The king spoke to his officers of the precarious
state of the country, and asked all who were
willing to meet the rebels to hold up their right
hands, and those who would rather not, to hold
up their left. Up instantly went every right
hand. The little red-faced man burst into tears,
bowed, and retired. The next day the Guards
marched, and, at the corner of Tottenham-court-
road, our little quick-eyed friend, William
Hogarth, intercepted them with his sketch-book
Years afterwards, outside the gate of Calais, the
painter saw some of the Highlanders the Guards
met at Culloden, ragged, beggared exiles, lying
on the stones munching stolen onions, dining
on a pinch of snuff, and thinking of the distant
lakes and mountains with that passionate home-
sickness that seems peculiar to the mountaineer.

When Hogarth's picture was taken to the
king, he grew very red and furious indeed
over it. He did not like his Guards being made
fun of.

"I hate bainting and boetry," he spluttered.
"What? A bainter burlesque my Guards! He
deserves to be bicketed for his insolence. Away
wid the trumpery." Bicketing was hoisting a
soldier on the sharp back of a wooden horse out
on the parade in St. James's Park, and was by
no means a joke. Hogarth also effervesced
when he heard this, and dedicated the picture at
once to his Majesty's rival, the King of Prussia;
by the same token, he put only one s to Prussia,
and was much bantered in consequence.

The Young Pretender, according to the Whig
accounts, though he looked a noble and a
gentleman, was no hero. The Jacobites
compared him to Robert Bruce, and were never
weary of praising his kingly courtliness, his
affability, his gallantry, and his handsome
person. He was in reality a good-looking young
man, with a bright complexion and fair hair.
The Tories believed they saw in his not very
acute and rather sensual face the hard lines and
ill-omened expression of the Stuart race. His
eyes were small, but lively, his neck short,
his chin inclined to double. He generally wore
a short tartan waistcoat and trews, his blue
garter, at his button-hole a St. Andrew's cross
hanging by a green ribbon, but no star. When
marching with the army, he donned a broad blue
bonnet edged with gold lace. At the Holyrood
balls, when leading his fair partisans with the
white breast-knots down the dance, he appeared
either in a dress of fine silk tartan with
crimson velvet breeches, or in the English court
dress of the period, with a diamond star glittering
on his breast.

On the 12th of April, the Young Pretender
being at Inverness, the Duke of Cumberland—
a corpulent young man, with rough and
arrogant manners—forded the Spey at the head of
the English army. He reached Elgin on the
Monday, and on Tuesday Nairn, only sixteen
miles from the insurgents. On the 15th, being
his birthday, the army lay at Nairn, and were
feasted with brandy, cheese, and biscuit.

On the 14th, the Prince ordered his drums to
beat and his pipes to " skirl" through Inverness
to collect his half-starved and undisciplined
men, and the Highlanders shouted as he walked
through their lines: "We'll give Cumberland
another Fontenoy." That night he bivouacked
in the park round Culloden House, four
miles from Inverness. Orders were sent to
collect the Frasers, the Keppoch-Macdonalds,
the Macphersons, the Macgregors, some of
Glengarry's men, and the Earl of Cromarty's
Mackenzies, who were scattered over the country
in various predatory expeditions. The men
that day had only a small husk bannock each,
and many of them therefore retired to Inverness
in search of food.

The only hope Charles had of success was to
retreat to his best friends, the mountains, decoy
the duke away from the sea and his victualling-
ships, and lure him into defiles and ravines,
where his cannon would be sacrificed and his
dragoons useless; but the young man was
eager for fighting, for his men were starving,
and their ardour was fast melting away. There
was Inverness to protect, and the Irish and
French officers were for holding out on the
moor, which was in parts boggy and
unsuited to cavalry. Lord George Murray,
however, who had the true military instinct,
disapproved of the ground, as many
great authorities have since done. He was
wisely for falling back to a high, undulating,
and boggy tract on the south side
of the river Nairn, which would have been
inaccessible to the duke's horse and guns; but
his colleagues were all against him. A night
attack on Cumberland's camp was then
unanimously agreed on, and seemed to promise
some hopes of success. The duke's revelling
army was to be surprised and cut to pieces by
the broadswords before it could recover the
first fierce and unexpected onslaught. The English
camp was only nine miles distant across the
moor, and it was hoped they would reach it
at about midnight. The Pretender gave, as
a watchword, his father's name,

"King James the Eighth."

Then embracing Lord George Murray, who
started at eight in the evening with the foremost
column, he placed himself at the head of the rear
guard. The order was to use no fire-arms, only dirk
and broadsword, to cut down and overturn the
English tents, and stab at every bulging or
projection in the canvas. But even "the stars
in their courses fought against Sisera:" all went
wrong. Many détours were necessary to avoid
bogs and splashes. The van guard fell behind,
the men dropped aside, and could not be
kept together. It was two in the morning
before Lord George reached the old house of
Kilravock, three miles from the duke's camp.
It would be daylight directly. A drum beat in
the distance, or a horse neighed, and it was
presumed the enemy was alarmed. Lord George
reluctantly gave the order to retire. The Prince
in his first anger accused his faithful and only
sound adviser of treachery; but, when he cooled,
he agreed in the necessity of the measure, and
exclaimed,