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fect way, it was proposed to put back to Porto Ferrajo and await a more favourable opportunity, he scouted the idea-" Officers and soldiers of my Guard," he said, we are going to France;" and the shout of enthusiasm with which the announcement was greeted, told how well he understood his followers. They went to France. They saw a French frigate at a distance, but it neared them not, and they passed. Napoleon himself answered the hail from the French brig, which sought to be informed how it fared with the exile of Elba; and finally he and all his people made good their landing on the beach of the gulf of St. Juan, just as the topmnasts of the vessels from which they had descended were described from the quarter-deck of a British sloop-of-war. So close was the run of this extraordinary man's fortune at the commencement of the last act in his public life, and so resolute the spirit which urged him to enter upon it, and to go through with it successfully.

Of the actual details of the engagement, the following portion has in its terrible truth quite the vivid colouring, and intense attraction of

a romance.

"It will be necessary for a moment to look back to the proceedings of the Prussians, whom we left bringing their troops into action as rapidly as they could, and though repulsed in an attempt to take possession of Planchenoit, re forming their masses and preparing again to push them on the village. It was not exclusively in this direction, however, that Blücher strove to bring support to his allies. Along the Wavre road his cavalry was advancing, and gradually falling in on the left rear of Best's brigade, while lower down, through Smohain and La Haye, other troops, some of them infantry, showed themselves. These matrially strengthened the extreme left of the English line, and being comparatively fresh, soon entered into the battle. In particular the Prussian artillery proved of essential service, for the Hanoverian batteries in this direction had expended their ammunition. and, as the infantry and cavalry came up, they descended into the ravine, and prepared to move upon the right of the enemy's line. Thus, just at the moment when the English had repelled the final attack of the Imperial Guard, when D'Erlon's and Reille's corps were both completely disorganized, when the French cavalry, mowed down by the fire of infantry and cannon, were powerless to resist the rush which Lord Uxbridge was about to make upon them, the gallant Prussians came into play, and a defeat, already achieved, was converted into annihilation; for all means of rallying even a rear guard ceased. At the same time let it be borne in mind, to the honour of the French, that on the extreme right they still presented a firm and well-arranged front. Lobau's corps was unbroken, and though over-matched, it faced Bülow stoutly. In Planchenoit, likewise, the Young Guard maintained themselves in spite of Pirch's repeated and desperate efforts to dislodge them: indeed, the progress made in this direction was very slow, for the gallant assailants purchased every foot of ground at an expense of life which was fearful. Still, the knowledge that he was assailed on the flank and well nigh in the rear could not fail of extinguishing in the mind of Napoleon whatever ray of hope might have yet lingered there. He cast a hurried glance over the field of battle. He saw his Guards coming back in wild confusion, and strewing the earth with their dead He looked round for his cavalry, and beheld but broken squadrons fleeing for life, yet failing to secure it His guns were either dismounted or abandoned by the artillerymen, and there was no reserve on which to fall back. Then it was that the terrible words escaped him, which will be remembered and repeated as often as the tale of his overthrow is told. "Tout est perdu --sauve qui peut!" was his last order, and turning his horse's head, he galloped from the field."

It was now eight o'clock in the evening, or perhaps a little later. The physical strength of the combatants on both sides had become well nigh exhausted, and on the part of the English there was a feverish desire to close with the enemy, and bring matters to an issue. Up to the present moment, however, the Duke had firmly restrained them. For all purposes of defensive warfare they were

excellent troops; the same blood was in their veins which had stirred their more veteran comrades of the Peninsula, but, as has elsewhere been explained, fourfifths of the English regiments were raw levies,-second battalions, to manœuvre with which in the presence of a skilful enemy might have been dangerous. Steadily therefore, and with a wise caution, the Duke held them in hand, giving positive orders to each of his generals that they should not follow up any temporary success, so as to endanger the consistency of their lines, but return after every charge to the crest of the hill, and be content with holding that. Now, however, the moment was come for acting on a different principle. Not by Adam and Maitland alone, but by the brigades of Omteda, Pack, Kempt, and Lambert, the enemy had been overthrown with prodigious slaughter, and all equally panted to be let loose. Moreover, from minute to minute the sound of firing in the direction of Planchenoit became more audible. It was clear, therefore, that even young troops might be slipped in pursuit without much hazard to their own safety, and the Duke let his people go. The lines of infantry were simultaneously formed, the cavalry mounted and rode on, and then a cheer began on the right, which flew like electricity throughout the entire extent of the position. Well was it understood, especially by those who, on a different soil and under a warmer sun, had often listened to similar music. The whole line advanced, and scenes commenced of fiery attack and resolute defence of charging horsemen and infantry stern, such as there is no power, either in pen or pencil, adequately to describe.

"It might savour of invidiousness were Ì, in dealing with this part of my subject. to specify particular brigades or regiments, as if they more than others had distinguished themselves. The case was not so. Every man that day did his duty-making allowance, of course, for the proportion of weak hearts which move in the ranks of every army, and seize the first favourable opportunity that presents itself of providing for their own safety. And probably it will not be received as a stain upon the character of British troops if I venture to hazard a conjecture, that in the army of Waterloo these were as numerous as in any which the Duke of Wellington ever commanded. Accident, however, and their local situation in the battle necessarily bring some corps more conspicuously into view than others, and at this stage of the fight Adam's infantry, with Vivian's hussars, had the good fortune to take in some sort the lead. The former followed up their success against the Imperial Guard with an impetuosity which nothing could resist. They left the whole of their dismounted comrades behind them, and seemed to themselves to be completely isolated, when Vivian's hussars whom Lord Uxbridge had ordered on, swept pass them. For there was seen on the rise of the enemy's ascent a body of cavalry collected, which gathered strength from one moment to another, and threatened ere long to become again formidable. It was of vital importance that it should be charged and overthrown ere time was given to render it the nucleus of a strong rear guard; and against it, by the Duke's personal command, the hussar brigade was directed. Loudly these rivals in enterprise and gallantly cheered one another as the British horsemen galloped past, and both caught a fresh impulse from the movement.

"Adam's brigade moved steadily on; Maitland's marched in support of it; and down from their mountain throne' the rest of the infantry moved in succession. The cavalry came first into play. It was observed, as they pushed on, that at the bottom of the descent two squares stood in unbroken order. These were the battalions of the Guard which had been drawn up to support the advance of the French columns; and, though, grievously incommoded by the swarms of fugitives which rushed down upon them, they still kept their ranks. A portion of the cavalry wheeled up and faced them. It is a serious matter to charge a square on which no impression has been made, and probably Vivian, with all his chivalry, would have hesitated to try the encounter, had he not seen that Adam was moving towards the further face of one of these masses with the apparent design of falling upon it. He did not therefore hesitate to let loose a squadron of the 10th, which, headed by Major Howard, charged home, and strove, though in vain, to penetrate. The veterans of the French Guard were not to be broken. They received the hussars on their bayonets, cut down many

with their fire, and succeeded in retreating in good order, though not without loss. Moreover, just at this moment one battery, which had escaped the general confusion, opened upon the flank of Adain's brigade, while another came galloping across the front of the 18th Hussars, as if seeking some position whence they in like manner might enfilade the line of advance which the British troops had taken. But these latter were instantly charged, the gunners cut down, and the pieces taken; while the former soon fell into the hands of the 52nd regiment, which changed its front for a moment, and won the trophy.

"Darkness now began to set in, and the confusion in the French ranks became so great as to involve, in some degree, the pursuers in similar disorder. The more advanced cavalry got so completely intermingled among crowds of fleeing men and horses, that they could neither extricate themselves nor deal their blows effectually. Moreover, as the night deepened, and the Prussians began to arrive at the scene of action, more than one awkward rencounter took place, which was with difficulty stayed. Nevertheless, the pursuit was not checked. Down their own slope, across the valley, up the face of the enemy's hill, and beyond the station of La Belle Alliance, the British line marched triumphant. They literally walked over the dead and dying, the numbers of which they were continually augmenting. Guns, tumbrils, ammunition waggons, drivers-the whole matériel, in short, of the dissolved army, remained in their possession. Once or twice some battalions endeavoured to withstand them, and a particular corps of 'grenadiers à cheval' contrived, amid the wreck of all around, to retain their order. But the battalions were charged, rolled up, and dissolved in succession, while the horsemen effected no higher triumph than to quit the field like soldiers. Still the battle raged at Planchenoit and on the left of it, where Lobau and the Young Guard obstinately maintained themselves, till the tide of fugitives from the rear came rolling down upon them, and they too felt that all was lost. Then came the Prussians pouring in. Then, too, the Duke, feeling that the victory was won, caused the order for a general halt to be passed; and regiment by regiment the weary but victorious English lay down upon the position which they had won. "It is well known that throughout this magnificent advance the Duke was up with the foremost of his people. Nothing stopped him-nothing stood in his way. He cheered on Adam's brigade, and halted beyond its front. He spoke to the skirmishers, and mingled with them; till at last one of his staff ventured to remonstrate against the manner in which he was exposing himself. You have no business here, sir,' was the frank and soldier-like appeal; we are getting into inclosed ground, and your life is too valuable to be thrown away.' 'Never mind,' replied the Duke; let them fire away. The battle's won, and my life is of no consequence now.' And thus he rode on, regardless of the musketry which whistled about him. The fact is, that though he had put a machine in motion which no resistance could stop, he was still determined to superintend its working to the last moment; and the further the night closed in, the more determined he was to observe for himself whatever dispositions the enemy might have made. Accordingly, keeping ahead of his own line, and mingling, as has just been stated, with the skirmishers, he pushed on till he passed to a considerable distance beyond La Belle Alliance, and there satisfied himself that the route was complete. At last he reined up his horse, and turned him towards Waterloo. He rode, at this time, well nigh alone. Almost every individual of his personal staff had fallen, either killed or wounded. Col. De Lancey, Quartermaster-General, was mortally wounded; Major-Gen. Barnes, Adjutant-General, was wounded; Lieut.Col. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Military Secretary, 'had lost his right arm; and of his Grace's Aides-de-camp two, namely, Lieut.-Col. the Honourable Alexander Gordon and Lieut.-Col. Canning, were both struck down. The latter died on the spot, the former survived his mortal hurt only long enough to learn from the chief whom he served and dearly loved, that the battle was going well. Indeed, the losses that day to England, and to the best of English blood, were terrible. Lord Uxbridge, as is well known, was struck by one of the last shots fired, and suffered amputation of the leg. Picton, the hero of a hundred fights, was gone whither alone his glory could follow him. But it is as useless to enumerate the

brave who purchased with their lives this day a renown which can never perish, as it would be idle to attempt a description of the feelings of the survivors.

May every one, who doats on England's fame, be he in his school, his manly, or his slippered days, read and re-read this story of Waterloo.

WAYFARING SKETCHES AMONG THE GREEKS AND TURKS, and on the Shores of the Danube, By a Seven Years' Resident in Greece. Chapman and Hall. 186, Strand. 1847.

WE must confess we have a predilection for an Eastern book. Let oriental narratives and descriptions multiply as they may, there is ever something new to tell, something marvellous to hear about the land of the cypress and myrtle. The author of the work before us has the ad. vantage of a long residence amid the Greeks and Turks; and he evidently speaks with the firm tone and clear conception of one who is thoroughly conversant with his subject. The work contains a fund of entertainment and instruction. There pervades too a religious feeling throughout which leads to some very impressive writing about the present moral degradation of the Turks. The religion of the Mussulman is thus deprecated:

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Mahomedanism is hourly opening out into a new aspect before me. I had imagined it but a low, degraded creed, one of the numerous offsprings of prolific error and ignorance, which, as a substitute for the truth that has not yet dawned upon them, could not have a better or a worse effect in its moral influence, on the great multitude, than any other vain superstition; but from the conversation of those whom I meet here, and who are well qualified to judge, and from a closer view of its palpable working, not as seen in the history of past ages, but on the hearts and minds of the individuals with whom I am actually in contact every day, I cannot but think, that it was originally a deeply-laid scheme, carried out with an almost fiend-like knowledge of the human heart, for enthralling the people by working solely on their evil passions. Most other religions, however much they may have fallen from their common origin in man's instinctive consciousness of the Supreme, have at least for their ultimate aim and end the moral improvement of man; whereas the system of Islamism would seem in every doctrine and in every law to foster and bring forth their worst propensities, presenting even the heaven for which their purer spirit is to strive under images so earthly, that the very hope itself degrades them to the lowest level of mankind; and satisfying the conscience that goads their fallen nature to arise, with a few material and unmeaning observances, strong only in their strictness.

"It is thus at least that Mahomedanism appears in this country; elsewhere it may be, and I have heard that it is, otherwise; a religion not divine must necessarily have different results according to the character and peculiarities of the people on whom it acts, like the practical working of any other system. Assuredly it has found here a fair field, if its object were to brutalize the people and paralyse their higher faculties; for I become daily more convinced than in none have the last traces of that image in which man was created been more utterly effaced than in the Turks, notwithstanding the strong prepossession in favour of this people which exists in Europe, and which I fully shared till I found myself face to face with them in their own country, and in their true colours."

Some of the writer's adventures are related with much animation. The following account of a stormy night on the Black Sea is well told :

"We were destined, however, to a yet more unfavourable reception. As we got fairly out of sight of land, every thing grew ominous of coming warfare. Just at nightfall a vivid flash of lightning suddenly tore asunder the huge black curtain which seemed to hang motionless against the sky, and from the vast rent

the liberated tempest came thundering forth, all fire and fury, and rushed howling over the agitated sea, maddening the convulsed waters till spray, and foam, and rain, became one wild confusion, and our little vessel shook and shivered as the billows wreathed themselves around it, and dashed down raging on its deck. A scene more fiercely desolate, could not well be conceived; the mournful howling of the wind, and the roaring of the ocean, whose breast it was tearing up, made a savage music altogether which was as awful as it was sublime; and the violent pitching of the ship rendered it scarce possible to distinguish the black flying rack above from the yet blacker mass of surge below When matters came to this crisis, of course all went below, excepting the motionless Turks; and certainly if the storm were sublime above, it was most ludicrous in its effects down stairs. There was a continued and involuntary polka dancing on the part of the most sedate passengers, chairs and tables careering frantically to and fro with a confused din, consisting of lamentations in Turkish, anathemas in Greek, angry mutterings of misery in French, abrupt and comprehensible groans in German, and over all the piteous voice of Kentucky, giving a pretty good guess that he had never been so wretched before.

"From the ladies' cabin (which I entered head foremost, after having been thrown down stairs by one lurch of the vessel, violently flung under the table in the saloon by another, and jerked out again before any one had time to help me), every article of furniture had been removed; and mingled invocations to St. Nicholas and the prophet, rose from various agitated heaps in the several corners. After knocking my head on the four sides of the room, I was precipitated into a berth, where I was destined to pass the night, clinging to the wall lest I should fall out, and be compelled to continue this violent exercise.

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The storm never abated during the interminable hours, till daylight, and although I do not suppose any one slept in the whole vessel, the sufferers at last became quite passive, and nothing was to be heard but an occasional groan; directly below me, an unfortunate lady was extended on a mattress on the floor, which was inlaid with polished wood; every time the vessel rolled, the mattress and its burden slid down the room to the opposite wall, where the lady received a violent blow on the head, and then, as the ship righted again, returned slowly to their place. There was a species of fascination in this slow torture, which occupied me the whole night; and such was the state to which we were all reduced, that although the lady who thus helplessly acted the part of a living pendulum, was my own mother, I lay composedly watching her sail away to the other side, and waited till she should come back and knock her head, without even making an effort to relieve her. Daylight brought no improvement in our position, and I alone had strength enough left to creep up on deck. I managed to crawl round to offer my assistance to the inmates of the respective berths before I left the room; but I received no other answer from any, than an entreaty that I would put a speedy termination to their existence. I could not adopt so violent a measure, though I felt that my own demise would have been a relief, so I left them to their miseries, and with much difficulty crept up on deck, where I was dragged to a pile of cushions laid out for me by a sailor, and there I sunk to move no more all day, catching a glimpse in my passage across the deck of the compact mass of turbans waving to and fro, with an instinctive consciousness that each individual Turk was sea-sick.

"The scene was not the less dreary that the light of day had risen over it, and a cold, piercing blast shriek most dismally among the sails, which they had vainly put up to try and steady the sh p. Throughout the whole of that long day it continued thus. None of the other passengers came from below, and as I lay half asleep, half awake, on the deck, every now and then the scenes we had been in the midst of, only yesterday, rose up before me; the golden city sparkling in sunshine, the bird peopled gardens, the soft rippling waters; till a great cold wave, plunging into the vessel, and drenching me with foam, recalled me to the contrasted reality, and showed me the black, boiling sea, and wild tempestuous sky. "In the afternoon, we lay to for half an hour, opposite to the town of Varna, so celebrated in the Balkan war, as having stood a siege of six months against an enormous Russian force. It is so stormy a roadstead that I could only obtain a glimpse of it by clinging to the side of the ship for a few minutes as we reeled