"Nonsense, Mamma!"

"It is all very well to say nonsense, Nelly, but when you have lived as long as I have- ." Mrs. Eastwood said, slowly:

you think she is pretty, Nelly? It's rather a remarkable face."

"I don't know," said Nelly, puzzled. "It would be beautiful in a picture. Wait till she wakes up and comes to life, and then we shall know. Here is Frederick, all perfumed with his cigar. We were talking her over

collect. And it was not only the past that occupied her mind; she understood the present, and studied it with a ceaseless interest, which the subjects of her study were scarcely aware of; though they had" However, it cannot be helped now. Do all long ago consented to the fact that Alice knew everything. Mrs. Eastwood thought it right to inform Alice of all the greater events that affected the family, but generally ended such confidences abruptly, with a half-amused, half-angry consciousness that Alice already knew all about them, and more of them than she herself did. Alice was the only one in all the house who had divined the real character of Frederick. As for the others, she said to herself, with affectionate contempt, that they were "Just nothing, just nothing-honest lads and lasses, with no harm in them." She loved them, but dismissed them summarily from her mind as persons not likely to supply her life with any striking interest; but here was something very different. Life quickened for the observant old woman, and a certain thrill of excitement came into her mind as she put out Mrs. Eastwood's comfortable dressing-gown and arranged all her "things." Mrs. Eastwood herself had furnished but little mental excitement to Alice, but something worth looking into seemed now about to come.

"I do not understand the girl," was Mrs. Eastwood's next speech.

"How could we expect to understand her, just come off a long journey, and stupefied by coming into a strange place? Remember, she never saw any of us before. Don't let us be unreasonable, Mamma," cried Nelly; and then she added, in a more subdued tone, "She must be affectionate, for she seemed to cling so to Frederick."

"Yes, I knew you must be pulling the poor child to pieces," said Frederick, seating himself by the fire. "What have you got to say against her? She is not cut in the common fashion, like all the other girls whom one sees about-and is sick of."

"I should think the other girls cared very little whether you were sick of them or not," retorted Nelly, affronted.

Mr. Frederick Eastwood was one of the young men who entertain a contempt for women, founded on the incontestable consciousness of their own superiority; and it was one of his theories that all women were jealous of each other. Even his mother, he felt, would "pull" the new comer "to pieces" out of pure feminine spite.

"Hush, children," said Mrs. Eastwood; "we have nothing to do with other girls for the moment. This one is very unresponsive, I am afraid. You have seen more of her than we have, Frederick. Had she any friends out yonder? Did she seem to you affectionate?"

Frederick laughed. "I have no reason to complain of any want of affectionateness," he said, pulling his peaked beard with that supreme satisfaction of gratified vanity which no woman can tolerate. Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly looked at each other with a common wrath, but the mother put up a finger to suppress the impatience of her child.

"Yes, she seemed to turn to you," she said, with as much indifference in her voice as was practicable. "Ring for tea, now, Nelly. Frederick will like to get upstairs early after his journey. I saw Mr. "Ah!" said Mrs. Eastwood, with a Bellingham at the office after I got your long-drawn breath. "My dear," she ad- letter, Frederick. He made rather a joke ded, after a pause, "I don't want to antici- of your illness, poor boy. I hope you will pate difficulties which may never come; not wish to go away for some time again. but on the whole it might have been bet- I am told that, though promotion is by ter to send some one else than Freder- seniority, those young men who are most ick. A young man, you know; it is al- to be depended on are the ones who get ways a risk. I wish I had made up my secretaryships, and so forth, and you mind at once to spare Alice know your income is but small

23

"Those who get secretaryships, and so forth, are those who have private influence," said Frederick loftily, "which is not my case, mother. Whoever told you so told you stuff and nonsense. Men in office take their own sons and nephews, or their friends' sons and nephews, for their private secretaries—and fellows like me have no chance."

"But Mr. Bellingham, I am sure, had no private influence," urged Mrs. Eastwood; "it must have been merit in his

case

From Blackwood's Magazine.

SIR JOHN BURGOYNE.* THE work which Colonel Wrottesley undertook to perform was both creditable and becoming; and creditably to himself, as well as honestly towards his readers, he has accomplished it. In the life of his distinguished father-in-law, he has given us one of the most charming pieces of biography which it has been our good fortune of late years to encounter. No doubt the materials at his disposal were "There was some political reason, I both ample and excellent. A journal suppose," said Frederick. "Merit is kept through many years of active service humbug, you may take my word for that. in the field, by one who played no inconBy the bye, I think I will just step out to siderable part in the transactions which the club for half an hour to see what is he describes, can hardly fail, under any going on. It is rather a fine nightcircumstances, to be interesting. And if "it be interspersed with criticisms, not arising out of information obtained after the event, but based upon what an intelligent observer sees and hears while each separate operation is in progress, then they who follow its details will read as much with a view to instruction as to amusement. Such a journal of the great contest in the Peninsula Sir John Burgoyne kept, and Colonel Wrottesley has with equal judgment and taste given it to the public exactly as it was written. Nor is it thus alone that he has made the gallant old soldier his own biographer. As time sped on, sweeping from the stage of life one after another the giants whom the wars of the French Revolution had reared up, Sir John Burgoyne, wellnigh the last survivor of the race, found his opinion sought for, on every military sub"Hush, Nelly, you are always hard ject, almost as much by foreign Governupon Frederick. Most of them are dis-ments and their representatives as by his posed that way, I am afraid; and not own. Thus, when the breach with Rusmuch wonder either when girls flatter sia became imminent, he was called upon their vanity. We must teach Innocent to advise, not in Downing Street only, not to be so demonstrative," said Mrs. but at the Tuileries. Thus, when the Eastwood. She sighed again, remember- Crimean war came to an end, General ing her friend's warning."Perhaps Jane Everard was not so much in the wrong, Nelly, after all.”

But after your illness, Frederick"Oh, I am all right," he said, going out of the room. If I am obliged to tell the truth I must say that I do not think his departure was any great loss to his mother and sister. Mrs. Eastwood sighed, half because it was the first night of his return, and she felt the slight of his speedy withdrawal, and half because of an old prejudice in her mind that it was best for young men when not engaged to spend their evenings at home: But Frederick never made himself at all delightful at home, after an absence like this, for reasons of which she was altogether unconscious. Nelly did not sigh at all, and if she felt her brother's departure, did so more in anger than in sorrow.

"Are all young men coxcombs like that, I wonder?" she said.

"I suppose people who take the worst view of everything and everybody must be in the right sometimes," said Nelly, indignantly. a saying in which there was more truth than she thought.

Todtleben, his old opponent, acting for the Russian Government, entered with him into a friendly and professional controversy. Colonel Brailmont likewise, well known in this country as the able historian of Wellington's military career, appealed to him for advice and support, when opposed by a commission of Belgian engineers in his plans for the fortification of Antwerp. And American generals opened their minds to him during their civil war, discussing freely their own and their opponents' manoeuvres,

Life and Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne, Bart. By his son-in-law, Lieut.-Colonel the Honourable George Wrottesley, Royal Engineers.

his birth is not given, but we learn that he was baptised in the parish church of St. Ann's, Soho, on the 15th of August 1782, and that he received the name of John Fox Burgoyne Charles James Fox, the great Whig statesman, standing as one of his sponsors.

and accounting as they best could for the | formed an illicit connection with a procomparatively trivial results that, up to fessional singer, who lived with him till the very last campaign, attended both his death in 1792, and whom, with her their failures and successes. All the let-four children, he left absolutely penniless. ters and memoranda arising out of these Of these four children, the subject of references have been preserved; and this memoir was the eldest. The day of together with notes of his own services in Ireland as President of the Board of Works, his confidential despatches from Turkey and Sebastopol, both before and after the commencement of hostilities, his pleasant description of fetes at Paris, Compiègne, Windsor, and elsewhere, and his large and miscellaneous correspondence with men eminent both in literature and science they constitute such a mass of curious and valuable materials as seldom come into the possession of the most favoured of biographers. Let us not, however, be misunderstood. Where there is neither tact in selecting nor skill to use aright what is chosen, a superabundance even of the best materials is just as apt to confuse as to prove of service to a writer. Happily Colonel Wrottesley has shown himself to be deficient in neither of these qualities, and the result is, as we have just said, one of the most interesting and instructive pieces of biography which has appeared for many a long day.

General Burgoyne, as we have seen, died in 1792. He had made provision, as he thought, in his will for the children and their mother; but when his affairs came to be investigated, there were debts more than sufficient to swallow up all the assets, and mother and children were thrown upon the world. Nobly and generously Lord Derby came forward to supply to the orphans the place of a father. He assumed at once the entire charge of their maintenance, removed them from their mother's care, and treated them ever afterwards as if they had been the lawful offspring of his sister, not the illegitimate children of her husband.

The subject of the present memoir was sent at first to be educated under a priAmong the soldiers and politicians of vate tutor at Cambridge. With him he the early reign of George III., not the remained for about a year, after which he least distinguished in many respects was removed to Eton, and subsequently, was Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne. in 1796, to the Royal Military Academy His failure at Saratoga, occasioned less at Woolwich. His biographer tells us through his own shortcomings than those that all this while the boy was gentle of others, threw indeed a cloud over a wellnigh to timidity, and accounts for the military reputation which, prior to that circumstance by reference to the state of calamity, had been more than respectable. dependence on the bounty of strangers Great, however, as the misfortune was, it of which, from early years, he had been neither lost for the prisoner on parole the painfully conscious. There may be some good opinion of his friends, nor caused truth in this surmise; yet, on the whole, society to turn its back upon the some- we are inclined to attribute the infirmity what florid speaker in the House of Com--for an infirmity it was

mons

much more to

- and the brilliant author, as a cen- constitutional diffidence than to any assotury ago he was esteemed to be, of “The ciation of ideas, of which, to say the Lord of the Manor," and "The Heiress." truth, we can discover no trace, either in When a Westminster schoolboy, General his own letters or in those of his friends. Burgoyne had become the sworn friend Be the causes of the phenomenon, howof Edward, twelfth Earl of Derby, then ever, what they may, nothing can be more Lord Stanley. This led to an intimacy certain than that this distrust of his own with the family, which the soldier of for- powers, which is represented as colourtune somewhat abused by eloping with ing the youth's academic career, never Lady Charlotte, his friend's youngest sis- entirely ceased to be present with the ter. But the incident, whatever may have man throughout a long and useful life. been thought of it by the parents of the In doubtful and difficult circumstances bride, seems not to have interrupted for occurring over and over again, no human moment the kindly feelings of her being ever took clearer views of what brother towards the bridegroom. Lady ought to be done, or expressed them Charlotte died without issue, in 1776. more distinctly; yet, in every instance, A year or two afterwards the widower as it would seem, he gave way when

a

In the sufferings and dangers that attended Sir John Moore's memorable retreat, Captain Burgoyne had his full share. He it was who, after mining the bridge over the Esla, held it till the British army had crossed over, and then blew it up, just as the French were deYoung Burgoyne's first commission as scending from the opposite heights to lieutenant in the Royal Engineers bears force a passage. He was not, indeed, date the 29th of August 1798. By a cu- present at the battle of Corunna, because rious coincidence, the first professional his line of retreat lay in a different diduty which he was called upon to per- rection; but he lost his horses, his bagform was to assist in fortifying the west-gage, and all else that he possessed, and ern heights at Dover; and he lived to returned to England with the light diviscomplete the works, as Director-General ion from Vigo, rendered all but totally of Fortifications, just seventy years after-deaf by the hardships which he had unwards i.e., in 1868.

the light in which some of the great | ray troops enough to fill them, and that Duke's military operations presented further to divide his army appeared to themselves to a mind not naturally prone to find fault with those in authority. For ourselves, we offer no opinion with regard to the justice or injustice of some of these criticisms, though the first, which we now proceed to transcribe, is undoubtedly at variance in one important particular with the spirit of what the writer had himself previously stated, and is opposed in other respects to all history. He has told the story of the passage of the Douro somewhat incorrectly as regards the means that were employed to achieve it. He goes on to express an opinion upon the entire operation in the following terms:

The first thing that strikes one in this business is the little previous preparation. Why Beresford, whose object was evidently to impede the retreat of the enemy, take up his time, and divert him sufficiently to enable the main body to be close at his heels and attack him, was not allowed more time to seize upon important posts, destroy bridges, &c.; and why Romana was not acquainted in time with the operations about to be undertaken against Soult, when he would have been very happy to have lent a hand to so important an undertaking; and though his undisciplined troops may have been very unequal to meet the French in the open field, no one will say they were not very adequate to a war of posts in broken wild country, and especially against these already harassed dispirited troops.

As regards the immediate work of attacking Oporto, it has been shown that the General

Sir Arthur Wellesley undesirable. With respect to the second, it must be borne in mind that the English army was composed mainly of very young men - most of them recently recruited-of whom Captain Burgoyne himself, after seeing them passed in review, says: "The army is not so fine an one as I have been accustomed to see, most of them very young soldiers;" while the Portuguese made a very bad figure indeed,-cannot march, the men particularly small." With troops of this description rapid movements are most distressing, as, indeed, was shown by the numbers who broke down during this campaign. Sir Arthur also pretty well accounted for the escape of the enemy when he said in his despatch-"It is obvious, that if an army throws away all its cannon, equipments, and baggage, and everything which can strengthen it, and can enable it to act together as a body, and aban dons all those who are entitled to its protection, but add to its weight and impede it must be able to march by roads through which it cannot be followed with any prospect of being overtaken by an army which has not made these sacrifices."

its

progress,

In all the sieges which occurred dur ing the progress of the war, Burgoyne took a leading part. He seems, indeed, to have been the first officer of his corps had information on the morning of the 12th who, in the absence of a body of drilled that a body of the enemy had left Oporto and sappers, trained the soldiers of the line taken the road to Valongo very early that both to sap and mine. Lieut.-Col. Fletchmorning; that the floating bridge at Oporto er makes special mention of this circumhad been blown up in the night, but that at stance in a letter addressed to the Infrom four to eight miles above there were spector-General of Fortifications; and plenty of boats and every facility to pass the Captain (afterwards Sir C. P.) Pasley, river. From these considerations it would himself the originator of the corps of appear the most military mode of proceeding sappers and miners, also refers to it: would have been to have sent a small corps «The sappers we lately employed," says direct to Oporto to amuse the enemy while the the former, were taken from the 3d Dimain body crossed the river at Aventes. Had this been done the French army would have vision, and had received such instruction been divided in two, the rear-guard left in the as time and means afforded, under Captown casily cut off, and the retreat of the re-tain Burgoyne." "I congratulate you," mainder consequently more difficult. But then the brilliant achievement of forcing the passage of a considerable river in the presence of an enemy would have been lost.

There is another point open to criticismviz., the want of celerity with which a flying dispirited enemy was hurried, &c., &c.

66

writes the latter, "upon the honour which you will have of being the officer who trained the first sappers in the British service that ever acted against an enemy."

Burgoyne, now promoted to the rank of major by brevet, was attached, at the The only remark which we care to siege of Badajos, to the 3d, Picton's, Dihazard on the first of these criticisms vision. He describes vividly, in his is, that if there were abundance of boats journal, the escalade of the castle, by four or five miles higher up the stream, which the place was taken. But we prethere were, likewise, with General Mur-fer giving an extract from a description