the shadows of fugitive kings flitted through the smoke of battle.

Bonaparte's star trembled in the zenith, now blazing out in its ancient splendor, now suddenly paling before his anxious eye. At length, when the Prussians appeared on the field, he resolved to stake Europe on one bold throw. He committed himself and France to Ney, and saw his empire rest on a single chance.

Ney felt the pressure of the immense responsibility on his brave heart, and resolved not to prove unworthy of the great trust. Nothing could be more imposing than the movement of that grand column to the assault. That guard had never yet recoiled before a human foe; and the allied forces beheld with awe its firm and terrible advance to the final charge.

For a moment the batteries stopped playing, and the firing ceased along the British lines, as, without the beating of a drum, or the blast of a bugle, to cheer their steady courage, they moved in dead silence over the plain. The next moment the artillery opened, and the head of that gallant column seemed to sink into the earth. Rank after rank went down; yet they neither stopped nor faltered. Dissolving squadrons, and whole battalions disappearing one after another in the destructive fire, affected not their steady courage. The ranks closed up as before, and each, treading over his fallen comrade, pressed firmly on.

The horse which Ney rode fell under him, and he had scarcely mounted another before it also sank to the earth. Again and again did that unflinching man feel his steed sink down, till five had been shot under him. Then, with his uniform riddled with bullets, and his face singed and blackened with powder, he marched on foot, with drawn sabre, at the head of his men. In vain did the artillery hurl its storm of fire and lead into that living mass. Up to the very muzzles they pressed, and, driving the artillerymen from their own pieces, pushed on through the English lines.

But at that moment a file of soldiers who had lain flat on the ground, behind a low ridge of earth, suddenly rose, and

poured a volley in their very faces. Another and another followed, till one broad sheet of flame rolled on their bosoms, and in such a fierce and unexpected flow, that human courage could not withstand it. They reeled, shook, staggered back, then turned and fled.

Ney was borne back in the refluent tide, and hurried over the field. But for the crowd of fugitives that forced him on, he would have stood alone, and fallen on his footsteps. As it was, disdaining to fly, though the whole army was flying, he formed his men into two immense squares, and endeavored to stem the terrific current, and would have done so, had it not been for the thirty thousand fresh Prussians that pressed on his exhausted ranks.

For a long time these squares stood and let the artillery plough through them. But the fate of Napoleon was writ; and though Ney doubtless did what no other man in the army could have done, the decree could not be reversed. The star, that had blazed so brightly over the world, went down in blood, and the "bravest of the brave" had fought his last battle. It was worthy of his great name; and the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, with him at their head, will be pointed to by remotest generations with a shudder. J. T. HEADLey.

THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY; OR, THE HIgh tide.

THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower,

The ringers ran by two, by three;

"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes all your swells,
Play uppe ‘The Brides of Enderby.'

Men say it was a stolen tyde

The Lord that sent it, He knows all;

But in myne ears doth still abide
The message that the bells let fall:

And there was naught of strange, beside
The flight of mews and pewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea-wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies,
And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling
Ere the early dews were falling,
I heard her song.

Farre

away

"Cusha! Cusha!" all along;

Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song-

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"For the dews will soone be falling;
Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow,

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long,

Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharp and strong;

And all the aire, it seemeth mee,

Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene,
Save where full fyve good miles away
The steeple towered from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where there sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came downe that kindly message free,
The Brides of Mavis Enderby."

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows.

To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows,
They sayde," And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pyrate galleys warping downe;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

They have not spared to wake the towne: But while the west bin red to see,

And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring The Brides of Enderby?'"

6

I looked without, and lo! my sonne

Came riding down with might and main: He raised a shout as he drew on,

Till all the welkin rang again,

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"

(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.)

"The old sea wall (he cried) is downe,
The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder towne

Go sailing uppe the market-place."
He shook as one that looks on death:
"God save you, mother!" strait he saith
"Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away,
With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song.”
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, "Ho Enderby!
They rang "The Brides of Enderby!"

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,

And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed,
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine,

Then madly at the eygre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.

Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout

Then beaten foam flew round about

Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,

The heart had hardly time to beat, Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet,