Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849 — John Shaqi
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
man of education and the gentleman. We met near the platform of
St Cyprien; and he had the kindness to entertain me with a calm
disquisition on the fight, while we were both in the thick of it. He
had his share of professional employment in the Peninsular sieges, and
got a bad wound or two; but lived to fortify Spike Island, and was at
length lost at sea. And then there was colonel H----, who commanded a
Portuguese brigade with the rank of brigadier-general--an extraordinary
composition of waggery, shrewdness, chivalry, and professional talent.
He came down to Lisbon while I was there, on his way to England, quite
worn out with hard service and the effect of his wounds, or, as he told
us himself, "unripped at every seam." He died not many days after, on
his passage to England.
Now for myself. I commenced keeping my terms at Trinity College,
Cambridge, in the year 1809, the seventeenth of my age. A college
life was not altogether my own choice; for nearly all the males of my
family, for three generations, had served or were serving their country
either in the army, navy, or marines, to the number of some ten or
twelve; and I myself had always looked forward to wearing the king's
uniform. Moreover, as the Peninsular war had already commenced when I
went to college, and I had learned at school the use of the broadsword
and small sword, had been drilled, and could handle a musket, my
thoughts often turned to military scenes, especially when I read in
the daily journals of victories won, first by Sir Arthur Wellesley,
then by Lord Wellington. But, once at Cambridge, I caught the fever of
academic emulation. My cousin B---- (brother of the Captain B---- above
mentioned,) had been senior wrangler, and had given me some useful
hints as to the mode of reading with effect; I read hard, obtained a
Trinity scholarship in my first year, first class the same year, ditto
the second year, and stood fair for a place among the wranglers. But
now my health broke; not, however, from hard living, but from hard
study. I was compelled to give up; and, not choosing to read for a
middling degree after having been booked for a high one, determined to
go out among the hoys. Now my penchant for military adventure returned
with full force. I was miserably out of health, with an excellent
constitution--in proof of which I always found that I lost ground by
nursing, but gained by a rough open-air life. A campaign or two would
be just the thing for me. And I beg to offer this suggestion to growing
young gentlemen who are sickly, and consequently hipped, as I was.
If, with rough living--that is, with much moving about, and constant
exposure to the atmosphere--you grow worse, I can give you no comfort;
you are a poor creature, take all the care of yourself you can. But
if, with the same kind of life, you grow better, stronger, stouter,
heartier, saucier, depend upon it, you have some stamina. This was my
case. I saw that a sedentary life was not the life I was made for; an
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