80 cautions, we trimmed our fires, as darkness thickened, and drew near them. . Charlton and I were in the act of smoking our cigars, the men having laid themselves down about the blaze, when word was passed from sentry to sentry, and intelligence communicated to us, that all was not right toWe started inwards the river. stantly to our feet. The fire was has tily smothered up, and the men snatching their arms, stood in line, ready to act as circumstances might require. So dense, however, was the darkness, and so dazzling the effect of the glare from the bivouac, that it was not possible, standing where we stood, to form any reasonable guess as to the That an alarm cause of this alarm. had been excited, was indeed perceptible enough. Instead of the deep silence which five minutes ago had prevailed in the bivouac, a strange hubbub of shouts, and questions, and as many cries, rose up the night air; nor did many minutes elapse, ere first one musket, then three or four, then a whole platoon, were discharged. The reader will easily believe that the latter circumstance startled us prodigiously, ignorant as we were of the cause which produced it, but it required no very painful exertion of patience to set us right on this head; flash, flash, flash, came from the river; the roar of cannon followed, and the light of her own broadside displayed to us an enemy's vessel at anchor near the opposite bank, and pouring a perfect shower of grape and round shot, into the camp. For one instant, and only for an The thing cannot end here," said hearing and eyesight to the utmost There was a pause at this period of Having fired this volley, the enemy loaded again, and advanced. We saw them coming, and having waited till we judged that they were within excellent range, we opened our fire. It was returned in tenfold force, and now went on, for a full half hour, as heavy and close a discharge of mus 2 ketry, as troops have perhaps ever the moment when I fell, a blow upon faced. Confident in their numbers, the head with the butt-end of a musand led on, as it would appear, by brave ket dashed out the brains of the man officers, the Americans dashed forward who kept his hold upon my swordtill scarcely ten yards divided us; but arm, and it was freed. I saw a bayo." our position was an admirable one, net pointed to my breast, and I intuiour men were steady and cool, and they tively made a thrust at the man who penetrated no farther. On the con- wielded it. The thrust took effect, trary, we drove them back, more than and he dropped dead beside me. Deonce, with a loss which their own in- livered now from two of my enemies, ordinate multitude tended only to ren- I recovered my feet, and found that der the more severe. the hand which dealt the blow to The action might have continued in which my preservation was owing, was this state about two hours, when, to that of Charlton. There were about' our horror and dismay, the approach- ten men about him. The enemy in ing fire upon our right flank and rear, our front were broken, and we dashed gave testimony that the picquet of the through. But we were again hemmed 85th, which had been in communica- in, and again it was fought hand to tion with us, was forced. Unwilling hand, with that degree of determinato abandon our ground, which we had tion, which the assurance that life and hitherto held with such success, we death were on the issue, could alone clung for a while to the idea that the produce. There cannot be a doub reverse in that quarter might be only that we should have fallen to'a inan, temporary, and that the arrival of had not the arrival of fresh troops at fresh troops might yet enable us to this critical juncture turned the tide continue the battle in a position so of affairs. As it was, little more than eminently favourable to us. But we a third part of our picquet survived ; were speedily taught that our hopes the remainder being either killed or were without foundation. The Ame- taken ; and both Charlton and myself, rican war-cry was behind us. We rose though not dangerously, were woundfrom our lairs, and endeavoured, as ed. Charlton had received a heavy we best could, to retire upon the blow upon the shoulder, which almost right, but the effort was fruitless. disabled him, whilst my neck bled There too the enemy had established freely from a thrust, which the inthemselves, and we were surrounded. tervention of a stout leathern stock “ Let us cut our way through,” cried alone hindered from being fatal. But we to the men., The brave fellows the reinforcement gave us all, in spite answered only with a shout ; and col- of wounds and weariness, fresh coulecting into a small compact line, pre rage, and we renewed the battle with pared to use their bayonets. In a alacrity. moment we had penetrated the centre. In the course of the struggle in of an American division ; but the which we had been engaged, we had numbers opposed to us were over been borne considerably out of the line whelming; our close order was lost; of our first position, and now found and the contest became that of man that the main-road, and the picquet of to man. I have no language adequate the rifles, were close in our rear. We to describe what followed. For my- were still giving way-for the troops self, I did what I could, cutting and opposed to us could not amount to less thrusting at the multitudes about me, than fifteen hundred men, whilst the till at last I found myself fairly hem-' whole force on our part came not up to med in by a crowd, and my sword- one hundred-when Captain Harris, arm mastered. One American had major of brigade to Colonel Thorngrasped me round the waist, another, ton, came up with an additional comseizing my wrist, attempted to disarm pany to our support. Making way for me, whilst a third was prevented from them to fall in between us and the plunging his bayonet into my body, rifles, we took ground once more to only by the fear of stabbing one or the right, and driving back a body of other of his countrymen. I struggled the enemy which occupied it, soon hard, but they fairly bore me to the recovered the position from which we ground. The reader will well believe, had been expelled. But we did so that at this juncture I expected no- with the loss of many brave men, and, thing else than instant death ; but at among others, of Captain Harris. He VOL. XXII. L was shot in the lower part of the belly at the same instant that a musketball struck the hilt of his sword, and forced it into his side. Once more established in our ditch, we paused, and from that moment till the battle ceased to rage we never changed our attitude. It might be about one o'clock in the morning, the American force in our front having fallen back, and we having been left for a full half hour to breathe, when suddenly the head of a small column showed itself in full advance towards us. We were at this time amply supported by other troops, as well in communication as in reserve; and willing to annihilate the corps now approaching, we forbade the men to fire till it should be mingled with us. We did even more than this. Opening a passage for them through our centre, we permitted some hundred and twenty men to march aeross our ditch, and then wheeling up, with a loud shout, we completely enclosed them. Never have I witnessed a panic more perfect or more sudden than that which seized them. They no sooner beheld the snare into which they had fallen, than with one voice they cried aloud for quarter; and they were to a man made prisoners on the spot. The reader will smile when he is informed that the little corps thus captured consisted entirely of members of the legal profession. The barristers, attorneys, and notaries of New Orleans having formed themselves into a volunteer corps, accompanied General Jackson in his operations this night; and they were all, without a solitary exception, made prisoners. It is probably needless to add, that the circumstance was productive of no trifling degree of mirth amongst us; and to do them justice, the poor lawyers, as soon as they recovered from their first alarm, joined heartily in our laughter. This was the last operation in which we were engaged to-night. The enemy, repulsed on all sides, retreated with the utmost disorder, and the whole of the advance, collecting at the sound of the bugle, drew up, for the first time since the commencement of the affair, in a continuous line. We took our ground in front of the bivouac, having our right supported by the river, and our left covered by the chateau and village of huts. Among these latter the cannon were planted; whilst the other divisions, as they came rapidly up, took post beyond them. In this position we remained, eagerly. desiring a renewal of the attack, till dawn began to appear, when, to avoid the fire of the vessel, the advance once more took shelter behind the bank. The first brigade, on the contrary, and such portion of the second as had arrived, encamped upon the plain, so as to rest their right upon the wood; and a chain of picquets being planted. along the entire pathway, the day was passed in a state of inaction. I hardly recollect to have spent fourteen or fifteen hours with less comfort to myself than these. In the hurry and bustle of last night's engagement, my servant, to whose care I had intrusted my cloak and haversack, disappeared; he returned not during the entire morning; and as no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger, weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost, or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning till night. Nor were the objects which occupied our senses of sight and hearing, quite such as we should have desired to occupy them. In other parts of the field, the troops, not shut up as we were by the enemy's guns, employed themselves in burying the dead, and otherwise effacing the traces of warfare. The site of our encampment continued to be strewed with carcases to the last; and so watchful were the crew of the schooner, that every effort to convey them out of sight brought a heavy fire upon the party engaged in it. I must say, that the enemy's behaviour on the present occasion was not such as did them honour. The house which General Kean had originally occupied as head-quarters, being converted into an hospital, was filled at this time with wounded, both from the British and American armies. To mark its uses, a yellow flag, the usual signal in such cases, was hoisted on the roof-yet did the Americans continue to fire at it, as often as a group of six or eight persons happened to show themselves at the door. Nay, so utterly regard, run all risks to change it. It suited not the plans of our General, however, to indulge these wishes. To the bank we were enjoined to cling; and we did cling to it, from the coming in of the first gray twilight of the morning, till the last twilight of evening had departed. As soon as it was well dark, the corps to which Charlton and myself were attached, received orders to file off to the right. We obeyed, and passing along the front of the hospital, we skirted to the rear of the village, and established ourselves in the field beyond. It was a positive blessing this restoration to something like personal freedom. The men set busily to work, lighting fires and cooking provisions;-the officers strolled about, with no other apparent design than to give employment to their limbs, which had become stiff with so protracted a state of inaction. For ourselves, we visited the wounded, said a few kind words to such as we recognized, and pitied, as they deserved to be pitied, the rest. Then retiring to our fire, we addressed ourselves with hearty good will to a frugal supper, and gladly composed ourselves to sleep. * less were they of the dictates of humanity, that even the parties which were in the act of conveying the wounded from place to place, escaped not without molestation. More than one such party was dispersed by grapeshot, and more than one poor maimed soldier was in consequence hurled out of the blanket in which he was borne. The reader will not doubt me when I say, that seldom has the departure of daylight been more anxiously look ed for by me, than we looked for it now. It is true, that the arrival of a little rum towards evening, served in some slight degree to elevate our spirits; but we could not help feeling, not vexation only, but positive indig nation, at the state of miserable inaction to which we were condemned. There was not a man amongst us, who would have hesitated one moment, had the choice been submitted to him, whether he would advance or lie still. True, we might have suffered a little, because the guns of the schooner entirely commanded us; and in rushing out from our place of concealment, some casualties would have occurred; but so irksome was our situation, that we would have readily CYRIL THORNTON. THIS is the Story of a Life, and we do not know that we ever read any piece of fictitious biography with a stronger feeling of all its chief transactions being founded in truth. Its power lies in its reality. The reader, every leaf he turns, becomes better and better and better acquainted-not with an abstraction-a shadow-but with a living flesh-and-blood man and gentleman. At the close of the third volume, he is proud and happy to add Cyril Thornton to the list of his friends, and has only to regret that he had not sooner known so very agreeable, accomplished, and gallant a person. The Colonel, no doubt, has his peculiarities; but who worth knowing is without them? And be his faults what they may, he is never tiresome-nor a proser-an arguera logician-a political economist-a critic-a poet-or any other one of those many pests that now so infest civilized society, that not a day passes without a Bore big enough to make a man of sense wish that he had been born a Zimmerman in solitude. Cyril Thornton is an autobiographer, and we cannot too much admire his skill in the use of the first pronoun personal. Not one man in a million has "graced his cause by speaking of himself," from the Confessions of Jean Jaques Rousseau to those of the celebrated English Opium Eater. With them all, it is ever-Ego et Rex meus. But Colonel Thornton is never either egotistical or arrogant, although necessarily the hero of his own tale. He does not exult offensively either in his pleasures or his pains his triumphs or his trials-his virtues or his vices. He seems to have written his Memoirs, chiefly to amuse himself by recalling old remembrances, merry or mourn The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, 3 vols. post Svo. W. Blackwood Edinburgh; and T. Cadell, London. ful, and conjuring up in that tranquil retirement in which he is now an act ing Justice of Peace, some of those troubled, and, indeed, sanguinary scenes, in which his youth was enga ged, when serving his Majesty with equal zeal and devotedness as a soldier. There is a charm in his style, so simple and graceful, that carries one along, even when the subject-matter of the Memoirs may not be either very important or very interesting; while, on occasions of passion and peril, it rises into what well deserves to be call ed eloquence-not that wordy and windy eloquence so prevalent now-adays-but, at its highest elevation, classical and concise, uniting the easy and natural language of the man of the world, with the selected and polished diction of the scholar. In this age of exaggeration, too, it is pleasanter than we can tell to keep perusing away at a book in three volumes, in which there is not a single attempt made, but one-and an eminently unsuccessful one it is-to take the reader by surprise-to overwhelm him by some sudden storm of passion—or some unexpected catastrophe. Sufferings, both of mind and body, are described, manifold and severe; but the misery is never more than mortal man may endure-the sun is rarely a whole day behind a cloud. Cyril, when moralizing, is ordered to march the Subaltern on no occasion preaches an absolute sermon-although fighting be his profession, his bravery unimpeachable, and his patriotism thoroughly English, he has no liking to blows and blood, merely for their own sake; as far as we remember, he does not kill one Frenchman with his own hand, nor does the regiment to which he has the honour to belong, always, like the Forty-second, decide the victory by a charge of bayonets. On the contrary, he is more than once wounded and taken prisoner; and his company occasionally cut to pieces. He does not, in good truth, throughout his whole professional career, exhibit any very extraordinary skill, discretion, or enterprise; and yet we feel assured all the while that he was an excellent officer-pleasant at messformidable in the field-and honourably mentioned, even, in one of Lord Wellington's dispatches. We really could not point to any book of the kind, in which, with equal power exerted, there is so little appearance of effort. We never see him (sad sight) straining at up-hill work, much less attempting to fly. There is here no hammering. When a chapter threatens to be tiresome, he puts it to death. Cyril Thornton, accordingly, is one of the few books that may be read aloud to unsleeping auditors; perused in bed without danger of setting fire to the curtains. To write even an indifferent novel in one-two-three or four volumes, it requires to be a man or woman considerably above the common run. Ladies and gentlemen, who are clever in conversation, and the oracles of a circle, have no notion what bad books they would write. Their sharpest things would be pointless in print. Their sketches of character, so sarcastic and true to nature over the silver tea-pot or china punch-bowl, would not do at all in boards. Severe as they are on the conduct of other people's stories-and to hear such crities talk in company, there never was a well-conducted story in this world they could not keep their own hero or heroine from falling into the fire for six chapters, or from apparently exchanging sexes. Then their reflections on human nature, life, and manners! No, no, Miss Peggydeeply versed as you are in all the gossip of Glasgow-No, no, Miss Meggy-mistress though you be of all the tittle-tattle of Modern Athens, neither the one nor the other of you (shake not your carroty locks at us) could furnish manuscript even for the Minerva Press. Yet your letters to private correspondents are said to contain passages equal to anything in the Novels and Romances of the Great Unknown. We are sorry to say it ;but a slight and slender stock of sense, if accompanied with a natural gift of vulgarity and impertinence, is sufficient to set up in the critic trade any elderly spinster or bachelor, in metropolitan city, provincial town, or rural clachan. But, we repeat it, to write anything, however poor or insipid, in the shape of a novel-divided into chapters, all following one another, according to a sort of scheme in the author's head-and we ask no more -demands abilities of a very supe→ rior order indeed to those of the emi |