quickly cast off slumber, and from a thousand casements peer along the yet quiet streets. A few fleeting moments past and what a scene is there; it needs no further explanation, the enemy is at the gates! The rolling drum, the loud-toned pibroch, the ear-piercing fife, succeed the bugle-call. Regiment after regiment fill every street, every opening, every square; the earth seems to have belched forth legions of armed men, who can scarcely recognise one another in the feeble light of those twinkling and, as if in mocking, still peaceful stars. Guns rumble over the pavement, baggage waggons clatter, horses neigh, drivers shout, and some swear; the quick short step of a thousand heels simultaneously beat in measured tread, and the loud short voice of command is ever and anon heard above this strange confusion, as regiment after regiment march off towards the forest of Soignies!

CHAPTER XIII.

"With equal rage, as when the southern wind Meeteth in battle strong the northern blast,

The sea and air to neither is resign'd,

But cloud 'gainst cloud, and wave 'gainst wave they cast;

So from this skirmish neither part declin'd,

But fought it out, and kept their footings fast.

And oft with furious shock together rush,

And shield 'gainst shield, and helm 'gainst helm they crush." TASSO'S "GERUSALEMME LIBERATA."

FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION, BOOK 9., c. I. II.

BRUSSELS, as observed, was full of visitors as well as soldiers. The confidence inspired by the truce had taken many to the Continent; and in the sure conviction that hostilities were distant, many an officer's family, and many a soldier's wife had thither repaired to meet with those

they loved. Now a mightier conflict than any that had been fought during the European wars would with the rising sun set in! All had heard of battles-but those battles had been distant, and calamities unwitnessed are less intimidating than when such horrors secm near and are expected. It was an agonizing scene to behold husbands, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and lovers taking a last embrace! What hopes were wished-what prayers were breathed— what bosoms pressed to ne'er be pressed again. The citizens were conferring with each other in little knots; there one was dwelling on the horrors that would mark French victory-there the merchant feared for his merchandise-the craven trembled at anticipated doom-and those of the tenderer sex paled at the contemplation of horrors far worse than death. Moreton had mounted his raven war-horse, his noble Soliman, and like a spirit of the night was passing from rank to rank; receiving and giving orders; inspiring the timid and commending the brave. As the grey shades of the morning

were feebly ushered in, his countenance was pale and haggard, but there shot from his eye the constant flash of a frenzied fire. When the bugle-note aroused him from his speechless sorrow-when he heard the cry "To arms!" he then, as the eagle plumes herself for flight, as the lion shakes the dewdrops from his mane, awoke to consciousness, apparently threw off his melancholy, and equipped for battle. No braver arm did sword unscabbard-no helmet graced a nobler brow-no heart more dauntless hurried to the fight, than you, young heir of Elleringay.

Grey-eyed morning, we have said, had just peeped from the chambers of the opening east, the short night of the summer solstice was about to usher in the livelong day, and darkness had began to fold her ebon robes, to make her exit-just at that period, when, as Wordsworth beautifully says:

The stars were almost gone,

The moon was setting on the hill,
So pale you scarcely looked at her:
The little birds began to stir,

Though yet their tongues were still."

In yonder portico, as if they had for a few fleeting minutes stepped aside from the busy scene of bustling throng, two figures stand, and as their persons are obscurely outlined in the dim light, a stalwart hero of vast power of limb, bends over a form, graceful as Hebe of old. On nearer approach her face is sorrowful as Niöbe's-all tears; and in his manly features, as he ever and anon essays to take one last embrace, and say, "Adios Juana !" are stamped the lines of anguish, as if he writhed in corporeal suffering, exquisite as Laöcoon. But list-those tender accents are mostly spoken in foreign tongue, and as the stranger hurries past, he hears the question asked in tender melody of tone:

Quien he visto esta mañana apuntar fuera de temor y sin esperanza?"

In more powerful cadence, and in less correct pronunciation he catches that latitudinarian expression of the Spanish language

"Pués-Pués."

But scan them now more narrowly, a glance will tell that those raven tresses,