eptive motions, appearances; then such a rapidity of
spring upon you, and with such a set of claws,--destructive to bovine
or rhinoceros nature: in regard to all which, Bos, if he will prosper,
surely cannot be too cautious. It was remarked of Daun, that he was
scrupulously careful; never, in the most impregnable situations,
neglecting the least precaution, but punctiliously fortifying himself to
the last item, even to a ridiculous extent, say Retzow and the critics.
It was the one resource of Daun: truly a solid stubborn patience is in
the man; stubborn courage too, of bovine-rhinoceros type;--stupid,
if you will, but doing at all times honestly his best and his wisest
without flurry; which character is often of surprising value in War;
capable of much mischief, now and then, to quicker people. Rhinoceros
Daun did play his Leo a bad prank more than once; and this of barring
him out from Olmutz was one of them, perhaps the worst after Kolin.

Daun's management of this Olmutz business is by no means reckoned
brilliant, even in the Fabius line; but, on the contrary, inert,
dim-minded, inconclusive; and in reality, till almost the very last, he
had been of little help to the besieged. For near three weeks (till May
23d) Daun sat at Leutomischl, immovable on his bread-basket there, forty
or more miles from Olmutz; and did not see that a Siege was meant. May
27th-28th, Balbi opened his first parallel, in that mistaken way; four
days before which, Daun does move inwards a march or so, to Zwittau,
to Gewitsch (still thirty miles to west of Olmutz); still thinking
of Bohemia, not of any siege; still hanging by the mountains and the
bread-basket. And there,--about Gewitsch, siege or no siege, Daun
sits down again; pretty much immovable, through the five weeks of
bombardment; and,--except that Loudon and the Light Horse are very
diligent to do a mischief, "attempting our convoys, more than once, to
no purpose, and alarming some of our outposts almost every night, but
every night beaten off,"--does, in a manner, nothing; sits quiet, behind
his impenetrable veil of Pandours, and lets the bombardment take its
course. Had not express Order come from Vienna on him, it is thought
Daun would have sat till Olmutz was taken; and would then have gone back
to Leutomischl and impregnable posts in the Hills. On express order,
he--But gather, first, these poor sparks in elucidation:--

"The 'destructive sallies' and the like, at Olmutz, were p