es of
playhouses--and the elite of the refuse and sweepings of the jails. Look
how all the rogues and reprobates march like one man! Alas! was it of
such materials that our conquering army was made?--were such the heroes
of Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo?

Why not, and what then? Heroes are but men after all. Men, as men go,
are the materials of which heroes are made; and recruits in three years
ripen into veterans. Cowardice in one campaign is disciplined into
courage, fear into valour. In presence of the enemy, pickpockets become
patriots--members of the swell mob volunteer on forlorn hopes, and step
out from the ranks to head the storm. Lord bless you! have you not
studied sympathy and _l'esprit de corps_? An army fifty thousand strong
consists, we shall suppose, in equal portions of saints and sinners; and
saints and sinners are all English, Irish, Scottish. What wonder, then,
that they drive all resistance to the devil, and go on from victory to
victory, keeping all the cathedrals and churches in England hard at work
with all their organs, from Christmas to Christmas, blowing _Te Deum?_
You must not be permitted too curiously to analyse the composition of
the British army or the British navy. Look at them, think of them as
Wholes, with Nelson or Wellington the head, and in one slump pray God to
bless the defenders of the throne, the hearth, and the altar.

The baggage-waggons halt, and some refreshment is sent for to the women
and children. Ay, creatures not far advanced in their teens are there--a
year or two ago, at school or service, happy as the day was long, now
mothers, with babies at their breasts--happy still perhaps; but that
pretty face is woefully wan--that hair did not use to be so
dishevelled--and bony, and clammy, and blue-veined is the hand that lay
so white, and warm, and smooth in the grasp of the seducer.

Yet she thinks she is his wife; and, in truth, there is a ring on her
marriage-finger. But, should the regiment embark, so many women, and no
more, are suffered to go with a company; and, should one of the lots not
fall on her, she may take of her husband an everlasting farewell.

The Highflier Coach! carrying six in, and twelve outsides--driver and
guard excluded--rate of motion eleven miles an hour, with stoppages.
Why, in the name of Heaven, are all people nowadays in such haste and
hurry? Is it absolutely necessary that one and all of this dozen and a
half Protestants and Cat