SIR GEORGE HEAD'S CONTINUATION OF HIS HOME TOUR.

THE general description of the Tour thrall!), :he 31anufurfuring DiNtrictsr fits the first half of tie volume before us: although the Continuation deals fir the tnest part with a different class of subjects. Instead ot Yorkshire and Lancashite, with their maim- fictories, railror,ds, and rh,cks, the author skoches tlie seenery ir)f the Isle of Man, the Highlands of ScAlantl, end a cattier et Ireland, with bri,21' accounts of his adventures by land and water. As resi,ccts the information conveyed, the fernier part of the work was superior to the present e tld littAlt:11 equally unme- thodical in the choice and arrangemeat of subjects, was written with more care. There is, however, a good deal of pleasant reading in the Continuation ; for Sir GEonGE IIF.AD has a knack of making the most of the common occurrences in a traveller's life. Take for example the following, descrilitiun of A IiIGIILAND OMNIBUS AND 11, CoNFENTS.

A capacious on:odium was here awaiting our arrival to convey us to the end

of our journey (Inverness), into which carriage persons recklessly en,wded. to the imminent ihanger of its upsetting ; for, since it %vat, incapable of tout Mi iri!! more than half the present party. personal safety, ow:::.; IO the lateuess of the hour, was sacrificed for the sake of expedition.

Having fortunately or tinfiegunately obtained an out-ide seat among the first

detachment. I am precluded from the necessity of relating the further adven- tures of the rest of the travellers, who remained i'icing hackwards and forwards on the towins-path of the canal, like ghosts Ott the banks of the Cocytus, till the return of the vehicle. But I may ulaseive, as relates to myself on the pre- sent occasion, that notwithstaiuling we arrived without tl:e slightest accident at the point of our destination, and even before the Inverness deck struck eleven were received by the sleek, roof landlord of the Caledanian Hotel, I never re- member in any other wheel carriage, and within equally short space of time and distance, to have encountered more peril. An infernal machine it might really aud truly be calledlike Charon's leaky boat, groaniug under surplusage of substantial perishahle lumber, and like Charon's boat particularly, inasmuch as it was laden indiscriminately in total disregard and disrespect of persons. Literally speaking. amung mild wives, Highland swains of every degree, wearers of the kelt and fillibeg, especially one ambulating performer on the bagpipes, or duodlesack, as the instrument is pro- vincially termed in this part of the country, no less than a royal personage, such is the uncertain will of fate, sat inside, crammed and squeezed promis- cuously with all the rest among the heterogeneous group. Prince Adalbert, brother to his Majesty the King of Ptussia, then travelling incognito in the guise of a private English gentleman, was among the passengers brought by the Maid of Murven from Glasgow to Oben, and submitted without mutinur to all those t»iseries of peregrination which, in the detail of the present voyage, I have laid before the reader. And I recall to nthal with feelings of' pleasure, that in numerous instances on the way, without knowledge of the Prince's high rank and station, I witnessed his affability and benefited by his conversation. At the period I ant relating, while sitting on the box of our ponderous and pre- ponderating vehicle, whose weak springs were well nigh weighed down by gra-

vity and os '

cillation and whose still weaker horses were driven helplessly scud- ding on their haunches down a steep descent ; while I locked at our coachman, a small Scots boy, not exceeding in weight a good-sized Norfolk turkey ; and finally, while I cast a glance on the Prince's tall aideoltgeamp, sitting in the middle between us, enveloped in an ample blue cloak, his mustachios curling towards the moon; while I regarded all these sights, I say, aud thought of dit- • See Spectat..r, No. ,Be.

&Atka and discoulfitures from which not even royalty itself is free, my imagi- nation for a moment wandered towards the mans-tinted allegorical picture of the ancients, that symbol of mortality and immortality, the stagnant lake,

.Feilicet omnibus

EllaNiZ3nila, sine reges

Site Mopes erimus coloni."

Princes and farmers squeezed together. glide in

A " bus," fit coach to Copier uorlii to ride in.

The latter half of the volume, under the title of " Memoirs of an Assistant Commissary-General," is a record of Sir GEORGE'S adventures in the Peninsular War ; where he served in WELLING■ TON'S army, as an officer in the Commissariat, attached to Sir THOMAS PICTON'S division. It appears that "family disappoint- ments" turned the author adrift in the year 1809, and that he left Kent for Lisbon to find employment. After losing several weeks in fruitless endeavours to get something better, he accepted the appointment of a clerk itt the Commissariat; and, with a stipend of seven shillings and sixpence a day, joined the artny then before Badajoz. He had seen "a little service" as a Cap- tain of West Kent Militia ; but his previous habits had by no means fitted him for the in-door drudgery of his new office.

THE SQUIRE TURNED ACCOUNTANT

On arriving at Badajoz, I reported myself withoutdelay, according to the in. structions I had received, to the officer at the head of the commissariat depart- ment, by whom I was immediately asked a variety of questions, to all which at the present moment I do not exactly recollect the answers, but will be bold to say, that relating directly to my previous experience in business, they were decidedly unsatisfactory.Finally, I was consigned to experimental duty in a solitary apartment adjoining the chief's office, furnished with a provision als- stract, and ordered to make a copy. A document such as I had never set eyes on before, being on that occasion put into toy hands, I may just as well, merely for the edification of the leader unlearned in such matters, state briefly its de- scription; it was a detailed account of issues made to the troops of various articles of provisions and forage specified in pounds avoirdupois and ounce., within numerous columns ruled upon a huge sheet of elephant paper. Each horizontal line, of which altogether there were not less than eighty or ninety with a number and date at the .beginning, represented a set of triplicate vouchers ; and extreme neatness of execution was indispensable in placing each digit ptecisely under its fellow, according to the proper station in the deci- mal scale, in order to facilitate the heavy sums of addition that formed the totals at the foot. With extreme toil I at last produced the nearest resemblance I was able make of a counterpart, but the lines perpendicular and horizontal diverged so far out of a parallel direction, the figures, some large and some small, were so ill-formed and ill-placed, and this my first attempt was in point of fact so coniplete a failure, that, perhaps fortunately, I was never required to repeat the same task while I remained in that office.

Sir GEORGE appears to have shared in the toil and danger of the war, from Badajoz to Toulouse. After what has recently been written and read respecting warfare in Spain, not much of novelty is to be expected; but Sir GEORGE relates what he saw and suffered in a way to impart ti his sketches the taste of freshness; and some of his anecdotes are undoubtedly original. He confirms the general opinion of PICTON'S fierce and passionate, but not always ungovernable, temper. This description of a scene which Ire witnessed exhibits

True GENER.Ar. AS PROVO,,,T.MARSIIAL.

Over passim) he occa,ionally czerci.ed rigid control, even glancing with sur prising avidity to oppasite extremes ; and I have more than once witnessed, width the la pee of a few seconds, a total elringe front fury to goad hutuour. An intatice of this peculiar trait of disposition occurred, 1 remember, at one hf thine periods whim under, as at times he was Winn to be, the g thing in. fluence of an ittrabilarions temperament, and when, like a famished lion, he was angry aud vexed with every thing about him. I was one day struggling hard :against- fippaliing diffieulties in the way of pre,turing supp!ies, uffikh were after all enly alit tined, to use a common plira,e, front hand to mouth, when un- fortunately I was driven to the extremely disagreeable necessity of seeking an interview with the General. The troops were at the @Me time on their daily march act oss the broad fertile ph nuts of Spain, where, on both sides as far as the eye could reach, an ocean of wheat waved its ripeuing ears in the wind, as the sweepitig breeze c.atsed the vast expanse extewling all round in a continous milnoken circle, without the intervention of a single tree or shrub in any three- tion, even to the verge of the horizon, to undulate like the waves of the sea. Although the present was an irksome effort of duty, natnely, to approach the General in one of his furious mamba I nevertheless pursued my course as fast as I could to the front, soinethues threading my way slowly through the troo; e, and then breaking oil' occasionally to ride 01/ one side for an hundred yards to- gether through the standing corn. The General, as usual, was riding at the head of the column, when just as I approached, progress, which had some time since been impeded very considerably, now, by collision with the baggage of another division that paiutedly interfered with our line of march, was blocked up altogether. Such au event of all others always put Pieton in a they, and when, ou the present occasion, I first descried him, whether or not now as usual attended by the Provost. Marshal, he was at any rate gratuitously exerting his utmost strength in the performance of that officer's duty, and. vigorously indicting chastisement on an offending soldier. Whether the man disregarded his orders, had uttered an insolent reply, or whatever was his dere- liction of duty, Pictou lashed hint violently across head and shoulders, bring- ing his horse on his baunchea, wheeling round, flogging and cutting without a moment's intermission, as the man meanwhile dodged, held down his head, and defended his face by his elbows. When sheer want of breath at last obliged hint to desist, I thought I had never seen a fellow get a severer horse- whipping. Su soon as I saw the precise nature of the General's occupation, I would readily have turned my horse round unperceived and ridden to the rear; however, the crowd was too great to move one way or other. I therefore necessarily remained where I was to the close of the ceremony.

At last Pictou having thrown himself, plittiug and blowing, back in his saddle, turned round suddenly, and saw me sitting steadily on horseback await- ing his pleasure. In an instant, notwithstanding that his deportment had been

for several previous days invariably austere, and that at the present moment he was pale aud foaming at both corners of his mouth from fury, the moral sense effected a sudden and wonderful metamorphosis; insomuch that, in accosting me, he assumed a tone and gesture actually of overwrought civility, mom- pitied even with a profuse display of low bows and smiles.

This fiery and haughty man was sometimes obliged himself to take a reprimand from the stern Commander-in-Chief. Ia ROBERTsON's Life of PICTON, the Duke of WELLINGTON is quoted as say ing that between himself and Sir THOMAS PLCTOM there never arose "a difference of opinion, much less any thing

in the nature of a quarrel:" but Sir GEORGE HEAD relates an anecdote somewhat inconsistent with this declaration.

PICTON REPRIMANDED BY WELLINGTON.

It was subsequently, one day in the ensuing spring. Piston hating gone in the interim and returned from England, not long. I think, after the battle of Orthes, while the third division, treading on the heels of Soult, were wending their way steadily through the fertile plains of the South of France, and batting occasionally, as if courteously to concede to the enemy in front a peaceable retreat—the Duke, moreover, as it turned out in the end, having no Intention then to attack—that the morning passed away in suspense to those unacquainted with the chiefs design. The distribution of quarters for the day was not yet promulgated, neither did any one know the point precisely whereon we were moving ; wherefore, as our progress was BIM and the staff officers were un- usually on the alert, matters assumed an ominous appeal ance, as if either some decisive nutresuvre were about to take place, or the division to be immediately led into action; at all events, the tardy, reluctant steps of the hostile troops in front portended, so at least it seemed to the unlearned, a show of resistance. The exact part of the country, though it matters not, I have forgotten; how. ever, we were on a wide turnpike-road at the entrance of a town or village. The stoppages and embarrassments on the line of march became the further we advanced, the more prolonged and frequent ; and sometimes, although not cloying at any time faster than a mile an hour, there was reason to believe that we were actually halting altogether. At this crisis the light troops of another division came in contact with those of the enemy, and a firing of musquetry was heard among the skirmishers in the inclosed land on our left and beyond the village. The division now formed a dense mass in close column, hardly progressing and hardly halting, advancing perhaps no more than a borse's length in the space of every succeeding minute. At last Picton, leaving Sir John Keane in his place at the head of the troops, rode forwards impatiently to reconnoitre the enemy, and remained so long absent that matters seemed ap- proaching a serious dilemma. Anxious expectation was entertained if not of an order to halt at least to be led at once into action, while Sir John Keane, as regarded progress, as Picton had done before, merely kept the troops in mo- tion, and that was all.

The Duke of Welliugton, with ,ut an aide-de-camp, unattended by any indi- vidual of his sodf, now came galloping at utmost speed to the head of the division, and as if eagerly in quest of the General, looked hastily around, and then impatiently accosted Sir John Keane. " Where is Sir Thomas Picton?" exclaimed the Duke. " I don't exactly know—somewhere in front, my Lord," replied Sir John, elevating on his saddle a Pc.Nlier.like figure, and speaking rather through his teeth, in his peculiar way. The Duke repeated the question with more earnest emphasis, " Where is General Picton ?' Sir John Keane remained silent. " I want to know ?" said the Duke, in a loud voice," I want to know. why is not the General at the head of his division ?" " Halt !" at the same time he cried with vehement action. " Halt !" steadily and obe- diently repeated Sir John Keane; and nothing but" halt I" was heard in many and various distant spots, as the word travelled to the rear of the division. Not another syallahle was uttered by either party before a trooper of the corps of guides rode clattering to the front in a hurry, and touching his helmet with his hand, arldresstd the Duke in the French language in a tone of interrogatian. Althouill not far from the parties I did not bear the question, but I plainly heard the reply, accompanied with violent and eager gesture. " lei, ici, ici rimmed the Duke loudly half-aelozen times over, striking the air violently in the direction of the ground with his clenched right hand, and then lie set spurs to his Ilium oileh-hred red chestnut charger. The latter tossed up its head with a snort, impetuom'y sprang forward at full speed, and in a few minutes, centre a terre, trstsrm t..1 its gallant rider, his white cloak streaming in the breeze, to the idetith.ai eiipse, distant about. half a mile, from whence the ii rug ot the skirmisliets ploceeded. As horse and rider furiously camered towards the spot, I f inci.al I perceived by the motion of the animal's tail, a type, through themedium ol the spur, of the quickened energies of the noble commander, on the moment when, for the first time, he caught view of Piton. The latter was then earnestly at work ; and whether Inert:1y watching the proceedings of the skirmishers or directing their movements, at any rate threaditi7 the 111320$ in and out, backwards and forwards, through the copse, like a beagle on the foot of a rabbit.

I saw the Duke accost Picton; I saw both draw up their;horses alongside the hedge; I saw both there held a lengthened conlitrence ; and the firiuig. on the Duke's arrival having immediately ceased, I saw Picton, looking gloomily on his return, dismiss straight to their day's quarters the whole division.

We close our extracts with a description of

A FIELD OF BATTLE.

After the work of the morning was over, I had the satisfaction of meeting all the officers of the artillery brigade unhurt, and moreover of congratulating them the sante day in person when assembled at thinner. It was a hasty repast, con- sisting of cold fare spread on the ground, and since the place Was a very little way removed f the field of battle, the less was my surprise on lifting a large Stone which Iliad chosen for the purpose of a seat, front a heap a few yards distant, when I uncovered the foot and leg of an officer that, amputated in the morning dut Mg the action, there lay buried. The discovery produced not the slightest bad effect upon any body's appetite. The whole of the next morning, as it seemed doubtful whether or not the French would recommence the attack, our troops remained steadily on their posts, and as I walked over the bed of the slain, though the dead were for the most part removed, I here remarked, for the first time in my life., in several in- stances tl :a peculiaily charred and scared appearance observable on the lace- rated remains of limbs when severed by cannon-shot. Rough as are the nieans whereby the cannon ball performs its work, even though it tear away legs, arms, or thighs, pit it draws no blood; a paralysis of the heart succeeds the mighty shock, and causes the divided muscles to remain its dry as if the bully were dead a wesk.

French cavalry horses lay dead on the ground in considerable numbers, and already numerous shoals of blue hawks the colour of wood-pigeons, were col- lected in the vicinity, hovering high in the air, in eager expectation of the too- ment when the troops on the ground having quitted their pot they might pounce upon their prey. Nutnerotts (roux de lamps, or small round holes arranged in rows diamond pattern on the plain, each bole about the size of the outer rim of a broad hat, and deep enough to tender the ground impassable to horses at speed without their falling, were here prepared by the Thais}, army for the protection of the infantry front the charge of the French cavalry. The Duke of ‘Vellington in person and on the alert, was on the field a great part of the morning. For a long time he lay supported by his elbow on the ground, surrounded by all his staff. When I approached the spot where the party re- clined in a group, the Duke would now and then, raising his Lead, laugh and chat livelv with the rest, and again resuming his occupation, gravely read the &new de Lisboa.