“Who are you?” “Cut my lucky!” “Does your mother know you're out I” “Hookey!” &c. &c. are terms that metaphorically imply something comical Yet oblivion, following in the march of time, shall cast its shadows over their mysterious meanings. On “Hookey!” the bewildered scholiast of future ages will hang every possible interpretation but the right one; with “Blow me tight!” he will give a loose to conjecture; and oft to Heaven will he roll his queer eye, the query to answer, “Who are you?” CHAPTER VIII. |And hail to the living,” exclaimed Lieutenant O'Larry, the Trim of the Cloth Quarter,--“To them give we a trophy, time enough for a tomb!” And having knocked out the ashes of his pipe, he tuned it, and (beating time with his wooden leg) woke our enthusiasm with WATERLOO. And was it not the proudest day in Britain's annals bright? And was he not a gallant chief who fought the gallant fight? Who broke the neck of tyranny, and left no more to do?-- That chief was Arthur Wellington! that fight was Waterloo! O, when on bleak Corunna s heights he rear'd his ban ner high, Britannia wept her gallant Moore; her scatter'd armies fly-- To raise her glory to the stars, and kindle hearts of flame, The mighty victor gave the word, the master-spirit came. Poor Soult, like Pistol with his leek! he soon compell'd to yield; And then a glorious wreath he gain'd on Talaveras field. See! quick as lightning, flash by flash! another deed is done-- And Marmont has a battle lost, and Salamanca's won. The shout was next “Vittoria!”--all Europe join'd the strain. Ne'er such a fight was fought before, and ne'er will be again! Quoth Arthur, “With 'th' Invincibles' another bout I'll try; And show you when f the Captain * comes a better by and by!” But lest his sword should rusty grow for want of daily use, He gave the twice-drubb'd Soult again a settler at Toulouse. His Marshals having beaten all, and laid upon the shelf, He waits to see the Captain” come, and take a turn himself. Now Arthur is a gentleman, and always keeps his word; And on the eighteenth day of June the cannons loud were heard; The flow'r of England's chivalry their conquror rallied round; A sturdy staff to cudgel well “the Captain” off the ground!