prey in view,--with that foreseeing smile!

And when for blood on Salamanca ridge
Morn broke, or Orthez' bridge,
He read the ground, and his stern squadrons moved
And placed with artist-skill,
Red counters in the perilous game they loved,

Impassive, iron, he and they!--and then
With eagle-keener ken
Glanced through the field, the crisis-instant knew,
And through the gap of war
His thundering legions on their victory threw.

Not iron, he, but adamant! Diamond-strong,
And diamond-clear of wrong:
For truth he struck right out, whate'er befall!
Above the fear of fear:
Duty for duty's sake his all-in-all.

Among the many wonders of Wellington's Peninsular campaign, from Vimiera
(1808) to Toulouse (1814), the magnificent unity of scheme preserved
throughout is, perhaps, the most wonderful: the dramatic coherence,
development, and final catastrophe of triumph. For this, however,
readers must be referred to Napier's _History_; Enough here to add that
one of the most decisive steps was the formation of the lines in defence
of Lisbon, of which the most northerly ran from Alhandra on the Tagus by
Aruda and Zibreira to Torres Vedras near the sea-coast at the mouth of
the Zizandre.

_When Freedom_; the unwise and uncertain management of the campaign by
the English home Government has been set forth by Napier with so much
emphasis as, in some degree, to impair the reader's full conviction. Yet
the amazing superiority in energy and wisdom with which Wellington
towered over his contemporaries, (the field being, however, cleared by
the recent deaths of Nelson and Pitt), is so patent, that this attempt to
do justice to his greatness is offered with hesitation and apology.

_Orthez' Bridge_; crosses the river named Gave de Pau;--and covered
Soult's forces then lying north of it.

THE SOLDIERS' BATTLE

November 5: 1854

In the solid sombre mist
And the drizzling dazzling shower
They may mass them as they list,
The gray-coat Russian power;
They are fifties 'gainst our tens, they, and more!
And from the fortress-town
In silent squadrons down
O'er the craggy mountain-crown
Unseen, they pour.

On the meagre British line
That northern ocean press'd;
But we never knew how few
Were we who held the crest!
While within the curtain-mist dark shadows loom
Making the gray more gray,
Till the volley-flames betray
With one flash the long array:
A