CHAPTER VIII. THE FEATS OF THE MEN IN BUCKRAM; THAT IS TO SAY, THE SKY-ROCKETS. PUBLIC ECONOMY. - THE MILITARY SYSTEM, OR HOW TO DAMP THE PUBLIC SPIRIT. A TIME FOR ALL THINGS; AND A TIME TO DISCOVER THE TALENTS; NOT TO HIDE THEM UNDER A BUSHEL. Reader. WHY, Author, you have given us a Chapter upon nothing. Author. And yet it comprehends ALL the Talents. Men who can swagger into the world, --the literary world, with D.D. F.R.S. LL.D. A.M. A.S.S. will put you to the expense and trouble of wading through volumes-folio ones, upon nothing: but, we, who are simply F.S.M. and no more in comparison with them than a trotting physician is to a chariot-lolling one, have let you off at the charge of only a single chapter; and that not a tiresome one. You may sleep upon it, and dream upon it and about it; for the talents of which you expected to find a description in it, were no more than idle fantasies of our Glaucos' brains. But-'ye shall know them by their deeds.' One of their first operations was a brilliant display of fire-works, for the diversion,-for it could not have tended much to the annoyance of the enemy. The flotilla, which the ridiculous stone-boat expedition was intended to have blocked up, had been long wholly abandoned to the worms by the Bantam, who had drawn away the forces which were to have embarked in them, and marched them against Eagle Frederic. Although the Bantam had easily overthrown this new-raised foe, as we have already seen, yet his business was not finished. The lord of the Bearskins had collected a vast force, which he was marching towards the scene of action, and the Bantam had still to encounter the storm of doubtful war. The flotilla for this reason, as well as through an apprehension of meeting with the vast force which the Freelanders had prepared for its destruction, was left to rot in its skulking place, and had long appeared in the eyes of those, for whose annoyance it had been intended, as contemptible as it really was. It had sunk into oblivion, until it was revived by the talents, who wished to commence their career with a blaze. An officer of engineers at one of the military depôts, had discovered, in consequence of a series of professional experiments, an inflammable composition which water could not extinguish, and they determined to discharge it at the flo- . tilla after the fashion of sky-rockets. An experiment was made upon a small scale, as if it was intended only to shew the enemy what could be done, and some three or four boats, and as many houses were said to have been damaged. For this vast success, if success it could have been deemed where no benefit was derived to the country, nor injury done to the enemy, the inventor, who was already in the public service and pay, was rewarded with an annual pension of 1,200 livres. The Bantam would have sold the whole of the flotilla, and have put it into their hands, if they would have given him half the money. It had been observed by one of the levelling Gulls, and fas est ab hoste doceri, |