On siege how noble to be doting, "Tis brave to form a noble barrier, And guard the ensign, a rag carrier†; It is a scandal of such magnitude, that the mere supposition alone is sufficient to make a soldier's cocked hat leap from off his head, or curl the whiskers of an Austrian hussar; it would give animation to the boots of a French chasseur, or blow up a light horseman's leather breeches. In short, there is nothing wonderful that even the bare idea would not effect. La guerra fa i ladri, e la pace glimpicca. * Bravo! Bravissimo! What are rheumatic pains, or the loss of the use of limbs, when put in competition with military glory? To't again: nay, stand up to the neck, and fire away against a flinty wall; 'tis all on the score of honour, which you may thus acquire. A capite ad calcem. + What, witness the taking off a pair of colours! Behold an enemy march away in triumph with half a dozen yards of silk! Zounds and death! Who could submit to Or rivers cross as wide as Shannon, First duck'd, and then made food for cannon: Or, hemm❜d in fortress, starve like flats, Having devour'd cats, mice, and rats*. After being slain in bloody battle, such indignity! No; rather lead on the elite of your forces; let it become bellum internecinum, to save the precious stuff, though it only dangles in the wind, slit into shreds and tatters. For, be it remembered, Sotto l'insegna si fanno i migliori capitani. * Delicacies, beyond compare, when seasoned with honour for what will not a military stomach digest, whose delight is to feast on death, and play with bullets! Ay; and a very decent recompense too, considering that your single arm may have made twenty widows, and as many orphans, in that day's battle, by sending to the shades so many husbands and fathers as your avant couriers. But it is all perfectly acceptable to military policy: because two potentates, or ministers, have quarrelled, and therefore call upon the multitude to avenge their injured honours. This is, certainly, rather a cold supper for those who prefer The beginning of a fray to the end of a feast, and Who, with your friends, the kindred brave, Have reap'd it, fool-like*, in the grave. affords a striking contrast to the spirited lines of our bard: I saw the soldier, with his beaver on, And 'witch the world with noble horsemanship. * A truce to joking: for though the leading stanzas of the bard excited risibility, the sober contemplation of this subject is sufficient to excite the keenest emotions in the breast of sensibility, to behold thousands of men, ranged in battle array, fighting for they know not what, and slaughtering they care not whom; and yet, if the very man who falls had been with his enemy in a pothouse, he would as cordially have drank with him, nor dreamt of enmity. O war! Accursed war! Well may thy fabled deity have been depicted as drawn by terror and fear, led on by discord, and followed by clamour and anger. Well may Bellona rear the bloody whip, brandish the flaming torch, and on her head display snakes, dripping with gore. No picture can be too disgusting, no thought more dreadful: as if Omnipotence created men to murder one another. "Did these bones cost no more L'ENVOY OF THE POET. Honour, saith Falstaff, is mere bubble, sound, An empty name, the madman's darling prize; Most cherish'd when in cold sepulchral ground, Most bright when veil'd in death from mortal eyes. THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS. Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis. the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em?" Were the pangs of the mother felt, and the difficulties she had to encounter in rearing her infant, experienced only to serve as food for cannon? Think of that, ye potentates, and let the contemplation stay your thoughts from bloody extermination: and since the human life is but a span at best, learn to abstain from its curtailment. SECTION LVI. OF FOOLS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND Al firnir del givoco si ve de chi guadagna. He fights against experience stout, Supposing hundreds were at stake, * This is, certainly, a very amusing circumstance; particularly when the partner has betted upon the rubber with half a dozen persons; and expects, that what was the effect of chance, originated in a thorough knowledge of the game, which he too soon finds out, by lamentable experience, was not the case. |