The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-29 00:00:00

LATEST INTELLIGENCE., LITERATURE.
(REUTER'S TELEGRAM.)

ITALY.
FLORENCE, May 29.
It is believed that the enrolment of volunteers
will be recommenced shortly.
25,000 volunteers have already left for their
quarters.
About 25,000 more have entered their names
in the offices of the Committees awaiting the order
for recommencing the enrolment, in order to enter
the corps.

FRANKFORT, MAY 29.

An extraodinary sitting of the Federal Diet will
take place to-day, at which the letters of invitation
to a Conference addressed to the President by Eng-
land, France and Russia, will be submitted to the
members. It is expected that the Diet will ap-
point a special committee to report thereon. The
Diet will also appoint a committee to report upon
the Limburg question.

SPAIN.

AIADRID, MAY 28, Evening.

In to-day's sitting of the Congress four amend-
ments were proposed to the bill requesting extra-
ordinary powers, brought forward by Marshal
O'Donnell.

The Ministry will accept some modifications in
she bill.

MADRID, MAY 29.
The health of Senor Alonso Martinez still con-

tinning to fail, he has finally resigned his seat in the
Cabinet as Minister of Finance. His resignation
has been accepted by the Queen, and Senor Cano-
vas del Custulo, Colonial Minister, has been pro-
visionally entrusted with the direction of the
vacant Ministry.
The Bank of Spain has advanced 25 millions to
the Government.

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, Alta 22.

Riza Pasha has been appointed Grand Master of
the Artillery, in place of llalil Pasha, who has
been dismissed. This measure has had a bad local
effect.

The order for the Turkish troops to enter the
Principalities has been suspended.

MEXICO.

Advices from Vera Cruz to the 7th instant states
that the Emperor Maximilian has succeeded in nego-
tiating a heavy loan in Europe.
The Republicans have suffered a total defeat at
Michoacan. The Imperialists have occupied Tains-
tara. Republican accounts state that Mendez had
captured the French garrison of Jonuto, the only
Imperial force in Tabaseo. It is reported that
Escobedo, with 2,000 men, is marching on Mon-

,erey.
The Washington papers publish a report asserting
lat Santa Anna is acting as a French spy.

FRANCE.
PARIS, MAY 29.

The Moniteur of this morning says :
" The identical notes, inviting the different
Powers to a Conference at Paris have arrived at
their destination. It is believed that favourable
replies may be relied upon."
In the Corps Legislatif yesterday the report on
the Budget was laid on the table. M. Jules Favre
reminded the Chamber that it had still to discuss
the Mexican question, and that on the occasion of
the debate ou the Budget the Government had pro-
mised that the documents relating to that question
should be presented to the Chamber.
M. Vuitry replied that the Government would
see what documents it was possible to publish in tho
present state of negotiations between France and
Mexico. " But," added the Minister, " the
Chamber understands that in the present position
of affairs the publication o: the despatches must be
accompanied with great prudence and reserve."

BOURSE, May 28, Two o'clock.—The remarkably
favourable symptoms manifested on Saturday and
the consequent formidable advance in quotations
have been but of short duration. To-day a totally
opposite movement has been inaugurated, and the
descent in prices almost as rapid as the previous ad-
vance. This state of things has been caused by a
telegram announcing the occupation of the Danu-
bian Principalities by Turkish troops. Threes, for
the account, have fallen lf. 121 c., the price now
being 64f. 75c. This stock has been dealt in as low
as 64f. 40c. Italian Fives have receded 2f. 25c.
to 41f. 50c. Credit Mobiliar shares have declined
21f. 25c., viz., to 536 f. 25c., and Spanish Mobilier
22f. 50c.—to 272 f. 50c. Credit Foncier have lost
15f., they are at 1,070 f. ; and Comptoir d'Escompte
10f.—at 735 f. The Railway Department is simi-
larly affected, Northern Shares losing 15f. ; Lyons,
17f. 50f. ; Lombards, 17f. 50c. ; and Austrian, 10f.
Three o'elock.—The market has closed on the fol-
lowing quotations :

41 per Ceuts 94 Bank Shares —
Do. end month — Malian Loan 4l 60
3 per Cents. 64 90 Do, end month 4l 55
Do. and month 64 60 Mexican Loan 33
Credit Mobilier ... 510 Do. Bonds 235
Do. end month ... 537 50 Spanish Threes
Credit Fancier — Home Debt —
Do. end month 1160 Deferred

A Grand 01d Soldier.

The Memoirs and Correspondence of Field-Marshal
Viscount Combermere, G.C.8., etc. By Mary-
Viscountess Combermere and Captain W. W.
Knollys, 93rd Sutherland Highlanders. Two
Volumes. Hurst and Blackett.

A mere glance at the frontispieces adorning these
two splendid volumes will be found at once—
before their perusal has been commenced—fairly to
captivate the reader's imagination. They present
to view these contrasting frontispieces, the vera
effigies of the noble veteran whose history the work
relates. They pourtray the heroic soldier whose
existence is therein celebrated—on the one hand
precisely as he looked at the very outset of his
career, and on the other band precisely as he looked
towards its conclusion. " COLONEL STAPLETON
COTTON in his Twenty First Year" are the words
inscribed under the first Frontispiece, the Fron-
tispiece, that is, to the First Volume. " FIELD
MARSHAL VISCOUNT COMBERIIERE In his Yinety-
First Year" are the words inscribed under the
Second. Between those two dates, consequently,
there extended an interval of exactly seventy years'
duration ! Between the limning of those two por-
traits the living original whom they represented had
passed through a whole life, a life of fully " three-
score years and ten "—according to Holy Writ the
allotted age of man. And no idle or insouciant life
either, tut a busy, active, energetic life—a life passed
in the full glare of public events—a life not obscure,
but, on the contrary, illustrious, and in many re-
spects magnificent. Looking at these two likenesses,
and remembering the history and character of the
dauntless soldier they represent, it is hardly possible,
we take it, to look at them unmoved. There is some-
thing, to ourselves at least, really affecting in the
mere comparison of those two widely-separated de-
lineations of the same countenance. The blooming
comeliness of early manhood upon the one, with
the not one jot less knightly comeliness of veteran
age upon the other. Nay, turning from one of
these frontispieces to the other, we should almost
be fain to accord our preference to the representa-
tion of the chivalric old Field-Marshal, as he ap-
peared in his ninety-first year, rather than to the
portraiture of the same man as a stripling Colonel
of twenty-one in the old-fashioned uniform of the
Twenty-fifth Light Dragoons. Handsome at the
very outset of his career, he was handsome to the very
close of it. A true-souled gentlemau-s--ingrained,
to the backbone, to the core of his heart, to the
innermost recesses of his nature—Stapleton Cotton
bore himself, as such, befittingly, in every phase of
his career, even in the very look and manner of him,
certainly in all the more notable words and actions
of his life from the far away beginning of it—a
beginning removed from us by very nearly one
whole century—down to its ultimate conclu-
sion, when the heroic old man breathed his
last, peacefully, in his bed, being then more than a
nonogenarian. Reading his life as it is here
admirably well related by his widowed Viscountess,
and by Captain W. W. Knollys, of the 93d
Sutherland Highlanders, it is impossible to do so
without a sense of exhilaration. It is as though we
were hearing tell at last, for once, of some one born
not simply with a gold spoon in his mouth, but
with a good round dozen of them, full-weight,
unalloyed, hall-marked, andking's-patterned. It is
like reading at length of some one to whose christen-
ing all the Fairies had been asked without any excep-
tion whatever: even the spiteful one having been
propitiated by a timely invitation. Born on the 14th
of November, 1773, at Llewenny Hall, in Denbigh-
shire, Stapleton Cotton was to survive until—his
ninety-third year having commenced—he tranquilly
breathed his last breath on the 21st of February,
1865, at his old ancestral estate of Combermere
Abbey, down in Cheshire. Thrice during the
lapse of that lung lifetime he was married. First,
iu his twenty-eighth year, on the Ist of January,
1801, to the Lady Anne (who died in 1807),
daughter of the third Duke of Newcastle.
Secondly, in his forty-first year, exactly a year be-
fore the Battle of Waterloo—namely, upon the
18th of June, 1814—to Caroline (who died in 1837),
daughter of Captain Fulke Greville, grandson of the
fifth Lord Brooke. Thirdly, in his sixty-fifth year,
on the 2d of October, 1838, to Mary—joint author
with Captain Knollys of these enthralling memorials
—Mary Woolley, heiress of Robert Gibbings,
Esquire, and grandniece of Lord Combermere's first
commanding-officer, when (five-and-seventy years
ago, that is, in 1791) Stapleton Cotton, as a young
ensign, or, rather, second-lieutenant, of eighteen,
joined, at Dublin, the first regiment to which he
was appointed on leaving Westminster School,
namely, the 23d, or Royal Welch Fusiliers. Less
than a month after his thus joining his first
regiment, to be precise, on the 16th of March,
1791, Stapleton Cotton became lieutenant, doing
duty as such for two years in the Welsh Fusi-
liers, until, on the 28th February, 1793, he was made
Captain by purchase of the 6th Dragoon Guards or
Carabineers. Quartered with that regiment at
Bruges and Ghent, he there in Flanders first saw
service, first fleshed his maiden sword, first smelt
gunpowder in actual conflict on the 16th of April,
1794, at Fremont and Cateau. Immediately prior
to this, his earliest entrance upon the battle-field,
he had, through family interest, been promoted
at the precocious age of one-and-twenty, first of all
to the Majority of the 59th Regiment, and
directly afterwards to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy
of the 25th Light Dragoons. Such were the
earliest steps of the young soldier on his first
entrance upon his public career—a career that
afterwards, by reason of many brilliant acts of
prowess, and by more than one resplendent
achievement, became world-famous and historical.
Himself the descendant and representative of two
ancient and distinguished families—the one the
essentially Saxon race of the Cottons of Cheshire,
their family seat prior to the Conquest, however,
having been at Coton, in Shropshire--the other the
old Bavarian house of the Salusburys, one of whom,
Adam, came over to England with William the Con-
queror—Stapleton Cotton (second son and fifth
child of Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton, Bart., M.P.
for Cheshire, by Frances, daughter and heiress of
Colonel Stapleton, uncle to Sir Thomas Stapleton,
afterwards Lord Le Despencer) won a peerage for
himself and for his descendants by the valour of his
arms, winning, at the same time, the baton of a Field
Marshal, the Grand Cross of the Bath, the Grand
Cross of Hanover, the Star of India, the Colonelcy
of the First Life Guards, the Order of the Tower
and Sword of Portugal, and the Order of St.
Ferdinand of Spain, besides, a variety of minor
decorations. Moreover, he was not only a Vis-
count, a Baron, a Baronet, a Field Marshal, as
well as the possessor of all those other dig-
nities and insignia already enumerated—he was
in his time Governor of Barbadoes, Gold Stick in
Waiting, Constable of the Tower of London, Lord
Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets, Commander-in-
Chief in the West Indies, Commander-in-Chief in
Ireland, Commander-in-Chief in India, for an in-
terval even (during the temporary absence of Lord
Amherst) discharging the duties of Governor-Ge-
neral at Calcutta—but, above all this, beyond all this,
he gained for himself in the Peninsular War the glory,
the power, and the responsibility of Commander-
in-Chief of the Cavalry ! He who, several years be-
fore the close of the last century, had been actively
engaged against Tippoo Saib, who but a few years
of ter the commencement of the present century
had commanded a brigade in Portugal, who had been
present at Talavera, had been second in com:nand to
Wellington at Salamanca, had conducted with con-
spicuous gallantry the siege of Bhurtpore—he who
had drawn the sword in the service of England
upon the Flemish Fields before the new Sesostris
had begun to parcel out Europe among his Satrap
Kings, before he had crowned himself with the
diadem of Charlemagne, before even he had as-
sumed the Consular fasces after driving the Con-
script Fathers of the Directory before him out of the
orangery at St. Cloud —that same Stapleton
Cotton, who, as a handsome young Colo-
nel of Dragoons, was often partner for
the dance, down at Weymouth, with the then
youthful Princess, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester,
was riding but a Veryfetv years since, arrayed in hie
Field Marshal's uniform, and bearing the symbol of
his office Gold Stick in Waitini,-at the right band

of the Queen, when her Majesty reviewed the
Volunteers in Hyde Park. He who, as an infant,
had been dandled in the arms of Dr. Johnson's Mrs.
Thrale--afterwards Mrs. Piozzi, by birth, what
every reader of Boswell will remember her to have
been, Hester Salusbury, and, therefore, a blood
relation of our hero—yet more recently than upon
the occasion of the Hyde Park review, took a
con-
spicuous part in a great Court pageant, the
last of all the Court pageants, however, that
he was destined to attend, namely, when
he appeared, his breast one blaze of orders, in the
gorgeous procession filing into St. George's Chapel
down at Windsor when the Prince of Wales was
married. All through the lengthened career of
this grand old soldier we are enabled to fellow
him step by step, incident after incident, from his
cradle to his coffin, through the eight hundred and
thirty-seven pages of the Memoirs and Correspou-
Imo.° here portioned out into these two thoroughlY
realable and most entertaining volumes. Volumes
penned by his faithful relict the Dowager Vis-
countess, and by her ladyship's congenial collabo-
rateur, a young soldier already honourably known in
the world of letters as a wielder at once of the pen
and of the sword, Capt. Knollys of the 93d Suther-
land Highlanders. Those who bear in their remem-
brance the long-familiar form and features of
Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere, as he was
known to this later generation until he disappeared
from the world, only as recently as last year, can-
not but read with interest such remote references to
him as that, let us say, occurring at page 21 of the
first of these two delightful volumes, where Mrs•
thrale—writing under date Ist September, 1774,
to the late Field-Marshal's mother, to the mother
of that old Lord Combermere, who died but the
other day iu his ninety-third year—says a
him (then an infant)—" Stapleton has come ou
visibly since we parted ; his stays grow tight
over the breast, I see, and I advised his maid t°
put in a gore,. as nothing can be more against
your liking than such confinement, I am sure." The
little mite of a weanling the gore let into 1215
baby-stays by the nurse-maid !—Fie who was after-
wards, upon so many a bloody battle field in Bin'
dostan and the Peninsula, to charge in helmet and
cuirass, sword in hand, at the head of his cavalrYl.
a preux chevalier like Roland, a beau sabreur like
Murat, at once a hero and a dandy, true to his ances-
tral motto, In Utraque Fortuna Paratus, going into
battle as thOugh he were going on to parade, him-
self arrayed, that is to say, in all the splendour
of full uniform, his horse covered with the
most sumptuous housings. Following our hero
all through this narrative from its opening sen-
tence down to its conclusion, we watch him frcnn
every point of view with interest, very often inde2il
with the liveliest admiration. We have just nOl
seen him in the nursery—hardly out of his cradle'
We note next his removal, in boyhood, from home-
care to the Audlem Grammar School, where he ob-
tains weekly, or weakly tuition (spell it how You
please) —having there among his companions Vernon.
afterwards Archbishop of York. We pursue his
course later on, when he is removed to the grea
collegiate school at Westminster, wherehehas among
his schoolfellows the late Marquess of Lansdowne;
then Lord Henry Petty, the late Field Marsha'
Strafford, then known as Jack Byng, the r°et
Southey, Sir Robert Wilson, and Charles B
son of Colonel Bunbury, the famous caricaturist.
He is always, so to speak, tip-top, somehoW'
in all his belongings and surroundings.--
this gay, blithe, impetuous, " bright-eyed, Yollug
adventurer Young Rapid, he is called at 'ionic!
before he makes his first start in life or emerge:
even from the playground. Descended, upon
one hand, as we have seen, from those Saxon Cottons_
who were flourishing in England bejiwe the
coming of the Conqueror--descended on
other from those Teutonic Salusburys who came os, er
to England with the Conqueror, and who claim. ea
_
in fact (these last) to have sprung from a Soverell,l'
Duke of Bavaria -- Stapleton Cotton " oode'vea
with one of those iron constitutions more cotnno'
1,
in his time than in ours" (vol. i., p. 31) contrivlle:-0
with a gay, riant air, as though the Battle of 1-,.
were but a pastime to him, to win the nobility I'ls
th
father before him had disdained—nay, to win tvr°
coronets, and the marshal's baton, and all the o'llo
and glories we have before enumerated. HoW be
looked when starting upon the race let the
ing description indicate :
He was well calculated to attract the attention of ladies
for, in addition to agreeable manners and lively and hiteg
ligent conversation, ho was a decidedly handsome Ycniii•
man. About 5 feet 8 inches in height, slightly but stspngb
partsman and. an excellent pedestrian, io
built, and possessing great activity, he was an indefatig3. ,d
even up tO
"'
eighty-seventy year. A swarthy complexion, a prOft/S I
, j
of dark hair, thick eyebrows, and bright hazel eyes,
by long eyelashes, gave him somewhat of a foreign ePPfe:
°4
ance. His glance was rapid, and the expression of his
~1,1
good-humoured, though when excited by anger it c°"o
be fiery enough ; but, to do him justice, this was suit),
the case, and any ebullition of temper was generallY
transient. The head was small and well proportioaeive
the nostril open, and the nose aquiline ; while a Dlassais..
Saxon chin indicated the firmness of character which, bis
tinguished him through life, and was indeed one •
principal characteristics. • ihea
As a companion picture to which, take the subio
acce 4 -ed what to other

Ault of him, as he appear in what
the prime of manhood. but what to him was still Wit
his youth :
At that time ho was thirty-five years of age, and 3
cidedly handsome man. Of middle height and stroufity
though somewhat slightly built, he possessed great uotts be
of body, and was an excellent horseman. In his
was temperate to an extent not frequently met lcitlolo,
those days, yet withal he was of a sociable disposit d;
Though naturally hot-tempered, ho was universally lil"eioa
for, courteous and pleasing in manner, he bad ever 5 t in
word for those of his subordinates with whom ha 05tiltiy,
contact. Cheerful and fond of society, he freqnsittor-
during the intervals of active operations or in winter (1.,4,
tors, amused himself by assembling the ladies of the Othe
bourhood at those little parties called tertullias In
el,-
Peninsula, at which dancing, music, and flirtation uli,cllo,
bino for the entertainment of the guests. Like his 16,1 c,
trious chief, ho was a great dandy, though with 111°,rafor•
cess. Resembling Murat in personal enterprise and jo
lessness, he also resembled that prince of beaux sabre" 0a
carrying his love of dress into the very field of battlo•ed jS
the most perilous occasions, ho was to be seen atti,'
0, A
the rich uniform of a general of hussars, and m01111°1,4
horse covered with the most gorgeous trapping's, et4):',vo,4
himself recklessly to a storm of shot. Su notorious 00
this habit, that it obtained him in the army of Spain
name of the Lion d' Or. As calm and cool Ml9'loll,
heaviest fire and at the most critical moments as at 3t1,06
his gallantry was so conspicuous that the writer of .
pages heard one of Cotton's bravest officers liken, of to
lapse of upwards of half a century, his lamented chteraoro
Ney. Surely no soldier was over honoured by
noble panegyric. rkeCt
Enough, however, when all this has been reul3 t
A sketch of him at one time, is a sketch of 161136,11
all times—that is at any rate in all essei)oo.
particulars. For the man was of a nature trosea
one sense, could not grow old. He simPlYao
out of life—he was never superannuated. Pe,too.
the last survivor of all the Generals of welliob
He carried his dandyism with him to the conlicio,t-
-and oddly enough without any derogati°l3 both
ever from the dignity of his old age, so ;•,:11
toe.
his age and his dandyism became him! His Laay
told here as it is, gracefully and manfully, 13;3:3 parts
Combermere and by Captain Knollys—reads lit stirslike supplementary chapters from Froissart: ciaDef,
our heart, as Spencer's verse did the heart ot
Pc,
s here
as with the sound of a trumpet. The rec°brliao;lls
given of his gallant deeds form a verY
ntS•
of knightly honours and noble achievenle--4.here '-
the vignette to the titlepage of one volume Lf thei;
a charming sketch, by the hero's relict, °0,06, nit
picturesque home for eight-and-twentY Yinaty,
ancestral home for more than two-and-13 „ogle'
Combermere. As the vignette to the othie;:cb,
te
there is appropriately given a compalli berth ere .I‘.
time from a photograph, of the Co
in
fls trueorial, a monument erected in Juern°rY ° r chars in t
cavalry soldier as ever, put foot in stirrup-, 0.. bei,De
at the head of his troops, armed capZ-Piecittaud
and cuirass, through the stinging sm°k
storm of a battle-field.

Pre
We learn from Stutgardt that at a Cou c ea
In consequence,sev until
osifdteiclleover by the King, it was decided that
arriving
to be put on a war footing. The horses fo',3`oo
teat eLportesg. 41-
the entire army a Wurteulbc.r.llo
artillery. and cavalry are purChased, and 113-°3
er'tand eighth year should be calle
rly.ever sine the 15th at the ci.. •