[The victory of "bright Barossa," March 5, 1811, was achieved by the sudden determination "an inspiration rather than a resolution," of the British commander, General Graham (Thomas, Lord Lynedoch), to counter-march his troops, and force the eminence known as the Cerro de Puerco, or hill of Barosa, which had fallen into the hands of the French under Ruffin. Napier affirms that the Spanish Captain-General La Peña "looked idly on, neither sending his cavalry nor his horse artillery to the assistance of his ally"; and testifies "that no stroke in aid of the British was struck by a Spanish sabre that day."

Two companies of the 20th Portuguese formed part of the British contingent, and took part in the engagement; but at Gebora (February 19, 1811) "Madden's Portuguese, regardless of his example and reproaches, shamefully turned their backs." (Napier's History of the Peninsular War (1890), iii. 26, 98, 102-107.)]

[In February, 1811, a select committee of the House of Commons "on commercial credit" recommended an advance of £6,000,000 to manufacturers who were suffering from overspeculation. "Did they not know," asked Lord Grenville, in the House of Lords, March 21, "that they were adding to the mass of paper at this moment in existence a sum of £6,000,000, as if there was not paper enough already in the country, in order to protect their commerce and manufacturers from destruction?" Nevertheless, the measure passed.]

2

[It is possible that the asterisks stand for "Horner."I

The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,

300 The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,

Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.

Say with what eye along the distant down

Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?

How view the column of ascending flames

Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?

Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine

That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:

Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,

Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most?

310 The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,

And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife."

THE WALTZ1:

AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN.

BY HORACE HORNEM, ESQ.

"Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi, Exercet DIANA choros." VIRGIL. Eneid. i. 498, 499. "Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthus' height, Diana seems: and so she charms the sight, When in the dance the graceful goddess leads The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads.

-DRYDEN'S Virgil.

TO THE PUBLISHER.

SIR, - I am a country Gentleman of a midland county. I might have been a Parliament-man for a certain borough; having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election in 1812. But I was all for domestic happiness; as, fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged Maid of Honour. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till last Season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my Spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our Girls being come to a marriageable (or, as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, came up in our old chariot, - of which, by the bye, my wife grew so ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and Opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs H.'s dancing (she was famous for birthnight

we

I [The Walls was written at Cheltenham, in the autumn of 1812, and published, anonymously, February 18, 1813.]

State of the poll (last day) 5. [General Tarleton (1754-1833) contested Liverpool in October, 1812. For three days the poll stood at five, and on the last day, eleven. Canning and Gascoigne were the successful candidates.]

tunes.

1

72

minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country dance, or, at most, Cotillons, reels, and all the old paces to the newest But, judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, to a dd see-saw up-and-down sort of tune, that reminded me of the "Black Joke," only more "affettuoso," till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By and by they stopped a bit, and I thought they would sit or fall down: - but no; with Mrs H's. hand on his shoulder, “Quam familiariter, (as Terence said, when I was at school,) they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cock-chafers spitted on the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swappenbach,) said, "L-d! Mr Hornem, can't you see they're valtzing?" or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till suppertime. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs H. (though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs Hornem's maid, in practising the preliminary steps in a morning). Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little

More expressive. — [MS.]

My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. I grudged the money to a papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and "No popery,'" and quite regretting the downfall of the pope, because we can't burn him any more. - [Revise No. 2.]

practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq., and a few hints from Dr Busby, (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master Busby's manner of delivering his father's late successful "Drury Lane Address,") I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the Public; whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise, as well as the critics. I am, Sir, yours, etc., etc.

HORACE HORNEM.

MUSE of the many-twinkling feet!1 whose charms

Are now extended up from legs to

arms;

Terpsichore! - too long misdeemed a maid

Reproachful term - bestowed but to upbraid

Henceforth in all the bronze of bright

ness shine,

The least a Vestal of the Virgin Nine. Far be from thee and thine the name of Prude:

Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;

Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,

If but thy coats are reasonably high! 10 Thy breast--if bare enough — requires no shield;

Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field

And own-impregnable to most assaults,

Thy not too lawfully begotten "Waltz."

Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,

The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,

His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;

A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:

To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, as the reader pleases: the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day, "by Shrewsbury clock," without gaining anything in that country but the title of "the Great Lord," and "the Lord"; which savours of profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being to whom "Te Deums" for carnage are the rankest blasphemy. It is to be presumed the general will one day return to his Sabine farm: there "To tame the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain!" The Lord Peterborough conquered tinents in a summer; we do more we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the 'great Lord's" Cincinnatian progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be "ploughing with dogs."

con

cre

By the bye- one of this illustrious person's new titles is forgotten it is, however, worth remembering "Salvador del mundo!" dite, posteri! If this be the appellation annexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man who has not yet saved them query are they worth saving, even in this world? for, according to the mildest modifications of any Christian Creed, those three words make the odds much against them in the next

"Saviour of the world," quotha! it were to be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it his country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near connection between superstition and impiety, so far has its use, that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation on a Protestant. I suppose next year he will be entitled the "Virgin Mary"; if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon.

[William Pole Wellesley-Pole (1785-1857), afterwards fourth Lord Mornington, a nephew of the great Duke of Wellington, married, in March, 1812, Catharine, daughter and heiress of Sir Tylney Long, Bart. On his marriage he added his wife's double surname to his own, and, thereby, gave the wits their chance. In Rejected Addresses Fitzgerald is made to exclaim

"Bless every man possess'd of aught to give, Long may Long-Tilney-Wellesley-Long-Pole live."

The principals in the duel to which Byron

alludes were Wellesley-Pole and Lord Kilworth. The occasion of the quarrel was a misconception of some expression of Wellesley-Pole's at an assembly at Lady Hawarden's (August 6, 1811). Two meetings took place, the first (August 9), the second, August 15, 1811. On both occasions the seconds intervened, and "amicably adjusted."]

matters were

[Thomas Busby, Mus. Doc. (1755-1838), musical composer, and author of A New and Complete Musical Dictionary, 1801, etc. His "rejected address" on the reopening of Drury Lane Theatre, would have been recited by his son (October 15), but the gallery refused to hear it out. On the next night (October 16) "Master" Busby Was more successful. Byron's parody of Busby's address, which began with the line, "When energising objects men pursue,' is headed, "Parenthetical Address. By Dr Plagiary."]

[The Confederation of the Rhine (18031813), by which the courts of Würtemberg and Bavaria, together with some lesser principalities,

Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,

Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies; While unburnt Moscow' yet had news to send,

Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,

detached themselves from the Germanic Body. and accepted the immediate protection of France.]

The patriotic arson of our amiable allies cannot be sufficiently commended -nor subscribed for. Amongst other details omitted in the various despatches of our eloquent ambassador, he did not state (being too much occupied with the exploits of Colonel C, in swimming rivers frozen, and galloping over roads im