se sole
employment, during the "piping times of peace," and in the course of a
soldier's unsettled and rambling life from quarters to quarters, seems
to be, to abuse the rights of hospitality, by carrying disgrace and
infamy into every domestic circle to which they can by any means obtain
admittance. It ought to be a source of pride to my countrymen, that they
are more of a marrying people than the English or French, and do not
regard women in the same degraded light as a gambler does a pack of
cards, that are to be shuffled and played with for a while, and then
thrown away. Our naval and military officers are rather remarkable for
their readiness to form matrimonial connexions; while on the other hand,
our young men who are educated to the law, physic, or divinity, never
think of "setting up for themselves," till they are "accommodated," as
Bardolph says, with a wife, whom the three learned professions regard as
indispensable as Starkie on Evidence to the first; a pocket case of
instruments, or Dawes' Midwifery, to the second; or a Brown's
Concordance, or Calmet's Dictionary, to the third.

Such characters as I have alluded to, it would seem, are extremely
common in the British army; and it is to be presumed that they are not
less plentiful in the armies of the European powers; though it does not
appear that the community at large gain wisdom and caution from the
mournful experience of their neighbors, but rather the reverse; for, if
we may believe their own writers, the footsteps of a regiment, moving
about through different country quarters, are marked by more incurable
evils, and more true horrors, than the march of an invading army through
a hostile, and resisting country. It has been said of the Turkish army,
that they are far more formidable to their friends, than to their foes;
if any dependence can be placed in those numerous writings, professing
to be descriptions of English manners, that find their way across the
Atlantic, the same may be said of that portion of the British army that
is on the "home station."

Baron Plindorf was an unprincipled libertine, cold, selfish, and
unfeeling. He was eminently successful too in his diabolical enterprise,
although there was nothing prepossessing in his person or in his
manners; but he had the reputation of being irresistible, and of course
he was so; for, whatever may be the reason, it is a most lamentable
fact, that to be called a professed rake, and reputed father o