ue to a duke--and established themselves
comfortably in the ranks of the enemy of England. But all the duke's
hopes of prowess were blighted. He had good opportunities. The Conde de
los Torres made him his aide-de-camp, and sent him daily into the
trenches to see how matters went on. When a defence of a certain Spanish
outwork was resolved upon, the duke, from his rank, was chosen for the
command. Yet in the trenches he got no worse wound than a slight one on
the foot from a splinter of a shell, and this he afterwards made an
excuse for not fighting a duel with swords; and as to the outwork, the
English abandoned the attack, so that there was no glory to be found in
the defence. He soon grew weary of such inglorious and rather dirty work
as visiting trenches before a stronghold; and well he might; for if
there be one thing duller than another and less satisfactory, it must be
digging a hole out of which to kill your brother mortals; and thinking
he should amuse himself better at the court, he set off for Madrid. Here
the king, by way of reward for his brilliant services in doing nothing,
made him _colonel-aggregate_--whatever that may be--of an Irish
regiment; a very poor aggregate, we should think. But my lord duke
wanted something livelier than the command of a band of Hispaniolized
Milesians; and having found the military career somewhat uninteresting,
wished to return to that of politics. He remembered with gusto the
frolic life of the Holy City, and the political excitement in the
Chevalier's court, and sent off a letter to 'His Majesty James III.,'
expressing, like a rusticated Oxonian, his penitence for having been so
naughty the last time, and offering to come and be very good again. It
is to the praise of the Chevalier de St. George that he had worldly
wisdom enough not to trust the gay penitent. He was tired, as everybody
else was, of a man who could stick to nothing, and did not seem to care
about seeing him again. Accordingly, he replied in true kingly style,
blaming him for having taken up arms against their common country, and
telling him in polite language--as a policeman does a riotous
drunkard--that he had better go home. The duke thought so too, was not
at all offended at the letter, and set off, by way of returning towards
his Penates, for Paris, where he arrived in May, 1728.

Horace Walpole--not _the_ Horace--but 'Uncle Horace,' or 'old Horace,'
as he was called, was then ambassador to the court of t