The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction

ed Service Journal,--a work which has just started with the year, and to which, in the "customary" phrase, we wish "many happy returns."]

The summer of 1815 found me at Brussels. The town was then crowded to excess--it seemed a city of splendour; the bright and varied uniforms of so many different nations, mingled with the gay dresses of female beauty in the Park, and the Allée Verte was thronged with superb horses and brilliant equipages. The tables d'hôte resounded with a confusion of tongues which might have rivalled the Tower of Babel, and the shops actually glittered with showy toys hung out to tempt money from the pockets of the English, whom the Flemings seemed to consider as walking bags of gold. Balls and plays, routs and dinners were the only topics of conversation; and though some occasional rumours were spread that the French had made an incursion within the lines, and carried off a few head of cattle, the tales were too vague to excite the least alarm. I