9034

road became blocked up too by broken carriages and wounded; and to add to their discomfiture, a damaging fire was opened from the town upon the retreating column, while the brigade of Guards and the Twenty-ninth pressed hotly on their rear.

The scene was now beyond anything maddening in its interest. From the walls of Oporto the English infantry poured forth in pursuit; while the whole river was covered with boats, as they still continued to cross over. The artillery thundered from the Sierra, to protect the landing-for it was even still contested in places; and the cavalry, charging in flank, swept the broken ranks and bore down upon the squares.

It was now, when the full tide of victory ran highest in our favor, that we were ordered to retire from the road. Column after column passed before us, unmolested and unassailed; and not even a cannon-shot arrested their steps.

Some unaccountable timidity of our leader directed this movement; and while before our very eyes the gallant infantry were charging the retiring columns, we remained still and inactive.

How little did the sense of praise we had already won repay us for the shame and indignation we experienced at this moment, as with burning cheek and compressed lip we watched the retreating files. "What can he mean?" "Is there not some mistake?" "Are we never to charge?" were the muttered questions around, as a staff officer galloped up with the order to take ground still further back and nearer to the river.

The word was scarcely spoken, when a young officer in the uniform of a general dashed impetuously up: he held his plumed cap high above his head as he called out, "Fourteenth, follow me! Left face-wheel-charge!"

So, with the word, we were upon them. The French rearguard was at this moment at the narrowest part of the road which opened by a bridge upon a large open space; so that forming with a narrow front, and favored by a declivity in the ground, we actually rode them down. Twice the French formed, and twice were they broken. Meanwhile the carnage was dreadful on both sides; our fellows dashing madly forward where the ranks were thickest, the enemy resisting with the stubborn courage of men fighting for their last spot of ground. So impetuous was the charge of our squadrons that we stopped not till, piercing the dense column of their retreating mass, we reached the open ground beyond. Here we wheeled, and prepared once

9935

more to meet them; when suddenly some squadrons of cuirassiers debouched from the road, and supported by a field-piece, showed front against us. This was the moment that the remainder of our brigade should have come to our aid; but not a man appeared. However, there was not an instant to be lost: already the plunging fire of the four-pounder had swept through our files, and every moment increased our danger.

"Once more, my lads, forward!" cried our gallant leader, Sir Charles Stewart, as waving his sabre, he dashed into the thickest of the fray.

So sudden was our charge, that we were upon them before they were prepared. And here ensued a terrific struggle; for as the cavalry of the enemy gave way before us, we came upon the close ranks of the infantry, at half-pistol distance, who poured a withering volley into us as we approached. But what could arrest the sweeping torrent of our brave fellows, though every moment falling in numbers?

Harvey, our major, lost his arm near the shoulder. Scarcely an officer was not wounded. Power received a deep sabre cut in the cheek, from an aide-de-camp of General Foy, in return for a wound he gave the General; while I, in my endeavor to save General Laborde, when unhorsed, was cut down through the helmet, and so stunned that I remembered no more around me. I kept my saddle, it is true, but I lost every sense of consciousness; my first glimmering of reason coming to my aid as I lay upon the river bank, and felt my faithful follower Mike bathing my temples with water, as he kept up a running fire of lamentations for my being murthered so young.

"Are you better, Mister Charles? Spake to me, alanah: say that you're not kilt, darling; do now. Oh, wirra! what'll I ever say to the master? and you doing so beautiful! Wouldn't he give the best baste in his stable to be looking at you to-day? There, take a sup: it's only water. Bad luck to them, but it's hard work beatin' them. They're only gone now. That's right; now you're coming to."

"Where am I, Mike?"

"It's here you are, darling, resting yourself."

"Well, Charley, my poor fellow, you've got sore bones too," cried Power, as, his face swathed in bandages and covered with blood, he lay down on the grass beside me. thing while it lasted, but has cost us dearly.

"It was a gallant Poor Hixley — "

"What of him?" said I, anxiously.

"Poor fellow! he has seen his last battle-field. He fell across me as we came out upon the road. I lifted him up in my arms and bore him along above fifty yards; but he was stone dead. Not a sigh, not a word escaped him; shot through the forehead." As he spoke, his lips trembled, and his voice sank to a mere whisper at the last words: "You remember what he said last night. Poor fellow! he was every inch a soldier."

Such was his epitaph.

I turned my head toward the scene of our late encounter. Some dismounted guns and broken wagons alone marked the spot; while far in the distance, the dust of the retreating columns showed the beaten enemy, as they hurried towards the frontiers of Spain.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

(1817-1878)

HE work of Mr. Lewes admirably illustrates the intellectual change which characterizes the nineteenth century. He

was born in London April 18th, 1817, and died at the Priory, St. John's Wood, November 28th, 1878; so that the active period of his life covered those years when, consciously or unconsciously, many thinkers were being strongly affected by the influence of Auguste Comte, and when the investigations and teachings of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and others were revolutionizing science and philosophy, and in a large degree theology also. Lewes reflected the spirit of the time in the most positive fashion. He was a careful student of philosophy, but rejected the metaphysical method. He was as ardent a seeker as any Gradgrind for "facts, sir! facts!" but the facts which he sought were those which seemed capable of use in a larger and more stable philosophy. He would perhaps have claimed that the house which is to endure must be built from the foundation up, and not from the chimney down. English in birth and fibre, much of his youth was spent

in France and Germany, so that insular GEORGE HENRY LEWES prejudices did not control him. Devoted to

investigation and to philosophical speculation, he nevertheless inherited from his grandfather, who had been a prominent actor, a love of the drama and predilection for the stage which tempered the influence of his more abstruse studies and broadened his outlook upon life. He studied medicine, but did not pursue the profession, because he could not endure the sight of so much pain as he was called upon to witness. For a time he was an inmate of a notary's office, and again for a short period he tried commerce and trade in the employ of a Russian merchant. The attractions of literature were too great to be exceeded by any other, even by those of the stage, to which he was greatly drawn. He indeed appeared behind the footlights at various times, even so late as in 1850, when he sustained a part in a play of his own called 'The Noble Heart'; and he appears to have

been an actor of some ability. His Shylock was considered especially good.

As early as in his sixteenth year, Lewes had written a play for private performance. At nineteen he was discussing Spinoza as a member of a philosophical debating club. At about this time he planned a work in which philosophy should be treated from the physiological point of view; and thus began the undertaking which claimed his most earnest thought for the remainder of his life. His career in this respect may be divided into three periods. In the first, through his 'Biographical History of Philosophy,' published in 1845-6, he undertook to show the futility of metaphysics. In it he combined a history of philosophical theories with entertaining biographical sketches of those who propounded them; and thus clothed the dry bones, and gave living interest to what might otherwise have offered little to attract the ordinary reader. The work was afterward much modified and extended, and reissued as a 'History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte. In his second period he became a careful investigator of biological phenomena, and subsequently published the results of his investigations in a number of interesting and popular works: 'Seaside Studies' (1858), 'Physiology of Common Life' (1859-60), 'Studies in Animal Life' (1862). In the third he combined, as it were, the results of the work of the two preceding periods, in the 'Problems of Life and Mind,' in four volumes (1874-1879); in which he sought to establish the principles of a rational psychology, and to lay the foundations for a creed. In this series may also be included his work on 'Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences' (1853); 'Aristotle: A Chapter from the History of the Sciences' (1864); and 'The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method' (1879). He was always deeply interested in the philosophy of Auguste Comte; but criticized Comte freely, and thereby, he says, lost his friendship.

In 1854, upon uniting his fortunes with those of George Eliot, he made a visit to Germany; and at Weimar he completed his 'Life of Goethe,'-next to the 'History of Philosophy,' probably the best known of his works. He had previously (1849) published a 'Life of Maximilian Robespierre.' His early love for the drama, in addition to the work previously cited, recorded itself in 'The Spanish Drama: Lope de Vega and Calderon' (1847), and in 'On Actors and the Art of Acting' (1875). He was also the author of two novels,—'Ranthorpe' (written in 1842 but not published until 1847), and 'Rose, Blanche, and Violet' (1848). He was not at his best, however, in fiction.

Mr. Lewes wrote extensively for the reviews, and upon a great variety of topics. His style is, as Leslie Stephen well says, "bright, clear, and independent." His views were positive, and he did not