fresh services. I shall not appear during the campaign with a luxurious camp equipage; you know I have never cared for such a thing; my actual infirmities will, however, prevent my making the campaign as I should have done during the vigour of my life. I shall, in marches, make use of a carriage, but on a day of battle you may be sure of seeing me on horseback among you as formerly."

"The old King was ready to the last to play the general."

"Charles XII. of Sweden delighted in war, and never did warrior surpass him in daring; but he was reckless almost to insanity. At the battle of Narva, with only twenty thousand men, he defeated the Czar, Peter the Great, who had, it is said, one hundred thousand; but at the battle of Pultowa in Russia, Peter the Great overcame him, when he fled for safety to the dominions of the Turk. He died in the trenches of Frederickshall in Norway, some say by a cannon shot, but others say by the pistol of one of his own soldiers.

'His fall was destined to a distant strand,

A petty fortress, and a dubious hand:

He left the name at which the world grew pale
To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

"Great as Charles thought himself in the field, Peter the Great was too much for him at last." "Peter the Great of Russia was a most extraordinary man, and a warrior of no common order.

He came over to England and worked in the dockyard at Deptford as a shipwright, to improve himself in the building of ships for his navy; he learned the trade of a smith, and forged a bar of iron at Olaneta in Russia, which weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. What think you, boys, of a mighty monarch working as a blacksmith, and making his nobles blow the bellows for him?"

"There are very few monarchs that would do that."

"Peter the Great won many battles, but the victory of Pultowa over his rival in arms, Charles XII. of Sweden, ruined the latter. Peter died in the fifty-third year of his age, and the great monument at Petersburgh, erected to his memory, is a prodigious work of art. The pedestal is a single stone of red granite, weighing more than fourteen hundred tons. Peter is represented on horseback, crowned with laurel, and sitting on a housing of bearskin. The horse, a fiery courser, stands on his hind feet, as if resolved to arrive at the pinnacle of the rock."

"It must be a grand monument, but how the Russians could contrive to take that big stone to the place where it was to be set up, is a puzzle."

"The great Duke of Marlborough was a mighty and successful warrior. In his grand battle at Blenheim, on the Danube, besides destroying twelve thousand French and Bavarians he took thirteen thousand prisoners, and Marshall Tallard among

them. It was for this exploit that Blenheim House, a princely mansion near Oxford, was given to him, and his heirs. Great as the duke was in military fame, he at last became childish, and wept when beaten at chess, saying, 'Every one can beat me now?' You see, boys, how little it becomes us to be proud, for he who is great to-day may be little, indeed, to-morrow. While I tell you about soldiers and sailors, and of the reputation that many of them have attained, remember, that to be a great warrior unennobled by proper motives, is only to be a great destroyer. Aim at uprightness, usefulness, patriotism, loyalty, honour, and humanity, and you will then be true friends to your country.

Uniforms.

CHAPTER VI.

fleet.

Captains and commanders. - Full dress of the officers of the life-guards. Dragoon-guards. - Light dragoons. - Lancers. —Hussars. — King George the Fourth and the life-guardsman. Full dress of the officers of the foot-guards. Infantry of the line. Light infantry.-Fusiliers.-Highlanders.-Riflemen.-Sir Samuel Hood and the new-made boatswain.

"I HAVE said nothing of the uniforms worn by soldiers and sailors, and will now enter a little on the subject. If you were to see the paintings of the hearty old admirals in the Naval Gallery of

F

Greenwich Hospital, they would surprise you. Some of these tough old tars look as though they would not alter a brass button of their coats, if it affected the honour of old England, to prevent the broadside of an enemy from sending them to the bottom of the ocean. Their dresses are so odd and so different one from another that you would hardly think they were all admirals. Some have long curled wigs on; some have red coats, some blue, and some brown; some are clad in armour; some in buff leathern jerkins; some in loose robes, and others in red velvet gowns with ermine capes. In old times there was no fixed uniform for the navy; and, besides, some of these admirals are painted as they appeared on state occasions. In the reign of George II. some of these old heroes, talking over the subject of dress at one of their clubs, came to a resolution · That a uniform dress is useful and necessary for commissioned officers, agreeably to the practice of other nations.' No sooner was this resolution passed, than a committee appointed Admiral Forbes to wait on the Duke of Bedford, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty."

“And did he go to the duke?"

"He did. He was shown into a room surrounded with dresses, and the duke asked him which of them he thought the most suitable? Oh!' said he, the dress should be either red and blue, or blue and red, for these are the na