CHAPTER III .-- CARNIVAL PHENOMENA IN WAR-TIME.
Readers were anticipating it, readers have no sympathy; but the sad fact is, Britannic Majesty has NOT got out his sword; this second paroxysm of his proves vain as the first did! Those laggard Dutch, dead to the Cause of Liberty, it is they again.

Just as the hour was striking, they--plump down, in spite of magnanimous Stair, into their mud again; cannot be hoisted by engineering.

And, after all that filling and emptying of water-casks, and pumping and puffing, and straining of every fibre for a twelvemonth past, Britannic Majesty had to sit down again, panting in an Olympian manner, with that expensive long sword of his still sticking in the scabbard.
Tongue cannot tell what his poor little Majesty has suffered from those Dutch,--checking one's noble rage, into mere zero, always; making of one's own glorious Army a mere expensive Phantasm! Hanoverian, Hessian, British: 40,000 fighters standing in harness, year after year, at such cost; and not the killing of a French turkey to be had of them in return.

Patience, Olympian patience, withal! He cantons his troops in the Netherlands Towns; many of the British about Ghent (who consider the provisions, and customs, none of the best); [Letters of Officers, from Ghent (_Westminster Journal,_ Oct.

23d, &c.).] his Hanoverians, Hessians, farther northward, Hanover way;--and, greatly daring, determines to try again, next Spring.