At last the order came to move to Cork,
and prepare to embark for Bengal. The
regiment had spent the usual time of between
three and four years in the United Kingdom,
and war having broken out in Hindostan,
troops were required for that country. After
a brief sojourn at the port of embarkation,
behold Snob once more on his way to serve
abroad! By this time he had been nearly
thirteen years in the army; of which he had
passed little more than three in his native
country; where he had changed his quarters
fourteen times: he had purchased his steps,
having paid two thousand five hundred pounds
for his commissions: he was yet a captain,
and had the prospect of remaining in India,
if he lived long enough, some fourteen or
fifteen years. By this time Nob had been a
lieutenant-colonel for three years.

The last time I heard of Snob, he was in
a cantonment in the far north-west of India;
where he had recovered from his second attack
of cholera, and his fourth of liver complaint.
He had been several times in action, had been
fifteen years in the army, but was still a
captain. Nob, who had been five years a
lieutenant-colonel, was promoted some time ago
to be a full colonel, and will probably be
a major-general, before Snob commands a
regiment.

My story is strictly true in all but the
names, and exhibits at a glance the working
of the two systems—the Guards and the
Line—concerning which there has of late been
so much controversy in the public papers.
Whether the public will best serve itself by
holding that such a state of things ought to
remain in existence, or by holding that the
continuance of exclusive corps with double
promotion, is a piece of injustice dangerous
to their well-being, I leave my readers to
judge. The evils here depicted are not of
yesterday's growth; although the recent
pretensions of certain high priests amongst the
military Bramins who put their trust in
Princes, have caused them to be brought
before the public more prominently than of
old. It is now nearly twenty years since I first
put on a red coat; and, during that time, the
injustice of allowing the guards to retain the
privileges over the rest of the army granted
to them by a monarch not over wise, nearly
two hundred years ago, has formed a topic of
conversation at almost every mess-table at
which I have been present. The consequences
of such a system, to the prosperity and freedom
of tax-paying Mr. Bull, may possibly occur to
him just now as somewhat momentous.

If the Hindoo rule of caste is to be retained
in the British service, let us assign to its
various degrees different duties, corresponding
to those of the favoured priesthood of that
persuasion. In that case each officer, from
the very outset of his career, would be
able to foretell to a certainty what are his
chances of advancement. But, if we want a
fair field and no favour for military talent,
let us abolish the distinction between the Nobs
and Snobs of the British army, with other
nonsense of by-gone days.

OLD BLOIS.

I DELIGHT in a decayed old town. It is
like a withered old beauty of the court of
George the Third, and gives itself such airs,
and boasts of its antediluvian conquests, and
its former lovers, and the sonnets to its eyebrows
—poor old thing!—and shakes its ragged
old fan, and darns its old finery; for it has
fallen into poverty as well as age. Their
experiences are indeed very similar, for the
maid of honour had married a dissolute old
lord, and had dissolute children, and they
treated her ill and neglected her, and wasted
their substance with riotous living; and the
old nobleman is now dead, and the sons are
all likewise departed; and the last bearer of
the name is the still haughty widow, sitting
in her faded satin, and lodging above a green-
grocer's, in a narrow street, but always at the
court end of the town; for she is utterly
ignorant of the new terraces to the west of
Tyburn, and inquires doubtfully even about
the locality of Belgrave Square.

I don't think we have any city in England
exactly answering this description of the
attendant on Queen Charlotte; for when a
town with us falls into the sere and yellow
leaf as a resort of fashion, there comes some
tremendous manufacturer of an enterprising
mind, and turns the residence of the lord-
lieutenant of the county into a mill; and
another makes an enormous warehouse of the
great assembly room—(you see the rings of
the ceiling yet, from which the chandeliers
hung, and if you look minutely there are
Cupids playing the harp, imperfectly hidden,
beneath dust and whitewash, all round the
cornice); and behold! in a year or two the
streets are alive with busy multitudes, and
the air darkened (a little) with smoke; but
there are reading-rooms, and school-rooms, and
lecture-rooms, where there were none before;
and intellect is at work, and there are signs
of progress and improvement; and only Miss
Rebecca Verjuice (how sour and crabbed she
has grown!) sighs for the balls at the
assembly in the olden time, when she met
all the nobility of the district, and once even
danced with a marquis (this was when his
lordship's son was candidate for the borough),
and laments the change. But in France—gay,
happy, gallant France—what numbers of
those urban celebrities there are! Charming
young cities in the fifteenth century; beautiful,
full-sized, blooming cities in Louis the
Fourteenth's time; but faded now—tattered,
feeble, never more to flourish; yet interesting
in their decay,—venerable in their ruins; with
traces seen through all their decrepitude of
their former charms. For instance—there's
Blois.

What a charming situation on the Loire!