1714
"Beethoven" (Photogravure) 1750
Jean-Pierre de Beranger (Portrait) 1784
"Monastic Luxury" (Photogravure) 1824

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

John Banim
Theodore de Banville
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Richard Harris Barham
Jane Barlow
Joel Barlow
James Matthew Barrie
Frederic Bastiat
Charles Baudelaire
Lord Beaconsfield
Beaumarchais
Francis Beaumont
William Beckford
Ludwig van Beethoven
Jeremy Bentham
George Berkeley
Hector Berlioz
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Juliana Berners
Walter Besant
Henri Beyle (Stendhal)
Augustine Birrell

GEORGE BANCROFT (Continued from Volume III)

WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM

From 'History of the United States'

But, in the meantime, Wolfe applied himself intently to reconnoitering
the north shore above Quebec. Nature had given him good eyes, as well as
a warmth of temper to follow first impressions. He himself discovered
the cove which now bears his name, where the bending promontories almost
form a basin, with a very narrow margin, over which the hill rises
precipitously. He saw the path that wound up the steep, though so narrow
that two men could hardly march in it abreast; and he knew, by the
number of tents which he counted on the summit, that the Canadian post
which guarded it could not exceed a hundred. Here he resolved to land
his army by surprise. To mislead the enemy, his troops were kept far
above the town; while Saunders, as if an attack was intended at
Beauport, set Cook, the great mariner, with others, to sound the water
and plant buoys along that shore.

The day and night of the twelfth were employed in preparations. The
autumn evening was bright; and the general, under the clear starlight,
visited his stations, to make his final inspection and utter his last
words of encouragement. As he passed from ship to ship, he spoke to
those in the boat with him of the poet Gray, and the 'Elegy in a Country
Churchyard.' "I," said he, "would prefer being the author of that poem
to the glory of beating the French to-morrow;" and, while the oars
struck the river as it rippled in the silence of the night air under the
flowing tide, he repeated:--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour--
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock in the