venience resulting from my baggage-animals having sore backs, I always made him carry his knapsack when they were thus afflicted, but relieved him from his burthen when they were sound and well. I give this hint to uninitiated young officers, as I found my plan answered completely. Sore backs were always engendered from neglect in the man who loaded the mules; by omitting to double the horsecloths and blankets under the saddles and pack-saddles, so as to prevent local pressure on their withers or loins. When the soldier-servant finds that he relieves his own back by taking care of those of his master's animals, fewer raws are established in every way. We now for the tenth time passed the Coa. Our line of march led us along the frontiers of Portugal and Spain, by the back of the Sierra d'Estrella through the towns and villages of Aldea de Ponte, Sabugal, Castelhero, Carea, Elpendrinha Lardosa, Castello Branco, Atalaya, passing the Tagus at Villa Velha, and so on to Niza, Gaviao, and Abrantes, a distance of 150 miles. I had some capital partridge shooting on our line of march; and, much to the disgust of our chief of brigade on one occasion I shot a fox. I was threatened for so unsportsmanlike an act, by our sport-loving brigadier, Sir H. C., never to be allowed leave of absence, which he jokingly said he could not find it in his conscience to grant to the author of so atrocious a proceeding. As I never, however, asked for a day's leave from my duties, during the three years and a half I served in the Peninsula, his observation mattered little, had it been even made in earnest. As we arrived at each place of halt, I used to take my gun and an excellent English setter, my companion, and generally furnished my table, and that of a comrade or two, with pleasanter provision than was issued out by the commissary of his most gracious majesty, King George the Third. God bless him! We halted eleven days at Abrantes, which is a good town. Here we fitted our men's clothing, and prepared ourselves for our prospective operations in procuring such necessaries as we conceived we might want. For the first time since my arrival with the I found myself in possession of a small bell-tent sent out to me from England by my friends. Our poor men had no such essentials till the following year. army Two days after reaching Abrantes, my friend Gurwood, of the 52nd, dined with me on his way through to embark at Lisbon, for England. I remember our having a very merry party; he was full of the well-deserved honours he had gained, and we, in high spirits and health, were animated with the hope to obtain the like should the opportunity be offered us. The night dwindled into the little hours of morning ere we parted-some of us never to meet our gallant friend again. Amongst them, Harvey,* and Burgess of the Coldstream, who fell later in this campaign, the last, while heading a storming party; thus emulating his former brother officer of the 52nd in all but his success ;-poor fellow! In addition to commanding my company, I now had imposed upon * Son of the late Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey, me, the duties of Adjutant, as the officer holding that office in my corps, had proceeded on leave to Lisbon. My time was pretty well occupied therefore, and sometimes not agreeably. Our Chief of battalion was by no means blessed with too strong a head, or too soft a temper; he certainly had the merit sometimes to acknowledge himself in the wrong, though that wrong became tiresome, as more frequent in its recurrence than his acknowledgment of it. He was a gallant, thick-headed man, and if the former quality palliates the latter, and charity covers a multitude of sins, still, vulgar violence certainly modifies a multitude of virtues. He was a remarkable contrast to those who had preceded and succeeded him in command; the latter of whom, almost without exception, rose to well-earned honours and distinctions. We obeyed orders, however, and indemnified ourselves by laughing at what could not be avoided. A friend of mine, in another corps, used to say, that he flattered himself in the course of his military life, he had been commanded by the greatest number of fools in the service, but that, on this occasion, we certainly seemed to have appropriated to ourselves one whom he quite longed to add to the list of his experiences. If men in command will but reflect that "more flies are caught with a spoonful of honey, than a barrel of vinegar," and that with power accorded them, tact and management may lead to willing instead of unwilling obedience; any person of moderate intellect will prefer that line which is surest, best, and easiest of accomplishment, to that which is the opposite. When officers from home came out to us, we found them too frequently impregnated with all the punctilios enforced by the Horse Guards clock, with ideas redolent of hair-powder, and blank-cartridge; stiff in stocks, starched in frills, with Dundas's eighteen manœuvres or commandments. All this had to be changed. A normal school for real soldiers was undergoing the process of formation; the new comers at first thought they had tumbled amongst a strange, loose set of half-wild men, little in accordance with their preconceived opinions. At length they began to discover how the art was carried on, and found that they had much to unlearn, as well as much to acquire, before they could make themselves useful. Materials for the contemplated siege of Badajos were now collecting, and passing through Abrantes towards the neighbourhood of their destined use. Scarcity of these, and inefficient transport was as usual the prevailing difficulty to be fought against. In spite of all that had been done, and pointed out, and recommended by our Chief, still, our ministers at home, although they continued the war, starved it. Neither money nor necessaries were forthcoming when wanted; the means were always inadequate to the end. Sufficiency of artillery could not be transported from Ciudad to Badajos; a supply of guns, of the necessary calibre of 24 pounders, could not be obtained at Lisbon. Admiral Berkeley, when applied to, said he had not the means to afford them. Local preparations had been silently proceeding at Elvas, but still dearth of stores, and tools, and guns, and shot, existed, attributable to the want of conduct of our Government at home, in civil as well as military matters towards this army during the greater part of the Peninsular war. I beg to refer on these points not only to the Duke of Wellington's own dispatches on the subject, but also to his brother the Marquis Wellesley's statements concerning the administration of that day. He says, "they were timid without prudence,-narrow without energy,-profuse without the fruits of expenditure, and slow without the benefits of caution," in spite of all which, our Chief fairly dragged these "timid, doubting, vacillating ministers through the sloughs of their mediocrity, by the wheels of his triumphal car." If these men, with whom he was in constant council, heeded not his warning voice; others, both in and out of Parliament, not having similar advantages, might be excused for doubting of a success they had no means of testing or comprehending. The precedents before their eyes, and their reminiscences of military expeditions, both in conception and execution, were taken from Holland, Walcheren, and Buenos Ayres, and those there commanding. The puissant at home thought with Shakspeare that "reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit." From beginning to end our Chief's merits were disputed, his opinions contradicted, and his demands neglected. These people could not comprehend that one man should do a deed that none other but himself could have accomplished. A French author, Monsieur Mourel, says, "Mais personne, ni amis, ni ennemis, personne ne soupçonnait alors ce que c'était que Wellington, l'Angletere elle même ne l'a connu que très tard, et il-y-a une portion considérable du peuple Anglais qui ne sait pas bien au juste tout ce qu'il lui doit." And again, another Frenchman, not very easily suspected of partialities to England or the English, Monsieur Thiers, writes, "There is no use in denying it—every circumstance considered, the Duke of Wellington was the greatest General whom the late wars have offered for human contemplation; his mind was so equally poised, notwithstanding the vivacity of his genius, that he was always ready, and equally prompt, on every occasion. He united the powerful combination of Napoleon to the steady judgment of Moreau. Each of these mighty captains was, perhaps, in some degree superior to Wellington in his peculiar walk. Napoleon may have had more rapidity of view and plan upon the battle-field, and could suddenly change his whole line of battle as at Marengo. Moreau everywhere understood better the management of a retreating army before an exulting enemy. But the exquisite apprehension and intelligence of Arthur Wellesley served him instead of both, and took at once the conduct and the measures that the occasion required. Many of our military (French!) men have contested his genius, but no man can deny him the most equable judgment that was ever met with in a great soldier. It is this admirable judgment, this discerning wisdom of the mind, which has misled Europe as to his genius. Men do not expect to see in the same person the active and the passive spirit equally great; nor does nature usually bestow such opposite gifts in the same person. In Napoleon a steady judgment and an endurance of calamity were not the concomitants of his impulsive genius and tremendous activity; while Moreau had all his passive greatness. But the Duke of Wellington has united the two qualities. Nay, more: the noble army he had so long commanded had gradually learnt to partake of the character of their leader. No soldiers in the world but the English could have stood those successive charges, and that murderous artillery, which they so bravely bore at Waterloo." THE CHURCHYARD AT CAMBRIDGE. BY H. W. LONGFELLOW. IN the village churchyard she lies, Dust is in her beautiful eyes. Nor more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs ; At her feet and at her head Lies a slave to attend the dead, But their dust is as white as hers. Was she a lady of high degree, So much in love with the vanity And foolish pomp of this world of ours? Or was it Christian Charity, And lowliness and humility, The richest and rarest of all dowers? Who shall tell us? No one speaks; At the rude question we have asked : By those who are sleeping at her side. Hereafter? And do you think to look To find her failings, faults and errors ? 676 LORD BYRON AT VENICE. BY H. T. TUCKERMAN. A SAFFRON tint o'erspread the broad lagoon Men of all climes From the deep shadow of the Ducal pile And springing lightly thence, a noble form His throbbing brow grew still, and his whole frame, |