Chair poor Quintus had come for! Serene Highness could not help
himself; the Utrechters were so bent on the thing. Quintus lay
awake, all night, in his truckle-bed; and gloomily resolved to have
done with Professorships, and become a soldier. 'If your Serene
Highness do still favor me,' said Quintus next day, 'I solicit, as
the one help for me, an ensign's commission!'--And persisted
rigorously, in spite of all counsellings, promises and outlooks on
the professorial side of things. So that Serene Highness had to
grant him his commission; and Quintus was a soldier thenceforth.
Fought, more or less, in the sad remainder of that Cumberland-Saxe
War; and after the Peace of 1748 continued in the Dutch service.
Where, loath to be idle, he got his learned Books out again, and
took to studying thoroughly the Ancient Art of War. After years of
this, it had grown so hopeful that he proceeded to a Book upon it;
and, by degrees, determined that he must get to certain Libraries
in England, before finishing. In 1754, on furlough, graciously
allowed and continued, he came to London accordingly; finished his
manuscript there (printed at the Hague 1757 [ Memoires
Militaires sur les &c. (a La Haye, 1757: 2 vols.
4to);--was in the 5th edition when I last heard of it.]): and new
War having now begun, went over (probably with English
introductions) as volunteer to Duke Ferdinand. By Duke Ferdinand he
was recommended to Friedrich, the goal of all his efforts, as of
every vagrant soldier's in those times:--and here at last, as
Quintus Icilius, he has found permanent billet, a Battalion and
gradually three Battalions, and will not need to roam any farther.

"They say, what is very credible, that Quintus proved an active,
stout and effectual soldier, in his kind; and perhaps we may hear
of some of his small-war adventures by and by: that he was a