The Fortunate Foundlings | Page 5

name, which is the only thing your bounty cannot
bestow.--My genius inclines me to the army.--Of all the
accomplishments you have caused me to be instructed in, geography,
fortification, and fencing, have been my darling studies.--Of what use,
sir, will they be to me in an idle life? permit me then the opportunity of
showing the expense you have been at has not been thrown away.--I
know they will say I am too young to bear a commission, but if I had
the means of going a volunteer, I cannot help thinking but I should
soon give proofs the extreme desire I have to serve my country that way
would well attone for my want of years.
The more he spoke, the more the astonishment of his patron increased:

he admired the greatness of his spirit, but was troubled it led him to a
desire of running into so dangerous a way of life.--He represented to
him all the hardships of a soldier, the little regard that was sometimes
paid to merit, and gave him several instances of gentlemen who had
passed their youth in the service, and behaved with extreme bravery,
yet had no other reward than their fears, and a consciousness of having
done more than was their duty: in war, said he, the superior officers
carry away all the glory as well as profits of the victory; whereas in
civil employments it is quite otherwise: in physic, in law, in divinity, or
in the state, your merits will be immediately conspicuous to those who
have the power to reward you; and if you are desirous of acquiring a
name, by which I suppose you mean to become the head of a family,
any of these afford you a much greater prospect of success, and it lies
much more in my power of assisting your promotion.
To these he added many other arguments, but they were not of the least
weight with the impatient Horatio. He was obstinate in his entreaties,
which he even with tears enforced, and Dorilaus, considering so strong
a propensity as something supernatural, at last consented.--Never was
joy more sincere and fervent than what this grant occasioned, and he
told his benefactor that he doubted not but that hereafter he should
hear such an account of his behaviour, as would make him not repent
his having complied with his request.
The preparations for his going to Oxford were now converted into
others of a different nature.--Several of our troops were already sent to
Flanders, and others about to embark, in order to open the campaign;
so that there was but a small space between the time of Horatio's
asking leave to go, and that of his departure, which Dorilaus resolved
should be in a manner befitting a youth whom he had bred up as his
own. He provided him a handsome field-equipage, rich cloaths, horses,
and a servant to attend him; and while these things were getting ready,
had masters to perfect him in riding; and those other exercises proper
for the vocation he was now entering into, all which he performed with
so good a grace, that not only Dorilaus himself, who might be
suspected to look on him with partial eyes, but all who saw him were
perfectly charmed.

He was more than ordinarily tall for his years, admirably well
proportioned, and had something of a grave fierceness in his air and
deportment, that tho' he was not yet sixteen, he might very well have
passed for twenty: he was also extremely fair, had regular features,
and eyes the most penetrating, mixed with a certain sweetness; so that
it was difficult to say whether he seemed most formed for love or war.
Dorilaus thinking it highly proper he should take his leave of Louisa,
sent for her from the boarding-school, that she might pass the short
time he had to stay with her brother at his house, not without some
hopes that the great tenderness there was between them might put
Horatio out of his resolution of going to the army, who being grown
now extremely dear to him, he could not think of parting with, tho' he
had yielded to it, without a great deal of reluctance.
It is certain, indeed, that when she first heard the motive which had
occasioned her being sent for, her gentle breast was filled with the
most terrible alarms for her dear brother's danger; but the little regard
he seemed to have of it, and the high ideas he had of future greatness,
soon brought her to think as he did; and instead of dissuading him from
prosecuting his design, she rather encouraged him in it: and in this
gave the first testimony of a greatness of soul, no less to be admired
than the courage and