it of
contradiction, the infantry adopted brass spurs, anticipatory, perhaps,
of their promotion to field-officers' rank; and, bearing in mind, that
"there is nothing like leather," exhibited themselves in ponderous
over-alls, _a la Hongroise_, topped and strapped, and loaded down the
side with buttons and chains. One man, in his rage for singularity, took
the tonsure, shaving the hair off the crown of his head; and another,
having covered his frock-coat with gold tags and lace, was furiously
assaulted by a party of Portuguese sharpshooters, who, seeing him, in
the midst of the enemy's riflemen, whither his headlong courage had led
him, mistook him for a French general, and insisted upon making him
prisoner. And three years later, when Mr Grattan and a party of his
comrades landed in England, in all the glories of velvet waistcoats,
dangling Spanish buttons of gold and silver, and forage caps of fabulous
magnificence, they could hardly fancy that they belonged to the same
service as the red-coated, white-breeched, black-gaitered gentlemen of
Portsmouth garrison.

The embarkation of the British army, which in the summer of 1810 was
deemed imminent both in England and the Peninsula and considered
probable by Lord Liverpool himself, was no longer thought of after
Busaco, save by a few of those croaking gentlemen, who, in camps as in
council-houses, view every thing through smoked spectacles.
Reinforcements, both English and Spanish, reached the lines of Torres
Vedras, which Wellington continued to strengthen, and Massena dared not
attack. The accession of General Drouet's corps increased the army of
the Prince of Essling to upwards of 70,000 men. His cavalry, too, was
twice as strong as that of the British; but, notwithstanding this
superiority, and the desire which he must have felt to retrieve his
fame, tarnished by the repulse at Busaco, and by his fruitless movement
on the lines of Lisbon, Massena remained inert, in front of the man whom
Napoleon's _Moniteur_ contemptuously designated as the "Sepoy General."
Spring approached without either army assuming the offensive, until, on
the 5th of March 1811, the French began their retreat from Portugal,
closely followed up by Wellington. There was little difficulty in
tracing them: they left a broad trail of blood, and desolation. With
bare blade, and blazing brand, they swept across the land; church and
convent, town and village, the farm and the cottage, were given to the