"Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Royal, Prince Arthur, Princess Mary of Teck, Prince Leopold, the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand-duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince ..." "Hold! There's a limit to human endurance. I am only mortal. What man dare do, I dare; but he who can celebrate this family in detail, and live to tell it, is less or more than man. If you have to go through this every year, it is a mercy I was born in America, for I haven't constitution enough to be an Englishman. I shall have to withdraw from this enterprise. I am out of drinks. Out of drinks, and so many more to celebrate! Out of drinks, and only just on the outskirts of the family yet, as you may say! I am sorry enough to have to withdraw, but it is plain enough that it has to be done. I am full of gas, and my teeth are loose, and I am wrenched with cramps, and afflicted with scurvy, and toothache, measles, mumps, and lockjaw, and the cider last night has given me the cholera. Gentlemen, I mean well; but really I am not in a condition to celebrate the other birthdays. Give us a rest." SIR JOHN WATERS [Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_] Amongst the distinguished men in the Peninsular War whom my memory brings occasionally before me, is the well-known and highly popular Quartermaster-General Sir John Waters, who was born at Margam, a Welsh village in Glamorganshire. He was one of those extraordinary persons that seem created by kind nature for particular purposes; and, without using the word in an offensive sense, he was the most admirable spy that was ever attached to an army. One would almost have thought that the Spanish War was entered upon and carried on in order to display his remarkable qualities. He could assume the character of Spaniards of every degree and station, so as to deceive the most acute of those whom he delighted to imitate. In the posada of the village he was hailed by the contrabandist or the muleteer as one of their own race; in the gay assemblies he was an accomplished hidalgo; at the bullfight the toreador received his congratulations as from one who had encountered the toro in the arena; in the church he would converse with the friar upon the number of Ave Marias and Paternosters which could lay a ghost, or tell him the history of every one who had perished by the flame of the Inquisition, relating his crime, whether carnal or anti-Catholic; and he could join in the _seguadilla_ or in the _guaracha_.