As my heart had embarked for the Peninsula with the 1st battalion, although my body (for the reasons given) remained behind for a year, I shall, with the reader's permission, follow the first, as being in the more interesting position of the two; and although, under these circumstances, I am not permitted to speak in the first person singular until the two shall be again united, yet whatever I do speak of I have heard so often and so well authenticated, that I am enabled to give it with the same confidence as if I had been an eye-witness.
"A LAY OF LOVE FOR LADY BRIGHT."
Lisbon was doubtless as rich in abominations now as it was a year after, without any other redeeming virtue, which is a very ugly commencement to a tale of love; but having landed my reader a second time at the same place, I am anxious to relieve him from the fear of being treated to a second edition of the same story, and to assure him that my head-piece has been some time charged with fresh ammunition and I mean to discharge it now, to prevent its getting rusty. I intend to fight those battles only that I never fought before, galloping over the ground lightly, and merely halting to give a little of my conversation, such as it is, whenever I have anything new to tell; and as I have no idea of enduring the fatigues of the march to Talavera, nor the pleasures of fattening on the dinners of chopped straw which followed it, I shall leave my regiment to its fate until its return to the north of Portugal, and take advantage of the repose it affords to make my editorial bow with all due deference to my fair and lovely readers, to express my joy that I have been once more enabled to put myself in communion with them, and to assure them of my continued unbounded love and admiration, for I feel and have ever felt that the man who gave frailty the name of woman was a blockhead, and must have been smarting under some unsuccessful bit of the tender, for I have met her in the bower and in the battle, and have ever found her alike admirable in both! That old fool Shakspeare, too, having only a man's courage to meet a sprite with! Had he but told Macbeth to dare as woman dared, he would have seen the ghost of Banquo vanish into the witches' kettle in the twinkling of a wheelbarrow; for although I have never seen a woman kick the bucket, I have certainly seen her kick every thing else, and in fact there is nothing in the heroics that I have not seen her do. See her again when she descends into herself, and it is very odd if I have not seen her there too! for no man has ever been so often or so deep in love as I have—my poor heart has been lacerated, torn, and finally scorched until it is withered up like a roasted potato with scarcely the size of a kiss left.
How it was that I did not find myself dangling at a door-post by the end of a silk handkerchief some odd morning is to me astonishing, but here I am, living and loving still as fondly as ever. Prudence at this moment whispers that I have said enough for the present, for if I go on making love so fiercely thus early in the day, I shall be forced to marry the whole sex and bring my book to a premature conclusion, for which posterity would never forgive me. I must therefore for the present take a most reluctant leave, with a promise of renewing my courtship from time to time as opportunities offer, if they will but good-naturedly follow me through the various scenes into which I am about to conduct them; and while I do my best to amuse them by the way, should I unintentionally dive so deeply into the pathetic as to beguile them of a tear, let me recommend them to wipe it away, for it is only their smiles I court.
While on the way to join the light division on the northern frontier, I shall take the opportunity of introducing the reader to their celebrated commander, the late Major-General Robert Crawfurd, an officer who, for a length of time, was better known than liked, but like many a gem of purer ray his value was scarcely known until lost.
[CHAP. IV.]
Shewing how generals may descend upon particulars with a cat-o'-nine tails. Some extra Tales added. Historical, Comical, and Warlike all.
Crawfurd was no common character. He, like a gallant cotemporary of his, was not born to be a great general, but he certainly was a distinguished one,—the history of his division and the position which he held beyond the Coa in 1810, attest the fact. He had neither judgement, temper, nor discretion to fit him for a chief, and as a subordinate he required to be held with a tight rein, but his talents as a general of division were nevertheless of the first order. He received the three British regiments under his command, finished by the hands of a master in the art, Sir John Moore, and, as regiments, they were faultless; but to Crawfurd belonged the chief merit of making them the war brigade which they became, alike the admiration of their friends and foes. How he made them so I am about to show, but how such another is to be made now that his system has fallen into disrepute, will be for futurity to determine.