1830.] The United Service Smoke shop : a Winter Sketch. 555 



record of events is given with a simplicity which rivets pur belief in their 

 general correctness ; all. his characters are drawn with the fidelity of the 

 unbiassed historian ; equally removed from the charge of fulsome and 

 indiscriminate adulation, or unjust and captious censure, taking truth 

 for his guide, he pursues the even tenor of his way ; tempering the 

 ardour of the soldier with the mild spirit of the Christian Philosopher, and 

 invokes the tear of regret for the departed brave, while our hearts swell 

 with all the pride of conquest, as we peruse these glowing annals of one 

 of the most brilliant epochs in Britain's History. 



Capt. Cleverly. He does not much flatter some of the French marshals 

 as it has recently been the fashion to do. 



Lt. Col. Towlter. No nor another marshal, who is neither French nor 

 English. ALBUERA, to wit! 



Beau Ben. " Still harping on my daughter." Hem ! 

 Capt. Cleverly. Yes, the Viscount is hit pretty hard in the Annals 

 but Cyril Thornton did not spare him in his own Adventures when he 

 details the blunders of that bloody field ; the Peerage, however, lays the 

 " flattering unction to his soul," by boldly recording that this same battle 

 will "immortalize his name in our Military Annals!" 



Lt. Col. Towlter. Fudge ! the Peerage ! why the same Peerage tells 

 us that Lord Fife was u severely wounded at the storming ofMalagorda" 

 when every body knows that the insignificant heap of ruins so called, 

 which were held as long as the stones kept together, was abandoned 

 never stormed ! nor was Fife (who, by the way, is a good and gallant 

 fellow) ever employed with the Spanish troops after the breaking up of 

 old Cuesta's army, when the Duke of Albuquerque and his cavalry rode 

 their celebrated Steeple Chace on the Isla deLeon. Lord Fife stuck by 

 the Spaniards as long as they would fight, and he offered to march at his 

 own expense a brigade of them to join Lord Wellington ; it was not his 

 fault that he was not in the field. 



Capt. Cleverly. He was hit, however, Colonel, at Matagorda, when he 

 volunteered to bring succours to Archy Maclaine, (formerly of. ours) 

 who so gallantly defended that miserable post to the last extremity. Do 

 you ever visit his lordship ? 



Lt. Col. Towlter. Not above once a year ; you know 7 am no lord- 

 hunter : seeing the door of his hotel crowded and blocked up by syco- 

 phantic danglers, and swarthy sons of Italy from the Opera House, 

 I merely drop my card, and pass on. 



Capt. Cleverly. You never knew a man of his generous nature on 

 whom such flies did not fasten and fatten. I often call, and always find 

 my name a ready passport to his breakfast room, where, dressed in plaid 

 coat and trews, he gives audience to all visitors peers or players, old 



friends, or old w omen authors with new works, or auctioneers with 



old china ! A true disciple of Democritus, he laughs through life and 

 " counts nought so great a sin as seriousness." 



Major Claymore. His brother, the general, is a prince of a fellow. 

 Lt. Col. Towlter. I wish he had the fortune of one. 

 Capt. Cleverly. In that respect, Colonel, he is not badly off; he had 

 a good wind-fall lately : and then his regiment ! the manner in which it 

 was bestowed was honourable to both the sovereign and the subject. A 

 few years ago General Duff visited his Majesty at Windsor : during a 

 stroll through the rooms, the King, lay ing his hand on the shoulder of the 

 General, in his own kind and peculiar way, asked " How does it happen, 



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