o the admiration of all the gun-rooms in
the fleet.

The middy of the period, however, was half imp, half hero. Another
youthful Nelson, aetat. sixteen, at the hottest stage of the
fight--probably at the moment the acting-purser was in command on the
quarter-deck--found an opportunity of getting at the purser's stores.
With jaws widely distended, he was in the act of sucking--in the
fashion so delightful to boys--a huge orange, when a musket ball, after
passing through the head of a seaman, went clean through both the
youth's distended cheeks, and this without touching a single tooth.
Whether this affected the flavour of the orange is not told, but the
historian gravely records that "when the wound in each cheek healed, a
pair of not unseemly dimples remained." Happy middy! He would
scarcely envy Nelson his peerage.

[Transcriber's note: The word "aetat." in the above paragraph is an
abbreviation of the Latin "aetatis", meaning "aged".]

THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO

"Who would not fight for England?
Who would not fling a life
I' the ring, to meet a tyrant's gage,
And glory in the strife?
* * * * *
Now, fair befall our England,
On her proud and perilous road;
And woe and wail to those who make
Her footprints red with blood!
Up with our red-cross banner--roll
A thunder-peal of drums!
Fight on there, every valiant soul,
And, courage! England comes!
Now, fair befall our England,
On her proud and perilous road;
And woe and wail to those who make
Her footprints red with blood!

Now, victory to our England!
And where'er she lifts her hand
In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right,
God bless the dear old land!
And when the storm has passed away,
In glory and in calm
May she sit down i' the green o' the day,
And sing her peaceful psalm!
Now, victory to our England!
And where'er she lifts her hand
In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right,
God bless the dear old land!"
--GERALD MASSEY.

Busaco is, perhaps, the most picturesque of Peninsular battles. In the
wild nature of the ground over which it raged, the dramatic incidents
which marked its progress, the furious daring of the assault, and the
stern valour of the defence, it is almost without a rival. The French
had every advantage in the fight, save one. They were 65,000 strong,
an army of veterans, many of them the men of Austerlitz