huge, hairy, horny hands, chiefly knuckles and nails--a shambling gait,
notwithstanding that his legs are finely proportioned, as if the night
prowler were cautious not to be heard by the sleeping house, nor to
awaken--so noiseless his stealthy advances--the unchained mastiff in his
kennel.

But, hark! the spirit-stirring music of fife and drum! A whole regiment
of soldiers on their march to replace another whole regiment of
soldiers--and that is as much as we can be expected to know about their
movements. Food for the cannon's mouth; but the maw of war has been
gorged and satiated, and the glittering soap-bubbles of reputation,
blown by windy-cheeked Fame from the bole of her pipe, have all burst as
they have been clutched by the hands of tall fellows in red raiment, and
with feathers on their heads, just before going to lie down on what is
called the bed of honour. Melancholy indeed to think, that all these
fine, fierce, ferocious, fire-eaters are doomed, but for some
unlooked-for revolution in the affairs of Europe and the world, to die
in their beds! Yet there is some comfort in thinking of the composition
of a Company of brave defenders of their country. It is, we shall
suppose, Seventy strong. Well, jot down three ploughmen, genuine
clodhoppers, chaw-bacons _sans peur et sans reproche_, except that the
overseers of the parish were upon them with orders of affiliation; add
one shepherd, who made contradictory statements about the number of the
spring lambs, and in whose house had been found during winter certain
fleeces, for which no ingenuity could account; a laird's son, long known
by the name of the Neerdoweel; a Man of tailors, forced to accept the
bounty-money during a protracted strike--not dungs they, but flints all
the nine; a barber, like many a son of genius, ruined by his wit, and
who, after being driven from pole to pole, found refuge in the army at
last; a bankrupt butcher, once a bully, and now a poltroon; two of the
Seven Young Men--all that now survive--impatient of the drudgery of the
compting-house, and the injustice of the age--but they, we believe, are
in the band--the triangle and the serpent; twelve cotton-spinners at the
least; six weavers of woollens; a couple of colliers from the bowels of
the earth; and a score of miscellaneous rabble--flunkies long out of
place, and unable to live on their liveries--felons acquitted, or that
have dreed their punishment--picked men from the shilling galleri