The National Register.
London, England, 1817-09-15 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER

X.
For this had bled their battle round the worrd;
For this they round the world had come to war:
Some, with the shatter'', ensign that usafuti'd
Its lion emblems to-the Orient star ;
And some, the blue Atlantic stemming far;
And some, a laatchlims band, grout swarthy Spain—
Wilt well-worn steel, and breaos of many a scat ;
And all their plains to their last conquering plain
Were spout, and all_their trophies to 116 trophy t ain.

NI.
And there are symbols romitlthe Mount that show
What terror on the boastful land has been ;
Glares from its embrasures the iron tow,
NVith scarp and fosse is cut the tender green,
The Movies watches down the spiked ravine,
steel-barbed frize, the pyramid of ball,
Start on the eye from cut and vintage-si teen ;
And from the summit tower the flagstaff tall
Lifts England's bailie:lA cross—ta initiphant over all!
• ' To those who may, likethe writer, incline to think that
a more glorious age is oboist to rise upon the world, and that
1,4'40:f10p was the thistelerstorni which was to give the Last
clearing to the air before that perfect vision, it assumes a
loftier character than its mortal triumph. It seems to bear
the lectures via grand, • dilate interposition of Superior
Power. The final overthrow of the French empire, which
Was atheistic, jacobin' and revolutionary to its latest hour;
and the titter disgrace of Napoleon, the consectatetl spirit of
the revolution, were at least the results of the battle of Wa-
terloo. They may appear to have been its providential ob-
jects. Had human judgments been previously cunsulted
they would probably have drawn a different plan of the bat.
tle. The Prussians would have at once joined the British,
and swept tie enemy before them; or the British would have
been in force enough to have driven in the French early in
the day ; or Napoleon would have fallen or been taken pri-
soner. But the battle was not to be so fought, to be most
fatal to the atheistic power. If the french had been beaten
en the broad day, they might have rallied, or retired before
superiority of force, or in the last event, been matte prisoners
iu masses. But the conflict held on, bloody and disastrous,
till the moment when they could neither escape nor conquer.
Retreating an hour before nightfall, they might have been
saved ; fightiug an• hour after it, they might have had the
night for retreat. But they broke on the edge of darkness.
The Prnssians came up, retarded daring the day, to be on-
fatigued by battle, and fresh fur pursuit. The night was
made for remediless slaughter. " Thou moan, in the valley
A jalon !" The distribution of the triumph was jtalicial. Eng-
land had seen in France only an envenomed enemy, Prussia
had felt in her a reruorsekss oppressor; England had sitf-
fered no serious infliction, Prussia had been steeped to the
lips in suffering; and to England, oat this memorable day,
was given the Geonv, and to Prussia the Revenge.
' if Napoleon had been killed or wounded, or made pri-
soner, or borne from the field in the backward rushing of his
army, theremight have been some reserve of fame for him.—
But a stronger will deterutiued that he should be saved for
immortal and cureless shame; that lee should be seen a cow-
aid, and ready fugitive; that no question should be left to
the world of his abjectness of' soul, and that he sl Id be re-
served to be she'll' as a muster to 211 English rabble, and
yet survive!
• If the French army, the authors of so much misery to Eu-
rope, were to have bern finally punished, it was done by the
battle of Waterloo. I'or the first time since the accession of
Napoleon, their forec WAS exclusively French ; and it was
trampled like a mire of blood. There has been no instance
for these thousand years of such total destruction of an ar-
my. The flower of France, and -the leading strength of the
rebellion, WAS the .Imperial Guard. It was reserved for the
last and most complete sac' thee of the day.'