COGITATIONS OF A VAGABOND BY AUTHORITY OF THE RING'S COMMISSION.

ALTHOUGH the relation of the titlepage to the contents is per- ceived when the book is read, it will convey but little notion of them till that process is submitted to. The "Vagabond' is an officer who served with the army during its occupation of France after the battle of Waterloo, and since has occasionally revisited the country. His "cogitations " consist of sketches of what he himself saw or what his friends told him, as well as of reflections both social and political. These are none of them very novel or very profound; but they are sometimes sensible, often amusing, and full of a small shrewdness and cant smurtness, which be- longed to the subaltern of a marching regiment some twenty years ago. Here is a specimen, in his resolution of the coolness with which NAPOLEON was received by the Parisians on his re- turn from Elba.

The Scotch have the character of being excellent economists, but they can- not hold the candle to the French. It is well known in Paris, that it is cheaper in the depth of winter to go to the pit in the theatres, than to sit at home and burn wood ; hence the " love of the drama." For the same reason, at that time of the year, as many people are to be found in the streets as in summer, but more particularly in the corridors, passages, and bazaars. In the latter there is generally a stove, which has great attractions; they take a warm and pass on. Hundreds of the most respectable families in Paris have calculated the expense of fuel, and keeping a cook, against dining at a restaurateur's ; and the balance being found in favour of the latter, will at once account for the ap. parent neglect of domestic comfort, and the appearance of so many well.dressed females in all the coffeehouses of the capital. Children even of tender years join in this vagabond life; while the servant of all-work is left at home to blow on her fingers, and eat bread and butter out of the pockets of her apron, diver- sified sometimes with a little soupe maigre, concocted of pumpkin and skim- milk, with any crusts that may have been found too hard for her masticators, and which she cooks by bursting her cheeks over a few wretched embers left on the hearth.

These people, with an instinctive feeling, figured to themselves the return of the allied armies to Paris ; hinc ince lachrlance. With habits and modes of living such as I have described, it may not be wondered at that the Parisians found neither recreation or amusement in feeding hordes of hungry Russians and Prussians, at the rote of six meals a day, with wine and tobacco.

Madame Junot says that, in the preceding year, young Platoff was billeted on her hotel. He used to turn all standing, boots and spurs, into her fine white sheets ; and was endowed with so splendid an appetite, that it was all her notit/ t &hotel could do to keep pace with it. The whole household was lost in woreier ; and amongst them laid a plot to cheek this march of stomach, if pos-

sible. They gave the young Cossack a pretty strong dose of tartar emetic, and waited with anxiety for the result. Presumption and vanity ! to think that any thing but a cannon-ball would turn the stomach of a Russian, accustomed to the digestion of traimoil, bullock's liver, and saw-dust rusks. The patient fell into a profound sleep of some hours, and then woke, calling lustily for his dinner, to the great horror and dismay of Madame's establishment.

On matters purely professional our author displays some judg- ment and discritnination,—as in this criticism on the early employ-

ment of the cavalry at Waterloa ; the cause and ereati."..."ot 144 he says, have not yet been noticed.

It was, at the time, a subject of wonder, particularly among sass. that at Waterloo Bonaparte had put in his cavalry so early in the et-74%., trary to general practice, and his own in particular. It was tholuectos141; might have been out of bravado, he having been supposed destitute ofs .titir The effect of surprise might have gone a great way in enhancing the will. an attack of that nature; but this fault, (for fault it was,) I travel:nil° good authority, attributed to Ney. He bad seen what he thought a f on' ,",„11 moment for a charge of cavalry, and ordered one division to perform t' this movement drew on the whole body of dragoon. and cuirassiers—a It; v't

s Jen,' entraines, as the French expressed it.

Our light cavalry could not be well supposed capable of resisting thews rnentum ; and, in fact, the cuirassiers gained the plateau, and there disc — our infantry in squares' they thus became, as I may say, implicated iatb, front of the fight, and there were no means afterwards of withdrawing this; They found, however, the squares to be of cast iron; no simple

would make them malleable. Those brave men did, however, all thmY I ath '

their power' they returned over and over again to the charge; CO asen.' deed, that their faces individually became familiar to our men, who used tot ' Here comes the jolters in the steel jackets again.' Many old soldiers in tC4 tear-rank, who bad taken steady and deliberate aim at their mounted within twenty or thirty yards, were extremely surprised to see them teal k,e, their seats on horseback ; and the morning after the battle they set up soro,!j the bodies of thesejohers that had been shot in the bead or sabred, to avmsA whether they were actually fire-prouf. They did not rleet, that the to, being in motion, the slightest angle of the cuirass would cause the ball Ito. fleet.

The cuirassiers were always on former occasions kept in hand, to actinS4 crisis of a battle ; and when infantry were shaken by fire of artillery, or Ste other cause, their charge must indeed have been most formidable ; et Woes their force was rendered nugatory, from being applied at the wrong time. loy did every thing he could to repair the error, and finight on foot with the 's* of the Guard with all the courage of a devoted soldier, but it was too late.

MILITARY HOSPITA LS.

The Ilkel des Invalides is altogether a fine structure, and well deities for the purpose of an asylum for a portion of the disabled and wounded seas an artny ' • but I must confess, in going through this building, as well as Mass visits I have paid to Chelsea, I had not that sort of satisfactory feeling whith many persons have expressed on the same occasion. To me there applied a sort of monotony, of inertness and tnelancholy, that pervaded both the Mal and their inhabitants, d.fficult to de..cribe by words. The same constant, thll routine of mere animal existence, uncliequered with any incident that comae the mind from the torpor of a life of comuminate idleness; it gives a dull al stupified air to the intttates, which, I suspect, is never thrown oil; except usde the stimulus of wine or beer. A man has nothing to do in the world Inare. collect the number of his mess and look after his eating and drinking ulnas I weia several times into the library of ics Inralides, in search of rare militej books, anti never saw above two or three of the pensioners there at a time. It would appear, that even reading, to those who were capable, was ton greatu exertion; and the sunwiunz &mum of life seemed to consist in basking out bench in the sun, amid turning over the gravel with the point of a stick.

I have often thought, that hail I been placed in similar circumstances, ml had merited a pension, how much more I should have preferred having my ehdling a day to do what I liked with, and go where I pleased, to be locked tip in a palace, and regularly fed and put to heel, like an animal in a menagetie; . place of repeating a twenty times told tale to the same circle of acquaiaturs or listening to theirs to wander about in search of relations, or lankiest frindi settled in trade or business, and to their attentive ears give the history rf chequered life, and fight battles o'er again.'

I have no intention to depreciate the establishments of the ImalidnorClul. sea, as national charities, but merely to say that they are somewhat overrated. Neither of them is capable, in time of war, of receiving one.fourth or me. fifth of those who have claims on them ; and I would therefore suggest, the these buildings should be devoted to those who have no friends or relLOOrl alive. I speak this more strictly with respect to Chelsea; because, preview to the measure of the late Mr. Wyndham, it was the only refuge for the diutled and wormout men of our army ; but since regular pensions were fizedolt whole establishment might be exclusively dedicated to those who have no kr home, or so completely disabled and worn out as to be incapable of locomotin.

There are some facts in reply to General Van Gautussits re. marks on the Duke of WELLINGTON'S evidence before the Cora. untie° of the House of Commons, touching the plunderings of the Prussians, which, though slight, support the general current of opinion as to their maraudings and wanton destruction of pre. perty. The author has also some criticism on the dress and character of the armies of different countries, that may be pe raised with benefit ; and his sketches of the sights and scenes at Paris in 1815-16 will yield some amusing reading ; although the volume has no pretension to a high rank either as a military or a literary production.