Trial of Mary Blandy

this ugly little fellow were only less attractive than his physical imperfections. "He has a turn for gallantry, but Nature has denied him the proper gifts; he is fond of play, but his cunning always renders him suspected." He was at this time thirty-two years of age, and, as the phrase goes, a man of pleasure, but his militant prowess had hitherto been more conspicuous in the courts of Venus than in the field of Mars. The man was typical of his day and generation: should you desire his closer acquaintance you will find a lively sketch of him in Joseph Andrews, under the name of Beau Didapper.

If Mary was the Eve of this Henley "Paradise," the captain clearly possessed many characteristics of the serpent. As First-Lieutenant of Sir Andrew Agnew's regiment of marines, he had been "out"--on the wrong side, for a Scot--in the '45, and the butcher Cumberland having finally killed the cause at Culloden on 16th April, this warrior was now in Henley beating up recruits to fill the vacancies in the Hanove