The History of Henry Esmond eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 682 pages of information about The History of Henry Esmond.

The History of Henry Esmond eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 682 pages of information about The History of Henry Esmond.
of the dreary old Flanders towns, where the English troops were gathered.  Yachts and packets passed daily between the Dutch and Flemish ports and Harwich; the roads thence to London and the great inns were crowded with army gentlemen; the taverns and ordinaries of the town swarmed with red-coats; and our great Duke’s levees at St. James’s were as thronged as they had been at Ghent and Brussels, where we treated him, and he us, with the grandeur and ceremony of a sovereign.  Though Esmond had been appointed to a lieutenancy in the Fusileer regiment, of which that celebrated officer, Brigadier John Richmond Webb, was colonel, he had never joined the regiment, nor been introduced to its excellent commander, though they had made the same campaign together, and been engaged in the same battle.  But being aide-de-camp to General Lumley, who commanded the division of horse, and the army marching to its point of destination on the Danube by different routes, Esmond had not fallen in, as yet, with his commander and future comrades of the fort; and it was in London, in Golden Square, where Major-General Webb lodged, that Captain Esmond had the honor of first paying his respects to his friend, patron, and commander of after days.

Those who remember this brilliant and accomplished gentleman may recollect his character, upon which he prided himself, I think, not a little, of being the handsomest man in the army; a poet who writ a dull copy of verses upon the battle of Oudenarde three years after, describing Webb, says:—­

     “To noble danger Webb conducts the way,
     His great example all his troops obey;
     Before the front the general sternly rides,
     With such an air as Mars to battle strides: 
     Propitious heaven must sure a hero save,
     Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave.”

Mr. Webb thought these verses quite as fine as Mr. Addison’s on the Blenheim Campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector a la mode de Paris, was part of this gallant gentleman’s ambition.  It would have been difficult to find an officer in the whole army, or amongst the splendid courtiers and cavaliers of the Maison du Roy, that fought under Vendosme and Villeroy in the army opposed to ours, who was a more accomplished soldier and perfect gentleman, and either braver or better-looking.  And if Mr. Webb believed of himself what the world said of him, and was deeply convinced of his own indisputable genius, beauty, and valor, who has a right to quarrel with him very much?  This self-content of his kept him in general good-humor, of which his friends and dependants got the benefit.

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The History of Henry Esmond from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.