seen accident delayed the attack of the fifth divi sion, and a lighted carcass thrown from the castle,

were drawn up, discovered their array, and obliged them to anticipate the signal by half an hour. Then every thing being suddenly disturbed, the double columns of the fourth and light divisions also moved silently and swiftly against the breaches, and the guard of the trenches rushing forward with a shout encompassed the San Roque with fire, and broke in so violently that scarcely any resistance was made. But a sudden blaze of

as well to prove the justice of the remarks we have made, as to afford an additional instance to our readers of the fidelity of description, singular power of language, and felicitous combination of interesting circumstances, which distinguish this eminent historian of one of the most eventful wars in which Great Britain has ever yet been engaged. It would be difficult to find in the history of nations a more terrible scene, or a hand better calculated to por tray it.

"The night was dry but clouded, the air thick with watery exhalations from the rivers, the ramparts and the trenches unusually still; yet a low murmur pervaded the latter, and in the former lights were seen to flit here and there, while the deep voices of the sentinels at times proclaimed that all was well in Badajos. The French, confiding in Philippon's direful skill, watched from their lofty station the approach of enemies whom they had twice before baffled, and now hoped to drive a third time blasted and ruined from the walls; the British standing in deep columns, were as eager to meet that fiery destruction as the others were to pour it down, and both were alike terrible for their strength, their discipline, and the passions awakened in their resolute hearts.

"Former failures there were to avenge, and on either side such leaders as left no excuse for weakness in the war ef trial; and the possession of Badajos was become a point of honour personal with the soldier of each nation. But the strong desire for glory was with the British dashed with a hatred of the citizens on an old grudge, and recent toil and hardship, with much spilling of blood, had made many incredibly savage: for these things render the noble-minded indeed averse to cruelty, but harden the vulgar spirit. Numbers also, like Cæsar's centurion, who could not forget the plunder of Avericum, were heated with the recollection of Ciudad Rodrigo, and thirsted for spoil. Thus every spirit found a cause of excitement; the wondrous power of discipline bound the whole together as with a band of iron, and in the pride of arms none doubted their might to bear down every obstacle that man could oppose to their fury.

"At ten o'clock, the castle, the San Roque, the briaches, the Pardaleras, the distant bastion of San Vincente, and the bridge-head on the other side of the Guadiana, were to have been simultaneously assailed, and it was hoped that the strength of the enemy would shrivel within that fiery girdle. But many are the disappointments of war. An unfor

commencement of a most vehement combat at the castle. There General Kempt, for Picton, hurt by a fall, in the camp, and expecting no change in the hour, was not present; there General Kempt, I say, led the third division; he had passed the Ravillas in single files by a narrow bridge, under a terrible fire of musquetry, and then reforming and running up the rugged hill, had reached the foot of the castle, when he fell severely wounded: and being carried back to the trenches, met Picton, who hastened forward to take the command. Meanwhile his troops, spreading along the front, reared their heavy ladders, some against the lofty castle, some against the adjoining front on the left, and with incredible courage ascended amidst showers of heavy stones, logs of wood, and bursting shells rolled off the parapet, while from the flanks the enemy plied his musquetry with a fearful rapidity, and in front with pikes and bayonets stabbed the leading assailants, or pushed the ladders from the walls; and all this attended with deafening shouts, and the crash of breaking ladders, and the shrieks of crushed soldiers, answering to the sullen strokes of the falling weights.

Still, swarming round the remaining ladders, these undaunted veterans strove who should first climb, until all being overturned, the French shouted victory! and the British, baffled but untamed, fell back a few paces, and took shelter under the rugged edge of the hill. Here, when the broken ranks were somewhat reformed, the heroic Colonel Ridge, springing forward, called with a stentorian voice on his men to follow, and, seizing a ladder, once more raised it against the castle, yet to the right of the former attack, where the wall was lower, and an embrasure offered some facility. A second ladder was soon 'placed alongside of the first by the grenadier officer Canch, and the next instant he and Ridge were on the rampart. The shouting troops pressed after them, the garrison amazed, and in a manner surprised, were driven fighting through the double gate into the town, and the castle was won. A reinforcement sent from the French reserve then came up; a sharp action followed; both sides fired through the gate, and the enemy retired; but Ridge fell, and no man died that night with more glory-yet many died, and there was much glory.

During these events the tumult at the breaches was such as if the very earth had been rent asunder, and its central fires were bursting upwards uncontrolled. The two divisions had reached the glacis just as the firing at the castle had commenced, and the flash of a single musket, discharged from the covered way as a signal, shewed them that the French were ready; yet no stir was

heard, and darkness covered the breaches. Some haypacks were then thrown, some ladders were placed, and the storming parties of the light division, about five hundred in all, had descended into the ditch without opposition, when a bright flame shooting upwards displayed all the terrors of the scene: the ramparts crowded with dark figures and glittering arms were seen on one side, and on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava: it was the touch of the magician's wand, for a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder barrels.

"For an instant the light division stood on the brink of the ditch, amazed at the terrific sight, then with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion, flew down the ladders, or, disdaining their aid, leaped, reckless of the depth, into the gulf below; and nearly at the same moment, amidst a blaze of musquetry, that dazzled the eyes, the fourth division came running in, and descended with like fury. There were, however, only five ladders for both columns, which were close together, and a deep cut made in the bottom of the ditch, as far as the counter-guard of the Trinidad was filled with water from the inundation; into this watery snare the head of the fourth division fell, and it is said that above a hundred of the fuzileers, the men of Albuera, were there smothered. Those who followed checked not, but, as if such a disaster had been expected, turned to the left, and thus came upon the face of the unfinished ravelin, which, being rough and broken, was mistaken for the breach, and instantly covered with men; yet a wide and deep chasm was still between them and the ramparts, from whence came a deadly fire thinning their ranks. Thus baffled, they also commenced a rapid discharge of musquetry, and disorder ensued; for the men of the light division, whose conducting engineer had been disabled early, and whose flank was confined by an unfinished ditch, intended to cut off the bastion of Santa Maria, rushed towards the breaches of the curtain and the Trinidad, which were indeed before them, but which the fourth division were destined to storm.

Great was the confusion, for now the ravelin was crowded by the men of both divisions, and while some continued to fire, others jumped down and ran towards the breach, many also passed between the ravelin and the counter-guard of the Trinidad; the two divisions got mixed, and the reserves, which should have remained at the quarries, also came pouring in, until the ditch was quite filled the rear still crowding forward, and all cheering vehemently. The enemies' shouts, also, were loud and terrible, and the bursting of shells and of grenades, the roaring of the guns from the flanks, answered by the iron howitzers from the battery of the parallel, the heavy roll and horrid explosion of the powder barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets, made a maddening din.

"Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keenedged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous

beams, which were chained together, and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set, the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. There the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets, and each musket, in addition to its ordinary charge, contained a small cylinder of wood, stuck full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged.

Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge; and the hissing shells, and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by few, ascended the ruins, and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost on to these sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down, and the men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntary, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded even into a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued. Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that the breach in the Trinidad was impregnable : and, as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach to it impeded by deep holes and cuts made in the ditch, the troops did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack, which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation on the Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shot by the light of the fireballs which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, "Why they did not come into Badajos."

"In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps, and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless fire above, and withal a sickening stench from the burnt flesh of the slain, Captain Nicholas, of the engineers, was observed by Mr. Shaw, of the forty-third, making incredible efforts to force his way, with a few men, into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw, having collected about fifty soldiers, of all regiments, joined him, and although there was a deep cut along the foot of this breach also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers, at the head of their gallant band, rushed up the slope of the ruins; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent, a concentrated fire of musquetry and grape dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth. Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the gallant Shaw stood alone. After this, no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive but unflinching beneath

lated to answer the indications of our moral maladies, is itself the pledge and essence of our true humanity; that this very religion should itself have been made (not should have become, but should have been made) the source and upspring of interminable dissensions and of unmitigated hostilities, and that the monstrous paradox of a holy war should have become the proverb of unholiness and irreligion,-is matter rather of curiosity than of surprise. And that the bitterness of these hostilities should have increased exactly in proportion as the differences were the less; that the opponents should have grown fiercer as they came nearer, and, lashed into madness, as it were, by each other's mock concessions, should have delighted rather to widen the breach than to bridge it over, will excite less of wonder than of lamentation.

These are only the natural results of our moral nature, as yet insufficiently overruled by the superinduction of a second: the same principle which so often actuates neighbours in private life, and which Ovid so forcibly expresses in the words nemo tam prope proculque, will be found to operate no less extensively in the noisier arena of polemics, as well as in the concerns of international administration. Nor is it only in religious controversies that this spirit is alive-it is carried into, or rather in, whom soever it exists; it moulds of itself all the feelings and intercourse of life, it is the note which runs through all their harmonies; it is, in every sense of the word, the spirit of their conduct, it pervades and permeates the whole system and crasis of their moral being. Truly it was said by Juvenal, and with too much truth it may be repeated, "quibusdam somnos rixa facit."§ The sustained and untiring zeal of apostolic love could not repress the outbreak of this "restiveness of mind," this turbulent passion for disagreement: disagreement, we mean, in feeling, not in opinion: unity of feeling is the legitimate fruit of pure Christianity; uniformity of opinion would be a violation of the laws of the human mind and as well might a legislature enact the universal adoption of aquiline noses, as a belief in any ism under the sun. If in the whole physical world no two leaves can be

* Woeful and disgusting examples of this odium theologicum, have been plentiful in the controversies between the Pædobaptists and the Antipædobaptists. The greater friendliness shewn by the Highchurch party to the Dissenters, than to their Low

church brethren, will serve to illustrate the pheno

menon here noticed; while the greater enmity of the Low-church party towards the Dissenters, than towards their High-church brethren, will serve us for a comment. ↑ Sat. iii. 282.

found to resemble each other in the ramification of every particular vein, what species of dynamics must that be, which can screw the moral sense of a whole nation, much more of the whole world, up to the same standard of belief? If the body is affected by the most trivial circumstance, and subject to the control and disposal of all the elements, are there no circumstances, (ea quæ nos circumstant,) no inward emotions, by which the form and character of belief may be influenced? But, on the other hand, would not the very enforcement of such uniformity be itself the greatest violation of the law of charity?

The bad spirit

The church of Rome removes no difficulty, when it accuses all without its pale of heresy: itself guilty of the greatest schism, in attempting to fix what it is essentially impossible to control, by a subtle, and at first unperceived, perversion, establishing and affirming the very crime, which it afterwards professes to condemn, it can only remind us of that strange and ultimate infatuation, by which the madman works himself into the belief, that he himself is sane, and that every one else is mad, "Fugat ipse se a suo contuitu." and worse ignorance that could arrive at such a pitch of complacent usurpation, remind us of the arrangements of some ancient grammarians, who make the rule a sort of peg on which to hang a draggling catalogue of exceptions,† which, so far from proving the rule, would go a long way to disprove it. Nor does the somewhat facetious, yet grave statement of Adelung, the celebrated German lexicographer, "that originally all verbs appear to have been irregular," seem to be much inferior in absurdity; though, when we consider the influence which words exercise over our thoughts, and thoughts on words back again, we shall not be forward to arraign the father of lexicography.

Thus the church of Rome is made one great arоoraσiç: it stands off from the whole Christian world, and from its selfconstituted tribunal excommunicates and condemns them. It is, indeed, a ludicrous and pitiful instance of the deceptiveness of terms and technicalities, that pious and sincere Catholics really do not see the nonsense they are talking, that they are blind to the ridiculous absurdity of any men, or any body of individuals, thus attempting to withdraw themselves into a sort of sacred circle, where, with insular and unapproached independence, they should tyrannize over

* Plaut. Irinum. Ac. ii. Sc. 1.

+ Bacon's Advanc. of Learning, ii. 3.

the minds of their fellow-men, and riot at large in the furies of a spiritual despotism. For as to the pretence of proving the rights of the Romish church from passages of scripture, there is no reason to believe that the evidence preceded the conclusion, and that the latter did not prompt the former. It is the profound, though simple remark of Cæsar, that men easily believe whatever they wish to believe, "facile credunt, quod volunt credere"βούλεσθαι and βουλεύειν are connected in philosophy, as well as in etymology—wish is often the most cogent, if not the most rational argument. The wish to find some resting-place on earth, some abiding satisfaction within the sphere of mortality, some

"Central peace, subsisting at the heart

within the range of the visible, some inappellable tribunal, to satisfy without thwarting the cravings of conscience, will serve to account for so many keeping the under-song of reason in abeyance to the clamours of a feeling roused by conscience.

And the lesson which Protestants should draw from the too instructive errors of Romanism is, to take heed that they do not substitute one infallibility for another, nor find their pope in a creed or a party, in a favourite minister or an ancestral faith; for though Romanism be confined to Romanists, the errors of Romanism are confined to none and many a man who talks with brave contempt of the tyrants of the Vatican, is himself the willing slave of an equally thralling domination. With such men, the Protestant right of liberty becomes nothing more than the right choosing our own pope; it is not a right ab intra, but a right ab extra. And in the consistory of their own minds, these Protestant papists would condemn any deviation from the road in which they have lodged their infallibility, as vehemently as the most rabid Catholic would execrate an abandonment of the Trentine oracles. Such is the deception of words, and such their influence on almost all our thoughts and feelings, that men do not perceive the sameness of the same things under different names; they do not see the affinity of bigotry to popery, and how that popery is only bigotry wrought up into a system, and embodied into law; they do not see that the phrase Roman Catholic church is a flat and gross contradiction of terms; they do not see that establishing one sect, and commanding the

* Wordsworth's Excursion.

+ Of course, we are here alluding to the prime characteristic and corner-stone of the Romish system-its claim to infallibility.

conformity of all other sects, is itself the highest triumph of sectarianism; that, in fact, it is only schism on a throne. We are not objecting to that full and assured conviction, which the apostle enjoined as proper, when he said, "Let every man be persuaded in his own mind;" nay, we are maintaining the strict propriety of that conviction, and nothing more or less: if more, it becomes superstition; if less, it passes into scepticism: superstition is belief without reasoning, scepticism is reasoning without belief: the end of legitimate reasoning is knowledge; and the object of knowledge is not to doubt, but to believe.* The reasoned and enlightened conviction, to which St. Paul alludes, is equally opposed to the acquiescence of superstition, and the uncertainty of scepticism; the former is the offspring of ignorance, the latter is the parent of infidelity.

The want of that unity of feeling to which we have referred, is undoubtedly in a great measure attributable to the habit of prejudging, of pre-approving, or pre-condemning whatever comes under our consideration; of referring every subject to some prior decision of our minds, which almost involves the other; of packing up and labelling our conclusions, and not troubling ourselves afterwards to open the casket and examine the interior, but taking the title on the outside as sufficient to satisfy us. It is true, that it is easier to trace the cause than to point out the remedy: without destroying the memory, we cannot divest ourselves of the knowledge of other facts, and statements, and beliefs; all we can do is, not to draw them forward into prominence; we cannot always keep them out of view, all we can do is not to bring them into view. But we know of nothing which tends so much to uphold and carry out this prejudice as the ambiguity of words, and their insinuation of more than they express. A word at first used as a term of description, soon passes into a term of commendation or reproach; half the words in our language are illustrations of this fact. As soon as this is the case, the word in question should be disused or modified. We have already

A short time since, we met with a curious illustration of that perversion of terms to which we have alluded. The quarter from whence it came will be guessed, when it is stated, that the subject of discussion was the passage, My Father is greater than I." The preacher thought this verse deserving of more especial notice, as it was "one of the few instances in which our translators had given an advantage to the side of liberal criticism." We could not fail to be reminded of the question of Desdemona, (Othello, ii. 1,) "How say you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor?"