The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our foot broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff ; Till over by Dalhem a dome-tower sprang white,

And 'Gallop,' gasped Joris, 'for Aix is in sight!'

'How they'll greet us!'-and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my

Roland his pet name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is, friends flocking round

As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from
Ghent.

R. BROWNING.

PASSAGE OF THE ADOUR.

It was intended that the arrival of the gunboats and luggers at the mouth of the Adour should have been simultaneous with that of the troops, but the wind continued contrary, none were to be seen, and Hope, whose firmness no untoward event could ever shake, resolved to attempt the passage with the army alone. The French flotilla opened its fire about

nine o'clock; Hope's artillery and rockets retorted so fiercely that three gunboats were destroyed, and the sloop so hardly handled, that the whole took refuge higher up the river; meanwhile, sixty men of the guards were rowed in a pontoon across the mouth of the river in the face of a French piquet, which, seemingly bewildered, retired without firing. A raft being then formed with the remainder of the pontoons, a hawser was stretched across, and six hundred of the guards and the sixtieth regiment, with a part of the rocket battery, the whole under Colonel Stopford, passed; yet slowly and at slack water only, for the tide ran strongly and the waters were wide. The British continued to pass all night and until twelve o'clock on the 24th, when the flotilla was seen under a press of sail, making, with a strong breeze, for the mouth of the river.

To enter the Adour is, from the flatness of the coast, never an easy task; it was now most difficult; because the high winds of the preceding days had raised a great sea, and the enemy had removed one of the guiding flag-staves by which the navigation was ordinarily directed. In front came the boats of the men-of-war, and ahead of all the naval captain O'Reilly ran his craft, a chosen Spanish vessel, into the midst of the breakers, which, rolling in a frightful manner over the bar, dashed her on to the beach. That brave officer, stretched senseless on the shore, would have perished with his crew but for the ready succour of his soldiers. However, a few only were drowned, and the remainder, with an intrepid spirit, launched their boat again to aid the passage of the troops which was still going on. O'Reilly was followed successfully by Lieutenant Debenham in a six-oared cutter; but the tide was falling, and the remainder of the boats, the impossibility of passing until the next high water being evident, drew off, and a pilot was landed to direct the line of navigation by concerted signals.

When the water rose again the crews were promised rewards in proportion to their successful daring, and the

whole flotilla approached in close order; but with it came black clouds and a driving gale, which covered the whole line of coast with a rough tumbling sea, dashing and foaming without an interval of dark water to mark the entrance of the river. The men-of-war's boats first drew near this terrible line of surge, and Mr. Bloye of the Lyra, having the chief pilot with him, heroically led into it; but in an instant his barge was engulphed, and he and all with him were drowned. The Lyra's boat being thus swallowed up, the following vessels swerved in their course, and shooting up to the right and left, kept hovering undecided on the edge of the tormented waters. Suddenly Lieutenant Cheyne of the Woodlark pulled ahead, and, striking the right line, with courage and fortune combined, safely passed the bar. The wind then lulled, the waves as if conquered abated somewhat of their rage, and the luggers, manned with Spanish seamen, and having an engineer officer with a party of sappers in each, who compelled them to follow the men-of-war's boats, came plunging one after another through the huge breakers, and reached the point designed for the bridge. Thus was achieved this perilous and glorious exploit. In effecting it, Captain Elliot of the Martial, with his launch and crew, and three transports' boats, perished close to the shore, in despite of the most violent efforts made by the troops to save them; three other vessels cast on the beach lost part of their crews; and one large lugger full of men, after passing the line of surf safely, was overtaken by a swift bellying wave which, breaking on her deck, dashed her to pieces.

All the first division and Bradford's Portuguese, eight thousand men, being now on the right bank, took post for the night. Next day, sweeping in a half circle round the citadel and its entrenchments, they placed their left on the Adour above the fortress, and their right on the same river below it; for the water here made such a bend in their favour that their front was little more than two miles wide, and for the most part covered by a marshy ravine.

This

nice operation was effected without opposition, because the entrenched camps, menaced by the troops on the other side of the Adour, were so wide that Thouvenot's force was scarcely sufficient to maintain them. The bridge was then constructed three miles below Bayoune, where the river was contracted to eight hundred feet by retaining walls, built with the view of sweeping away the bar by increasing the force of the current. The plan of the bridge and boom was the conception of Colonel Sturgeon and Major Todd; but the execution was confided entirely to the latter. Batteries were immediately constructed to fire hot shot, and so drive the sloop and gun-boats lying in the river away from the bridge, which was thus constructed. Twenty-six luggers, moored head and stern at distances of forty feet, reckoning from centre to centre, were first bound together with ropes; two thick cables were then carried loosely across their decks; and the ends being cast over the walls on each bank, were strained and fastened in various modes to the sands. They were sufficiently slack to meet the spring-tides, which rose fourteen feet; and planks were laid upon them without any supporting beams. The boom, moored with anchors above and below, was a double line of masts connected with chains and cables, so as to form a series of squares; hence if a vessel broke through the outside, the shock would turn her round in the square, and she would become entangled with the floating wrecks through which she had broken. Gun-boats, with aiding batteries on the banks, were then stationed to protect the boom, and row-boats were furnished with grappling-irons to tow off fire-vessels. By the united labour of seamen and soldiers, all was finished on the 26th; and, contrary to the general opinion on such matters, Major Todd assured the author of this history that he found the soldiers, with mind quickened by the wider range and variety of knowledge attendant on their service, more ready of resource, and their efforts, combined by a more regular discipline, of more avail and with less loss of time, than the irregular activity of the seamen.

The agitation of the river from the force of the tides was generally so great that to maintain a pontoon-bridge on it was impossible; a knowledge of this had rendered the French officers too careless of watch and defence; and this year the shifting sands had given the Adour such a slanting direction towards the west that it ran for some distance almost parallel to the shore; the outer bank thus acting as a breakwater lessened the agitation within, and enabled the large twomasted boats employed to ride safely and support the heaviest artillery and carriages. Nevertheless, this fortune, the errors of the enemy, the matchless skill and daring of the British seamen, the discipline and intrepidity of the British soldiers, all combined by the genius of Wellington, were necessary to the success of this stupendous undertaking, which must always rank amongst the prodigies of the war. SIR W. NAPIER.

THE EVE OF QUATRE BRAS.

THERE was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell :

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell !

Did ye not hear it ?-No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street:

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet :

But hark!-that heavy sound breaks in once more,