The Life of Colonel Fred Burnaby (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Life of Colonel Fred Burnaby

It has generally been assumed that the age of Romance, in so far as England is concerned, disappeared with the last of the Plantagenets. And that Henry the Seventh's Coronation Service was at once its farewell and requiem but a more romantic career than that of Frederick Gus tavus Burnaby, though it was passed in the reign of Victoria, can scarcely be conceived. He was a Coeur de-lion in physique, strength, courage, and magnanim ity and though he lived in what he himself regarded as a tame and pusillanimous era, when Englishmen were inclined to surrender without protest to the first bully who presented himself the benefits which had come down to them from their clearer-eyed and more heroic fathers, he managed to crowd into a life of only forty-two years as many exciting incidents, accompanied by hair-breadth escapes, as would have satisfied even a Knight Templar. Moreover, the stirring events of that life follow one another with the rapidity of a swiftly moving panorama brave deed succeeding brave deed, until lastly there comes the most thrilling scene of all - the terrible passage at arms on the field of Abou Klea - and the hero dead.

He was the only man whom I have ever met, says his old Harrow friend, Mr. H. H. Finch, who was totally devoid of fear.

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