The subject of this sketch is Colonel Donellan, of the 48th, who was killed at Talavera; and “_Old Charley_” was the cognomen of friendly distinction, which the men of his regiment gave their gallant commander. A few traits in his military character will be found not unworthy of imitation by all young Colonels; nay, even some of our old ones would not be wrong in copying a few of his good qualities. Old Charley was the last of the _Powderers_; that is to say, the only one in the regiment who, in despite of new customs and new taxes, clung to the good old cauliflower-head of the army, and would no more have gone to parade without pomatum and powder, than without his sword and sash. He had been accustomed to the practice of military hair-dressing from his early youth, and it formed as much a part of the officer, in his estimation, as the epaulette or the gorget. Even as the odoriferous effluvia of Auld Reekie, by the powers of association, will affect the children of that city throughout life, so will hair-powder and pomatum stick to the heads of the old military school for ever:—they bring back the mind to its early predilections: like Merlin's wand, a smell of the one and a dust of the other bid the spirit “of former days arise,” and cheer it with an intellectual view of its dearest hours! In this amiable susceptibility Old Charley was pre-eminent; and he was often known to have regretted the improvement in hair-dressing, which reduced the quantity of iron pins and coagulable fat used in that art, from two pounds each head per diem to three ounces. The powdering-rooms built in all the old barracks for the purpose of twisting the tails of the battalions into dense knobs, and beautifying their heads with a composition of meal, whiting, and rancid suet, never were permitted by him to be defiled with cast-off stores of quarter-masters, or the rattletrap uproar of an adjutant's nursery. No; those relics of worth were sure to be protected by the whitewasher's brush and the charwoman's scrubber; and, in giving them up to the substitute purposes of orderly-room, Old Charley would heave a sigh and think of the white heads which, like snow-balls, were melted away by the warmth of croppy influence, and trampled upon by the march of refinement! This worthy officer had formed the greatest friendship with the jack-boot of the army, together with its close associate—the white buckskin breeches; and when the grey overalls and short Wellingtons were ordered to displace them, he indignantly refused to obey—as far as regarded his own proper person: such innovations he could not bear; and, as a proof of his opposition upon this point, he stuck to his jacks and buckskins to the day of his death. They, as well as his favourite powder and pomatum, were along with him at Talavera, when the shot struck him which deprived the service of an excellent, though somewhat whimsical officer.