this lady was of the most modest and retiring nature, and he never ventured to make a personal declaration of his passion. He has commemorated it, however, in the following beautiful and pathetic stanzas:

Oh, lady, in the laughing hours,

When time and joy go hand in hand;

When pleasure strews thy path with flowers,
And but to wish is to command;

When thousands swear, that to thy lips

A more than angel's voice is given,
And that thy jetty eyes eclipse

The bright, the blessed stars of heaven;
Might it not cast a trembling shade
Across the light of mirth and song,
To think that there is one, sweet maid,
That loved thee hopelessly and long;
That loved, yet never told his flame,
Although it burned his soul to madness;
That lov'd, yet never breathed thy name,
Even in his fondest dreams of gladness.
Though red my coat, yet pale my face,
Alas, 'tis love that made it so,
Thou only canst restore its grace,
And bid its wonted blush to glow.
Restore its blush! oh, I am wrong,
For here thine art were all in vain ;
My face has ceased to blush so long,
I fear it ne'er can blush again!

This moving expression of passion appears to have produced no effect on the obdurate fair one, who was then fifty-four years of age, with nine children, and a large jointure, which would certainly have made a very convenient addition to the income of Mr. Odoherty. He now resolved on volunteering into the line.* He was unwilling that his services should be confined to generally supported Pitt's Tory government, but these prosecutions, avowedly undertaken to silence him, only barbed his arrows against the Tory party. So, indirectly, Lord Hardwicke was the cause of Cobbett's becoming a democratic writer.-M.

* Volunteering from the militia into "the line" was generally in vogue during the last war between England and France. In the regular army of England, called "the line," commissions are mostly obtained by purchase only, whereas they might be got in the militia almost for the asking. It was a common practice, therefore, among those who were afflicted with what Johnson would

the comparatively inactive and inglorious duties of a militia offi cer, and he therefore determined to wield his sword, or, as he technically called it, his spit, wherever the cause of his country should demand it. He was soon after appointed to an ensigncy in the 44th regiment, then in the West Indies; and, on the 14th of August, 1814, he embarked at Dover in the schooner John Dory, Captain Godolphin, for Jamaica. He experienced a tedious passage, and they were unfortunate enough to fall in with an American privateer, from which, however, after a smart action, they had the good luck to escape.

The following jeu d'esprit gives so favorable a specimen of his talent for humor, that I can not refuse the reader the pleasure of submitting it to his perusal :

Captain Godolphin was a very odd and stingy man,

Whose skipper was, as I'm assur'd, of a schooner-rigg'd West Indiaman ; The wind was fair, he went on board, and when he sail'd from Dover, Says he, "this trip is but a joke, for now I'm half seas over!"

The captain's wife, she sail'd with him, this circumstance I heard of her, Her brimstone breath, 'twas almost death to come within a yard of her; With fiery nose, as red as rose, to tell no lies I'll stoop,

She looked just like an admiral with a lantern at his poop.

Her spirits sunk from eating junk, and as she was an epicure,

She swore a dish of dolphin fish would of her make a happy cure.
The captain's line, so strong and fine, had hooked a fish one day,
When his anxious wife Godolphin cried, and the dolphin swam away.

The wind was foul, the weather hot, between the tropics long she stewed,
The latitude was 5 or 6, 'bout 50 was the longitude,

When Jack the cook once spoilt the sauce, she thought it mighty odd, But her husband bawl'd on deck, why, here's the Saucy Jack,* by God.

The captain sought his charming wife, and whispered to her private ear,
My love, this night we'll have to fight a thumping Yankee privateer.”
On this he took a glass of rum, by which he showed his sense;
Resolved that he would make at least a spirited defence.

call "impecuniosity" (or want of money), to become a militia officer, and thence volunteer into the line, for foreign service the result being a gratuitous appointment to a commission in some infantry regiment, on a vacancy by death or resignation. Some of the best officers in the British army thus obtained their first commissions. Odoherty, it seems was fired with a valorous desire thus cheaply to obtain the means of distinguishing himself in the field.-M.

* A celebrated American privateer.

The captain of the Saucy Jack, he was a dark and dingy man;

Says he, my ship must take, this trip, this schooner-rigg'd West Indianman.
Each at his gun, we'll show them fun, the decks are all in order:
But mind that every lodger here, must likewise be a boarder."

No, never was there warmer work, at least I rather think not, With cannon, cutlass, grappling-iron, blunderbuss, and stink-pot. The Yankee captain, boarding her, cried, either strike or drown; Godolphin answered, "then I strike," and quickly knocked him down. The remaining thirty verses of this poem, giving an account of the action and the subsequent voyage to Jamaica, of how Mrs. Godolphin was killed by a cannon ball lodging in her stomach, and how Captain Godolphin afterward died of the yellow fever, I do not think it necessary to insert. It is sufficient to say, they are fully equal to the preceding, and are distinguished by the same quaintness of imagination, and power of ludicrous expres

sion.

On his arrival at Jamaica, he found it the rendezvous of the force destined for the attack of New Orleans, under the command of the brave though unfortunate Sir Edward Pakenham.* Of this force the 44th regiment formed a part, and the heart of Mr. Odoherty throbbed with delightful anticipation of the high destiny to which he felt himself called. A circumstance now occurred, however, which bid fair to cloud his prospects for ever. On the evening before the sailing of the armament for its destination, Mr. Odoherty had gone on shore. He there chanced to meet an old schoolfellow, who filled the situation of slave-driver or whipper-in to a neighboring plantation. This gentleman invited him to his house, and they spent the night in pouring forth the most liberal libations of new rum, which they drank fresh from the boilers. The consequence was, that next morning, on the sailing of the fleet, Mr. Odoherty was absent. His friend, the whipper-in, however, who was less drunk than his guest, had the good sense to foresee the consequences of his being left behind on so pressing an occasion. He hired a couple of negroes to row after the fleet, had Ensign Odoherty carried insensible to

* Major General Sir Edward Pakenham was killed at the battle of New Orleans, on the 8th of January, 1815. He was son of the second Lord Longford, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, and had distinguished himself in the Peninsular war.-M.

the boat, and he was conveyed to his ship, as he himself humorously termed it, "as drunk as David's sow." The commanding officer immediately placed him under an arrest, and it was only on his expressing the most sincere contrition for his folly, joined with many promises of amendment, that he was again allowed to perform the duties of his situation. After this, few of the officers of the regiment thought proper to associate with him; and with the exception of some who had formerly been his companions in the militia, he was placed in Coventry by the whole

Odoherty at the Battle of New Orleans.- Disastrous Episode of the Snuff-Box. —A Prisoner-at-War in Boston.-Ode to the Whale off Long Island.- Residence in Philadelphia.—Intimacy with the Widow M'Whirter.- Return to England.-A Widow's Poetic Fulmination.-Imitation of Professor Wilson's Poetry.-Joins the 99th Foot.- Stanzas to his late Mess-mates.-Arrival at Edinburgh.-Popularity in "Auld Reekie."-The Dilettanti.Ode to Bill Young, the Tavern-Keeper.

It is not my intention, in this chapter, to recapitulate the various calamities of the siege of New Orleans. That the armament was utterly inadequate to accomplish the object of the expedition, is now generally admitted. Fitted out for the express purpose of besieging one of the strongest and most formidable fortresses of America,* it was not only unprovided with a battering train, but without a single piece of heavy ordnance to assist in its reduction. Sir Edward Pakenham, therefore, on his arrival at Jamaica, found himself under the necessity of awaiting the tedious arrival of reinforcements from England, or of undertaking the expedition with the very inadequate means at his disposal. Listening rather to the suggestions of his gallantry than his pru

* This second chapter, was published in Blackwood for March 1818.-Odoherty's biographer is rather wrong in speaking of New Orleans as a fortress" to be besieged. General Jackson adroitly made his lines impregnable, by means of bold courage, riflemen, and cotton-bag defences.-M.

dence, he decided on the latter. If he erred in undertaking the expedition, it must be owned that he displayed the most consummate skill in the conduct of it.

On his arrival at New Orleans, he established himself immediately on the peninsula guarded by the fortress, and so vigorously did he push his operations, that on the third night he determined on giving the assault. The honor of heading the storming party was allotted to the 44th regiment, then under the command of the Honorable Lieutenant-Colonel Mullins, son to Lord Ventry, patron to our hero's father, and who did not at all congratulate himself, however, on his good fortune. The 44th regiment were driven back at the commencement of the attack; and on Sir Edward Pakenham's inquiring for the commanding officer, it was discovered that both he and Ensign Odoherty had remained in the rear. On search being made for them, Colonel Mullins was discovered under an ammunition wagon, and Ensign Odoherty was found in his tent, apparently very busy searching for his snuff-box, the loss of which, he solemnly declared, was the sole reason of his absence.*

In consequence of these circumstances, Colonel Mullins was brought to a court-martial, and dismissed the service; and such, most probably, would likewise have been the fate of Ensign Odoherty, had he not, by the most humble intercessions, pre

* Lieutenant Colonel Mullins actually was in command of the 44th regiment of foot in the last American war. In the attack near Baltimore, September 12, 1814 (at which Major-General Ross was killed), Mullins commanded part of the right brigade, and was thanked, by Colonel Brooke, in his despatches "for the excellent order in which he led while charging the enemy in line.' When the British attack was made on the lines of New Orleans, on the morning of the 8th of January, 1815, the 44th infantry were four hundred and twenty-seven strong. Mr. James Stuart (in a correspondence arising out of statements in his "Three years in North America") expressly states that the 44th regiment, "to whom was assigned the duty of being ready with scaling ladders and fascines, were not found at the appointed place," and that field officer was brought to trial on account of that mismanagement which it is said, most of all contributed to the deplorable result."—The defence was that the 44th were a mile and half in advance of the redoubt where lay the ladders and fascines, and that the Colonel's mistake was in not having brought them with him from the redoubt to the spot where he was ready, at the head of his regiment, like the rest, to advance to the attack, at the ascent of the signal rocket. This, if true, acquits Mullins of cowardice.-M.

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