chapter of annoyances to a close, and implored my advice how he should act to procure a reformation in his household, I confess I was puzzled. I could at last suggest no other remedy but patience, though at the hazard of his dying under the CHARITY. 381 prescription. It was evident, however, that the surest mode of confirming his wife in her passion for charity would be to oppose her in its exercise. " You would then, my dear Sober," said I, " put in array against yourself two of the strongest springs of action which can agitate the heart of a female — the deter- mination to do as she pleases, and the belief that what she pleases is also a duty of pious obligation. Perseverance would, in such cases, yield her present pleasure on earth, and the hope of heaven hereafter." " For pity's sake, then, my dear Major, what am I to do?" " Exert your philosophy, and all will be Well. — How long," inquired I, " has your wife ever been constant to the same fancy, or fond of the same pet?" He did not exactly know — " she had been fond of a green monkey for a greater period than any thing else he could remember, until the poor animal had died of repletion early in the second year of its reign." " Then, depend upon it," said I, " that relief is before you— ■-.■« 4 382 CHARITY. .ii^r the woman who cannot attach herself to the same monkey, or the same parrot, for above twelve months together, will, if she meet not with opposition, scarcely require a much longer limit in wearing a passion * to tatters;* even though that passion be charity." My friend finished his glass, called for his great- coat, and gave me a parting shake of the hand, with the observation that he was much the easier in mind for his visit to me. Poor Sober! he is really to be pitied; and, unfortunately, his case is that of the master of every house where Mrs. Hypercant has influence with the mistress. But ladies must have employment ; and if the comforts of their own families merely were destroyed by the injudicious rage for charity, sympathy for their husbands could scarcely be claimed. There is, I am afraid, a much deeper evil behind. The poor are positively oppressed with benevolence ; and, as the field becomes narrower for its exercise, the ladies are all quarrelling to which of them this and that CHARITY. 383 peasant's family belongs : woe be it now to her who presumes to hunt in another's pre- serve of charity; for personal hostility would surely break in upon the work of peace. 1 am no political economist, and remain happily ignorant alike of the dogmas of Malthus and Godwin; but it cannot fail to strike even a quiet observer like myself, that the labouring classes are deteriorated by a constant habit of dependence upon public, and more particu- larly private, bounty ; and that indiscriminate charity is undermining the foundations of that honest pride in our peasantry which has made the country what it is. Let the hand and the heart never be wanting to succour struggling industry, and to support the afflic- tions of the poor under sickness ; but it would surely be well to remember the adage, ** est modus in rebus," and to raise our earnest pro- test against the system which would render charity the mere resource of the idle to kill time, or the pernicious means of indulgence in a criminal vanity. 1 ^j' H .'ft*, THE ART OF RISING. "He Must serve who fain would sway — and soothe— and sue — And watch all time — and pry into all place — And be a living lie — who would become A mighty thing among the mean." Bybon. C C *, THE ART OF RISING. I ATTRIBUTE it, ill somc mcasiire, to the in- fluence of the same malignant destiny which thwarted my poor mother's purpose of making me a bishop, that, after a service of seven and thirty years in all quarters of the globe, I have received no higher reward to grace my retire- ment than the humble title of Major, and the companionship of the Bath. But reflection has convinced me that by far the most power- ful obstacle to my elevation had its origin in a widely different cause, my ignorance of the art of rising. To this defect in my pro- fessional acquirements may it be ascribed, that I lay like a log on the ocean, for every c c '2 « .388 THE ART OF RISING. straw to float past me: hence it was, that while fortune rained brevet and regimental rank like manna about my ears, none of the genial shower fell on my shoulders, until they were too weary to carry the burthen. I can remember when the bare sight of an army list would make me bilious for a week, and every fresh announcement of promotions in the Gazette occasion me a fit of indigestion. I could never run my eye over the list of the officers of any corps, without full a dozen names staring me in the face as superiors, whose date of commission had once yielded to mine. I followed the praiseworthy military practice of searching out every instance of a more prosperous course than my own, and had thus always an ample fund of dissatisfac- tion in store : I never observed how many men I might myself have outstripped in pro- motion; for to what purpose should one pry into the disasters of others ? All I knew, or cared to know, was, that there were those who had left me behind in the race. THE ART OF RISING. 389 But, in truth, I am at last very far from being singular in misfortune ; for in all my acquaintance with military men and matters, I cannot recollect ever to have seen or heard of a single individual who had not some cause of complaint on the score of advancement ; so very difficult a thing is the adequate reward of merit. There was an officer of the staff who embarked at Bourdeaux, in the summer of 1814, on service for the coast of America, as a lieutenant. In a very few months he was three times recommended for promotion, after the affiiirs of Washington, Baltimore, and New Orleans ; but these three recommenda- tions were followed only by two steps of pre- ferment, a company and a majority ; so that, after the battle of Waterloo, he had yet his lieutenant-colonelcy to receive, as the result of that victory. He complains, and with rea- son, of the hardship of his case, in rising only from a lieutenancy to a lieutenant-colonelcy in less than twelve months j when he ought, in addition to his rank, to have been a knight 390 THE ART OJ iv'.SINO. of the Bath, if his American services had been followed, as they sliould, by three pro- motions instead of two j because there would then have been no distinction left for him to gain on the field of Waterloo, but the cross of a commander of the Bath. I only men- tion this instance, to show how adverse for- tune will overtake a man, and load him with occasion for discontent. But it would be endless to enumerate all the mischances and grievances of the pro- fession, from which it should seem that there is no exemption, since every individual can relate such as have befallen himself. To re- turn, therefore, to my own failure in the at- tainment of rank; I set it down, as already observed, partly to my luckless stars, which, by the way, on every change of quarters, re- gularly threw me into the worst billet in the place, but mainly to my utter ignorance of the art of rising. Experience, like fortunes in the East, is never gained until one is past the enjoyment of the property j and I only THE ART OF RISING. 391 acquired some insight into the valuable art to which I have alluded, when I had almost ceased to have need of its assistance. It however occurred to me, as I was the other evening rambling through the mazes of the shrubbery which encircles my cot, • **. sicut meu8 est mos. ' ' ** Nesdo quid meditana nuganim, ■■ — " that 1 had no right to hoard my wealth in concealment from the world, because I could not use it myself; and I have since deter- mined, in the spirit of philanthropy, to pub- lish a few hints on the various modes of rising, for the improvement of such learners as may wish to avail themselvek of my tuition. Like the Worthy rector 6f our parish, Mr. Scruples, I shall divide my discourse into the heads naturally induced by the subject ; for of whai value is instruction, if>the lucidus drdo be wanting? Of the irt bf rising, then, the first and most effectual mode — I am not speaking for people of weak minds, and squeamish ima- S92 THE ART OF RISING. ginations — is through the benign influence of the softer sex. There are various ways in which a man's fortune may thus be made ; but I shall glance only at an example or two. Every one knows that, through all the gra- dations of society, there is no surer channel of preferment than if a man of rank and a dispenser of patronage should chance to feel a platonic or sentimental friendship for a wife, a sister, or any other near female re- lative. Many military illustrations, very much to the point, might be adduced in proof of the fact ; — ^whole families have learnt to glitter in the army list, and to bask in the heat of Asiatic patronage, solely by a right under- standing of this simple principle ; — but it is not to my purpose to enter largely into par- ticulars. But the lady who is the instrument of good need not always have been originally a relative of the party benefited. I have a circumstance in my memory which may throw a little light upon this assertion. After our return to England, in my younger days, from * 4 THE ART OF RISING. 393 the glorious career of the American Revo- lutionary War, the quarter-master of the re- giment obtained leave of absence; and, when he joined us again, brought a wife with him. Jenkins was not young himself, and the lady appeared to be well suited to his time of life. She was apparently five or six and thirty years of age, with a fine face, and person very little the worse for wear. It was soon dis- covered that she had brought money to the happy man ; and, as they entertained in a liberal, hospitable style, Jenkins was warmly congratulated upon his good fortune by all who drank his wine, and found it rich and generous. Shortly after Mrs. Jenkins was in- troduced at the regiment our quarters were transferred to Southampton, and water-par- ties became all the rage of the hour. We were one day, the quarter-master and his spouse being of the party, rowing over to a pic-nic dinner at the Isle of Wight, when we were passed by the captain's barge of a fri- gate in the offing. The commander was him- J ] 394 THE ART OF HISINO. self in the boat, and the quarter-master's lady inquired witii much sang fro id ^ as the barge darted past us, if any one knew who he was, observing that he appeared to be a remark- ably handsome man. N.> one could inform her J but I notice! t'ual j[)"()r Jenkins began to whistle with a cu > is expression of coun- tenance. We dined on the island, and the quarter-master drank with unusual freedom. When we returned to the beach, the frigate was still lying at anchor in the road, and Jenkins no sooner saw her than, to the sur- prise of the party, he rushed at once up to his neck into the water. He was brought out again, and the extravagance of the act, which excited much merriment at the moment, was imputed to the influence of the wine which he had taken. To all our inquiries what could have induced him to choose a cold lu ) after , \y unusual a fashion, he would only reply in a dogged manner, ** that he was a dirty scoundrel, and had run in to wash himself." A day or two produced a solution I! THE ART OF RISING. 395 to the enigma ; for the bride of Jenkins was recog/iisrd in the streets of Southampton, by one of the crew of the frigate, as the ci-devant companion of the-'- captain, who was a man of^ liigh family, and h. I pen.sioneil the lady to procure the quarter-m >ter*s acceptance of her hand, and rid i^. ,seii, m weariless, of her society. The next variety in t hi art of rising is of scarcely less vital coi ucnce than the last. It consists in deep itioii to the line of conduct fittest to be ad »pted at the tables of the great. I am so im essed with the ex- tent and importance of liis branch of the business, that I quite desptair of being able to embrace the tenth part or the subject within the compass of a paper. ought, indeed, to f(irm a separate essay of itself; and I am persi aded that a pocket volume of "In- structions for the Dinner Table" might be compded to the inestimable benefit of aides- de-camp, military secretaries, &c. If executed with {:roper judgment and tact, I have no • :i ^ 396 THE ART OF RISING. doubt that such a book would be in the hands of every staff officer. This idea, which I merely throw out, may hereafter give em- ployment for some abler head than my own ; but, on the present occasion, I must confine myself to a few passing remarks upon the leading points for attention. It is a general rule, which admits of no exception either in civil or military life, that, if there be two kinds of wine on the table of a patron or general officer, the candidate for advance- ment must drink only of the worst. It is in- dispensable, it is invariably expected ; and, as the practice is at least as old as the days of Juvenal, there can be no room for question but that the principle must be a correct one. The inquiring observer will perceive that a bottle of claret or burgundy is seldom placed on the board, where great and small folks are assembled together, without its accom- paniment of humble port ; that prime madeira is always flanked by inferior sherry, old hock by common rhenish, and cordial constantia, li THE ART OF RISING. 397 or Cyprus, by cherry-bounce. Now, once for all, let it be engraved as an immutable law upon the memory of every little man, that only the port, the sherry, the rhenish, and the bounce are intended for i ' a. I take it for granted that no one, who has seen aught of the world, will be disposed to quarrel with the soundness of this truth; and I come next to another, which is a perfect corollary to it, — that whatever is brought to table must be pronounced by the tyro in the art of rising to be excellent of its kind. For instance, I remember that a general officer, who has since been gathered to his fathers, and was in his day a brave and zealous soldier, and a celebrated tactitian, used, when his head- quarters were held at a sea-port, to buy up fish for his household which had been for some days in the market. His taste was peculiar in that way ; and as he had amassed wealth without having children to inherit his gains, it cannot be supposed that economy was the object; but it did so happen that the fish was generally -J * 398 THE ART OF RISING. cheaper, according to the length of the period of its liberation from the ocean. Now the course to be pursued under such a circumstance was evident : if the general thought fish the better, as he was sometimes wont to assert, for being kept for three or four days, the dexterous aspirant had only to declare his opinion that turbot or mackarel were scarcely eatable until they had been at least a week on the sham- bles. But I must stop, or I shall soon swell my remarks into the dissertation which I would reserve for another hand. The watch- fulness to anticipate every wish of the man of rank before he is himself conscious of having formed it, the readiness to sit at a side- table, ring a bell, or draw a cork ; these, and many other compliances of the same descrip- tion, are points so manifestly essential, and so easy of practice, that I shall not insist upon them in this place. I would only repeat, that the offices of the table must be the last thing neglected by the man who would rise in the world. I have heard that the best school ^m THE ART OF RISING. 399 of instruction, the best examples of prac- tical humility on this score, are to be sought at the board, and among the domestic chap- lains, of a bishop ; but this is probably a mistake. Recommending the whole of my last head of precept to the serious reflection of the stu- dent, I pass to a third branch of the art, fre- quently indeed connected with the duties of the table, but which, notwithstanding, fully deserves to be treated by itself; I mean the modes of carriage, conversation, and general deportment towards superiors. Here again there are some rules of behaviour so obvious in themselvLJ, that they need not be dwelt upon J but there are others which may be listened to with profit. No inducement, no condescension, must ever tempt the individual who, as the phrase goes, " has his fortune to make," to feel upon easy terms with a pa- tron. He might as well fall asleep with a pipe in his mouth over an open barrel of gun- powder. If he should be admitted to the m 400 THE ART OF RISING. honour of walking with a man of rank, he must be careful not to lounge or stroll along the 2)ctvS with an air of forgetful indifference; his place is a very little in rear of his com- panion — not a sufficient distance behind to render it necessary for his superior absolutely to turn the head round to converse with him, for the effort might be troublesome — ^but just enough to show that he feels where he is. The Prussian, and more particularly the Austrian, officers have attained an admirable degree of perfection in this way. When two or more of them are walking together, if equals, they of course are arm in arm in a straight line ; if the field officer should chance to promenade with the captain, or the captain with the subaltern, the junior officer invariably locks only half his arm into that of his com- panion, by which he preserves his station be- hind the shoulder of the senior; but if it should by possibility occur that the com- manding officer demeaned himself by offering an arm to a subaltern, the latter would be -'■7- THE ART OF IITSING. 401 perfectly acquainted with his duty ; he would rest the tips of his fingers on the sleeve of his superior, and follow him at arm's length. Thus may you see a string of Austrians linked in gradation, and led, like a flock of wild geese, by the most dignified of the brood, so that it is utterly impossible to mis- take for a moment the relative rank of the individuals of the party. But the most difficult attainment is to re- gulate conversation with propriety. To hold a different set of opinions from the man of distinction, on whom you depend for advance- ment, is of course most completely out of the question j and yet, if you always agree with him, it is much 'to be feared that the dialogue will flag. I can provide no better suggestion for the removal of this embarrass- ing contingency, than occasionally to com- mence with hazarding a doubt on the point under discussion j the "great man insists upon the unerring decisions of his judgment ; you D D :l I I I I > I 402 THE ART OF RISING. put forward the weakest and most absurd argument that you can imagine against him ; he triumphantly exposes its fallacy ;. you ad- vance a second of the same kind; he defeats you again, and you may then safely be con- vinced ; you lose your argument, but win his approbation ; and what can a man desire more— except the promotion which follows it? I have now concluded my brief exposition of the leading principles of the art of rising. I am conscious that it offers but a mere out- line, and contains little more than the raw elements of a more detailed course of in- struction ; but it will at least assist the be- ginner, and much must afterwards depend upon the inborn genius of the pupil. And, to confess the fact, I apprehend that when every possible aid of tuition has been given to the learner, it must, at last, fall in efficacy very far short of the natural advantages en- joyed by some gifted individuals. A good deal has at times been said of the value of THE ART OP RISING. 408 being born at the northern extremity of this island : it is most indubitably both a rich in- heritance in itself, and a wonderfbl further- ance on the road to promotion. But I am not sure that, in the army, it is not just as fortunate to have sprung from the ranks ; a man has then acquired such a suppleness and accommodating disposition at th€ commence- ment of his career, that, if he afterwards be- comes an officer, he is usually fit almost for any thing. When I was but a young soldier, and unable to see very clearly into these mat- ters, I could not avoid once expressing my surprise to an acquaintance of more expe- rience than myself, that the staff of general officers should so frequently consist of in- dividuals who had risen from the ranks; *< My good fellow,** was the reply, " the reason is the simplest in the world ; such men are the laudare paratl, and consequently form most agreeable appendages to rank. Besides this, they have generally qualifications which are D D 2 404 THE ART OF RISING. inestimable ; for, from the duties of a field- day down to the^ polishing of a boot, there is nothing beyond the extent of their capacity or zeal." I might, perhaps, have derived an useful lesson from the hint, and learnt how to steer my bark in the same track ; but, somehow or other, I never could manage it. By attentive comparison of my lot with the station now held by some of my contemporaries, and by bringing to mind all the opportunities which I neglected of ingratiating myself with the powerful, I have clearly ascertained that, in- stead of a half-pay major, I should have been a major-general in the very last brevet, if I had assiduously cultivated the art of rising, while the exercise of its principles might have served me. But it is now of little moment ; the possession of rank could neither add a jot to my happiness, nor repel one twitch of my gout J since I have enough for my wants, it could not make me richer j and if all the THE ART OF RISING. 405 I is under the sun were heaped on my head, they could not yield more than I possess without them, the blessings of ease, a peace- ful retreat, and honest independence. There is yet another consideration which may per- haps appear light in the scale, but, such as it is, I could not afford to exchange it for the best government under the crown j the re- flection that I never converted the coat of a soldier into the livery of the slave. Should there be those entering on their course who can feel that there are other things of more import to a man than the mere attainment of rank, to such would I say, that while observa- tion has taught me how individuals may and do rise in the world, it has instructed me also how they may continue respectable j that I have ever found implicit attention to all the duties of the profession, and manly respect for authority, perfectly compatible with mental independence j and that the upright discharge of every office of obedience and 406 THE ART OF RISING. subordination, without the slightest admixture of servility, will be either the best preparation for command, if success attend their exertions, or a source of the proudest satisfaction if they fail. A WOKD AT PARTING. . " L'envoy is an epilogue, or discourse, to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath before been sain. I will example it." , , . t ««-, *^ Love s Laboue Lost. A WORD AT PARTING. 4 I HAVE now completed the selection of those among my various lucubrations which I design for the public eye; and, lest the reader shall have failed to discover their excellence, am here bound to deliver upon compulsion my reasons for having inflicted a whole volume upon him. In truth, like other great authors, I have not printed without the advice of friends. On consulting my nephew upon the case, I was told by him that the foregoing papers can scarcely yield in im- portance and interest to my grand forth- coming work on the Pike. I was puzzled to 410 A WORD AT PARTING. discover whether he intended this opinion in sober seriousness or irony; for it savoured most strongly, after the true manner of his profession, of a double construction. But, be it as it might, I had too much respect for that excellent body, the public, to admit the possibility of likening their judgment to his. As my mind, however, still misgave me upon the propriety of hazarding one iota of the splendid reputation which my great book is designed to secure to me, by the publication of a bundle of insignificant essays, I deemed it prudent to confer with another and more sedate personage than the young lawyer. But the difficulty was whom then to take into my counsels. 0*Grady, unhappily for me, has been shooting in the Highlands for the last two months, and I can only sigh in vain for his presence and opinion. Over a brace of the birds, by whose arrival he is ever and anon convincing me that Humphrey is not for- gotten in bis sport, and with the aid of a A WORD AT PARTING. 411 bottle of my milky sherry, I have little doubt we should have settled the question admirably. But it is difficult to say how far his modesty would have permitted that record of his worth, which, however it may interest the world, has, at least, to me afforded the most grateful occupation of my careless hours. And let this, my old and true friend ! be my excuse that I have made free with thy name, and extended the light of thy virtues. I have said that my mind misgave me after consultation with Master Edward, and that 0*Grady being absent, I knew hot where to turn for advice. My nephew, holding the country and country people in sovereign contempt, increased my embarrassment by the declaration that no man in his senses would ever think of seeking a literary opinion beyond the purlieus of the metropolis; and I was in despair, just meditating a visit to London, to procure judgment upon my MS. when a sudden thought shot across me. I 412 A WORD AT PARTING. had sometime and somewhere read of a Dean who discreetly laid his sermons for approval before his cook j and why should not I submit my lucubrations, upon the same principle, to pass muster before my domestic factotum? " Jonathan," said I to myself, " will be, at least, as good a judge of military, as the cook was of religious affairs." I took my resolu- tion on the instant. I confess I had at first sad difficulty in prevailing upon Havresack to understand what I meant by making a book. But he, in the end, saw the thing perfectly, compre- hended the full dignity of the office of lite- rary counsellor with which I invested him, and pronounced, ej; cathedra, the following opinion : " That he had, somehow or other, always found the people like his stories of old times and campaigning well enough." The conclusions of honest Jonathan's expe- rience were sufficient to fix my wandering A WORD AT PARTING. 413 resolves. I may, at least, hope to be as for- tunate as my man; and, if so, I shall be satisiied. I have determined to publish. To-morrow morning, as soon as the cock shall have sounded his reviellez, private Havresack is to parade in heavy marching order under my window, with a route, directing him to my esteemed friends, the Messrs. Whittakers, and " others whom it may concern." He carries with him six days' subsistence for the march to London and back; and, instead of his blanket, as ordered by regulation, my MS. neatly folded in flannel, and strapped over his knapsack. While he is dreaming of suc- cess, and " healths five fathoms deep" in honour of it, I am now seated by the ** sea coal fire," in my sanctum ; and, as the village clock is chiming three-quarters past midnight, am inditing a parting word to thee, O reader, under the same pleasurable excitement with which Gibbon penned the last sentences of his immortal work. My parting word to thee y ■'f. i 414 A WORD AT PARTING. shall be no more than this: — if, in toiling through my lucubrations, thou hast found me garrulous and tiresome, yield me thy pardon ; but, if thou hast discovered aught to amuse thee, thy approbation shall shed one more ray of sunshine upon the cottage of Humphrey Ravelin. THE END. *,%:, "«»* f «: >' » #~ ' ^ -■*.■■' ( I i\ i p iiHii^inK'* I. ih tt ^Mi k imm MSBt^Z