amed to desperation, deemed the
perilous exposure of his person necessary, to rally them to the contest,
over bridges of their slaughtered comrades, but who at length was
obliged to retire from the field of battle, and to leave to the heroic
sir Sidney, the exclusive exultation of announcing to his grateful and
elated country, that he had fought, and vanquished the laurelled
conqueror of Italy, and the bold invader of Egypt.

Sir Sidney has no vices to conceal behind his spreading and imperishable
laurels. His public character is before the approving world. That peace
which his sword has accelerated, has afforded us an undisturbed
opportunity of admiring his achievements in the field, and of
contemplating his conduct in the retired avenues of private life, in
which his deportment is without a stain. In him there is every thing to
applaud, and nothing to forgive.

Yet thus glorious in public, and thus unsullied in private, the
conqueror of Bonaparte, and the saviour of the east, owes the honours,
_which he adorns_, to foreign and distant powers.

To the _grateful_ government of his own country, he is indebted for an
ungracious paltry annuity, inadequate to the display of ordinary
consequence, and wholly unequal to the suitable support of that dignity,
which ought for ever to distinguish such a being from the mass of
mankind.

The enemies of sir Sidney, for envy furnishes every great man with his
quota of such indirect eulogists, if they should honour these pages with
a perusal, may, perchance, endeavour to trace the approving warmth with
which I have spoken of him, to the enthusiasm of a friendship dazzled,
and undiscriminating; but I beg to assure them, that the fame of sir
Sidney is better known to me than his person, and that his noble
qualities have alone excited the humble tribute which is here offered
to one, for whom delighted Nature, in the language of our immortal bard,

"--------------------------------might stand up,
and say to all the world, this _is_ a man----"

CHAPTER XVI.

_A fashionable Poem.--Frere Richart.--Religion.--Hotel des
Invalides.--Hall of Victory.--Enemies' Colours.--Sulky Appearance
of an English Jack and Ensign.--Indecorum.--The aged
Captain.--Military School.--Champ de Mars.--The Garden of
Mousseaux._

The conversation whilst I was at Paris, was much engaged by a poem,
describing the genius and progress of christianity written in imitation