“The irremediable disorder consequent on this decisive repulse, and the confusion in the French rear, where Bulow had fiercely attacked them, did not escape the eagle glance of Wellington.  ‘The hour is come!’ he is said to have exclaimed; and closing his telescope, commanded the whole line to advance.  The order was exultingly obeyed:  forming four deep, on came the British:—­wounds, and fatigue, and hunger, were all forgotten!  With their customary steadiness they crossed the ridge; but when they saw the French, and began to move down the hill, a cheer that seemed to rend the heavens pealed from their proud array, and with levelled bayonets they pressed on to meet the enemy.

“But, panicstruck and disorganized, the French resistance was short and feeble.  The Prussian cannon thundered in their rear; the British bayonet was flashing in their front; and, unable to stand the terror of the charge, they broke and fled.  A dreadful and indiscriminate carnage ensued.  The great road was choked with the equipage, and cumbered with the dead and dying; while the fields, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with a host of helpless fugitives.  Courage and discipline were forgotten, and Napoleon’s army of yesterday was now a splendid wreck—­a terror-stricken multitude.  His own words best describe it—­’It was a total rout!’

“But although the French army had ceased to exist as such, and now (to use the phrase of a Prussian officer) exhibited rather the flight of a scattered horde of barbarians, than the retreat of a disciplined body—­never had it, in the proudest days of its glory, shown greater devotion to its leader, or displayed more desperate and unyielding bravery, than during the long and sanguine battle of the 18th.  The plan of Buonaparte’s attack was worthy of his martial renown:  it was unsuccessful; but let this be ascribed to the true cause—­the heroic and enduring courage of the troops, and the man to whom he was opposed.  Wellington without that army, or, that army without Wellington, must have fallen beneath the splendid efforts of Napoleon.

“While a mean attempt has been often made to lower the military character of that great warrior, who is now no more, those who would libel Napoleon rob Wellington of half his glory.  It may be the proud boast of England’s hero, that the subjugator of Europe fell before him, not in the wane of his genius, but in the full possession of those martial talents which placed him foremost in the list of conquerors—­leading that very army which had overthrown every power that had hitherto opposed it, now perfect in its discipline, flushed with recent success, and confident of approaching victory.”

* * * * *

ANNUALS FOR 1830.

1. The Juvenile Forget-me-not.  Edited by Mrs. S.C.  Hall.

2. The Amulet.  By Mr. S.C.  Hall.