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LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

which consists in the hearer not being able, from theaccent or localisms of the speaker to divine in what part ofItaly he was born.

Murat was what the French denominate a decided“ Anglomane.” He liked everything that was English , andcertainly at the present day the English have in manythings got before their neighbours by several lustres. Hehad English maids and governesses for his four children,(two boys and two girls) English grooms for his numerousEnglish horses, English curricles and other carriages,JHanton’s fowling pieces, and “ English port wine.”

In reprisals for the sudden piratical seizure by theEnglish of all French vessels, before any declaration ofwar, Napoleon had made prisoners of all British subjectsfound in his dominions; several were in that predicamentat Naples, and orders had repeatedly been sent from Paris for their being transferred to depots in France . M urat alwayscontrived to evade the execution of those orders, and allowedthe English prisoners at Naples to live quietly on parole ;besides which, they could always obtain permission to visitany part of Italy on a promise to return to Naples.

Amongst these prisoners was a Mr. Roche, commonlycalled “ Colonel Roche,” as having been whilome com-mander of the Cork militia. This eccentric gentlemanexhibited an extraordinary jumble of pompous ostentationand the last degree of affected penury. Possessed of anample fortune he suffered every annoyance for fear ofbeing cheated by his cook of a farthing. He would go tomarket in his carriage to buy potatoes, and shiver in wintersnow, in an old pair of nankeen trowsers surmounted byan antique Marsella waistcoat fringed with rags. Hewould invite large parties of the nobility to a ball andsupper (he could not abide anything not “ noble;”) andset before them a huge round of beef and a sirloin, with