of an eventful crisis,--all spoke the decayed but not
ignoble hero of a hundred fields.

There was something foreign, too, about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman
had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage
looked so unequivocally French.

Not a word had the Comedian yet said; and yet all this had the first
sight of him conveyed to the audience. There was an amazed murmur,
then breathless stillness; the story rapidly unfolded itself, partly by
words, much more by look and action. There sat a soldier who had fought
under Napoleon at Marengo and Austerlitz, gone through the snows of
Muscovy, escaped the fires of Waterloo,--the soldier of the Empire!
Wondrous ideal of a wondrous time! and nowhere winning more respect
and awe than in that land of the old English foe, in which with slight
knowledge of the Beautiful in Art, there is so reverent a sympathy
for all that is grand in Man! There sat the soldier, penniless and
friendless, there, scarcely seen, reclined his grandchild, weak and
slowly dying for the want of food; and all that the soldier possesses
wherewith to buy bread for the day, is his cross of the Legion of
Honour. It was given to him by the hand of the Emperor: must he pawn or
sell it? Out on the pomp of decoration which we have substituted for the
voice of passionate nature on our fallen stage! Scenes so faithful to
the shaft of a column,--dresses by which an antiquary can define a date
to a year! Is delusion there? Is it thus we are snatched from Thebes to
Athens? No; place a really fine actor on a deal board, and for Thebes
and Athens you may hang up a blanket! Why, that very cross which the
old soldier holds--away from his sight--in that tremulous hand, is but
patched up from the foil and cardboard bought at the stationer's shop.
You might see it was nothing more, if you tried to see. Did a soul
present think of such minute investigation? Not one. In the actor's hand
that trumpery became at once the glorious thing by which Napoleon had
planted the sentiment of knightly heroism in the men whom Danton would
have launched upon earth ruthless and bestial, as galley-slaves that had
burst their chain.

The badge, wrought from foil and cardboard, took life and soul: it begot
an interest, inspired a pathos, as much as if it had been made--oh! not
of gold and gems, but of flesh and blood. And the simple broken words
that the veteran addressed to it! The scenes, the fields, the hopes,
the gl