But throughout his adventures there is a touch of chivalry about our drummer.

In all the episodes of his country's career he feels much of patriotism and something of tenderness.

It is thus he sings during the days of the Revolution: We had taken the head of King Capet, We called for the blood of his wife; Undaunted she came to the scaffold, And bared her fair neck to the knife.
As she felt the foul fingers that touched her, She shrank, but she deigned not to speak; She looked with a royal disdain, And died with a blush on her cheek! 'Twas thus that our country was saved! So told us the Safety Committee! But, psha, I've the heart of a soldier,-- All gentleness, mercy, and pity.
I loathed to assist at such deeds, And my drum beat its loudest of tunes, As we offered to justice offended, The blood of the bloody tribunes.
Away with such foul recollections! No more of the axe and the block.
I saw the last fight of the sections, As they fell 'neath our guns at St.Rock.
Young Bonaparte led us that day.
And so it goes on.

I will not continue the stanza, because it contains the worst rhyme that Thackeray ever permitted himself to use.

_The Chronicle of the Drum_ has not the finish which he achieved afterwards, but it is full of national feeling, and carries on its purpose to the end with an admirable persistency; A curse on those British assassins Who ordered the slaughter of Ney; A curse on Sir Hudson who tortured The life of our hero away.
A curse on all Russians,--I hate them; On all Prussian and Austrian fry; And, oh, but I pray we may meet them And fight them again ere I die.
_The White Squall_,--which I can hardly call a ballad, unless any description of a scene in verse may be included in the name,--is surely one of the most graphic descriptions ever put into verse.