curring the reproach of national vanity, we may fairly claim as being peculiar to Britons.

Among the individuals who accepted rank and command in the Portuguese army, few were more distinguished for bravery, and determined zeal, than Norman M'Leod. Norman was, as the name may suggest, a native of the Highlands of Scotland. Descended from a long line of warlike ancestors-himself, indeed, the son of a gallant soldier, whose name had obtained an honourable place in the gazette, on a variety of occasions, and, finally, swelled the list of the brave, who fell on the plain of Aboukir-Norman may fairly be considered as born to the profession of arms: at least, we cannot wonder, if, from his childhood, he entertained no ideas of human happiness, apart from the acquisition of military renown. Nor were his feelings, on this score, in any degree at variance with the feelings of her to whom his early education was entrusted; for his mother's disposition, though tender and affectionate in the extreme, partook, not slightly, of the disposition of the Roman matrons. She had married Norman's father, in preference to other and more wealthy suitors, because he was a soldier; and, when he died, she bore his loss with equanimity, because he died, where a soldier ought to die-in the field of battle, and in defence of his country. the guidance of such a parent, Norman was taught to consider all fame as worthless, except that which is earned amid scenes of violence and bloodshed; and the lesson thus early taught, the events of his future life never permitted him to forget.

Brought up under

Norman was an only son; indeed, an only child; yet he went with his mother's hearty benediction, at the early age of fifteen, to join the army. Gifted by nature with a constitution capable of enduring the severest hardships, and accustomed, even from the nurse's arms, to be abroad, in all weathers, and at all hours-privations, under which others sank, were to him as nothing. He would wrap

himself in his cloak, in the coldest night, and sleep as soundly, upon the frozen earth, and under the canopy of heaven, as if he rested upon a bed of down, and within the walls of a palace. If provisions were scanty, no one appeared to suffer less their scantiness, or digested, in better humour, his insufficient meal. On the longest march, Norman was never known to knock-up, or fall into the rear: indeed, it was his ordinary custom, to lighten, by turns, such of the soldiers as exhibited any symptoms of weakness, by carrying their arms, and, occasionally, even their knapsacks; and then, when it came to the final issue, when man was opposed to man, and all the pomp and circumstance of war were abroad, Norman was in his element. Cool and undaunted, whilst he cheered others forward, he himself never forgot the real duties of an officer; his senses were under no circumstances confounded; nor did he ever suffer the enthusiasm of the moment so far to gain the ascendancy, as to cause a neglect, on his part, of a single precaution which the circumstances of the case seemed to require.

Such was the general character of Norman M'Leod, as far as military qualities are concerned in forming a character. He was a complete soldier, or, as the despatches express themselves, "an officer of great promise, respected by the profession in general, and an ornament to his majesty's service." But Norman was something more than a soldier. Endowed with principles of the strictest and most unbending honour, Norman was likewise generous, frank, liberal, and open-hearted. His brother officers loved, as well as looked up to him; the private soldiers adored him. There was not a man in his corps, who would have refused to follow, when he led, or who would not have cheerfully put his own life in the most imminent hazard, in order to insure Norman's safety. And Norman well deserved all this. His manners were, at once, manly and gentle : he never employed a harsh expression to attain an object, where a mild expression would avail;

and he found, as those who act upon his theory will always find, that he was much more readily attended to, and much more faithfully obeyed, than others who thought fit to follow a different course.

It can hardly be expected that Norman was either professed scholar, or a very accomplished gentleman. He had entered the army at an age too early to permit his attaining to the first of these characters; and he had embarked upon active service, too soon afterwards, to give leisure for his acquiring the last. But Norman was neither ignorant nor unpolished. His natural abilities were of a high order; and what he once read, he never forgot. Nature had, moreover, gifted him with a turn for music and drawing: both of these arts he sedulously cultivated, as often as circumstances would allow; and, in both, he accordingly made considerable progress. With the French language he was familiarly acquainted from his childhood; and he had good sense enough to apply himself, as soon as he reached the peninsula, to the study of the Portuguese and Spanish. For the practical branch of mathematics, again, that branch which was connected with the science of his profession, he entertained an extreme fondness. He never passed through a strange country without examining it with an officer's eye, and taking sketches of such districts as appeared to him adapted for the prosecution of military operations; of every fortified place, near which he chanced to be stationed, he failed not to provide himself with an accurate plan; whilst, during the inactive season of winter, it proved one of his favourite amusements, to construct redoubts, after the fashion of Uncle Toby, in the sand; to open trenches before them, and to go through the whole process of a siege. But a soldier, who is so far master of three foreign languages, as to speak them with ease and fluency; who is well versed in mathematics; not unacquainted with the history of Europe, and a tolerable proficient in music and landNo. 3.

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scape-painting; is not, as men go, to be accounted an ignorant person.

Is the reader desirous to know something of Norman's external appearance? He shall be gratified. Norman was by no means a handsome man; that is to say, his features were not regular, neither was his figure a piece of absolute symmetry. His hair was a light brownwhen an infant, it had been flaxen; his eyes were blue, quick, penetrating, and expressive; his complexion, originally fair, had become tanned, through frequent exposure to the sun; but the principal charm of his countenance consisted, after all, in a general air of good humour, high courage, and great intelligence, which overspread it. In like manner, though tall, full-chested, and well-formed, it is probable that the connoiseur in manly beauty would have pronounced him striking and soldier-like, rather than elegant. Perhaps his absolute indifference to points, usually esteemed important among young men, may account for this; for Norman was neither a fop in his dress, nor a petit maitre in his carriage. Yet, with all his personal defects, and they were many, Norman M'Leod was, perhaps, better calculated to make an impression upon the fair sex, than ninety-nine out of a hundred " carpet knights," whose bravery is, for the most part, exhibited in their attire; and whose symmetry arises, at least, as much from the skill of their tailor as from the operations of Dame Nature.

It by no means follows, in the army, more than in other professions, that those whose acquirements best entitle them to success are invariably successful. Many a Wellington, doubtless, pines away his youth and his manhood in a subordinate situation; exactly as many an Eldon, for want of opportunities to make himself known, lives and dies a briefless barrister. But, of the number of those doomed to undeserved neglect, Norman M'Leod was not

one.

The reputation of his father did something for him; it induced those in power, at least, to fix their eyes upon

him; and his own talents, and enthusiastic love of his profession, speedily confirmed them in the favourable opinion which they were disposed to form of him. His rise was rapid. At the battle of Vimiera, he bore a lieutenant's commission in one of the Highland regiments; at the battle of Salamanca, he had attained to the rank of Major by Brevet. To this was soon afterwards added, a Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Portuguese service; and when the allied army removed from its ground at Alba de Tormes, Norman M'Leod found himself in command of a battalion of Cacadores, inferior, in point of discipline, equipment, and gallantry, to none which took part in the Peninsular war.

At the head of this battalion, Norman took his full share in the various operations which conducted the allied troops, by way of Valladolid, Cuellar, Segovia, and Madrid, and again through Valladolid towards Burgos. In the assault upon the hill of St. Michael, he particularly distinguished himself; and, perhaps, had the attack on the south-west front of the castle been entrusted to him and his gallant Cacadores, the result might have been very different from that which actually occurred. Be that, however, as it may, one thing, at least, is certain, that the reputation which he had previously acquired, suffered no diminution by his conduct before Burgos; and at last, when to abandon further attempts upon that place was judged prudent, he and his regiment were especially selected to form part of the rear-guard, and, as such, to cover the retreat of the rest of the army.

It consists not with the plan of my present narrative, to offer even a brief sketch of the progress of that retreat, by marking out so much as the different routes, along which the allied troops defiled; enough is done, when I state, in general terms, that, after a variety of movements on both sides, a good deal of skirmishing, and, here and there, a little cannonading, the British army, with the exception of Sir Rowland Hill's corps, which withdrew southward into