The fate of the day now seemed to incline in favour of the French, but by the timely assistance of the gallant 48th regiment, the guards quickly rallied; a brigade of light cavalry came up from the second line at a trot; the artillery battered the enemy's flanks without intermission; and the French, beginning to waver, soon lost their advantage, and the battle was restored.

In all actions there is one critical and decisive moment which will give the victory to the general who knows how to seize it. When the guards made their rash charge, Sir Arthur Wellesley, foreseeing the issue of it, had ordered the 48th down from the hill, although a rough battle was going on there; and at the same time he directed Cotton's light cavalry to advance. These dispositions gained the day. The French relaxed their efforts by degrees; the fire of the English grew hotter ; and their loud and confident shouts -sure augury of suc

cess

were heard along the whole line.

The French made a retrograde movement; and the British, exhausted by toil and the want of food, could not pursue. The Spanish army was incapable of any evolution, and about 6 o'clock all hostility ceased, each army holding the position of the morning. But the battle was scarcely over when, the dry grass and shrubs taking fire, a volume of flames passed with inconceivable rapidity across a part of the field, scorching in its course both the dead and the wounded.

On the British side two generals (Mackenzie and Langworth), 31 commissioned officers, and 760 men were killed; three generals, 192 officers, 3,718 men wounded, and 650 missing; thus making a total loss of 6,268 in the two days' encounter.

The French suffered more severely. Two generals and 944 killed; 6,294 wounded, and 156 prisoners; furnishing a total of 7389 men and officers. Rarely has a contest been so desperately maintained, nor any one, indeed, in which the gallantry of the troops on each side was more eminently conspicuous.

1. Where is Talavera?. -and when was the battle fought?

2. In what way did Sir Arthur Wellesley take advantage of the critical moment to ensure a victory?

3. What loss did the English sustain ?

4. What was the total loss on the part of the French?

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE,

LESSON CCX. -JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH.

The Cotton Manufacture.

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THE rapid growth and prodigious magnitude of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain are, beyond all question, the most extraordinary phenomena in the history of industry. Our command of the finest wool naturally attracted our attention to the woollen manufacture, and paved the way for that superiority in it to which we have long since attained: but when we undertook the cotton manufacture, we had comparatively few facilities for its prosecution, and had to struggle with the greatest difficulties. The raw material was produced at an immense distance from our shores; and in Hindostan and China the inhabitants had arrived at such perfection in the arts of spinning and weaving, that the lightness and the delicacy of their finest cloths emulated the web of the gossamer, and seemed to set it at defiance.

Such, however, has been the influence of the stupendous discoveries and inventions of Hargraves, Arkwright, Crompton, Cartwright, and others, that we have overcome all these difficulties-that neither the extreme cheapness of labour in Hindostan, nor the excellence to which the natives had attained, has enabled them to withstand the competition of those who buy their cotton; and who, after carrying it 5000 miles to be manufactured, carry back the goods to them.

This is the greatest triumph of mechanical genius: and what perhaps is most extraordinary, our superiority is not the late result of a long series of successive discoveries and inventions; on the contrary, it has been accomplished in a very few years. Little more than half a century has elapsed since the British cotton manufacture was in its infancy; and it now forms the principal business carried on in this country, affording an advantageous field for the accumulation and employment of millions upon millions of capital, and thousands upon thousands of workmen.

The skill and genius by which these astonishing results have been achieved have been one of the main sources of our power: they have contributed in no common degree to raise the British nation to the high and conspicuous place she now occupies. Nor is it too much to say, that it was the wealth and energy derived from the cotton manufacture that bore us triumphantly through the late

dreadful contest with France, at the same time that it gives us strength to sustain burdens that could not be supported by any other people.

The following progress of a pound of cotton is not less curious than it is interesting. There was sent to London lately, from Paisley, a small piece of muslin, about one pound weight, the history of which is as follows: — The wool came from the East Indies to London ; from London it went to Lancashire, where it was manufactured into yarn ; from Manchester it was sent to Paisley, where it was woven; it was sent to Ayrshire next, where it was tamboured; it was then conveyed to Dumbarton, where it was hand-sewed, and again returned to Paisley, whence it was sent to Glasgow and finished, and then sent up per coach to London. It may be reckoned about three years that it took to bring this article to market, from the time when it was packed in India, till it arrived complete in the merchant's warehouse in London ; whither it must have been conveyed 5000 miles by sea, nearly 1000 by land, and contributed to reward the labour of nearly 150 persons, whose services were necessary in the carriage and manufacture of this small quantity of cotton, and by which the value has been advanced more than 2000 per cent.

1. To whose discoveries and inventions do we owe the superiority of the British cotton manufactories ?

2. Give the history of the piece of muslin that was manufactured at Paisley.

LESSON CCXI. JULY THE THIRTIETH.

Fashion and Taste.

As these contending, and almost equally-acknowledged, powers are frequently consulted by the fairest votaries of vanity and pleasure, I shall, for the instruction of the lovely and rational part of the attractive sex, endeavour to describe their different attributes.

Fashion is the offspring of caprice, and of a fantastic appearance. Its nurse was the chameleon; air-nourished, and perpetually changing. Cherished into strength, it sought the busy scenes of gallantry and fancy. Its first resting-place was amidst the false ringlets of a Gallic coquette. For a time it presided among the Athenian women, laughing philosophy to scorn. Sometimes it visited the temples of Roman gallantry, while Roman

CEREMONY OF THE PAPAL BENEDICTION.

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hardihood bowed before its altar. It has been known to rule the destiny of Gallic monarchs; to revel in the huge ruff and stiffened deformity of the vain English Elizabeth ; and it even stamped the passport to preferment, during the reign of the second Charles, in the then licentious court of Britain!

Fashion patronised the savage Hottentots in their disgusting decorations; cramped the fine feet of the Chinese, and revelled in the shadow of their half-closed eyelids. Fashion commended the prim coquettes of Vandyke, and the voluptuous forms, the languishing eyes of the canvasbreathing sensualist, Sir Peter Leley. Fashion is decked with flowers, feathers, tinsels, jewels, beads, and all the garish profusion of degenerated fancy. It makes idiots of its votaries; and yet we sometimes see the wisest governed by its influence.

Taste is a mild, a beauteous female, of Grecian extraction, simply but elegantly adorned. Her brows are crowned with a profusion of Heaven's gifts; and her flight never extends beyond the boundaries of nature. It was originally her office to fold the drapery of her native vestments, and to braid the glossy tresses of Circassian virgins; she presided over the poetry of Sappho ; she assisted in the sculpture of the Medicean Venus gave the warm glow to the pencil of Claude de Lorraine; grouped the figures of a Michael Angelo; and blended the colours which immortalized the breathing pencil of Titian. It was hers to illumine the mind of the British Reynolds, as it is now her office to consecrate his memory. Taste, though deprived of the power she once held over the minds of enlightened mortals, still asserts her empire in the thoughts and manners of the discriminating few.

1. Of what was Fashion the offspring?

2. Describe some of the various effects of Fashion.

3. What is Taste ? -and how adorned?

LESSON CCXII.

JULY THE THIRTY-FIRST.

Ceremony of the Papal Benediction.

WE hastened to St. Peter's. The concourse was amazing. From the castle of St. Angelo to the church one might have walked on the roofs of the carriages, so closely were they jammed together. This amazing procession seemed

to move slowly on like one undivided mass. The foot passengers were exposed to great danger, there being no separate pavement, as in London, appropriated to their

use.

It was a pleasing sight for Englishmen, to behold their Prince the most conspicuous in the middle of this prodigious throng. His Royal Highness Augustus Frederic was elevated in his phaeton above them all; while the populace, among whom he is universally and deservedly beloved, rent the air with their shouts of congratulation.

Arriving at the house of a nobleman who had kindly invited us, we found a brilliant assemblage of foreigners, in magnificent dresses, mixed with a large party of our own countrymen, who were regaling themselves with chocolate, ices, lemonade, and a profusion of other refreshments. I made my escape as soon as possible through a window, to the roof of the colonnade.

It is impossible to describe the scene which presented itself before me; and were it otherwise, imagination is incapable of conceiving so sublime a spectacle. The inhabitants of the whole earth seemed assembled in one vast multitude; while the murmur of innumerable tongues, in different languages, ascended like the roaring of an ocean. Confusion could scarcely have been greater in the plains of Shinar, when the descendants of Noah fled from the superstructure of their ignorance and folly. As far as the eye could reach, the tops of all the houses in Rome were laden with spectators. A single square, in the spacious area below, was preserved free from the multitude, by the whole body of the Pope's military, who formed themselves into a quadrangle. Every other spot was occupied; and so closely were the people united, that their heads in motion resembled the waves of the sea. The variety of colours blended together, and glittering in the sun, produced an effect of equal novelty and splendour. It surpassed all I had ever seen or imagined; nor do I believe any country upon the globe ever produced its parallel,

While I was occupied in the contemplation of this amazing spectacle, a loud flourish of trumpets from two opposite sides of the area, announced the approach of cavalry. First entered the nobles, in habits of green and gold, mounted upon sumptuous chargers that came prancing into the centre of the military quadrangle. Other troops followed; and the whole corps saluting the