an opportunity of distinguishing himself in your Majesty's service.”

"Jaspar Colyton!" exclaimed the King musingly; "methinks I have some faint recollection of that name."

"When your Majesty was serving under M. de Turenne against the army of the Prince de Condé," said Walter, "my father had the honour to be a Captain in the same squadron." "What! when the Spaniards sate down before Arras? That was my third campaign, and must have been in the year fifty-four. Jaspar Colyton! I remember him now. We were then both youngsters together:-the Captain was called the handsome English cavalier; ay, and a right merry one he was, who sang a good song, made love and war with equal ardour, and was never known to refuse the bottle. Are you the son of that jocund gentleman, and is he still alive ?"

Walter answered in the affirmative, replying subsequently to several questions that were put to him touching his father's circumstances, age,

health, &c.; when James, who loved to revert to his youthful campaigns, and whose memory was extremely retentive, exclaimed

"Although it is so many years ago, I well recollect that I was riding one night, with your' father and others, to visit the guard, when, as we reached the height of Mouchy, we were witnesses to a frightful catastrophe that happened on the plain towards Lens. An entire regiment of the enemy's cavalry were coming from Douay, each man having behind him a fifty pound bag of gunpowder for the supply of their camp, accompanied by about fourscore horses laden with hand grenades. A drunken trooper in the rear choosing to smoke a pipe, his officer took it from him, and beat him with his sword, when the fellow discharged his pistol at him, which set fire to the lieutenant's bag, and so communicating from one to the other, nearly the whole of that regiment were miserably blown up and destroyed."

"I have often heard my father mention the occurrence," said Walter, "as well as your Ma

jesty's kindness to some of the scorched and wounded survivors that were brought in.”

"It was not a thing to escape any man's memory," resumed the Monarch, "nor shall I ever forget the beautiful appearance of our troops as they marched down one dark stormy night to attack the lines before Arras. As soon as they had formed for battle, they suddenly discovered their lighted matches, which kindling and blazing by reason of the wind, and throwing out sparkles of fire as the musqueteers happened to shog against each other, made a glorious show of our advancing army, while all around them was a pitchy darkness. I have often too laughed with your merry father-but that must have been afterwards, towards fiftyseven, when we served together before Cambray, at the Spanish mode of warfare. Seeing we could easily have captured a large convoy of the enemy, I galloped up to the Prince de Ligne to apprise him of it, but he durst not attack without orders from Don John or the Marquis of Caracena, both of whom were enjoying their

afternoon's siesta, and he was afraid to wake them, so that we were fain to let a most valuable prize slip through our fingers, in order that our drowsy commanders might finish their nap.”

His Majesty, who in early life had much distinguished himself as a soldier, and loved to "fight all his battles o'er again," might have finished the campaign, but that Father Petre intimated he had a communication to make respecting a letter just put into his hands, when he bowed graciously to Walter, and immediately withdrew with the Jesuit.

"Well, my young friend!" said Sunderland as he retired, "are you satisfied with your reception? It has indeed been a most distinguished one, and you may hold yourself highly honoured. Our royal master is slow to promise favour, but not to bestow it where his regard has once been obtained. In almost every respect he is the reverse of the late King, as indeed is sufficiently manifest from the totally altered appearance of the court, where all is now propriety

and decorum, and no royal mistresses, covered with diamonds, are allowed to offend public decency. His present Majesty, profoundly imbued with a sense of religion, is strict in all its observances; he is moreover extremely temperate, never guilty of profane swearing or loose discourse, although, as you have seen, sufficiently courteous and familiar; and so condescending, that when saluted by the humblest individual in the streets, he never fails to take off his hat. Such is his economy, that there are at this moment, without any additional taxes, six hundred thousand pounds in the exchequer, which in the late reign was once bankrupt, and always in debt; no unimportant circumstance if there be any truth in the received maxim that Thesaurus regis est vinculum pacis et bellorum nervi. And so extraordinary are the King's exactness and diligence, that although he superintends all the affairs of the state, both civil and military, I have reason to know that he has for many years kept a voluminous diary, in which he regularly enters with his own hand every transac