Ever since the year 1799, I have had, in the coachman phrase, an off leg and a near one; the right limb, thanks to a twelve-pounder, lies somewhere at Seringapatam, its twin-brother being at this moment under a table at Brighton. In plain English, I have a wooden leg. Being thus deprived of half of the implements for marching, I equitably retired, on half-pay, from a marching regiment, and embarked what remained of my body, for the land of its nativity, literally fulfilling the description of man, “with one foot on sea and one on shore,” in the Shakspearian song. A great deal has been said and sung of our wooden walls and hearts of oak, but legs of ditto make but an inglorious figure on the ocean. No wrestler from Cornwall or Devonshire ever received half so many fair back-falls as I, the least roll of the vessel--and the equinoctial gales were in full blow--making me lose, I was going to say, my feet. I might have walked in a dead calm, and as a soldier accustomed to exercise, and moreover a foot soldier, and used to walking, I felt a great inclination to pace up and down the deck, but a general protest from the cabins put an end to my promenade. As Lear recommends, my wooden hoofs ought to have been “shod with felt.” At last the voyage terminated, and in my eagerness to land, I got into a fishing-boat, which put me ashore at Dungeness. Those who have enjoyed a ramble over its extensive shingle, will believe that I soon obtained abundance of exercise in walking with a wooden leg among its loose pebbles; in fact, when I arrived at Lydd, I was, as the cricketers say, “stumped out.” It was anything but one of Foote’s farces. The next morning saw me in sight of home,--as a provincial bard says-- “But when home gleams upon the wanderer’s eye, Quicken his steps--he almost seems to fly.” But I wish he had seen me doing my last half mile over Swingfield Hill. I found its deep sand anything but a quicksand, in spite of a distinct glimpse of the paternal roof. I am convinced, when “Fleet Camilla scours the plain,” she does not do it with sand. At last I stood at the lodge-gate, which opened, and let me into a long avenue, the path of which had been newly gravelled, but not well rolled; accordingly, I cut out considerable work for myself and the gardener, who, as he watched the holes I picked in his performance, seemed to look on my advance much as Apollyon did on Pilgrim’s Progress. By way of relief, I got upon the grass, but my wooden leg, though it was a blackleg, did not thrive much upon the turf. Arrived at the house door, filial anxiety caused me to forget to scrape and wipe, and I proceeded to make a fishy pattern of soles and dabs up the stair carpet. The good wife in the Scotch song says-- “His very foot has music in’t, As he comes up the stair.”