The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-28 00:00:00

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

Waterloo Sunday afternoon in London was a time of
violent fitful weather. Black clouds pouring down torrents;
cascades of rain, alternated with stainless blue ether and
brilliant sunshine. Which—which in the financial firma-
ment would finally prevail—the black etorm•clouds or the
clear other and joyous sunlight ?
Storm, darkness, total eclipse; no sun, no moon would
ultimately prevail, was the opinion of almost every one I
spoke with. That Wellington's army had been destroyed,
Prince Blucher only saved from the like fate by shameful
flight, moneyed men, as a rule firmly believed. The church
bells were ringing—to my ear they were funeral bells,
for evening service, when I returned home in a state of
desperation.

Respite, absolute respite till Wednesday I What might
not happen in the meantime ? On Wednesday there was only
£14,000 to pay on those accursed bills! My downbeaten
spirit seemed to leap up again into life,--tremulous, but
hopeful life. Who, after ail, had ever heard of an English
army being beaten—at all events, for the last thousand
years or thereabouts ? At Hastings certainly Harold's
forces got the worst of it; but then that was a sort of trian-
gular fight, the English tackling first one, he down t'other
came on ; and the Danes being first and down, of course
the Normans had it their own way, and won by accident.
An English army commanded by Wellington, too! Non-
sense! At all events, I would try and believe so. There
would be always time enough to hang, drown, shoot oneself,
or jump out of a three. pair back window.
1 will pass briefly every Monday. Consols could not be
disposed of to any considerable amount at any price. I care
not what the official quotations assert to the contrary.
Luckily, perhaps, or Treherne's hint might have been acted
upon. The devil has you at advantage when you must
either accept the gallows or his offer. All I could hay
done was to procure an advance for a month of £30,000, at
heavy interest, by depositing as security the whole of the
stock I had the control of.
Tuesday morning brought no positive tidings. The wind
was not so fair for a vessel leaving the Dutch coast for an
English port as on the previous Saturday. It was, how-
ever, confidently whispered that the Government had re-
ceived news which they were afraid to publish.
Sick at heart, dizzy with dread, I wended my way to
Dolly's Chop thouse, Paternoster-row, ordered a slight
lunch by way of excuse, sat down, and sank into a sort of
mediatative stupor, the theme being whether it would not be
insanity on my part not to take the £20,000 and—
Suddenly I became doubtfully conscious, as it were, of a
bustle, a commotion without, of people hurrying past, of
shouts, cries, inarticulate to me, but loud, joyous, fiercer.
Springing up, shaking myself into sense, I looked out,
listening eagerly. Boom I boom I boom I The tower guns,
by Heaven I Oat I rushed, joined the excited crowd, hur-
rying eastward, along Cheapside, amidst shoats of " Vic-
tory I Wellington for ever I " I pushed, forced my way to
the front of the Mansion House; just as the Lord Mayor,
arrayed in his robes of office, made his appearance, holding
a paper in his hand. As soon as the deafening cheers by
which he was recaived permitted him to be heard, his lord-
ship officially announced a glorious victory achieved by the
Duke of Wellington over the French army, commanded by
Bonaparte in person. Thirty thousand prisoners; all the
French cannon and colours taken; Bonaparte himself only
saved by flight, &c.

Lord I how my head spun round ! how I shouted,
screamed, laughed, capered, jumped, frantically whirled
my handkerchief round my head I and should probably
have dropped down and been trampled upon by the crowd,
had not two gentlemen compassionately seized hold of and
i forced me into a neighbouring coffee-house. Very foolish
and absurd antics on my part, no doubt; but any one who
has ever had the misfortune. and the luck, to stand, at-
tended by the Caleraft of his time, upon a drop, with a
halter neatly fitted round his neck, and been reprieved just
as the prison chaplain came to the words, " In the midst o
life we are in death," he will be able to make allowances.
I have only further to say that the immediate and
rapidly
continuous advance in saleable value of all
in Governmentnetting
securities, Treherne and COmpally's '
ien: allba ' ,aengagements,
a slapping sum, enabled me to
quietly obtaining possession of andbmurnthosel odreadful bills,
and truthfully assert, on the day the dissolution
partner-
ship between Joshua Treherne
:e
and
the
Andrew Lovegold was
thousand pounds man
gazetted, that I was a forty-
fl
Thanks for which, above and before all, I owe to the British
of Waterloo for the world in
army for winning the battle
general, myself in ;particular;
in grateful coramemoratioE
t
I never fail, at every tumi-
d which gloriotts aclaieVelue4

versary of the great day, to drink in solemn silence, "Peace
to the souls of the heroes."

Thenceforward the position of Andrew Lovegold
is secure, and the nine succeeding chapters chiefly
chronicle the histories of some of his more remark-
able clients. Some of these stories are tame and
spiritless, and "bang fire," others are sufficiently
interesting or amusing. We cannot say that Mr.
Lovegold gives us any remarkable instances of his
own acute sagacity, for in the majority of the
cases he brings forward, he is himself the dupe or
victim. Perhaps revelations of an opposite charac-
ter would not so well bear the telling !

Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Fodk•
Lore. By Walter K. Kelly, One Vol., pp. 308,
Chapman and Hall.

This is a singularly•interesting work, a perfect
treasury of curiosities. Unlike those over-wise
innovators who seem to exult in bringing forward
some unpalatable truth to extinguish our most
cherished traditions, the author of this volume
brings chapter and verse to authenticate favourite
legends and popular superstitions, and to enable
us henceforth to " believe as truth" what has
hitherto only been " beloved as a fable." In his
preface Mr. Kelly pays the following deserved
tribute to the labours of Jacob Grimm :
" The labours of their great master have received due
honour in this country—they have gladdened the hearts of
our children, enriched the minds of our studious men, and
nurtured a spirit of inquiry which has done not a little to-
wards rescuing from oblivion the perishing remains of the
old ways of life and thought of our forefathers. Learned
and unlearned, we have all been delighted to sit as listeners
at the feet of Jacob Grimm, but I am not aware that any
attempt has yet been made to naturalise amongst us the
admirable fruits secured within the last few years by Ger-
man explorers of his school. Yet the attempt is surely
worth making."

Setting forth with a recognition of the " common
ancestry of the Indo-European nations," and the
" common origin of their mythologies," we next
ponder over the early records and traditions respec-
ting " Prometheus," and " Dragons," and "The
Drink of the Gods,' &c., &c., followed by legends of
fire and legends of biros, and stories about the
mistletoe, and the hazel, and the mandrake, and
the forget-me-not ; the origin of the " were-wolf,"
and the " wild mint," and the " hearth fire," and
legends about divers other popular superstitions,
even about red hair and pea shells ! As an in-
stance of the miscellaneous information to be
acquired in turning over this volume, we learn (at
page 295) that " sib," meaning " kin," the word
gossip or god sib, originally denoted the spiritual
relationship between the god-fathers and god-
mothers of the same child. Abundance of similar
facts are here to be met with—the result of most
praiseworthy industry and most elaborate research.

Nature's Secrets, or Psychometric Researches. By
William Denton and Elizabeth Denton. Edited,
with an introduction, by a Clergyman of the
Church of England. On© Vol., pp. 335.
Houlston and Wright.

We are all familiar with fictions " founded upon
fact ;" the volume now before us appears to consist,
to a certain extent, of facts founded upon fiction !
A series of geological and other researches are here
presented to us, more or less true, perhaps, in a
geological point of view, for they are given under
the authority of a Boston lecturer on geology, but
we cannot vouchsafe much credence to the mode of
revelation ; for example, here is a description of the
mysterious science.