522 CRIMPING. 



latter, at least in foreign countries, that they have ceased, by honourable 

 men, to be considered as badges of honour ; we have seen the day when 

 crosses in bushels have been given by Peter the Emperor, to troops 

 that have ignobly abandoned their field of battle ;* and it is even on 

 record that the Legion of honour, in its best days, was once given for 

 ajeu de mots. 



Napoleon, shortly after his marriage with Marie-Louise, was passing 

 through Belgium, the mayor or prefect of a small village, on his line 

 of route, erected a rustic triumphal arch, bearing as an inscription, the 

 following distich 



" Ma foi, en epousant la belle Marie-Louise 

 Napoleon n'a pas fait une sottise." 



Which so pleased the young empress, that she prevailed on her imperial 

 husband to decorate the poetic mayor. These glittering baubles we 

 admit, look well in a ball-room, were they serve as passports to the 

 good graces of the fair ; but our dancing days are over, and our views 

 directed to more solid pleasures j neither do we exactly agree with 

 Horace, who in lauding a military life, says, 



" Horse 



Momento cita mors venit, aut victoria Iseta." 



This may have been all very well in his day, but in our's there is 

 an awkward " mezzo termene" in the shape of a mutilated leg or arm, 

 which when it comes unaccompanied by pension or half-pay, places a 

 man unblessed with the possession of an hereditary sixpence, in a sorry 

 plight. No, like Sir Dugald Dalgetty, we view these matters through 

 the more solid medium of pay and promotion, aye, and of plunder too. 

 We say plunder, and heed not the shrugs of the fastidious ; for some 

 of the most distinguished marshals of France, have shewn themselves 

 as accomplished plunderers as skilful tacticians; and, as the lawyers 

 say, what has been once done may be done again, 



Though, as we said before, we read not the advertisement in ques- 

 tion unmoved, still our feelings, mellowed by time and chastened by 

 experience, no longer lost themselves in the regions of phantasmagoria. 

 Had we been ten years younger, we might have dreamt of a baton de 

 mareschal, and have given way to some wild extravagance, such a 

 kicking over the table, knocking down the waiter, or twirling off the 

 wig of an old gentleman at the next table, who to the annoyance of 

 every one in the room, had monopolized the evening paper for more 

 than an hour. But in the present instance, we contented ourselves 

 with ordering another glass of brandy water, and with taking down the 

 address of the crimp, whom we determined on visiting on the following 

 morning. 



Although we were early in the field, yet, on reaching the residence 

 of the crimp, we found his ante-chamber already occupied by at least 

 half a dozen candidates for military honours. Two of these gentlemen 

 looked as if they had just been discharged from the Fleet; a third, 

 notwithstanding a pair of spurs of prodigious length, and an attempt 

 to throw into his inanimate countenance a Bobadil air, was evidently a 

 man-milliner ; the two others, from their appearance, were only fit for 



The battle of Ituizaingo, where the whole Brazilian army went to the right 

 about, and left three foreign battalions de se tirer <P affaire, as they best could. The 

 emperor, ordered a medal to be struck in commemoration thereof. 



