THE DUKE OF YORK'S SWORD AND SASH.
"WE have lost every thing but honour," said FRANCIS the First after the battle of Pavia. "Every thing is gone but the Duke of York's sword and sash," the gallant officer who rescued those relics may be imagined to have said, after the burning of the Armoury in the Tower.
Every profession has its idols, the reason for worshipping which is not at all times very apparent to the non-professional. The Duke of Yoax, during the latter part of his career, was indubitably a steady-working Commander-in-Chief; and he appears to have been a pretty general favourite with that class of officers who come into contact with the superior authorities. Still, with the remembrance of his campaign in Holland, and the revelations made in the course of the inquiry regarding the influence of Mrs. CLARKE over Army appointments, it is difficult for a non-military man to
Conceive his sword and sash installed as the Penates of the British Army—the first trophy to be rescued from a general conflagration. The kettle-drums taken at Blenheim, which stood near, might be supposed by some to have had a preferable claim.
ADDISON'S Spectator contains a clever parody on the affecting story of the women of some city in Germany, besieged by the Emperor, who being allowed to depart each with what part of her property she valued most, carried off their husbands on their backs. The wicked wit tells a story of a dream, in which he saw the fair inmates of a beleaguered town to whom the same liberty had been granted, carrying off laces, pomatums, monkies, and lap-dogs, leaving their good men in the lurch. The satisfaction expressed at the rescue of the Duke of YORK'S sword and sash, while the military and naval trophies of two hundred years were left crackling in the flames, is another added to the many proofs that truth is at times more wild than the most exuberant fiction.
Previous page
