probability, have told him, that, however scrupulously he forbore to offer any comment upon what the Major vouches for as an eye-witness, he must not be considered as expressing any such assent as might be construed into corroboration; and thus Major Gawler would have had an opportunity of correcting the very erroneous impression which seems to have been made upon him by Sir Hussey's words, before the appearance of his letter in print, and of directing his attention to the real difficulties of his case, from which, by Sir Hussey's supposed admissions, his mind seems to have been diverted. As the matter stands at present, his situation is very different indeed; and there are many to whom he will appear in the suspicious cha racter of an individual who, for his own purposes, misrepresents the words of a candid and honourable adversary, (words which must seem to plain minds utterly incapable of the construction which he puts upon them,) and this in a manner so unceremonious-so little after the example of the course which had been pursued towards him, and in such pointed disregard of the courtesies of controversy, that Sir Hussey may feel himself fairly dispensed from any further notice of one, whose mode of proceeding in the present instance is as uncivil as his opinions are erroneous.*

We must not, however, do Major Gawler the injustice of supposing, that he entertains any doubt respecting the correctness of such statements of matters of fact, as Sir Hussey makes from his own knowledge. "The accuracy," he says, "of your account of the movements and charges of your brigade, allowing for those minor misconceptions, from which, under such circumstances, no man can be surely exempt, I will not presume to question; no one then present can have a better, and few so good a claim to correctness on those points as yourself." This is as it should be; nor can there be any objection to what he says further on, "while admitting, almost without a doubt, the correctness of facts, I must dispute, to a great extent the justice"

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(justness) "of your inferences." If Sir Hussey has reasoned wrong, he is, undoubtedly, entitled to correct him. Now, one of the matters of fact, for which we think Sir Hussey entitled to credit, is the precise position of his brigade when the final effort was made by the French army. That position he thus describes, Lord Uxbridge had himself led my brigade from the left, (where it had suffered but little, having been exposed only to a cannonade and a distant fire of musketry,) and posted it immediately on the crest of the position, to the right of the road to Genappe, where the 10th and 18th hussars formed into line, and the 1st German hussars in reserve, the left of the 18th touching nearly to the high road. This will give an accurate notion of the ground we occupied, and which, on the plan attached to your statement, I should consider as being on a line with, and immediately behind that you have assigned to the Brunswickers, and extending to the right towards Hougomont." When the orders to advance were given, Sir Hussey wheeled half squadrons to the right, and moving a short distance parallel to the position, again wheeled the leading half squadrons to the left, and moved perpendicularly to the front. From this time his movements were constantly in advance; and a small body of cavalry which passed across his front, and were fired on, through mistake, by the 52nd, strongly, to our minds, corroborates his statement, that his squadrons were at that time in a line with that regiment. But, be this inference as it may, Major Gawler has no right to question the fact, unless he either withdraws the credit which he has accorded to Sir Hussey for such statements as he made from personal knowledge, or maintains that he was himself incorrect in the position which he assigned to the 52nd. We have the statement of one officer for the position of one corps, that of the other, for the position of the other corps; and if we allow to each equal credit, we must come to the conclusion that, at the time alluded to, they must have been almost in line. But no, says Major Gawler, that cannot be, because

VOL. II.

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it militates against my favourite conclusion. We humbly submit, that that can be no reason at all for discrediting Sir Hussey, while it does afford some little ground for presuming that the Major's favourite position may not be on the true one.

The cavalry that passed across the fronts of both the corps, furnishes, the Major says, no proof of their relative position; because, in the first place, it is not absolutely certain that they were the same body, and in the next place there is no proof that, having passed the 52nd, they did not incline strongly to the rear. Why no; strong as probabilities may be upon such a subject, what the Major says is, at least, possible; and if Sir Hussey merely inferred the position of his corps relatively to that of the 52nd, from the incident alluded to, neither he nor his readers could be certain that he might not be mistaken. But he knew his own position from personal knowledge, and that of the 52nd from Major Gawler's report; and he merely alludes to the circumstance above mentioned, as furnishing a very unsuspicious and incidental corroboration of his statement. "But," says the Major, "should it happen that an officer of the party were to come forward and say that it was the same in both cases, and that, after passing the 52nd, it did move parallel to the front of the position, these assertions would not in the slightest degree shake the facts that the 10th did not reach the square of the old guard half a mile from the summit of the position, sooner than the 71st, and that the main body of the brigade only arrived at the farm of Rosomme, half a mile further, about the same time with the 52nd." Indeed! This is very extraordinary! Does Major Gawler mean deliberately to set aside the evidence of the Colonel of the 71st, who unequivocally declares that that regiment did not come up with or see the square alluded to, and which was charged by the tenth? And does he mean to undervalue the authority of Sir Hussey Vivian, who states, that "the red regiment," which was not the 71st, did not come up with the square until the tenth had suffered consider ably from its fire? These are the facts of the case; and any inferences which are at variance with them must be

erroneous,

It is not correct to say, as the Major does in the passage last quoted, that the sixth brigade, and the 52nd met about the same time at the farm of Rosomme. Sir Hussey states, that, before the 52nd made their appearance, “the 18th, in their pursuit after the charge, had nearly reached the point here mentioned, and had met with some of the advanced cavalry on the road," when, he fears, mistakes occurred, and a conflict took place in the dark between the Prussians and the English. This must have occupied some minutes at least; and it was not until after he had halted, and reformed his brigade, that he was told the Duke of Wellington was on his left; so that, admitting the 52nd to have arrived at the same time with the Duke, which is Major Gawler's case, their arrival was preceded by that of the sixth brigade; how far, it is not for us to say; but far enough, at all events, to disprove that complete coincidence in point of time, upon which the Major's reasoning is entirely founded.

We have now done with this subject. The reader will, perhaps, be of opinion that we have bestowed upon it too much attention. We are not, however, sorry that the particular claims advanced by Major Gawler should have been put forward at a time when they may be so truly estimated, and that they have not been deferred until the death of some of the principal actors would have rendered it impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion. It is, indeed, most fortunate, that Sir Thomas Reynell is alive to contradict what had been so erroneously stated respecting the 71st; and that Sir Hussey Vivian is alive to give that interesting and graphical account of the movements of his brigade, which will be a guide to the future historian. The gallant officer who has provoked this discussion, has also performed a valuable service; and while we dissent from his views, and deny his conclusions, we are not the less sensible that we owe to his statement the information by which we have been enabled to form a sounder judgment for ourselves. We are glad also that we have had the opportunity which he has afforded us of forming an opinion of the correctness of his own representations. He has been compelled to make admissions which essentially alter the

character of his first statement, and give an entirely different version of the battle, in all that relates to the final movements and achievements of the sixth brigade. The whole question now resolves itself into a question of time; and unless he could speak as confidently of the moment when Sir Hussey put his squadrons in motion as he does of the right-shoulder forward movement of the 52d, he could say nothing that would be decisive. As to his "inferences," he cannot, we believe, call himself "an eye witness" of them; if he does, he must possess a very peculiar faculty of vision-a kind of logical second sight;—so that, unless he is pleased to communicate his secret, the military seer of the 52d must remain in the sole enjoyment of those dazzling visions which he has conjured up, and under the influence of which he seems to experience a species of ravishment, similar to that of Bottom when he got into Fairy Land.

That the 52d behaved on this with the same coolness and gallantry which distinguished them on every other occasion, we cannot for a moment doubt; but neither can we for a moment doubt that, up to the period when Sir Hussey made his gallant charges, the battle was undecided. The impression also is strong upon our minds, that had these charges not succeeded, the battle might have been decided the other way; for had our squadrons and our battalions been forced and overwhelmed by the French in this great and final onset, the Prussians never could have enabled us to recover the lost ground, and they must have shared in our defeat, instead of contributing to complete our victory. These points being settled, when we look to the precise

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time when, as well as the precise manner in which the charges were made, it is impossible to withhold from Sir Hussey the credit of coolness and judgment at that critical moment, fully equal to the ardour and courage with which he animated his brave men to the onset. Had he followed Lord Uxbridge's suggestion, the charge might have been made too soon, and our strength might have been spent before it could be brought to bear with effect upon the enemy. Even the Duke's more cautious suggestion must be considered discouraging, for, not to charge until he thought that by so doing he could break the enemy's squares, amounted almost to an interdiction. Indeed, Major Gawler's Crisis" is partly written to prove the exceedingly hazardous nature of such an attempt, and that the cases are very rare where it does not bring ruin upon the assailants. But Sir Hussey judged more wisely. He waited until the precise moment when it was apparent that the French were advancing in force, and having prepared his men by the animating words which we mentioned in a former number, he led them on, with an impetuosity against which the collected might of the legions of France could oppose but a brief and vain resistance. This he did three several times, he himself being on each occasion foremost in danger; and the result was, a victory, in its consequences the most complete of any to be found in the records of history, a victory of which we are, perhaps, saying the utmost when we say, that it was the fitting termination of such a warthe Corinthian capital, as it were upon the proudest column of England's glory.

The present age is so prolific in the production of authors, so prodigal in the outpourings of literary labour, that, we protest upon our critical reputation, we find it almost impossible to keep pace with them. It would require powers and perseverance of no common order, merely to keep a registry of the names of those who are daily springing up amongst us, to note their births,-aye and deaths too, a thing of scarce less rare occurrence, without stopping to write a line upon their nativities or an inscription on their tombstones. Happily for us, however, the merits of many of them are of a description that excuses us from taking any notice of their existence, and we are thereby left somewhat less encumbered for the consideration of those more fortunate few, who, by their present talent or former notoriety, are entitled to the honour of contemporary notice.

Not many years have elapsed since LADY MORGAN was last before the eyes of the public. We well remember the occasion, and, though we did not then exist in our present mysterious and impalpable nature, not having at the time cast off the slough of our corporeal individuality, to endue ourselves in the awful plurality of our editorial metempsychosis-we have been studying of late in her ladyship's school of metaphysics-though we were, we say, then only an eminently gifted literary individual, yet did we, upon the perusal of that signal performance, feel fully contented with the measure of mundane information which her Ladyship was pleased to mete unto us, and but little inclined to expect, far less to desire a repetition of the infliction. We have, however, been disappointed. Her Ladyship having consumed the fame which the Book of the Boudoir had acquired for her-and though the quality of that provision was somewhat questionable, its quantity was beyond

all doubt very considerable-feels her hunger for notoriety again becoming urgent, and accordingly she very naturally seeks to appease so troublesome a sensation. How then is this appetite to be gratified? The preface to the pages before us contains a valuable and highly interesting exposition of the perplexities in which her Ladyship is so unhappily involved, and furnishes us at the same time with her melancholy cogitations on the distressing occasion, and her various plans for extricating herself from her difficulties.

"The public," she candidly informs us, "refuses its attention to literary claimants, whose pretensions are not either founded on utility or backed by the brilliancy or brevity of their appeals."

Now, her Ladyship's discretion and good sense are too excellent in themselves, and have been too often well directed by the suggestions of the public; her knowledge of her own powers is too intimate-too unobscured by egotism, to permit her attempting the former course. What then is to be done in this dilemma? Why, to try the latter, by all means—yes, vive la Bagatelle!-be brief and brilliant, the overpowering glories-the astounding philosophy of the “Book of the Boudoir" are yet dazzling our eyes and ringing in our ears, and the "Dramatic Scenes" will surprise us in our weakness, and overpower our energies ere we can have time to rally them for resistance. Let us now follow the authoress in her train of desponding reflections upon the hardships of her position.

"The Candidates," she continues, "therefore, for cotemporarary notoriety must seek it by other means than the pathways, battus et rébattus, of book making, and book selling. They must, if they can, obtain cards for a royal breakfast at Sion, or a fête at Chiswick; or, if this fail, they must try the