used for the first time during the Peninsular War with great effect. Amongst the many great services performed by the Peninsular War was raising the character of the British soldier from a very low to a very high standard in the national estimation. The plays of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Mrs. Centlivre, the tales of Fielding, Smollett, and Defoe, and the graver essays of Dr. Johnson, sufficiently demonstrate that in the time of those writers military men were held in the lowest esteem. The conquerors of Blenheim and of the Heights of Abraham were currently regarded as debauchees, cutthroats, and dishonest adventurers, and where a more gentlemanly exterior was exhibited, it was commonly united to the silliest foppery. Such from the Restoration to the end of the last century was the common character even of the officers of our army, and the ruffianly brutality of _Ensign Northerton_ towards _Tom Jones_ was perfectly characteristic in an age when undoubtedly it was too true that pimping too often obtained commissions, and it was an accurate general description to say of any chance-met couple of officers that “one had been bred under an attorney, and the other was son to the wife of a nobleman’s butler.” (_History of a Foundling_, book vii. c. 12). Though there were undoubtedly many officers then of a far superior class, still the high tone of chivalrous honour in our army, and the general refinement and accomplishment of character, belong to the present century. It is the great praise of the British private soldier that his stubborn will and indomitable energy, his cheerful discipline and unflinching valour, carry him through the most brilliant exploits to a success almost miraculously uniform, without any of those tangible hopes of promotion which inspire the continental soldier. Such noble and manful discharge of duty appears to merit some more adequate reward than the possible working of a miracle which may raise him from the ranks. Wellington, in his admirable _Despatches_, says of the army with which he won these Pyrenean victories: “I think I could do any thing with them.” The resemblance of many portions of these remarkable compositions to those of Cæsar has been more than once pointed out; but the striking coincidence in the present instance has never, I believe, before been noticed: “Non animadvertebatis,” says Cæsar, likewise speaking of the exploits of his Peninsular veterans, “decem habere legiones populum Romanum, quæ non solùm vobis obsistere, sed etiam cœlum diruere possent.” _De Bello Hispanico_, § ult. Even the number of veterans under the command of the ancient and the modern General was nearly the same.