“Yes, and they’ll not soon come back; they’ll keep their ground, I’ll warrant,” cried the corporal.

At this moment the troopers were somewhat disarranged by a part of the earth suddenly flying upwards in a cloud; it was the effect of a cannon-ball which had struck the ground.  They started a few paces backwards, wiped their faces, and having all passed their jocular sentiments on the occasion, coolly united again to view and comment on the action.

They continued to gaze on the busy and bloody scene, with but few observations.  Mass after mass was advancing against the steady squares of infantry, and received with roars of musketry; the cavalry of the enemy, desperate and disappointed, galloped about the close and well-guarded Britons, cutting at the ranks, and dropping as they cut.  Artillery bellowed upon the unyielding heroes, whose ranks closed up at every point where the dead had opened them; they cried aloud for the order to advance; but received the cool and prudent negative of the watchful chief, who, during the action, was moving from rank to rank, encouraging and elevating the energies of his men.

The repeated unsuccessful attacks of the French wore out the patience of their general, and so thinned his ranks, that he at length ceased to contend, and drew off his troops from the field, leaving the English masters of it, and holding every point of the position which they had taken up in the early part of the day.—­Tales of Military Life.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

* * * * *

CHURCH SPIRES.

(For the Mirror.)

Mr. Bentham, in his “History of Ely Cathedral,” says, that one of the earliest spires of which we have any account, “is that of old St. Paul’s, finished in the year 1222.”  This spire was of timber covered with lead; “but, not long after, they began to build them of stone, and to finish all their buttresses in the same manner.”  Mr. Murphy observes that spires were introduced in the 12th century, about the time that the practice of burying in churches became general over Europe; and he supposes that the pyramidal form of the spire, was used as the denotation of a church comprising a cemetery.  This representation he imagines to have been borrowed “from the ancient Egyptians, who placed the pyramid over their cemeteries, as denoting the soul under the emblem of a flame of fire, (whence it is supposed to derive its origin) thus to testify their belief of its immortality.”  There are other opinions respecting the origin of spires.  It may appear probable (says Mr. Brewer,) to many persons, that such an elevated feature of our ancient churches was merely designed in the simplicity of its first intention, to act as a guide to the place of worship, when rural roads, throughout the whole country, were devious, and rendered more obscure by thick masses of forest and woodland.