Captain F. was a young man who prided himself upon his knowledge of horse-flesh, and who had, by his own account, been jockeyed out of "many a cool thousand" by his ignorance of it; he was a young man who delighted in building more new invented carriages in one year than he could pay for in twenty; he was a young man who prided himself upon borrowing money from Jews at fifteen per cent. while his guardians were saving it for him at five; and in squandering it at Newmarket while they thought him poring over Greek and mathematics at Cambridge; he was a young man whose highest pride consisted in driving four-in-hand "knowingly;" whose greatest ambition was to resemble a stage-coachman exactly, and whose distinguishing characteristic was that of being a most egregious fool.
In consequence, I suppose, of a perseverance in this laudable career, Captain F. now found it more convenient to play the fool upon the continent than in England. After recounting to us various and manifold deeds of folly committed in London and Newmarket, amongst Jews and Whip Clubs, he at length gravely asserted, "that it was impossible for any man to dress under seven hundred a year."
This piece of information was received by some of the party with equal amazement and incredulity: but Captain F. assured us, "'Pon his soul it was true; that he knew as well as any man what it was to dress, and that it could not be done for less than seven hundred a year—nay, that it often costs nine."
"And pray, Captain F.," said I, involuntarily glancing at his coat, which happened not to be by any means a new one, "do you spend nine hundred a year upon dress?"
"Oh! not now," he exclaimed; "I don't dress now; I never dressed but eighteen months in my life." He then explained at large to me, who, in my ignorance, had not understood what to dress meant, "that 'to dress' signified to be the first in fashion, to make it the study of one's life to appear in a new mode before anybody else; 'to sport' something new every day; and during the time he dressed," he said, "his tailor sent him down three boxes of clothes every week from town, wherever he might happen to be." Having thus satisfactorily proved, that, at a considerable expense to his pocket, he had turned himself into a sort of block for the tailors to attire in their new invented coats and waistcoats, like the wooden dolls the milliners dress up to set off their new fashions, he next poured out such a quantity of nonsense about the battle and the wounded, that he reminded me of Hotspur's account of his interview with a coxcomb of the same species:
"When the fight was done,——"
But why do I waste a word upon him.
A Scotch acquaintance, Mr. E., of M., arrived this evening from the field, where he had been ineffectually engaged in the soul-harrowing employment of searching among the dead, the wounded, and the dying, for his youngest brother, who was nowhere to be found. He was a gallant-spirited youth of eighteen, and this was his first campaign. His horse had returned without its rider—among the multitude of wounded he could not be found. Some hopes, some faint hopes, yet remained that he might have been taken prisoner, and that he might yet appear; but there was too much reason to fear that he had perished, though where or how was unknown. Alas! every passing day made the hopes of his friends more and more improbable. No tidings were ever heard of him, and "on earth he was seen no more." The uncertainty in which the fate of this lamented young man was involved was even more dreadful than the knowledge of the worst could have been. Mrs. H.'s anxiety respecting her brother was relieved by Mr. E.'s assurance of his being in perfect safety. He could tell us nothing of the fate of those for whom we were so deeply anxious. "Do not ask me," he exclaimed, "who is wounded—I cannot tell you. It would be easy to say who are not." Intelligence from another quarter, however, relieved our fears, and although it subsequently proved false, for the present it led us to believe that our friends were in safety.
We now learnt that the battle had been even more desperate, and the victory more glorious and decisive, than Lord Wellington's concise and modest bulletin had led us to imagine. The French had not "retreated," they had been completely routed, and put to flight; they had not merely "been defeated," they were no longer an army. They had fled in every direction from the field, pursued by the victorious British and by the Prussians, who had not come up till just at the close of the battle.[19] The whole of their artillery, ammunition, and baggage, their caissons, all the matériel of their army had been taken. Of 130,000 Frenchmen who had marched yesterday morning to battle, flushed with all the hopes and confidence of victory, no trace, no vestige now remained; they were all swept away; they were scattered by the whirlwind of war over the face of the earth. Yesterday their proud hosts had spread terror and dismay through nations, and struck consternation into every heart, except those of the brave band of warriors who opposed them. To-day the greater part of them slept in death, the rest were fugitives or captives. It was an awful and tremendous lesson. They were gone with all their imperfections on their heads,—their hopes, their purposes, their plans, their passions, and their crimes, were at rest for ever! And their leader, who had sported away the lives of thousands, with feelings untouched by remorse; who had impiously presumed to defy the powers of God and man; and whose insatiate ambition the world itself seemed too small to contain—where was he now?—an outcast and a wanderer, hunted, pursued, beset on all sides, and at a loss where to lay his head!
It was with a heart pierced with anguish that I wept for the brave who had fallen; that I felt in the bitterness of sorrow, that not even the proud triumph of my country's glory could console me for the gallant hearts that were lost to her for ever!