under the eye is, however, not the only or the greatest merit of Captain Kincaid. He brings us with him to the tent or the bivouac, as well as to the battle, and is withal, so fond of a laugh, that it seems as if he went to the war rather for amusement than glory. In every situation, whether feasting or starving, for he has seen something of both extremes-whether by his fire-side, or in the presence of the enemy, he seizes the most ludicrous objects with such felicity of tact, and brings them forward in such numbers, and with so much rapidity, that it is pop, pop, pop,-a kind of rifle-shooting of jokes throughout his book. We have not laughed so much for an age as we have in the company of this adventurer. We shall introduce him to the reader in a characteristic way, on his voyage from the Tagus to join the army at Coimbra:

"Sailing at the rate of one mile in two hours, we reached Figuera's Bay at the end of eight days, and were welcomed by about a hundred hideous looking Portuguese women, whose joy was so excessive that they waded up to their arm-pits through a heavy surf, and insisted on carrying us on shore on their backs! I never clearly ascertained whether they had been actuated by the purity of love, or gold.

"Our men were lodged for the night in a large barn, and the officers billetted in town. Mine chanced to be on the house of a mad woman, whose extraordinary appearance I never shall forget. Her petticoats scarcely reached to the knee, and all above the lower part of the bosom was bare; and though she looked not more than middle aged, her skin seemed as if it had been regularly prepared to receive the impression of her last will and testament; her head was defended by a chevaux-de-frise of black wiry hair, which pointed fiercely in every direction, while her eyes looked like two burnt holes in a blanket. I had no sooner opened the door than she stuck her arms a-kimbo, and, opening a mouth, which stretched from ear to ear, she began vociferating bravo, bravissimo.'

"Being a stranger alike to the appearance and manners of the natives, I thought it possible that the former might have been nothing out of the common run, and concluding that she was overjoyed at seeing her country re-enforced, at that perilous moment, by a fellow upwards of six feet high, and thinking it necessary to sympathize in some degree in her patriotic feelings, I began to 'braco' too; but as her second shout ascended ten degrees, and kept increasing in that ratio, until it amounted to absolute frenzy, I faced to the right about, and, before our tête-à-tête had lasted the brief space of three-quarters of a minute, I disappeared with all possible haste, her terrific yells vibrating in my astonished ears long after I had turned the corner of the street; nor did I feel perfectly at ease until I found myself stretched on a bundle of straw in a corner of occupied by the men.

ceeded, next morning, to join the our route lay through the city came to the magnanimous reiding ourselves with all mannd equipments for the camcal there; but, when we en

tered it, at the end of the second day, our dis appointment was quite eclipsed by astonishment at finding ourselves the only living things in a city, which ought to have been furnished with twenty thousand souls."-pp. 8—10.

The campaign of 1810, as all the world knows, closed with the retirement of the army behind the lines of Torres Vedras. Our merry captain, who bears a mortal hatred to epio poetry, says that he, for his part, knew nothing of those celebrated "lines," excepting that he was told that one of them rested on the Tagus, and the other somewhere on the sea:

"I saw," he adds, "with my own eyes, a variety of redoubts and field works on the various hills which stand between. This, however, I do know, that we have since kicked the French out of more formidable looking and stronger places; and, with all due deference be it spoken, I think that the Prince of Essling ought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have been beaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it! And if he thinks that he would have lost as many men by trying, as he did by not trying, he must allow me to differ in opinion with him."-pp. 26, 27.

The picture of the occupations of the soldiers during the winter breathes of life, and is rich with humour:

"Our battalion was stationed in some empty farm houses, near the end of the bridge of Santarem, which was nearly half a mile long; and our sentries and those of the enemy were within pistol-shot of each other on the bridge

"I do not mean to insinuate that a country is never so much at peace as when at open war; but I do say that a soldier can no where sleep so soundly, nor is he any where so secure from surprise, as when within musket-shot of his enemy.

"We lay four months in this situation, divided only by a rivulet, without once exchanging shots. Every evening, at the hour

"When bucks to dinner go,

And cits to sup,'

It was our practice to dress for sleep: we saddled our horses, buckled on our armour, and lay down, with the bare floor for a bed and a stone for a pillow, ready for any thing, and reckless of every thing but the honour of our corps and country; for I will say (to save the expense of a trumpeter) that a more devoted set of fellows were never associated.

"We stood to our arms every morning at an hour before daybreak, and remained there until a grey horse could be seen a mile off, (which is the military criterion by which daylight is acknowledged, and the hour of surprise past,) when we proceeded to unharness, and to indulge in such luxuries as our toilet and our

table afforded.

"The Maior, as far as the bridge of Valle, was navigable for the small craft from Lisbon, so that our table, while we remained there, cut as respectable a figure, as regular supplies of rice, salt fish, and potatoes could make it; not to mention that our pigskin was, at all times, at least three parts full of a common red wine, which used to be dignified by the name of blackstrap. We had the utmost difficulty, however, in keeping up appearances in