MEN OF THE DAY. No. 143.

CAPTAIN FREDERICK G. BURNABY.

THE son of a Leicestershire parson of good family and possessions, Fred Burnaby was sent to Harrow, and thence into the Blues, for which he seemed to be particularly suited, by reason of his great stature and strength. The first years of his discretion he devoted to feats of activity and endurance, and that with so much success that he soon became reputed the strongest man in the British Army, as well as a more daring and agile gymnast than had ever yet been seen in an amateur of his size. The back-lifts and hockswings he threw and the weights he lifted are matters of club-history, and his boxing earnt for him the name of "Heenan."

But he soon developed other aims than these. The perseverance and untiring application which are his distinctive qualities being sated with physical pursuits, which brought him through much exertion into sickness, he cast about for other laurels; and, after a career of ballooning, in which he made himself sufficiently expert to conduct his ascents without other captaincy than his own, he devoted himself to the study of languages. By dint of incredible labour he mastered Russian more perfectly than perhaps any other Englishman of our time; by continual sojourns in Seville he learnt to speak Spanish almost like a Castilian; and he has recently acquired a respectable knowledge of Arabic, besides that current smattering of French and German to which all Society lays claim. Thus fortified he essayed literature, and, coincidentally with a visit which he paid to the Carlist camp, the *Times* was enriched with some excellent letters, with the hot breath of battle in them, which some to this day would attribute to the Infant Blue, who was known to be a spectator in the front of the fighting. As his experiences grew, so grew the wish to extend them, and he has been several times at St. Petersburg, once to Central Africa, and last to Khiva, by way of spending to some better purpose the leave which the Household Cavalry commonly give to shooting in England or to amusement on the Continent.

One of the special characteristics by which "Fred" is marked out from among the order of young men with whom he might hastily be classed, is that he has never sought to be popular in the Society sense, and that he is no great respecter of persons. With ladies, indeed, he takes an inordinately deferential and mincing tone, yet he is by no means a ladies' man; with men he is blunt, outspoken, and on the defensive always, yet those of them who know him know that to his friend he is staunch and true as steel, and to all incapable of any mean or ungenerous action. Although he courts the Muses, he is above consulting the Graces, and perhaps there is no man in the Service who off parade looks less like a British Cavalry officer than he. He has had every kind of illness and tried every kind of remedy, from exclusive milk-diet for a fortnight to exclusive bacon for a month. Nevertheless his temper is agreeable and gentle, his industry and application prodigious, and having in him no tinge of conceit, he may be said to possess all those qualities which in an idle and self-sufficient age go to the making of its best kind of men.

MEN OF THE DAY. No. 143.

CAPTAIN FREDERICK G. BURNABY.

THE son of a Leicestershire parson of good family and possessions, Fred Burnaby was sent to Harrow, and thence into the Blues, for which he seemed to be particularly suited, by reason of his great stature and strength. The first years of his discretion he devoted to feats of activity and endurance, and that with so much success that he soon became reputed the strongest man in the British Army, as well as a more daring and agile gymnast than had ever yet been seen in an amateur of his size. The back-lifts and hock-swings he threw and the weights he lifted are matters of club-history, and his boxing earnt for him the name of "Heenan."

But he soon developed other aims than these. The perseverance and untiring application which are his distinctive qualities being sated with physical pursuits, which brought him through much exertion into sickness, he cast about for other laurels; and, after a career of ballooning, in which he made himself sufficiently expert to conduct his ascents without other captaincy than his own, he devoted himself to the study of languages. By dint of incredible labour he mastered Russian more perfectly than perhaps any other Englishman of our time; by continual sojourns in Seville he learnt to speak Spanish almost like a Castilian; and he has recently acquired a respectable knowledge of Arabic, besides that current smattering of French and German to which all Society lays claim. Thus fortified he essayed literature, and, coincidently with a visit which he paid to the Carlist camp, the *Times* was enriched with some excellent letters, with the hot breath of battle in them, which some to this day would attribute to the Infant Blue, who was known to be a spectator in the front of the fighting. As his experiences grew, so grew the wish to extend them, and he has been several times at St. Petersburg, once to Central Africa, and last to Khiva, by way of spending to some better purpose the leave which the Household Cavalry commonly give to shooting in England or to amusement on the Continent.

97L

50L

20L

(These charts are for monitor calibration only)

Yale Center for British Art, 2013