Sebastopol; and that dull November morning, when the rumble of the Russian artillery was heard amid the wet mists of the Euxine, as Menschikoff poured his grey hordes into the Valley of Inkermann, but only to be swept away, in ruin and defeat, by our splendid infantry, which Marshal Bugeaud praised as being the finest in the world, adding, pithily, that, for France's sake, "it is Heaven's own mercy that there is no more of it."

Through the long and terrible wars waged by the Anglo-Norman kings, and even those of the House of Tudor, against Scotland and France; those of the Roses, the Commonwealth, and the Covenant, to those of the stirring Jacobite period, we shall tell the story of our battles in a series of historiettes.

The victories of Peterborough and Marlborough are not yet forgotten, nor the times when Almanza, Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde were household words in many an English village and secluded Scottish glen; though ere long to be rivalled, and even outshone, by the perils and splendours of the long and glorious strife in the Peninsula-those triumphs won by the Great Duke and his generals, before the old Moorish walls of Talavera de la Reyna; on the fatal hill of Albuera, when, avenging the fall of him who died at Corunna, only 1,800 unwounded British soldiers, the survivors of 6,000, stood victors when the sun went down; by the rocks of the Sierra de Busaco; on the mountains of Fuentes d'Onore, and the plains of Salamanca and Vittoria; or amid the horrors of the night at Badajoz when, by steel and lead, by fire and water, 5,000 of our soldiers fell, 2,000 dying in the trenches alone, and when even Wellington wept when he heard of the awful slaughter of his devoted troops. Nor shall the dark night of the sortie from Bayonne be forgotten ere we come to the three days' carnage of "the king-making victory" of Waterloo.

Forty years of peace follow, and then we come to that eventful night when our army landed at Eupatoria, and where, without tents or baggage, 60,000 men remained on the bare ground, under tempests of wind and rain. Then we come to the heights of Alma, bristling with steel and zoned by fire; the fatal ride of the "Six Hundred" at Balaclava, when cannon blazed in front, on flank, and in rear of them, while the voice of Death was never still

Even with Sebastopol the story of our triumphs cannot end, for the wars of India have yet to be told, and the victories of that army of Vengeance which came on from Umballa to punish the destroyers of our women and children in the shambles of Cawnpore and Lucknow.

Memories such as these are as the life-blood of a people; from generation to generation they make young hearts leap and old ones fill with fire again.

In days to come warfare may change in its modes, as it has changed in times past; but the glories of such battles as Trafalgar or Balaclava can never pale before any that are to come in the wars of the future.

"The character of the British army," wrote one who had studied the subject well, "has ever been earned in battle and attested by victory. Wherever it has been even tolerably led it has conquered; nor is there any army in the world which has sustained so few serious reverses. The elements of which it is composed are such as, if fairly developed in action on anything like equal terms, are certain to ensure victory; for not only are our soldiers more robust and athletic than those of any other nation, but they are also distinguished by an unflinching and indomitable pride and courage. The latter is often difficult to restrain, never necessary to excite, and always rises to a pitch of sublime elevation at the prospect of a charge or close conflict.

"Ours are the only troops in the world which can look steadily, or with comparative indifference, on a line of bayonets, and who seem to rejoice when the order is given to charge; and then goes up to Heaven that hearty hurrah which British throats alone can give, and which is inspired by the genuine British desire for fighting hand to hand. Hence it is that their fire is so close, steady, and destructive; and hence that their charge, whenever given, is irresistible."

"It has been asserted," says Napier, "that the undeniable firmness of the British soldier in battle is the result of a phlegmatic constitution uninspired by moral feeling. Never was there a more stupid

calumny uttered.

Napoleon's troops fought in bright fields where every helmet caught some beams of glory; but the British soldier conquered under the cold shade of aristocracy; no honour awaited his daring, no dispatch gave his name to the applause of his countrymen; his life of danger was uncheered by hope; his death unnoticed. Did his heart sink therefore? Did he not endure with surprising fortitude the sorest of ills, sustain the most terrible assaults in battle unmoved, and, with incredible energy, overthrow every opponent;

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and Isabella, in the fifteenth century, as given in the "History of the Conquest of Granada: "

"He brought with him a hundred archers, all dexterous with the long-bow and the cloth-yard arrow; also two hundred yeomen armed cap-à-pie, who fought with pike and battle-axe, men robust of frame and of prodigious strength.

"This cavalier was from the island of England, and brought with him a train of his vassals; men who had been hardened in certain civil wars which had raged in their country. They were a comely

at all times proving that, while no physical military qualification was wanting, the fount of honour was also full and fresh within him?" The result of a hundred battles, and the united testimony of impartial writers of different nations, have given the first place amongst the European infantry to the British; "but," adds this able writer, "in a comparison between the troops of France and Britain, it would be unjust not to admit that the cavalry of the former stands higher in the estimation of the world."

Intrepidity is the distinguishing feature of the British character, and from the page of general history we find compressed the following graphic delineation of a British soldier at the period of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain by Ferdinand

race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburned, martial hue of our old Castilian soldiery; they were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink after the manner of their country.

"They were often noisy and unruly also in their wassail, and their quarter of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. They were withal of great pride, yet it was not like our inflammable Spanish pride; they stood not much upon the punitonor and high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote and somewhat barbarous island, they yet

believed themselves to be the most perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord Scales, beyond the greatest of our grandees. With all this, it must be said of them that they were marvellous good men in the field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In their great pride and self-will they always sought to press in the advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They did not rush forward fiercely, or make a brilliant onset like the Moors; but they went into fight deliberately, and persisted obstinately, and were slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal, they were much

esteemed, yet little liked by our soldiery, who considered them staunch companions in the field, yet coveted but little fellowship with them in camp."

And such is still the character of our soldiers; and it is somewhat singular that the Emperor Napoleon and Marshal Soult made the same remark, that British troops never knew when they were beaten.

With the great battle fought on the 14th of October, 1066—a battle which for three centuries transferred the English crown to a race of foreign kings-we commence the long and stirring story of our triumphs by land and sea.

THE most important battle ever fought on English soil is unquestionably that of Hastings; not only because of the great strength of the invading force, the perfect success of the enterprise, and the dreadful misery which fell upon the conquered English for several generations, till the Norman element became blended, if not altogether lost, in the Saxon, but also on account of many incidents peculiar to that short and terrible war.

From the day of the accession of Harold, the son of Godwin, to the English throne, the dread of a Norman invasion haunted him, for William of Normandy had sworn to stake on the issue of battle his personal right to that throne, which he claimed as the bequest of the Confessor; and during the summer of 1066 all his dukedom and the territories of his adherents resounded with the notes of preparation. He received a banner consecrated by the Pope; and through all Maine and Anjou, Poitou and Bretagne, Flanders, Aquitaine, and Burgundy, the mail was burnished, the spear flashed, and the steed galloped; while lawless barons, whose ruined castles now stud the Rhine, wild robbers from the base of the Alps, knight, varlet, and vagrant, we are told, all mus tered to join this holy banner, that was to be the guide to the pillage and conquest of England.

"Good pay and broad lands to every one who will serve Duke William with spear, with sword, and bow," was said on all hands; and the duke himself added to Fitz-Osborn, as in perspective he parcelled out the fair land of England in fiefs to his Norman knights, "This Harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the least of those things that belong to me. But I have the right to

promise that which is mine, and also that which belongs to him. He must be the victor who can give away both his own and that which belongs to the foe."

The Normans were then in the zenith of their military glory. In France they had acquired a noble territory; a few of their adventurous knights, by overcoming Italians, Greeks, and Germans, had laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of Naples and Sicily: and thus the friends of William were as confident of success as they were resolute and fearless.

Every harbour and roadstead in his dominions and in those of his allies was busy with preparation throughout the summer and spring of that eventful year. Workmen were employed at all the ports, building ships, setting up masts, and stretching sails. William had need of ships to cope with that Saxon navy which was the legacy of Alfred; for now "the last of the Saxon kings" had assembled at Sandwich the largest fleet and army that England had ever seen, to resist the coming invaders, though the population was not then supposed to exceed 2,000,000, while two of the present English border counties, Westmoreland and Cumberland, belonged to the King of Scotland.

Thierry estimates the entire fleet of William as amounting to 400 ships with masts and sails, and more than 1,000 transport boats (Hume says 3,000 sail); while his army, now fully collected, was carefully organised by him according to the tactics of the day, and its fiery masses were welded together by the powerful and combined influences of love of glory and adventure, fanaticism, conquest, and plunder.