under Major Ponsonby, the 23d, made good their charge, but were received with such determined steadiness, and so enveloped by the Imperial squares, that scarcely half of them succeeded in cutting their way through the enemy. Nevertheless they effected their object; for the French being thus baffled in their design against the British left, turned their forces upon the centre, where, though they partially succeeded in two attempts, they were ultimately also compelled to withdraw by the spirit with which they were received by the Guards and 48th Regiment, and the terrible fire that played from the artillery on their flanks. Beaten back on every side, the French desisted from farther attempts; and both armies, too exhausted for a renewal of the strife, reposed at night-fall in peaceful silence on the plain, after 6000 on the part of the British, and 8000 on that of the French, had been consigned to a slumber deeper still.

Soult, who had hitherto experienced success more unvarying than had fallen to the lot of any other French commander, was next dispatched by Napoleon-tempted also, it is said, by the promise of a throne-to restore his falling fortunes in the Peninsula, and experienced the same reverses. He, in the first instance, repulsed Byng; and, aided by the slumber of the videttes on their posts, surprised Lord Hill, and had nearly defeated the whole British army; but, after an action of several days' duration in the Pyrenees, he was finally driven back with a loss of nearly 10,000 men, though he had but a few days before promised to celebrate Napoleon's birthday at Vittoria. St. Sebastian, which had previously repulsed the arms of Wellington, was taken by General Graham (Lord Lyndoch) as a consequence of this defeat; and, after another desperate attack on the Hermitage of Mount La Rhune, which the enemy evacuated during the night, Wellington next day, in the beginning of winter 1813, pitched his camp on the plains of France, having previously completely cleared the Peninsula of

its invaders.

Events now followed in rapid succession. Overpowered by superior numbers in Germany, Napoleon reëntered France; the Allies followed; Paris fell; and the Empire was no more. After the memorable adieu to his Old Guard and Eagles at Fontainbleau, he retired to Elba a fugitive, while Wellington repaired to Paris as a conqueror. After a short stay in this eapital, the British general returned to Madrid, and thence to England, where he took his seat in the House of Lords as Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and Duke simultaneously; he having ad

vanced through these stages in the peerage successively, and never visited his country since the first grade was conferred till the last was bestowed. The Commons at the same time voted him £100,000, and tendered the thanks of the House with the greatest distinction; all the members present rising and uncovering as he entered; while the Speaker complimented him in a style of eulogium surpassed only by the modesty of the general's reply.

The reappearance of Napoleon in France again summoned Wellington to the field, and to the greatest of his achievements. The events of the brief but decisive campaign of 1815 are too well known to require recapitulation here. Napoleon, with 160,000 troops, hastily commenced hostilities; defeated a Belgian corps, with a few British, at Les Quatre Bras, on the 16th of June, and still more signally overthrew the Prussians at Ligny, on the 17th; but the battle of Waterloo on the following day proved fatal to his cause, and was attended with consequences more momentous than any engagement in modern or ancient annals-Actium perhaps excepted. The merit of this day almost exclusively belongs to Wellington and the British army, who, with a few thousand Belgians and Hanoverians, for nearly twelve hours withstood all the efforts of Bonaparte, and repulsed the frequent shocks of his veteran guard; though some have had the folly to assert that to the exertions of the Prussians, who arrived not until the last charge of the French had been signally repelled, the victory was due-a report originating with the brutal and gascanoding Blucher himself, who— although his sole share in the engagement was, when the French were defeated and defenseless, to sabre them downwrote to his wife, with equal falsehood and vulgarity, that he, "in conjunction with his friend Wellington, had put an end to Bonaparte's dancing."*+ Without the aid of the Prussians, Na

* See "Southey's Life of Wellington," p. 255-an authority not likely to defame this coarse, inebriated dragoon.

"The merit of this day almost exclusively belongs to Wellington"-so says our able and esteemed contributor. The few thousand Hessians, Hanoverians, and Black Brunswickers were mere spectators, doubtless, of British valor. Nor did Blucher render the least assistance; although the very day before the fight of Waterloo he had held the French in desperate conflict at Ligny, and thus forced them (though repulsed himself) to march without rest, without food, and with insufficient ammunition, upon the last fatal field of Napoleon's greatness. Napoleon dared not delay the combat: the British and Prussian armies, if combined, could overwhelm him by sheer weight of bayonets and artillery. Thus, with men wounded, jaded, and hungry, he met the British, and knew full well that, unless he could utterly rout them before Blucher's arrival, his army and his throne were lost. He did partially succeed in disordering them; and the Duke, though not yet

poleon was subdued, as, even had he triumphed at Waterloo, it would have been impossible for him to withstand with his feeble resources the immense hordes coming up from the Danube and the Vistula; and to Wellington, whatever glory accrues from the day undoubtedly belongs. His country acknowledged its gratitude by another gift of £200,000, to purchase an estate that might vie with Blenheim.

With the military exploits of Wellington this memoir ceases; for, whatever be his administrative powers as a statesman, it is as a soldier that he will descend to posterity.

despairing, made arrangements looking to the probability that a retreat upon Brussels would be necessary. The mere announcement that the Prussians were marching in force against the French right decided the contest. After one desperate charge made by the whole line of Guards, the Emperor resigned himself to defeat. It was the moral force of the Prussian contingent on its way, that won Waterloo, aud gave to Britain the power of slowly murdering in a pestilential climate, on a sea-bound rock, under a menial and ferocious jailer, the loftiest European intellect that ever battled for human rights against the linked and banded powers of priestcraft, aristocracy, and feudal caste.-Ed.

SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY.

HISTORICAL AND POETICAL.

BY COLONEL EIDOLON.

AMERICANS hold but few secular days of the year as worthy of particular regard. It is contrary to the genius of our people to throw away much time on idle celebrations; they are too much engrossed with business and the concerns of life, to give many seasons to themselves, in this sense. Each day has its necessary avocation and its earnest purpose. Where nations have men to think for them, and rulers self-constituted by "divine right" to govern them, it is well enough to amuse the masses with shows, feasts, and spectacles, in order to keep them from meddling with matters which their rulers wish to preserve exclusively in their own hands. But here the thing being unnecessary does not obtain, and hence feasts or holidays are seldom held by us. What few we have were made by ourselves, or are a part of our history, and the associations give eclat to the day.

Our Saturnalium, our grand demonstration, occurs on the Fourth of July; and the event it commemorates is more worthy of celebration than any or all others occurring in profane history. It is a day which, we are sorry to say, has not been observed as it should have been, though lately there has been a manifest improvement. Not that we are opposed to burning gunpowder, and firing cannon, and parading the militia, and unfurling the star-spangled banner, and making speeches and hurraing-far from it. But there has been usually an excess of liberty indulged in, which was not to the credit of our citizens. Generally, we have had a large assortment of gin-slings and shot-slings-brandy-smashes and omnibus-smashes-whis

key-punches and double-fist punches-black-eyes and blacklegs, et id omne genus. As a rule, we are not in favor of holidays-though we love to see the "Glorious Fourth" celebrated standing, with cheers; and Washington's birthday and the tenth of September duly remembered. A less close attention to business would be beneficial; but to get wild, drunk, and crazy, two or three times a year, is not according to the doctors. But it was not with this intent we took up the pen. Our object was, to inquire somewhat concerning "Saint Valentine's Day," and we shall now proceed, secundum artem, to compass our determination.

The Romans were great observers of days, and of times, and of feasts. There were many dies festi in the Roman year, and at least one fourth of the month of February was spent in these observances. The great feasts of this month were called the Supercalia, in honor of Pan and Juno. Pan, the god of Shepherds, was supposed to preserve the sheep from wolves; and Juno was the Goddess of Marriage, and, therefore, held in great reverence by young women. During this feast, therefore, the Superci, the priests of Pan, ran up and down the city naked, having only a girdle of goat-skin about the waist, and thongs of the same in their hands, with which they struck, particularly married women, who were thence supposed to be rendered prolific.

It was at this festival, also, that Anthony, in the character of a priest of Pan, offered the crown to Cæsar.

In fine, it was a day of general relaxation; and one of the games adopted was to put the names of young women into a box, from which they were drawn, as chance directed. Doubtless, this game occasioned many a romance in real life, many a strange linking, and many an apt choice; while, on the other hand, many a joke and hearty laugh resounded through the forum, when a name was read by the drawer. This feast occurred on the 15th of February, and the pastors or shepherds of the early Christian Church, who, by every possible means endeavored to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutations of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints instead of those of women; and "Saint Valentine's Day," which happened on the fourteenth of February, was accordingly chosen for the celebration of this new feast; but how long the names of saints were put into the box, to the exclusion of women, we are not informed.

It is certain, however, that it was a sport practised after the