The father of our hero was a thrifty London trader, whose business as a Turkey merchant had been prosperous enough to persuade him that no other career could possibly be so well adapted for his son. The lad was of another opinion; but those were not the days when a parent's will might be safely contravened. Sent to Geneva to complete the education that had been commenced at London, he returned to a seat in the counting-room with intellectual qualifications that seemed to justify his aspirations for a very different scene of action. He was a fluent linguist, a ready and graceful master of the pencil and brush, and very well versed in the schools of military design. Add to these a proficiency in poetry and music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a more brilliant and glorious career. With him, the love of fame was an instinctive passion. The annals of his own fireside taught him how easily the path to distinction might be trod by men of parts and address; and he knew in his heart that opportunity was the one and the only thing needful to insure the accomplishment of his desires. Of very moderate fortunes and utterly destitute of influential connections, he knew that his education better qualified him for the useful fulfilment of military duties than perhaps any man of his years in the service of the king. Once embarked in the profession of arms, he had nothing to rely upon but his own address to secure patronage and promotion,--nothing but his own merits to justify the countenance that his ingenuity should win. Without undue vanity, it is tolerably safe to say now that he was authorized by the existing state of things to confidently predicate his own success on these estimates.