Such characters as I have alluded to, it would seem, are extremely common in the British army; and it is to be presumed that they are not less plentiful in the armies of the European powers; though it does not appear that the community at large gain wisdom and caution from the mournful experience of their neighbors, but rather the reverse; for, if we may believe their own writers, the footsteps of a regiment, moving about through different country quarters, are marked by more incurable evils, and more true horrors, than the march of an invading army through a hostile, and resisting country. It has been said of the Turkish army, that they are far more formidable to their friends, than to their foes; if any dependence can be placed in those numerous writings, professing to be descriptions of English manners, that find their way across the Atlantic, the same may be said of that portion of the British army that is on the "home station." Baron Plindorf was an unprincipled libertine, cold, selfish, and unfeeling. He was eminently successful too in his diabolical enterprise, although there was nothing prepossessing in his person or in his manners; but he had the reputation of being irresistible, and of course he was so; for, whatever may be the reason, it is a most lamentable fact, that to be called a professed rake, and reputed father of some half dozen illegitimate children, is a man's most irresistible passport, and powerful recommendation to the good graces and smiles of the fair sex at large; every woman is instantly eager to call into exercise that fascinating treachery that ought to doom its possessor to public infamy and detestation. The next most powerful introduction to female favor, is to be a widower or a foreigner; though the latter is almost uniformly "brought to bay," in a few months after marrying in this country, by a wife and some eight or nine children from "over the water;" the very next foreigner that comes over _alone_, is snapped up in the same way--but enough of this. He saw and admired Bianca, as Milton's devil saw and admired Paradise, with the prospective determination of destroying its calm happiness forever.