Freelance Christianity Vance G Morgan download

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-christianity-vance-g-
morgan-59313840

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Freelance Video Game Writing The Life Business Of The Digital

Mercenary For Hire 1st Edition Toiya Finley

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-video-game-writing-the-life-
business-of-the-digital-mercenary-for-hire-1st-edition-toiya-
finley-46071844

Freelance Confidential Amanda Hackwith

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-confidential-amanda-
hackwith-2211150

Freelance And Technical Writers Words For Sale Camden Flath

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-and-technical-writers-words-
for-sale-camden-flath-22374588

Freelance Familiars 04 Aggressive Behavior Daniel Potter

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-familiars-04-aggressive-
behavior-daniel-potter-33717558
Freelance Familiars 05 Pride Fall Daniel Potter

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-familiars-05-pride-fall-
daniel-potter-33717566

Freelance And Business And Stuff A Guide For Creatives Revised 1st Amy
Hood

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-and-business-and-stuff-a-
guide-for-creatives-revised-1st-amy-hood-36133750

Freelance Fashion Designers Handbook 1st Edition Paula Keech

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-fashion-designers-
handbook-1st-edition-paula-keech-4162892

Freelance Writing Straightforward Advice From A Woman Who Knows Linda

Jones

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-writing-straightforward-
advice-from-a-woman-who-knows-linda-jones-46410720

Freelance Writing Business Stepbystep Startup Guide Entrepreneur

Magazine

https://ebookbell.com/product/freelance-writing-business-stepbystep-
startup-guide-entrepreneur-magazine-47132272
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 Te belluosus qui remotis
Obstrepit Oceanus Britannis,
Te non paventis funera Galliæ,
Duræque tellus audit Iberiæ.
Carm. iv. 14.
Singular approximation of nations whose struggles in the Peninsular
War were to make so famous near twenty centuries later!
In the Peninsula I do not expect much appreciation, where even
amongst those who palaver English, English poetry is not at all
understood, and where once a littérateur, expressing his sham
admiration of Shakspeare, spoke to me of “Macabets as one progidy
of a tradegy!” I am not prepared to sacrifice to an ambition which
nothing but undue praise could conciliate, and I shall be satisfied
with the approval of my own countrymen, if I can only have the
good fortune to secure it.

Corunna, September, 1846.

IBERIA WON.
A Poem.

IN TWELVE CANTOS.
IBERIA WON.
 Canto I.
I.
On San Sebastian’s towering castle wall,
What fiery meteor crowns the brow of night?
Its gathering splendour glows majestical
’Gainst darkling skies—a diadem of light!
It grows amain upon the dazzled sight,
While to their posts the amazed besiegers run;
The eternal stars an instant beam less bright,
As startled by another burning sun,
Which now distincter bears the name “Napoléon!”

II.
For Gaul’s imperial master shines that flame,
And quivering flouts the Angliberian host;
Effulgent skies enthrone his mighty name—
His fortress stands impregnable, the boast!
This, this his birthday, this the fearless post
Where England’s strength shall fail again, again,
For warriors fresh have poured along the coast;
And though the siege hath cost a thousand men,
No hostile foot shall dare profane that lion’s den!

III.
 Great Arthur smiled, and calm the work went on;
Bartolomeo’s heights were strengthened well,
The trenches deepened ere the night was gone;
Antigua’s rocks with thunder bristling tell
The bold besieged how other bosoms swell
With warlike pride that pants for battle’s hour;
And comes the ponderous train of cannon fell
To try the strength of bastion, scarp, and tower,
And bid the boastful Gaul beware Britannia’s power!

I V.
Say, is, not death then terrible enough,
Ye Captains fierce, but ye must point his dart?
Is man not made of perishable stuff,
But ye must wing new shafts to pierce his heart?
Say, is not famine, pestilence, the smart
Of dire disease and suffering, toil and wo
Enough, but Nature’s pangs must be by Art
Deep multiplied till tears like Ocean flow,
And shattering death-bolts fly, lest Death arrive too slow?

V.
Genius of Liberty, inspire my song!
For thou alone canst consecrate the strife,
That bids surcease the despot sway of Wrong,
And Man prefer thy dignity to Life
Without thee,—War proclaiming “to the knife”
’Gainst Tyrants. May the strain I feebly raise,
Like the Caÿstrian bird’s with death-notes rife,
Tune every human organ to thy praise,
And curb War’s eagles, save to blast Oppression’s gaze!

VI.
 On Mont’ Orgullo Mota’s fortress-crown
Seems like defiant Pride from high to smile,
Poised on her lofty cone, while far adown
Blue Ocean bathes her feet and guards the while;
And southward Santa Clara’s rocky isle
Stands like a Cyclop to defend the wall.
War’s stern munitions heaped in many a pile
The ramparts strew, prepared the foe to gall—
Yet deeply now ’tis sworn, shall San Sebastian fall!

VII.
The Chofre hills with giant carronades
Are horror-crested. Far on either side
Swift Uruméa, while the twilight fades,
Are armed the enormous batteries deep and wide.
And opens now like thunder to deride
Yon beacon light the loud artillery’s roar,
With fire and smoke that seem to Hell allied,
Makes wall and castle reel and tremble sore,
And shakes the affrighted wave that foams along the shore!

VIII.
Dire straits of War! The crystal stream of Life
Is now cut off from San Sebastian’s ground;
Where water flowed, an aliment of strife
The withering Genius of Destruction found.
Oh, fatal skill! Sulphureous heaps abound
Within the tube that from Ernani’s hills
Brought Life, yet soon will scatter Death around.
Though lymph, Pyrene, all thy crags distil,
For San Sebastian vain is every mountain rill.

IX.
 But, hark the voice of cannon from within!
’Tis raised in joy, a Royal salvo peals.
What new discovery marks that potent din,
Which speaks in thunder that the assailant feels—
Bolts with each flash? For joy the Norman kneels.
Where Mota’s rock above the wave doth frown,
A living fount its bubbling stream reveals,
More prized than diámonds on Regal crown.
The stream is hoarded well—its flow supplies the town.

X.
A moment pause the batteries now, while flag
Of truce and summons of surrender due
Approach the wall, nor long before it lag,
For soon in Rey a noble foeman knew
The English arms as he in England too.
No paltering there! Redoubled every post;
More resolute his wing’d defiance flew,
In fiery tempest ’gainst the leaguering host;
And scorning even to read the summons was his boast.

XI.
Well answered! Where the river widest swells
’Neath rapid Ocean’s amorous embrace,
And on the Siérra swung the Convent bells
For matin-lauds and vesper-song of grace,
The howitzer ascends that holy place,
And from the belfry vomits forth its fire;
From cloisters dim whose cowls the shakos chase
The stabled charger bids the monk retire,
And tell his beads apart till pass War’s tempest dire.

XII.
 Now Mont’ Orgullo vaunting Pride doth shew
Less proudly throned, for climb Olía’s side
The straining oxen, dragging upward slow,
With starting eye-ball and hoof opening wide,
Cannon and mortar o’er the foaming tide
Terrific hung. And Man the work completes,
Where fail the labouring beasts, till e’en Mount Pride
O’ercrested now from far defiance meets;
And from the Miradór who gazeth slaughter greets!

XIII.
The booming salvo hurls its ceaseless shower,
Saint John’s huge bastion slowly crumbling falls,
Destruction seizes many a stately tower,
And totter to their base Tirynthian walls
Beneath the fury of resistless balls,
From circling orchards heaved by Britain’s sons;
And snake-like trench advancing swift appals
The garrison, as o’er the isthmus runs
The deadly sapper’s stroke that like an earthquake stuns.

X I V.
And sally forth the warlike sons of France,
As prisoned lions vainly lash the bar,
To foil the miner in his bold advance,
And rages on the isthmus fiercest war;
Full many a shrapnell shell doth strew afar
Its withering shower of lead in thickest hail.
But what can like the British bayonet mar
Thy prowess, France? Before ’t the sallyers quail,
And fly like scattered hawks flung headlong on the gale.

X V.
 With glancing steel upon the trenches’ edge
Confronted Cameron the advancing host;
And swift retired before that gleaming wedge
The light-limbed chasseur, battling Gallia’s boast.
And, rough fascine and earth-piled gabion most
The ground demanding, rose the isthmus o’er
Banquette and parapet, the foremost post
Of war for those who sap and mine explore,
And lithe artilleryman and lynx-eyed caçadore.

XVI.
And now the isthmus boasts its battery too;
At shortest range ’tis thundering ’gainst the wall.
Saint John protect thy bastion, or ’twill rue;
Sebastian, guard thy castle, or ’twill fall!
And lo, where shells ascending vertical,
Like iron disc by surest player cast,
Unerring light the townsmen to appal,
And, scattering hundred deaths, with ruin blast
The region doomed where’er that tempest dire hath past.

XVII.
See many a bark that swan-like floats the tide
Steal rapid round the fair Cantabrian shore.
Daughters of luxury, your frail heads hide!
’Tis women’s arms that ply the lusty oar
That hostile castle’s bristling wall before.
A patriot impulse bids them proudly dare
(Was never seen the like!) the batteries’ roar,
Their fruits and wine with the besiegers share,
And bless the arms upraised to guard Iberia fair!

XVIII.
 Isaro’s sunlit isle her dark-eyed maids
Sends laden with the grape’s delicious bloom;
Guerníca from its close embowering shades
Sends clustered muscatel whose globes illume
Bright tints of amber. Ondarróa’s gloom
Of archéd boughs gives golden apples forth,
Fair as on Hesperus’ dragon drew the doom;
Ripe Ceres’ gifts of Deba prove the worth;
And bland Zumaya opes her garden of the north.

XIX.
Brown nuts and almonds from Cestona’s groves,
Soft melons come from Castro’s silvery streams;
The small black olive that the mountain loves
From Orrio’s hills ’mid peach and nectarine gleams.
Palencia sends her wine which most esteems
The midnight watcher on the tented field,
With blissful thoughts to stimulate his dreams
When, the watch ended, soon his eyes are sealed
By Heaven’s physician, sleep, and all his sorrows healed.

XX.
Berméo’s vines of green most tender send
Black clusters soft with purple bloom bespread;
And where her gnarled and twisted fig-trees bend
’Neath load of luscious fruit their dark green head,
The gathered treasure for a feast is shed.
The quince sweet-flavoured, and the juicy gourd,
The beautiful love-apple coral-red,
And curd-white cheese (an Arcady restored)
For Valour’s sons they bring to spread the ambrosial board.

XXI.
 Bright-eyed Biscayan maids, as shapely tall
As Atlas’ daughter in her sun-lit isle
Led in the dance through flowery vale and knoll,
Mother of streams while Tethys fair the while
The chorus blest with an approving smile.
The lively movements of the Vascon race,
The Tartar glance, the ringing laugh where guile
Ne’er enters, brown yet blooming charms of face,
And teeth of dazzling lustre lend uncommon grace.

XXII.
Their hair dark shining shamed the raven’s wing,
In tresses long their shoulders floating down,
With ribands gay confined or silken string,
Or slight embroidered veil the head to crown.
Of gold and pearl some covet the renown,
Pendent from prettiest ears; with coral some
Their necks encircle. Camisoles each gown
Surmount, gallooned with silk or silver from
Shoulder to waist so fair that Envy’s self is dumb.

XXIII.
’Twas thus the Basque barqueras, happiest race,
Like their Cantabrian mothers rowed along;
A nymph-republic from whose dwelling-place
Both man and dame excludes the Nereid throng,
True to their Ocean-sire, as Dian strong.
Two row each bark, and one Dorina steers
’Neath fluttering banderoles, and oft with song
They tune their oars, or dance with merry cheers
Zorcícos, while Basque drum and timbrel greet the ears.

X X I V.
 And oft, through summertide, some sheltered cove
On fair Biscaya’s coast these Nereids sought
To cool their lovely limbs, while far above
A sister-sentinel their safety wrought,
With eyes whose jealousy was still uncaught.
And through the crystal waters joyously
Spinning, like ivory, charms surpassing thought,
They plunged and sported, laughing wild with glee,
And swam with matchless skill—their element the sea.

X X V.
And, robed again, full oft the Nymphs advanced
’Neath dewy eve in beauteous double file,
And boundingly the gay Zorcíco danced,
With shouldered oars and frolic feet, the while
Basque drum and tamborine and Ocean’s smile
Make mirthful holiday. Now high they leap,
With mazy figure now the sense beguile,
Now cross their clattering blades as in the deep,
And laugh, dance, sing—methinks, ’tis better thus than
weep.

XXVI.
Nor vigilance secures that lovely coast,
Nor danger’s tremulous excitements flee,
For Gaul her cruisers and her arméd host
From fair Santona pours along the sea;
And even Columbian rovers, far too free
To curb the lust of plunder, hovering there—
Indifferent whether Spain’s or England’s be
The rifled flag—like vultures foul prepare
On battle’s skirt to fall, and aidless stragglers tear.

XXVII.
 For years had past since great Britannia’s hand
Made Earth and Ocean feel her trident stroke;
And Trafalgár and San Vicente, fanned
By Victory’s wing, no present terrors woke;
Nor o’er the Deep her voice in thunder spoke,
Since feeble councils numbed at home the arms,
Which even thus paralysed Gaul’s legions broke;
And but that patriot zeal the virgin warms,
Had Famine crushed our men more dire than War’s alarms.

XXVIII.
Yet nought could baffle England’s Chieftain-shield,
Who drove the Invader to Pyrene’s foot,
With thunder-shock on many a battle-field,
While Spain with aidful arm the foeman smote.
Oh, glorious rivalship! where late each throat
Was hostile grasped, now rank with rank contending,
Now side by side,—the Armada’s strife forgot,
Gibraltar’s griefs, Saint Vincent’s memory rending—
Against the general foe in War’s proud union blending.

XXIX.
Heroic brotherhood! Mark o’er all her soil
Where Spain’s Partidas like Cadmean seed
Spring armed and terrible to make War’s toil
Ubiquitous, the foe unceasing bleed;
Till, like bull gored and vanquished, he recede,
While Mina and the Empecinado hang
Upon his flanks, and give the Invader’s meed
In death from every crag—where Tell-like sprang
The Guerrillero forth, whose loud trabúco rang.

XXX.
 The carcase of a rotten State may fall
Corrupt asunder, life-blood e’en diseased;
Head, body, members vile contagion’s thrall,
By gore-stained hands Religion’s emblems seized—
But Nations ne’er yet died when Tyrants pleased!
Yea, lives for aye the spirit and the soul
Invincible, howe’er by despots teased;
And let Injustice sting, Invasion roll,
The sudden counter-shock will shake the distant Pole!

XXXI.
And quakes the stern invading Tyrant now,
Whose legions to the frontier back are driven;
For even Pyrene’s rocky margins bow
Before the giant march, with fetters riven,
Of Freedom’s phalanx marshalled on by Heaven!
Rey, on thine arm an Empire’s fate depends.
To San Sebastian haply now is given
The fortress key their swelling strength that bends.
France jealous eyes thee! Rey his post full well defends.

XXXII.
From Guetaría see where vulture-eyed
That scowling band of Franks perforce retires,
And turns their chief in demon triumph joyed
To mark the scene where, Gaul, thy pride expires.
Sudden explode terrific blasting fires,
And swift the fortress-ruins blot the skies
With matrons, virgins, babes, and aged sires,
Rent by the train the ruffian, as he flies,
Hath left alight—to fierce Revenge a sacrifice.

XXXIII.
 Shudder, thou worm that point’st thy petty sting;
A breath may quench both thee and all thy line!
Fly, passion, hate, ’neath Mercy’s sheltering wing—
Hath not the Lord declared: “Revenge is mine?”
Reptile, dost Him defy? Not thus will shine
Thy courage when, at dissolution’s hour,
The more thou scornest now the more thou’lt whine,
And feel no weed that deems itself a flower
So mean as man who dares to brave the Almighty’s power!

X X X I V.
From Haya’s crest of rough and broken crag
A darkling thunder-storm came grandly down.
From peak to peak, while gathering rain-drops lag,
The fiery demon leaps, from chasm to crown—
Terrific dance!—then hides ’neath blackest frown,
Whose pall o’erspreads the sky; low growls at times,
Then volleying roars while floods the welkin drown.
Andaye took up the song of mountain-climes,
And Jaizquibél gave back the sound with thunder-chimes!

X X X V.
San Marcial echoes it with savage pride,
The Grand Monarque rebellows it with zeal.
Then, when the monsters huge had shook each side
With giant laughter, of which every peal
Is thunder that can make the despot feel,
And waked Pyrene o’er his widest span,
While peak to peak replied, and torrents reel
With that rejoicing music, as it ran,
That spake their savage strength in terror’s tones to man.

XXXVI.
 Dark muffled thus they slept. Yet even in dreams,
Such dreams as mountain-spirits give to birth,
The thunderous memory lives. Low muttering seems
To sullen tell how baleful was that mirth,
Whose very faintest echo shook the earth,
Gigantic! Downward gathering comes the storm
O’er Haya’s flank and Oyarzuno’s girth
By crag and deep ravine, till lightning warm
With wind and rain it falls o’er Uruméa’s form.

XXXVII.
And ’mid the thickest of the storm behold
Where scud Cantabria’s daughters through the tide,
The death-rain from the rampart fronting bold,
And bear to Britain’s sons, Hesperia’s pride,
The tribute of support for arms allied.
Now brighter beams each eye, and heroes wear
Unwonted blushes warrior cheeks to hide,
And feel thrice-nerved their arms by Beauty rare,
Their spirits bounding high: on Valour smiles the fair!

XXXVIII.
Amongst these maids the beauteous Blanca stood,
Pride of the ocean-beat Biscayan coast;
A laughing damsel gay yet angel-good,
Light-haired, blue-eyed, in Spain no vulgar boast,
Where black-eyed maidens are a countless host.
With mirth so radiant was her spirit free,
That all she gladdened—melting roughest frost:
Like her none danced Bolera or Olé,
And none could featly touch the light guitar as she.

XXXIX.
 Her auburn hair in clustering curls around
Her sunny face now shrouded, now revealed
Its beauties, waving with each fairy bound;
Her peachy cheek now glancing, now concealed.
Her eye the wound it gave next instant healed,
So bright yet soft, so keen yet melting tender.
A sweetness inexpressible made yield
All hearts: ripe lips, and teeth of pearly splendour,
Made Nature’s task in vain another charm to lend her.

XL.
No coif encircling bound her beauteous head,
No silken net her tresses rich confined,
To mar the lustre which her glances shed;
But ribands plain its wild luxuriance bind.
She wore no jewels: streamed upon the wind
A gauzy veil, with flowers of golden sheen
Embroidered, floating gracefully behind,
Her only ornament—yet form and mien
Proclaimed her thus attired ’mongst hundred maids the
queen.

XLI.
Her xaquetilla, to the shape most lithe,
Was of cerulean velvet, room supplying
For her full bosom’s play, when free and blithe
She plied the oar, yet to her form close lying,
Which no compression needed, art defying.
Two billows heaved within, as on the tide
She mastered, with its foam in whiteness vying;
And from her ears to every turn of pride
Two tiniest silver bells with tinklings sweet replied.

XLII.
 So fair the maid in infancy had been,
That San Sebastian chose her then to bear
A cherub’s wings amid the festal scene
Her warrior-patron’s day that honours there.
And with her foster-sister not less fair,
The noble Isidora, hand in hand,
Oft walked she thus in childhood—beauteous pair!
Though tender still their loves apart they stand,
For San Sebastian’s siege the approach of Blanca banned.

XLIII.
She was the leader of the virgin group,
The Delia of that race of shallops gay;
And vigorous-handed to the oar could stoop,
When gales tempestuous tost the stormy Bay.
For high the spirit of that lightsome fay,
And bold as Manuela’s self, the Maid
Of Zaragoza, she could guide the fray,
The French marauders menaced undismayed,
And oft her wild guitar thus prompted to the raid:—

The Spanish Song of Freedom.

1.
 Let the brave, let the brave fill the battered
War-chalice, fair Freedom, to thee;
On the slave, on the slave be it shattered,
Unless the slave pant to be free!
In glory, in glory we’ll perish,
Ere tyrants shall wither our plains.
This nectar, this nectar shall cherish
No dastard who spurns not his chains!
Let the brave, let the brave fill the battered
War-chalice, fair Freedom, to thee;
On the slave, on the slave be it shattered,
Unless the slave pant to be free!
Libertad, libertad sacrosanta!
Were death in the depths of the flask,
Libertad, libertad mi encanta,
We’ll drain it to “Free be the Basque!”

2.
For our homes, for our homes and our altars,
For our wives and our children we fight;
We but scoff at their dungeons and halters,
As bursts Freedom’s sun into light!
While our rights, while our rights we are seeking,
Great Power! ’tis thy will we maintain;
Though our swords, though our swords may be reeking
With blood, ’tis in rending the chain!
Let the brave, let the brave fill the battered
War-chalice, fair Freedom, to thee;
On the slave, on the slave be it shattered,
Unless the slave pant to be free!
Libertad, libertad sacrosanta!
Were death in the goblet we drain,
Libertad los tiranos espanta,
We’ll pledge to the freedom of Spain!
 H I S TO R I C A L A N D I L L U S T R AT I V E N OT E S
TO C A N TO I .
In August, 1813, as the preparations for the renewed siege of San Sebastian were
advancing, the besieged demonstrated their confidence by celebrating the
Emperor’s birthday with a splendid illumination. The castle, upon whose crest it
was exhibited, is seen from a great distance; and the besiegers could plainly read
the letters of fire in which the name of Napoléon was written high in air.

The incidents of the siege I have derived chiefly from Napier’s History of the
War in the Peninsula, book xxii. chapters 1 and 2, and from Jones’s Journals of
Peninsular Sieges. The topography of San Sebastian will be found sufficiently
illustrated in either of those works.
The small castle of La Mota is most picturesquely situated like a crown on the
conical hill of Monte Orgullo, which rising immediately behind the town westward,
is nearly four hundred feet high, and washed by the sea. “The Hill has a broad
base of 400 by 600 feet, and is crowned by fort La Mota.” Jones, Journal of
Peninsular Sieges, vol. ii.
General Jones’s description of cutting off the aqueduct, and converting it into a
globe of compression, is thus prosaic but practical and deadly:—“The parallel crost
a drain level with the ground, 4 feet high, and 3 feet wide, through which ran a
pipe to convey water into the town. Lieut. Reid ventured to explore it, and at the
end of 230 yards, he found it closed by a door in the counterscarp, opposite to the
face of the right demi-bastion of the hornwork: as the ditch was narrow, it was
thought that by forming a mine, the explosion would throw earth sufficient against
the escarpe, only 24 feet high, to form a road over it: eight feet at the end of the
aqueduct was therefore stopped with filled sand bags, and 30 barrels of powder of
90 lb. each, lodged against it, and a saucisson led to the mouth of the drain.”
Journals of the Sieges undertaken by the Allies in Spain, Supplementary Chapter.
The aqueduct had been cut off at the commencement of the siege by the Spanish
general, Mendizabal. “It was formed into a globe of compression designed to blow,
as through a tube, so much rubbish over the counterscarp as might fill the narrow
ditch.” Napier, Hist. book xxi. c. 3. This plan was subsequently realized, and with
complete success, “creating” says Jones “much astonishment in the enemy,” at the
period of the first assault, which took place on the 25th July, five weeks before the
second and memorable storming. I have transferred the incident to the latter part
of the siege.
The incident of the discovery of the spring upon Monte Orgullo after the cutting
off of the aqueduct, but for which fortunate accident the town would have been
probably forced to surrender much sooner, was communicated to me by an officer
who was present at the siege. It was found about half way up the cliff where it
overhangs the ocean, and surrounded by masonry is carefully preserved to the
present day. The water is excellent, and the flow abundant. There were not
wanting French partisans at the time, especially amongst the elderly female
residents in San Sebastian, who believed the discovery of this spring to be
miraculous!
When Marshal Berwick attacked San Sebastian in 1719, he threw up batteries
on the same Chofre hills where the Allies now planted theirs. He then pushed his
approaches along the isthmus, and established himself on the covered-way of the
land front. As soon as the breach was practicable, the governor capitulated. But
the present governor, Ney, was made of different stuff. Capitulation was the last
thing that he thought of, and Napoléon’s instructions to the defenders of besieged
towns were never more terribly fulfilled than by this very gallant man. “Napoléon’s
ordinance,” says Napier, “which forbade the surrender of a fortress without having
stood at least one assault, has been strongly censured by English writers upon
slender grounds. The obstinate defences made by French governors in the
Peninsula were the results. * * It may be reasonably supposed that, as the
achievements of Napoléon’s soldiers far exceeded the exploits of Louis (XIV.)’s
cringing courtiers, they possessed greater military virtues.”—Hist. book xxii. c. 1.

The attack was in a great degree carried on from the midst of “circling
orchards.” From the ground taken up by the besiegers to Ernani, the whole
country is covered with orchards.
For the costume and other particulars of the Basque barqueras, or boat-girls of
the Bidassoa and Urumea, the reader is referred to the tours of Madame D’Aulnoy
and M. de Bourgoing. The xaquetilla is a “little jacket” or spencer.
As reference is made to the Guerrillas in this canto, the following brief sketch of
the leaders may be acceptable:—

Mina was a man of powerful frame and noble aspect—a fine specimen of
Nature’s nobility. He was rather tall, of portly size, with fine chest and shoulders,
and gigantic arms. His features were more English than Spanish in their aspect,
being by no means dark, and their expression powerful, dignified, and heroic.
There is a fine portrait of him in Somerset House, London. Like almost all the
Guerrilleros, however, he was cruel. The French, whom they cut off by their most
harassing mode of warfare, were mercilessly slaughtered. Mina, who was of the
common class of peasant-farmers, began with a band of about twenty men whom
he formed from amongst his neighbours, appointing a sergeant and corporal.
Repeated successes and the character of the chief swelled this band to 300 in
number. Mina then appointed a lieutenant. The latter plotted against his
commander, and Mina shot him dead with a pistol, after taxing him with his
treason, in presence of his men. The rough Spanish mountaineers liked his daring
and resolute character, his band swelled to a thousand, and his new lieutenant
again conspired to oust his leader. Mina had this man drowned in a well. He was
subsequently left unmolested in his command, until his powerful genius organized
and led an army. At his death, which occurred about ten years since in Barcelona,
he was a Field Marshal, a Grandé of Spain, and Vice-Roy of Navarre. His widow
became Aya or Governess to the present Queen of Spain, Isabel, and held that
post till the expulsion of Espartero. Mina had a brother, Xavier Mina, who entered
the regular army at an early period of life, and likewise rose to the rank of Field
Marshal. He was treacherously shot in Mexico by Morillo.

The Empecinado was in person a still finer man than Mina, but of a much less
pleasing aspect. His face was stamped with savage resolution and ferocity. His
appearance was strictly Spanish, his complexion being much darker than that of
Mina. Both were black-haired, but the Empecinado’s was of a raven intensity of jet.
He was one of the strongest men in Europe, tall and square-built—a Hercules to
the eye as well as in reality. Some nearly incredible feats are recorded of his
prodigious strength. The last of all was the most worthy of note, and recalls the
main incident of our fine old English ballad of “Adam Bell, Clym o’ the Clough, and
William of Cloudeslie.” During the fatal year of the Duke of Angoulême’s invasion,
1823, when so many Constitutionalists fell victims to Ferdinand’s gloomy ferocity,
and Riego was villainously butchered at Madrid, the Empecinado was seized by the
myrmidons of Absolutism at a village about twenty miles distant, caged and
tortured for three days, and at the end of that time led out for execution. At the
foot of the furca or gallows-tree, with one effort he burst the thick cord with which
his arms were bound, and seized a gun from one of the soldiers near him. Had he
not been instantly slain, there is little doubt that with the butt-end he would have
slaughtered a hecatomb of the satellites of power. But the whole file poured their
fire into him at once, and he was hung notwithstanding, though the rope was
adjusted on a corpse! The Curate Merino was distinguished for bush-fighting, and
a rather treacherous and Parthian mode of assault, and his aspect corresponded
with his character. His influence over his comrades was secured by promises of
eternal happiness.
Blanca’s figuring in childhood in the character of an angel is thus accounted for.
The feast of San Sebastian is every year a great event in that ancient town. The
celebration is in many respects interesting, including a procession in which female
children chosen for their beauty take a very prominent part, bearing baskets of
flowers, arrows typical of the martyr’s fate, and other interesting emblems. Their
dresses are of the richest description—a little gaudy, to be sure, but beneath the
brilliant sky of Spain this is, perhaps, excusable. They represent angels, and are
provided with crowns set with mock diamonds, rubies, and topazes of the largest
size, and with gauze wings bound round with gold or silver tissue. Short skirts of
the ballet class, satin shoes, and white silk stockings, complete an array of
splendour which excites, as may well be believed, terrific admiration in their
mammas and envy in all the rest of the town. A chorus from time immemorial is
sung to celebrate their progress, of which the burthen is:
Vivan las niñas
De San Sebastian!

III. “Bartolomeo’s heights”—“Antigua’s rocks.”

Convents in the vicinity of San Sebastian, which were seized by the besiegers
and fortified.
 “And comes the battering train of cannon fell.”
Ma il Capitan, ch’espugnar mai le mura
Non crede senza i bellici stromenti.
Tasso, Ger. Lib. iii. 71.

V. “—War proclaiming ‘to the knife’ ’Gainst Tyrants!”

“Guerra al Cuchillo!” the celebrated proclamation of Palafox at the Siege of

Zaragoza.

“Like the Caÿstrian bird.”

——Quæ Asia circum

Dulcibus in stagnis rimantur prata Caystri.
Virg. Georg. i. 382.

“With death-notes rife.”

——Ut olim
Carmina jam moriens canit exequialia cygnus.
Tabuit; inque leves paulatim evanuit auras!
Ovid. Met. xiv. 430.
These lines are dictated by the same feeling, which prompted Cervantes’s last
poetical address (in anticipation of death) to the great Conde de Lemos:

Puesto ya el pié en el estribo,

Con las ansias de la muerte,
Gran Señor, esta te escribo.

X. “Soon in Rey a noble foeman knew:”

The French Governor of San Sebastian.

XI. “’Neath rapid Ocean’s amorous embrace.”

 Labitur ripâ, Jove non probante,
Uxorius amnis.
Horat. Carm. i. 2.

“And on the Sierra swung the Convent bells.”

San Bartolomeo.

“The stabled charger bids the monk retire.”

Sir Thomas More commemorates the housing of cattle in churches. “They stop
the course of agriculture, reserving only the churches, that they may lodge their
sheep in them.” (Utopia, book i.) Bayle has a similar story in his Dictionary of an
abbot who converted his church into a stable, an example which was speedily
followed by revolutionary France. During the French invasion of Portugal the
cavalry were frequently quartered in churches, and during the Miguelite war in
that country I have been assured that the same thing was witnessed more than
once, and I know of a Constitutionalist, at present a dignified, clergyman, who
upon its being found that the priest was absent upon some Saint’s festival, stept
forward himself and said mass for the assembled soldiers, booted and spurred as
he was and in dragoon regimentals! I have often seen this pious gentleman in
Lisbon, whom the populace declare to have taken from an image of the Virgin the
ring which he now sports upon his finger!

XII. “Olia’s side.”

The batteries of Monte Olia commanded the Castle at a distance of 1,600 yards,
from the north side of the Urumea, Olia and Orgullo buttressing the entrance of
the river magnificently on either side, and standing apart like giant ramparts.

“The Mirador.”
A battery on the eastern side of Monte Orgullo. The name signifies “a look out,”
the use to which it was formerly applied. It reminded me very much of the Signal
House at Gibraltar, only that I missed those sapphire and chrysolite tints of the
Mediterranean, which struck me so much when I saw the moon rise from that
elevated ground under the auspices of the stalwart Sergeant MacDonald.

XIII. “And totter to their base Tirynthian walls.”

—Τίρυνθά τε τειχιόεσσαν.—Hom. Il. ii. 559.

Tiryns is the first walled city upon record. Its walls were supposed to have been
erected by the Cyclops, and the stones of which they were composed were of such
prodigious size, that the least of them could not be moved by a pair of oxen.
(Pausanias, lib. ii.) The ruins subsist to the present day, and the traces are still
gigantic. Pindar mentions Tiryns in his Olympionics, Nemeonics, and Isthmionics.
These shattered remains present the earliest specimen of the Cyclopean
architecture.

“The deadly sappers’ stroke that like an earthquake stuns.”

This was the first time that sappers were employed by us in the Peninsular
sieges, or that a corps of sappers formed any regular portion of the British army. It
was likewise the first time that Shrapnell shells were used.

XIV. “But what can like the British bayonet mar

Thy prowess, France?”
The bayonet, originally a French invention (deriving, as is well known, its name
from the town of Bayonne), became ultimately the very instrument of French
defeat—for by the universal testimony of military men, when wielded by British
hands, the French have invariably fled before it:—
—Neque enim lex æquior ulla,
Quàm necis artifices arte perire suâ.
Ovid. de Arte Amandi.

But it would be as grossly unjust as ungenerous to dispute the ardour and

frequent brilliancy of French courage. Upon this subject the discriminating
testimony of Napier is as follows: “Place an attainable object of war before the
French soldier and he will make supernatural efforts to gain it, but failing he
becomes proportionally discouraged. Let some new chance be opened, some fresh
stimulus applied to his ardent, sensitive temper, and he will rush forward again
with unbounded energy: the fear of death never checks him, he will attempt any
thing. But the unrelenting vigour of the British infantry in resistance wears his fury
out.”—Hist. War in the Penins. book xxiv. chap. 6.

XV. “With glancing steel upon the trenches’ edge.”

Wie glänzt im sonnenstrahl

So bräutlich hell der stahl—
Hurrah!
Körner, Schwertlied.
How glances bride-like bright
The steel which sunbeams strike,—
Hurrah!

XVII. “See many a bark that swan-like floats the tide.”

Eis mil nadantes aves pelo argento

Da furiosa Thetis inquieta.
Camóens, Lus. iv. 49.

“Was never seen the like!”

“It was probably the first time that an important siege was maintained by
women’s exertions; the stores of the besiegers were landed from boats rowed by
Spanish girls!”—Napier.

XIX. “The small black olive that the mountain loves.”

—Lecta de pinguissimis
Oliva ramis arborum.—Hor. Epod. ii.

XXI. “As Atlas’ daughter in her sunlit isle.”

Calypso.
 Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλούφρονος, ὅστε θαλάσσης. κ. τ. λ.
Hom. Od. i. 52.

XXIII. “Both man and dame excludes the Nereid throng.”

——τὸν εὐγενῆ
... πεντήκοντα Νηρῄδων χορόν.
Eurip. Iph. in Taur. 273.
“The illustrious band of the fifty Nereids.”

XXIV. “And swam with matchless skill—their element the sea.”

Nadan en su cristal ninfas bizarras,

Compitiendo con el candidos pechos.
Lope de Vega, Sonetos.

XXVII. —“Britannia’s hand

Made Earth and Ocean feel her trident stroke.”
Vide Virg. Geor. i. 13.
—“Feeble councils numbed at home the arms
Which even thus paralyzed Gaul’s legions broke.”

Under the administration of Lord Melville, the Navy of England for the first time
sustained disasters in battle, and ships containing stores and money for the
Peninsular army were suffered to be taken on the passage by French and
American cruisers; while the despicable absurdity was witnessed of two successive
investments and assaults of San Sebastian without the co-operation of a fleet.

XXVIII. “Oh, glorious rivalship!” &c.

Vide Wordsworth’s “Convention of Cintra.”

“Gibraltar’s griefs—St. Vincent’s memory rending.”
The memorable siege, in which the Spaniards were finally defeated on the 13th
September, 1782.—The battle of St. Vincent, in which Jervis destroyed the Spanish
fleet, 14th February, 1797.

XXIX. “Spain’s Partidas.”

Partidas was the generic name of the partisan bands, who maintained the
indomitable Guerrilla warfare against the French, and of whom there were not less
than 50,000 at one period in Spain. A favourite weapon of these legitimate
successors of the Almugavars, or ancient mountaineer troops of Spain, was the
trabuco, or blunderbuss. The two most famous Partida chiefs were those whose
names are recorded in the text. The Mina alluded to is Espoz y Mina, the
Scanderbeg of Spain, uncle to the Student of the same name.

XXX. “But Nations ne’er yet died when Tyrants pleased!”

The strongest proof of the inherent vitality of a Nation is that Spain survived the
villanies of Godoy.

XXXIII. “Reptile, dost Him defy?”

Wer empfinden
Und sich unterwinden
Zu sagen: ich glaub’ ihn nicht?
Der Allumfasser!
Der Allerhalter!
Goethe, Faust.
“Who can feel, and dare to say: ‘I believe in Him not?’ the All-encompasser, the
All-sustainer!”
IBERIA WON.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com