,
has been omitted, as extinct, or undecipherable by the Grand-Nephew.]
After YOU, Sirs! Is not this a bit of modern chivalry? A supreme
politeness in that sniffing pococurante kind; probably the highest point
(or lowest) it ever went to. Which I have often thought of."

It is almost pity to disturb an elegant Historical Passage of this kind,
circulating round the world, in some glory, for a century past: but
there has a small irrefragable Document come to me, which modifies it a
good deal, and reduces matters to the business form. Lord Charles
Hay, "Lieutenant-Colonel," practical Head, "of the First Regiment
of Foot-guards," wrote, about three weeks after (or dictated in sad
spelling, not himself able to write for wounds), a Letter to his
Brother, of which here is an Excerpt at first hand, with only the
spelling altered:... "It was our Regiment that attacked the French
Guards: and when we came within twenty or thirty paces of them, I
advanced before our Regiment; drank to them [to the French, from the
pocket-pistol one carries on such occasions], and told them that we were
the English Guards, and hoped that they would stand till we came quite
up to them, and not swim the Scheld as they did the Mayn at Dettingen
[shameful THIRD-BRIDGE, not of wood, though carpeted with blue cloth
there]! Upon which I immediately turned about to our own Regiment;
speeched them, and made them huzza,"--I hope with a will. "An Officer
[d'Auteroche] came out of the ranks, and tried to make his men huzza;
however, there were not above three or four in their Brigade that did."
["Ath, May ye 20th, o.s." (to John, Fourth Marquis of Tweeddale, last
"Secretary of State for Scotland," and a man of figure in his day):
Letter is at Yester House, East Lothian; Excerpt PENES ME.]...

Very poor counter-huzza. And not the least whisper of that sublime
"After you, Sirs!" but rather, in confused form, of quite the reverse;
Hay having been himself fired into ("fire had begun on my left;" Hay
totally ignorant on which side first),--fired into, rather feebly, and
wounded by those D'Auteroche people, while he was still advancing with
shouldered arms;--upon which, and not till which, he did give it them:
in liberal dose; and quite blew them off the ground, for that day.
From all which, one has to infer, That the mutual salutation by hat was
probably a fact; that, for certain, there was some slight preliminary
talk and gesticulation, but in the Homeric style, b