their dazzling panoply, were passing and repassing before my eyes, with all the admirable precision of military movements; while the towers of Westminster Abbey rose majestically above the surrounding foliage, and the joy-bells poured forth a glorious peal in honour of Vimeira, the first of our immortal series of Peninsular triumphs.

Then, indeed, did my bosom swell with military ardour; and so unreasonable did it appear that my father should object to my choice of the army as a profession, that I actually wondered how any human being could ever think of any other. Apprehending, now, that all the battles would be won before I had time even to buckle on my armour, I urged my brother not to lose a moment in preparing me for the field; and he, smiling at my boyish enthusiasm, accordingly addressed himself to this high emprise. Nor did he experience much difficulty in the matter. Through the influence of the member for our county, who reckoned on a quid pro quo from my father at the next general election, I was appointed to an ensigncy in the Hereford Militia, and lost no time, when my outfit was completed, in starting for Chelmsford, the head-quarters of the regiment.

CHAPTER IV.

THE THREATENING LETTER.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when I arrived at Chelmsford; and having somewhat arranged my outward man after my journey, at the inn where the coach stopped I inquired my way to the barracks.

On entering the gateway, the smart slap of the sentry on the butt of his musket, as he carried arms to a young officer who was entering at the same moment, attracted my attention to the latter, and I begged he would be kind enough to direct me to the quarters of Sir George Cornwall, the commanding officer. He very politely offered to conduct me thither, and we accordingly walked across the barrackyard, where several squads of recruits and defaulters were at drill; two or three horses in body-clothes being trotted about by a groom in livery, and some buglers and drum-boys practising the roll-call and tattoo on their respective instruments.

We found Sir George amusing himself in his barrack-room with his violoncello, which he played remarkably well. He was a tall, elegant-looking man, with a pleasing aristocratic countenance, but very deaf. He received me most graciously; and after chatting a few moments, consigned me to the care of my conductor, Lieutenant Richardson, to show me the lions, and assist me in my barrack arrangements.

This task Richardson undertook con amore, being a lively, goodnatured fellow in the main, with some crotchets of his own, however, which showed themselves on further acquaintance. He introduced

me to the quartermaster, who immediately furnished me with a barrack-room, and to the adjutant, who supplied me with a servant. We then proceeded to the mess-room, where I was introduced to several other young fellows, with whom I lunched, and we were speedily on the best possible terms with each other. My fidus Achates next accompanied me into town, where he introduced me to Solomon Levi, from whom I purchased some barrack furniture; to the billiardroom, where we had a rubber or two; and to some pretty milliners, with whom we flirted till the first bugle warned us to dress for dinner.

It was a day to be remembered amongst the res gesta of the Blakes, when I first donned my regimentals with apple-green facings, Herefordshire being proverbially the "Land of Cider." On this great occasion, my servant, Tom King, was materially assisted in his multifarious duties of valet by my friend Richardson, who really seemed to take a pride in his new protégé, for it was his great hobby to chaperon and patronize all recent arrivals, by inducting them into all the vices and follies of military life, till he either got tired of them, or they of him. Accordingly, after some learned discussions between my two assistants, as to the exact quantity of pomatum and powder, the regulated length of my false queue, and the tying of my sash before, or behind, I was at length turned out, it was admitted on all hands, a most unexceptionable recruit.

The mess-room was crowded, as we entered, with the officers of the regiment and several civilians, as guests of the day; and I was presented, in succession, to every one of any consequence, being received by all with the utmost kindness and urbanity. Our regiment was highly aristocratic: Sir George Cornwall was an old baronet; the Honourable Thomas Foley was our lieutenant-colonel; Lord Rodney captain of the light company, and his brother, the Honourable (and truly amiable) Thomas Harley, captain of grenadiers, besides several other off-shoots of noble houses. The mess was richly furnished with plate; we ate off china; and champagne, at that time a luxury confined to certain classes, encouraged the "feast of reason and the flow of soul," on stranger days" especially, such as the present; while an excellent band alternately played opera airs and overtures, or sang madrigals, glees, and catches in full chorus for our entertainment.

66

Nothing could be more delightful than this my coup d'essai in my new career, and pleasant dreams that night, in my comfortable camp bed, seemed to augur a happy future. In the morning, Tom King lit my fire, made my breakfast, prepared my clothes for dressing, and called me just ten minutes before the first bugle had sounded for parade. Everything, in short, was done with the most perfect regularity and precision, and I had little or no occasion to exercise any thought myself; my wants being all supplied and my wishes anticipated as if I had been some favoured prince in fairy-land.

On parade, I underwent a more critical scrutiny, with reference, at least, to personal appearance, than on the previous evening; and I was happy to find that the tacit verdict was favourable; for, on being

posted to a battalion company, Lord Rodney applied to have me in the Light Bobs, and his wishes being acceded to, I was directed to supply myself forthwith with wings and a sabre and sling-belt, in lieu of the epaulette, frog-belt, and straight sword with which I had joined. The good-natured reader will, I hope, excuse me for dwelling on such trifles as these; but they were my halcyon days, an oasis in the broad desert of my chequered existence.

I spent that evening at a barrack soirée, given by our major's lady; and though we were somewhat restricted for room, we were not the less happy. Several of the Chelmsford belles being amongst the company, the card-tables were voted a bore, and consigned to the passage; a carpet-dance was improvised, our hostess sat down to the piano, I occasionally assisted her with the violin, while "Sir Roger de Coverley" and the Boulanger, those venerable relics of the olden time, were danced with grace and spirit, in spite of the intervening obstacles of tables, chairs, sofas, and book-shelves.

This was all, in turf parlance, going upon velvet; but the reader is not, therefore, to infer that I met with no checks in my career, to remind me of the common lot of humanity. Though still comparatively happy, I soon began to find I was not exempt from these; for, as my old favourite Hudibras so pathetically sings,

"Ay, me! what perils do environ

The man that meddles with cold iron!
What plaguy mischiefs and mishaps
Do dog him still with after-claps!"

In the first place, I was handed over to the drill-sergeant, who put me through the goose-step and firelock drill, with the most stern and unbending rigour; and as these diabolical evolutions were all performed in public, I had the gratification of seeing drum-boys and camp-colour men constantly sneering at my awkwardness; while occasionally a pretty girl would pass the barrack-gate, when I was in the crisis of a right-go!" in the goose-step, with one leg stuck out behind in a most ungraceful angle of incidence with the remainder of my body.

To the drill-sergeant succeeded the adjutant, with company and skeleton-drill, while the major stood by, picking holes in my jacket for losing my distance, or directing me to hold up my head and throw back my shoulders; he himself being the most clumsy and misshapen mass of flesh that could be imagined. On one occasion, this functionary hurt my amour propre in a manner that I can never forget or forgive.

It was our Sunday evening parade, and all the belles and beaux of Chelmsford were walking up and down the barrack-yard, listening to our beautiful band. I had, it seems, ventured to deviate from the ordinary routine in some trifling matter of parade etiquette, when this "bustling botherby" of a major, desirous of showing the world that he had something to do for his money, rode furiously up to me, and demanded my reason for so heretical a deviation from the Law and the Prophets. I very innocently replied that I thought my

manner of performing the duty in question was an improvement on the old method.

"You thought, sir!" cried the major, foaming at the mouth. "How dare you think, sir? never let me hear of your thinking again, sir!" The reader may judge of my confusion, mortification and wrath, when I saw Miss Julia Densham, a rich heiress, with whom I had lately fallen in love, show her beautiful teeth in a most unequivocal smile, which I thought anything but comme il faut, under the circumstances. In the agony of the moment I made a mental vow never again to think upon any subject whatever connected with my military duties; and, after mature experience, I now recommend this, as a very safe rule to begin with, to the junior branches of the army, especially those military tyros who are familiarly denominated "Fiveand-threepenny targets.'

But all these rebuffs, serious as I then thought them, were "trifles light as air" to the next "untoward event," to which I was very nearly falling a victim.

Having taken offence at my commanding officer for supplanting me, one evening, at a ball, in the honour of dancing with Miss Julia Densham, the heiress upon whom, as I before said, I had last fixed my somewhat erratic affections, I took up my pen, determined to chastise him for his presumption, and wrote him a letter of three foolscap pages, of a most inflammatory and "aggravating" description. In this I larded the leanness of my own composition by copious quotations from Lindley Murray and Tooke's "Pantheon," all tending to liken him to one of those powerful and ruthless tyrants who, in the olden time, took a pleasure in baffling the wishes and blighting the happiness of sighing Strephons and of ladies fair.

The consequence of this precocious and pugnacious proceeding was, that I found myself, one fine morning, in close arrest; a sentry was placed at my door, and old Rivet, the adjutant, having marched off with my sword, soon after marched back with a list of charges to be preferred against me, as long as my arm. Sir George had doubtless laughed at my boyish folly, for I had actually only completed my fifteenth year, but thought it necessary to give me at least a salutary fright on the occasion.

In the pride of composition, and to give due force to my philippic, I had witten it in a very antithetical style, which has since been adopted by the erudite author of "Lacon; so that it was, in fact, nothing more nor less than a string of about twenty epigrams put together as chance directed.

My own style was now retorted on me; every epigram produced a separate charge, and every charge began with the awful preamble, "for conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, and highly subversive of military discipline." Every paragraph of my unfortunate epistle was ingeniously discovered to be an infraction of some specific article of war; in short, the whole Mutiny Act seemed to have been devised and invented solely to preclude the possibility of my becoming commander-in-chief, or marrying an heiress.

I leave my readers to judge of the consternation I was in at the formidable array of pains and penalties I had so inadvertently incurred, for I had never anticipated a legal proceeding on the part of Sir George, who was certainly bound by all the laws of honour to settle the affair in a gentlemanly manner, with coffee and pistols. As the case stood, however, shooting and quartering was the most merciful sentence I could possibly expect; and the idea of quitting this best of all possible worlds, when I was only, as it were, on the very threshold, put me into a most horrible fright. My hair, it is true, did not turn grey, at least perceptibly, owing to the quantity of powder I wore; but I'll venture to say that, were it not for the stringent mass of pomatum which was then de rigueur, it would have stood on end, "like quills upon the fretful porcupine," even to the very extremity of my false queue.

Old Rivet, the adjutant, whose heart was as hard as the nether millstone, and unfeeling as the halbert from which he had just been promoted, "grinned horribly a ghastly smile" at the impression he had made, and duly reported my fallen estate to my powerful oppressor. This fell tyrant, as I deemed him, had the cruelty to leave me in an agony of suspense for a whole week; during which I was quizzed to death by my brother-officers, and confined to my barrack-room, which seemed worse than Trenck's dungeon, or Dante's "Inferno," "where hope never comes." Talk of the Black Hole of Calcutta! it was a breezy mountain-top compared to my den; for though door and window were thrown open, the grim aspect of the sentinel at my threshold, and the wicked leering of the drummer-boys as they passed, made my heart swell like a mountain in my breast; till, at length, Í actually felt as if the atmospheric air had been totally exhausted by an air-pump, as I had recently seen done to a poor frog in an experiment, and that the elastic fiuids contained in the finer vessels of my agonized frame were every instant on the point of explosion.

When the vengeance of my ruthless foe was at length fully satiated, I was allowed to sing my Palinodia; and, at a full mess-meeting, Í had the gratification of swallowing my confounded epistle, paragraph by paragraph; every gulp being accompanied by a suitable reprimand and admonition from my triumphant rival, who, soon after, to cap the climax of my defeat, had the additional pleasure of marrying the heiress who had been the innocent cause of my disgrace.

CHAPTER V.

BARRACK SCENES.

THE sufferings occasioned by this "heavy blow and great discouragement" of my first attempt at literary composition, wrung from me, in the bitterness of my soul, a vow never to be guilty of a similar transgression; and so violent was the shock my nervous system underwent