The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 264, July 14, 1827

And on the sand to sleep has sunk the rill.
The blackbird and the thrush have sought the vale.
And the lark soars no more above the hill,
For the broad sun is up all hotly pale,
And in my reins I feel his parching thrill.

Hark! how each note, so beautifully clear,
So soft, so sweetly mellow, rings around.
Then faintly dies away upon the ear,
That fondly vibrates to the fading sound.
Poor bird, thou sing'st, the thorn within thy heart,
And I from sorrows, that will not depart.

    S.P.J.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

A NIGHT ATTACK

Charlton and I were in the act of smoking our cigars, the men having laid themselves down about the blaze, when word was passed from sentry to sentry, and intelligence communicated to us, that all was not right towards the river. We started instantly to our feet. The fire was hastily smothered up, and the men snatching their arms, stood in line, ready to act as circumstances might require. So dense, however, was the darkness, and so dazzling the effect of the glare from the bivouac, that it was not possible, standing where we stood, to form any reasonable guess, as to the cause of this alarm. That an alarm had been excited, was indeed perceptible enough. Instead of the deep silence which five minutes ago had prevailed in the bivouac, a strange hubbub of shouts, and questions, and as many cries, rose up the night air; nor did many minutes elapse, ere first one musket, then three or four, then a whole platoon, were discharged. The reader will easily believe that the latter circumstance startled us prodigiously, ignorant as we were of the cause which produced it; but it required no very painful exertion of patience to set us right on this head; flash, flash, flash, came from the river; the roar of cannon followed, and the light of her own broadside displayed to us an enemy's vessel at anchor near the opposite bank, and pouring a perfect shower of grape and round shot into the camp.

For one instant, and only for an instant, a scene of alarm and consternation overcame us; and we almost instinctively addressed to each other the question, "What can all this mean?" But the meaning was too palpable not to be understood at once. "The thing cannot end here," said we—"a night attack is commencing;" and we made no delay in preparing to meet it. Whilst Charlton remained with the picquet, in readiness to act as the events might demand, I came forward to the sentries, for the purpose of cautioning them against paying attention to what might pass in their rear, and keeping them steadily engaged in watching their front. The men were fully alive to the peril of their situation. They strained with their hearing and eyesight to the utmost limits; but neither sound nor sight of an advancing column could be perceived. At last, however, an alarm was given. One of the rifles challenged—it was the sentinel on the high road; the sentinel who communicated with him challenged also; and the cry was taken up from man to man, till our own most remote sentry caught it. I flew to his station; and sure enough the tramp of many feet was most distinctly audible. Having taken the precaution to carry an orderly forward with me, I caused him to hurry back to Charlton with intelligence of what was coming, and my earnest recommendation that he would lose no time in occupying the ditch. I had hardly done so, when the noise of a column deploying was distinctly heard. The tramp of horses, too, came mingled with the tread of men; in a word, it was quite evident that a large force, both of infantry and cavalry, was before us.

There was a pause at this period of several moments, as if the enemy's line, having effected its formation, had halted till some other arrangement should be completed; but it was quickly broke. On they came, as far as we could judge from the sound, in steady array, till at length their line could be indistinctly seen rising through the gloom. The sentinels with one consent gave their fire. They gave it regularly and effectively, beginning with the rifles on their left, and going off towards the 85th on their right, and then, in obedience to their orders, fell back. But they retired not unmolested. This straggling discharge on our part seemed to be the signal to the Americans to begin the battle, and they poured in such a volley, as must have proved, had any determinate object been opposed to it, absolutely murderous. But our scattered videttes almost wholly escaped it; whilst over the main body of the picquet, sheltered as it was by the ditch, and considerably removed from its line, it passed entirely harmless.

Having fired this volley, the enemy loaded again, and advanced. We saw them coming, and having waited till we judged that they were within excellent range, we opened our fire. It was returned in tenfold force, and now went on, for a full half hour, as heavy and close a discharge of musketry as troops have perhaps ever faced. Confident in their numbers, and led on, as it would appear, by brave officers, the Americans dashed forward till scarcely ten yards divided us; but our position was an admirable one, our men were steady and cool, and they penetrated no farther. On the contrary, we drove them back, more than once, with a loss which their own inordinate multitude tended only to render the more severe.

The action might have continued in this state about two hours, when, to our horror and dismay, the approaching fire upon our right flank and rear gave testimony that the picquet of the 85th, which had been in communication with us, was forced. Unwilling to abandon our ground, which we had hitherto held with such success, we clung for awhile to the idea that the reverse in that quarter might be only temporary, and that the arrival of fresh troops might yet enable us to continue the battle in a position so eminently favourable to us. But we were speedily taught that our hopes were without foundation. The American war-cry was behind us. We rose from our lairs, and endeavoured, as we best could, to retire upon the right, but the effort was fruitless. There too the enemy had established themselves, and we were surrounded. "Let us cut our way through," cried we to the men. The brave fellows answered only with a shout; and collecting into a small compact line, prepared to use their bayonets. In a moment we had penetrated the centre of an American division; but the numbers opposed to us were overwhelming; our close order was lost; and the contest became that of man to man. I have no language adequate to describe what followed. For myself, I did what I could, cutting and thrusting at the multitudes about me, till at last I found myself fairly hemmed in by a crowd, and my sword-arm mastered. One American had grasped me round the waist, another, seizing me by the wrist, attempted to disarm me, whilst a third was prevented from plunging his bayonet into my body, only from the fear of stabbing one or other of his countrymen. I struggled hard, but they fairly bore me to the ground. The reader will well believe, that at this juncture I expected nothing else than instant death; but at the moment when I fell, a blow upon the head with the butt-end of a musket dashed out the brains of the man who kept his hold upon my sword-arm, and it was freed. I saw a bayonet pointed to my breast, and I intuitively made a thrust at the man who wielded it. The thrust took effect, and he dropped dead beside me. Delivered now from two of my enemies, I recovered my feet, and found that the hand which dealt the blow to which my preservation was owing, was that of Charlton. There were about ten men about him. The enemy in our front were broken, and we dashed through. But we were again hemmed in, and again it was fought hand to hand, with that degree of determination, which the assurance that life and death were on the issue, could alone produce. There cannot be a doubt that we should have fallen to a man, had not the arrival of fresh troops at this critical juncture turned the tide of affairs. As it was, little more than a third part of our picquet survived, the remainder being either killed or taken; and both Charlton and myself, though not dangerously, were wounded. Charlton had received a heavy blow upon the shoulder, which almost disabled him; whilst my neck bled freely from a thrust, which the intervention of a stout leathern stock alone hindered from being fatal. But the reinforcement gave us all, in spite of wounds and weariness, fresh courage, and we renewed the battle with alacrity.

In the course of the struggle in which we had been engaged, we had been borne considerably out of the line of our first position, and now found that the main-road and the picquet of the rifles, were close in our rear. We were still giving way—for the troops opposed to us could not amount to less than fifteen hundred men, whilst the whole force on our part came not up to one hundred—when Captain Harris, major of brigade to Colonel Thornton, came up with an additional company to our support. Making way for them to fall in between us and the rifles, we took ground once more to the right, and driving back a body of the enemy, which occupied it, soon recovered the position from which we had been expelled. But we did so with the loss of many brave men, and, among others, of Captain Harris. He was shot in the lower part of the belly at the same instant that a musket-ball struck the hilt of his sword, and forced it into his side. Once more established in our ditch, we paused, and from that moment till the battle ceased to rage we never changed our attitude.

It might be about one o'clock in the morning,—the American force in our front having fallen back, and we having been left, for a full half hour to breathe, when suddenly the head of a small column showed itself in full advance towards us. We were at this time amply supported by other troops, as well in communication as in reserve; and willing to annihilate the corps now approaching, we forbade the men to fire till it should be mingled with us. We did even more than this. Opening a passage for them through our centre, we permitted some hundred and twenty men to march across our ditch, and then wheeling up, with a loud shout, we completely enclosed them. Never have I witnessed a panic more perfect or more sudden than that which seized them. They no sooner beheld the snare into which they had fallen, than with one voice they cried aloud for quarter; and they were to a man made prisoners on the spot. The reader will smile when he is informed that the little corps thus captured consisted entirely of members of the legal profession. The barristers, attorneys, and notaries of New Orleans having formed themselves into a volunteer corps, accompanied General Jackson in his operations this night; and they were all, without a solitary exception, made prisoners. It is probably needless to add, that the circumstance was productive of no trifling degree of mirth amongst us; and to do them justice, the poor lawyers, as soon as they recovered from their first alarm, joined heartily in our laughter.

This was the last operation in which we were engaged to-night. The enemy, repulsed on all sides, retreated with the utmost disorder, and the whole of the advance, collecting at the sound of the bugle, drew up, for the first time since the commencement of the affair, in a continuous line. We took our ground in front of the bivouac, having our right supported by the river, and our left covered by the chateau and village of huts. Among these latter the cannon were planted; whilst the other divisions, as they came rapidly up, took post beyond them. In this position we remained, eagerly desiring a renewal of the attack, till dawn began to appear, when, to avoid the fire of the vessel, the advance once more took shelter behind the bank. The first brigade, on the contrary, and such portion of the second as had arrived, encamped upon the plain, so as to rest their right upon the wood; and a chain of picquets being planted along the entire pathway, the day was passed in a state of inaction.

I hardly recollect to have spent fourteen or fifteen hours with less comfort to myself than these. In the hurry and bustle of last night's engagement, my servant, to whose care I had intrusted my cloak and haversack, disappeared; he returned not during the whole morning; and as no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger, weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost, or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning till night. Nor were the objects which occupied our senses of sight and hearing quite such as we should have desired to occupy them. In other parts of the field, the troops, not shut up as we were by the enemy's guns, employed themselves in burying the dead, and otherwise effacing the traces of warfare. The site of our encampment continued to be strewed with carcases to the last; and so watchful were the crew of the schooner, that every effort to convey them out of sight brought a heavy fire upon the party engaged in it. I must say, that the enemy's behaviour on the present occasion was not such as did them honour. The house which General Kean had originally occupied as head-quarters, being converted into an hospital, was filled at this time with wounded, both from the British and American armies. To mark its uses, a yellow flag, the usual signal in such cases, was hoisted on the roof—yet did the Americans continue to fire at it, as often as a group of six or eight persons happened to show themselves at the door. Nay, so utterly regardless were they of the dictates of humanity, that even the parties who were in the act of conveying the wounded from place to place, escaped not without molestation. More than one such party was dispersed by grape-shot, and more than one poor maimed soldier was in consequence hurled out of the blanket in which he was borne.

The reader will not doubt me when I say, that seldom has the departure of day-light been more anxiously looked for by me, than we looked for it now. It is true, that the arrival of a little rum towards evening served in some slight degree to elevate our spirits; but we could not help feeling, not vexation only, but positive indignation, at the state of miserable inaction to which we were condemned.

There was not a man amongst us who would have hesitated one moment, had the choice been submitted to him, whether he would advance or lie still. True, we might have suffered a little, because the guns of the schooner entirely commanded us; and in rushing out from our place of concealment some casualties would have occurred; but so irksome was our situation, that we would have readily run all risks to change it. It suited not the plans of our general, however, to indulge these wishes. To the bank we were enjoined to cling; and we did cling to it, from the coming in of the first gray twilight of the morning, till the last twilight of evening had departed.

As soon as it was well dark, the corps to which Charlton and myself were attached received orders to file off to the right. We obeyed, and passing along the front of the hospital, we skirted to the rear of the village, and established ourselves in the field beyond. It was a positive blessing this restoration to something like personal freedom. The men set busily to work, lighting fires and cooking provisions;—the officers strolled about, with no other apparent design than to give employment to their limbs, which had become stiff with so protracted a state of inaction. For ourselves we visited the wounded, said a few kind words to such as we recognised, and pitied, as they deserved to be pitied, the rest. Then retiring to our fire, we addressed ourselves with hearty good will to a frugal supper, and gladly composed ourselves to sleep.—A Subaltern in America.—Blackwood's Magazine.

SONNET—NOCHE SERENA

How tranquil is the night! The torrent's roar
Dies off far distant; through the lattice streams
The pure, white, silvery moonshine, mantling o'er
The couch and curtains with its fairy gleams.
Sweet is the prospect; sweeter are the dreams
From which my loathful eyelid now unclosed:—
Methought beside a forest we reposed,
Marking the summer sun's far western beams,
A dear-loved friend and I. The nightingale
To silence and to us her pensive tale
Sang forth; the very tone of vanish'd years
Came o'er me, feelings warm, and visions bright;
Alas! how quick such vision disappears,
To leave the spectral moon and silent night!

    Delta of Blackwood's Magazine.

ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE BEECH TREE.—A NONCONDUCTOR OF LIGHTNING

Dr. Beeton, in a letter to Dr. Mitchill of New York, dated 19th of July, 1824, states, that the beech tree (that is, the broad leaved or American variety of Fagus sylvatiea,) is never known to be assailed by atmospheric electricity. So notorious, he says, is this fact, that in Tenessee, it is considered almost an impossibility to be struck by lightning, if protection be sought under the branches of a beech tree. Whenever the sky puts on a threatening aspect, and the thunder begins to roll, the Indians leave their pursuit, and betake themselves to the shelter of the nearest beech tree, till the storm pass over; observation having taught these sagacious children of nature, that, while other trees are often shivered to splinters, the electric fluid is not attracted by the beech. Should farther observation establish the fact of the non-conducting quality of the American beech, great advantage may evidently be derived from planting hedge rows of such trees around the extensive barn yards in which cattle are kept, and also in disposing groups and single trees in ornamental plantations in the neighbourhood of the dwelling houses of the owners.—New Monthly Magazine.

ANTIQUITIES

A valuable discovery was made the other day in Westminster Abbey. It had become necessary to make repairs near the tomb of Edward the Confessor, when, by removing a portion of the pavement, an exquisitely beautiful piece of carved work, which had originally formed part of the shrine of Edward's tomb, was discovered. This fine relic, the work of the eleventh or twelfth century, appears to have been studded with precious stones; and the presumption is, that during the late civil wars it was taken down for the purpose of plunder, and after the gems were taken out, buried under the ground (very near the surface of the earth) to avoid detection.—Ibid.

ARCHERY

Previous to introducing the communication of a much respected correspondent, who has well described, by drawing and observation, a Royal Archer of Scotland, we shall offer a few general remarks on the subject of the above engraving, which relates to an amusement which we are happy to find is patronized in many counties in England by respectable classes of society at this day. No instrument of warfare is more ancient than that of the bow and arrow, and the skill of the English bowmen is celebrated. It seems, that in ancient times the English had the advantage over enemies chiefly by their archers and light-armed troops.

The archers were armed with a long-bow, a sheaf of arrows, a sword, and a small shield.

The cross-bowmen, as their name implies, were armed with the cross-bow, and arrows called quarrels.

Even after the invention of guns, the English archers are spoken of as excelling those of all other nations; and an ancient writer affirms that an English arrow, with a little wax upon its point, would pass through any ordinary corselet or cuirass. It is uncertain how far the archers with the long-bow could send an arrow; but the cross-bowmen could shoot their quarrels to the distance of forty rods, or the eighth part of a mile. For a more general and extended notice of the history of archery, however, we refer our readers to a recent volume,[2 - MIRROR, Vol. viii., p. 324.] and here we have the correspondence alluded to a few lines above.

A ROYAL ARCHER OF SCOTLAND

(For the Mirror.)

"Good-morrowe, good fellow,—
Methinks, by this bowe thou beares in thy hand
A good archere thou shouldst bee."

    Old Ballad.
I feel happy that it is in my power to present a drawing, made expressly for the purpose, of the picturesque costume worn by the Royal Company of Archers, or King's Body Guard of Scotland. This is described in Stark's "Picture of Edinburgh" thus:—"Their uniform is 42nd tartan, with green velvet collar and cuffs, and a Highland bonnet, with feathers; on the front of the bonnet is the cross of St. Andrew, and a gold arrow on the collar of the jacket." There is a something in the very idea of an archer, and in the name of Robin Hood, particularly charming to most bosoms, coming as they do to us fraught with all delicious associations; the wild, free forest life, the sweet pastime, the adventures of bold outlaws amid the heaven of sylvan scenery, and the national renown of British bowmen which mingles with the records of our chivalry in history and romance; while the revival of archery in England of late years, as an elegant amusement, sufficiently proves that the high feeling which seems mysteriously to blend a present age with one long since gone by, is not totally extinct. Shall I venture to assert, that for this we are indebted to the charmed light cast around a noble and ancient pastime by the antiquary, poet, and romance-writer of modern times? But to return, the Scottish archers were first formed into a company and obtained a charter, granting them great privileges, under the reign of queen Anne, for which they were to pay to the crown, annually, a pair of barbed arrows. One of these allowances was, that they might meet and go forth under their officer's conduct, in military form, in manner of weapon-showing, as often as they should think convenient. "But they have made no public parade since 1743,"[3 - Their part in the procession formed to welcome our monarch to his Scottish metropolis, should be excepted.] owing, probably, to the state of parties in Edinburgh, for their attachment to the Stuart family was well understood, and falling under the suspicion of the British government after the rebellion of 1745, they were watched, "and spies appointed to frequent their company." The company possess a house built by themselves, termed Archers' Hall. All their business is transacted by a president and six counsellors, who are nominated by the members at large, and have authority to admit or reject candidates ad libitum. The number of this association is now very great, having been of late years much increased; they have standards, with appropriate emblems and mottoes, and shoot for several prizes annually; amongst these are a silver bowl and arrows, which, by a singular regulation, "are retained by the successful candidate only one year, when he appends a medal to them; and as these prizes are of more than a hundred years standing, the number of medals now attached to them are very curious."

To this notice may I be permitted to subjoin a few stanzas? Old Izaak Walton hath put songs and sylvan poesy in plenty into the mouths of his anglers and rural dramatis personae, and shall I be blamed for following, in all humility, his illustrious example? Perchance—but hold! it is one of the fairest of summer mornings; the sun sheds a pure, a silvery light on the young, fresh, new-waked foliage and herbage; a faint mist veils the blue distance of the landscape; but the pearly shroud conceals not yonder troop of young blithe men, who, arranged in green, after the olden fashion, each bearing the implements of archery, and tripping lightly over the heath, are carolling in the joy of their free spirits, while the fresh breeze brings to my ear most distinctly the words of

THE ARCHER'S SONG

Away!—away!—yon golden sun
Hath chas'd nights' shadows damp and dun;
Forth from his turfy couch, the lark