Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea) in the back green of his house in Melville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the "Iliad," and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector, of course. WILLIAM M. THACKERAY Born in 1811, died in 1863; lived in India until five years old; educated at Cambridge; began to write for newspapers in 1833; went to Paris to study art in 1834; visited the east in 1844, and the United States in 1852 and 1854; published "Vanity Fair" in 1846-48, "Pendennis" in 1848-50, "Henry Esmond" in 1852, "The Newcomes" in 1853-55, "The Virginians" in 1857-59. I THE IMPERTURBABLE MARLBOROUGH[20] And now, having seen a great military march through a friendly country, the pomps and festivities of more than one German court, the severe struggle of a hotly contested battle, and the triumph of victory, Mr. Esmond beheld another part of military duty; our troops entering the enemy's territory and putting all around them to fire and sword; burning farms, wasted fields, shrieking women, slaughtered sons and fathers, and drunken soldiery, cursing and carousing in the midst of tears, terror, and murder. Why does the stately Muse of History, that delights in describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest, leave out these scenes, so brutal, and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of the drama of war? You gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease and compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph with which our chieftains are bepraised; you pretty maidens that come tumbling down the stairs when the fife and drum call you, and huzza for the British Grenadiers,--do you take account that these items go to make up the amount of triumph you admire, and form part of the duties of the heroes you fondle? [Footnote 20: From "The History of Henry Esmond."]