The hermit abroad Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1823 Excerpt: ... Grim-visaged war has Muontiied his wrinkled front, And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute! Shaksspkam. LA DEMIE-SOLDE, OR FRENCH HALF-PAY. I Have already given a sketch of an English half-pay officer, of that honourable character, who in bidding adieu to the pomp and circumstance of war, calmly and mildly enters into the class of citizens, and instead of reining in his proud charger, prancing and curvetting, or training his well proportioned company with commanding and authoritative voice, or sunning his rich attire, is content to wrestle with the destroyer time, (both mutuallykilling)ona coffee-house or park bench, to sigh over the list of promotion in the Gazette, to saunter unperceived by maids and mistresses through the streets, and to wear the humble garb of every incognito, unmarked, and obscure individual; Tqfficier a la demie solde is a different character. The British officer is at once a citizen and a soldier, a gentleman in private life, doing his duty from principle, or from necessity, from being a younger son, or from having embarked his small fortune in the army; wedded to his profession, he is faithful to it, it becomes habitual to him, and unfits him for a change, (would that it were so in wedded life in general). Victory or promotion endears it to him: if separated from it by being put on half-pay, he looks forward to rejoining it again; and so he goes down to the grave, with or without the awful volley fired over his green bed. The number of military fops are comparatively few, that embrace the epaulette but not the vocation, and they most generally are birds of passage. The French officer is all the soldier; he vaults...