“But that is not our affair; let the Lady Isabel look to it.” Dinner was announced; and no farther conversation of any consequence passed between the count and Lord Colambre till the cloth was removed and the servants had withdrawn. Then our hero opened on the subject which was heavy at his heart. “My dear count--I have a mind to serve a campaign or two, if I could get a commission in a regiment going to Spain; but I understand so many are eager to go at this moment, that it is very difficult to get a commission in such a regiment.” “It is difficult,” said the count. “But,” added he, after thinking for a moment, “I have it! I can get the thing done for you, and directly. Major Benson, who is in danger of being broke, in consequence of that affair, you know, about his mistress, wants to sell out; and that regiment is to be ordered immediately to Spain: I will have the thing done for you, if you request it.” “First, give me your advice, Count O’Halloran: you are well acquainted with the military profession, with military life. Would you advise me--I won’t speak of myself, because we judge better by general views than by particular cases--would you advise a young man at present to go into the army?” The count was silent for a few minutes, and then replied: “Since you seriously ask my opinion, my lord, I must lay aside my own prepossessions, and endeavour to speak with impartiality. To go into the army in these days, my lord, is, in my sober opinion, the most absurd and base, or the wisest and noblest thing a young man can do. To enter into the army, with the hope of escaping from the application necessary to acquire knowledge, letters, and science--I run no risk, my lord, in saying this to you--to go into the army, with the hope of escaping from knowledge, letters, science, and morality; to wear a red coat and an epaulette; to be called captain; to figure at a ball; to lounge away time in country sports, at country quarters, was never, even in times of peace, creditable; but it is now absurd and base. Submitting to a certain portion of ennui and contempt, this mode of life for an officer was formerly practicable--but now cannot be submitted to without utter, irremediable disgrace. Officers are now, in general, men of education and information; want of knowledge, sense, manners, must consequently be immediately detected, ridiculed, and despised, in a military man. Of this we have not long since seen lamentable examples in the raw officers who have lately disgraced themselves in my neighbourhood in Ireland--that Major Benson and Captain Williamson. But I will not advert to such insignificant individuals, such are rare exceptions--I leave them out of the question--I reason on general principles. The life of an officer is not now a life of parade, of coxcombical or of profligate idleness--but of active service, of continual hardship and danger. All the descriptions which we see in ancient history of a soldier’s life,