e; having formed for itself,
there and upwards, a considerable dell or hollow way; chiefly on the
western or right bank of which stands the Village with its barnyards and
piggeries: on both sides of the great High-road, which here crosses
the Brook, and will lead you to Hanau twenty miles off,--or back to
Aschaffenburg, and even to Nurnberg and the Donau Countries, if you
persevere. Except that of the high-road, Dettingen Brook has no bridge.
Above the Village, after coming from the Mountains, the banks of it are
boggy; especially the western bank, which spreads out into a scrubby
waste of moor, for some good space. In which scrubby moor, as elsewhere
in this dell or hollow way itself, where the Village hangs, with its
hedges, piggeries, colegarths,--there is like to be bad enough marching
for a column of men! Noailles, as we said, has Two Bridges thrown across
the Mayn, just below; and the last of his Five Batteries, from the other
side, will command Dettingen. His plan of operation is this:--

"By these Bridges he has passed 24,000 horse and foot across the River,
under his Nephew the chivalrous Duke of Grammont: these, with due
artillery and equipment, are to occupy the Village; and to rank
themselves in battle-order to leftward of it, on the moor just
mentioned,--well behind that hollow way, with its brook and bogs;--and,
one thing they must note well, Not to stir from that position, till
the English columns have got fairly into said hollow way and brook
of Dettingen, and are plunging more or less distractedly across the
entanglements there. With cannon on their left flank, and such a gullet
to pass through, one may hope they will be in rather an attackable
condition. Across that gullet it is our intention they shall never get.
How can they, if Grammont do his duty?

"This is Noailles's plan; one of the prettiest imaginable, say
military men,--had the execution but corresponded. Noailles had seized
Aschaffenburg, so soon as the English were out of it; Noailles, from his
batteries beyond the River, salutes the English march with continuous
shot and thunder, which is very discomposing: he sees confidently
a really fair likelihood of capturing the Britannic Majesty and his
Pragmatic Army, unless they prefer to die on the ground. Seldom, since
that of the Caudine Forks, did any Army, by ill-luck and ill-guidance,
get into such a pinfold,--death or flat surrender seemingly their one
alternative.

"Thus march these Eng