open space where the battle was fought is precisely in the state in which it existed when Edward took up a position on the hill above the town, and prepared his forces for the reception of the enemy. The selection of this admirable military position is universally considered to have displayed great judgment on the part of Edward and his marshals, and the vast numerical inferiority of his army was in some degree compensated by their judicious arrangements, and by the interval of repose obtained by the troops previous to the approach of the enemy.

The hill of Cressy, thus occupied by the English army, is a broad shoulder of land, proceeding from the high open country on the north. It presents a considerable escarpment at its southern extremity, overlooking the town of Cressy, as well as on its west side, the rear of Edward's position. On the eastern side the escarpment is less marked, and gradually diminishes until united with the level of the plateau on the north. The valley in front of this side, bearing the name of the Vallée des Clercs, much resembles that well-known hollow between the English and French positions at Waterloo, except that, instead of being a uniform depression, as at Waterloo, one end of the Vallée des Clercs slopes to the Maye, and the other rises gradually up to the plateau above. Edward's army occupied the brow overlooking this valley; his right wing rested on the town of Cressy, in which a strong detachment was placed, with the intention apparently of defending the passage of the Maye, a very insignificant stream, not more than seven or eight feet broad, but still, in connexion with its marshy meadow, capable of adding considerably to the security of Edward's situation. The King of England in person commanded the right wing, where the tower acted as an excellent observatory for the whole country. The youthful Prince of Wales, then in his sixteenth year, was nominally entrusted with the command of the left wing, but the Marshals Warwick and Harcourt, as well as the Lords Chandos and Holland, were with him, to protect the person and guide the actions, without diminishing the glory of the heir-apparent of the crown. The left wing of the army was on this occasion the post of honour and danger, for it possessed none of the advantages of ground which characterised the rest of the position. There was no natural escarpment on this side, where the plateau of the hill of Cressy uniting on a level with the high ground on the north, offers, of course, the easiest access to an attacking enemy. The insecurity of this extremity of his position was not disregarded by Edward:"he accordingly provided against it by a fortification constructed after the fashion of Attila and his Huns upon the plains of Chalons. He collected all his own baggagewaggons, as well as all the carts and carriages of the country upon which he could lay his hands, and formed with them a barricade of considerable strength, which actually proved of most essential service in the very crisis of the battle. In front of the men-at-arms of the Prince's line, stood those formidable archers whose cloth-yard shafts became for many years such terrible instruments of destruction wherever they flew. This redoubtable phalanx, forming nearly half the army, was drawn up in the figure of a triangle, which Froissart compares to the "herse," the common French wooden harrow, an implement we see lying about in all directions in France, by the sides of the fields and roads, or suspended by its pointed end under the eaves of the farm-buildings, of so very primitive and simple a nature, that no agricultural associations can by any possibility have improved upon the pristine model, which probably

dates from the days of Triptolemus. Thus was formed the line of battle, extending all along the crest of the ridge which faces towards the gentle declivity of the Vallée des Clercs. Behind the line was Edward's reserve, under the command of the Earl of Arundel, and still further in the rear, all his baggage, parked, and backed by the wood of Cressy Grange. Among the various discordant enumerations of the English forces, the exact truth, if it was ever known, has been lost irrecoverably; but as Edward's army, on his first arrival in Normandy, did not exceed 40,000 men, it is not likely that more than from 25,000 to 30,000 were brought into the field at Cressy.

The Prince of Wales, by Edward's order, was armed with a black cuirass of richly wrought steel, from which circumstance he was ever afterwards surnamed the Black Prince; the king himself does not appear to have armed immediately for battle, but at an early hour in the morning of the ever-memorable day, the 26th of August, 1346, he rode along the line, dressed in a cap and mantle of green velvet, ornamented with gold, and holding a white staff in his hand, to inspect and animate his soldiers; after exhorting them to conduct themselves with honour, he forbade on pain of death that any man for the sake of pillage should dare to quit the ranks, for if the fortune of the day should declare against them, all booty would be useless; he caused them to receive the sacrament, to rest, seated on the ground, with their helmets and bows before them, and above all, "boire et mengier un morsiel et rafraichir," so that they might be vigorous and ready for action on the arrival of the enemy. "When every man," says Hollingshed, was gotten into order of battle, the king leapt upon a white hobby, and rode from rank to rank to view them, the one marshall on his right hand, and the other on his left, desiring every man that day to have regard to his right and honour; he spoke it so courteously and with so good a countenance, that even they which before were discomforted, took courage on hearing him speak such sweet and loving words amongst them. It was nine of the clock yer ever he had thus visited all his 'vassals' (divisions), and thereupon he caused every man to eat and drink a little, which they did at their leisure." The appearance of cannon at Cressy is more remarkable, from the circumstance of that being the first battle in which they were ever employed, than from their having performed any real service during the engagement. The fact of their being there at all has even been doubted, from the silence of Froissart, who has been charged also with a wilful suppression of all mention of them, in order to elevate the glory of the English arms. But Villani, who died within two years of the battle, expressly describes their dreadful noise, and their effect upon men and horses. Moreover, the MS. preserved at Amiens affirms that, "li Angles descliquierent aucuns kanons qu'il avoient en la battaille." One of these antique guns is still in the Tower of London, having escaped the conflagration of 1841. Whatever they were, and in whatever numbers, we can hardly suppose that they told with any degree of effect upon the events of the day, so as to tend in the least to the final issue of the conflict.

Firmly planted on the Hill of Cressy, with a marvellous hardihood, undaunted by disparity of numbers, and undisturbed by the presence of his boy son in the face of imminent danger, the English monarch, with his five-and-twenty thousand men, quietly awaited the approach of his hundred thousand enemies.

TICK;

OR,

MEMOIRS OF AN OLD ETON BOY.

BY CHARLES ROWCROFT, AUTHOR OF “TALES OF THE COLONIES; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

PEOPLE may talk as they please of the advantages of civilisation; but there is one characteristic of the present social system which may suggest a doubt, whether after all, the balance is all on one side; and that is the modern system of all the world being in debt. If those respectable savages, our forefathers-and respectable they must be presumed to have been seeing how very fond most persons are of referring to their "ancestors" and it being indisputable that the further they go back the less clothed and the more savage their ancestors must have been ;-I say, if those respectable savages, our forefathers, had to bear the inconveniences of mud huts without chimneys, and villages without drainage, and were obliged to live in a little dirt; on the other hand, they enjoyed the inestimable advantage of not being in debt! The furniture and conveniences of their dwellings were, doubtless, of the simplest kind, and when they went abroad to take the air, they were content to array themselves in unsophisticated sheepskins; it is true also, that having a naturally-philosophical contempt for death with a concomitant disregard for the lives of other people, they were in the habit, too unceremoniously, of killing their friends and relations, and occasionally of eating them-a state of things repugnant to our notions of polite behaviour and to modern cookery, and calculated to engender family animosities; but, then, to counterbalance those disagreeables, it must be remembered, that they had no acceptances to pay! They lived in that blessed time before the invention of bills of exchange! and savages as they were, they were not so savage as to have devised the modern laws of debtor and creditor; laws, which, although still suffered to exist in this civilised and professingChristian state, are, by the declaration of four living lord-chancellors and of one some time since deceased (Lord Eldon) and by the unanimous opinion of all thinkers and writers, justly reprobated as vicious and demoralising, and most disgraceful to the legislature; and which seem to have been devised rather by a conclave of demons in hell with the desire of spreading mischief, and hatred, and misery among mankind, than by a Christian people professing to deal with one another according to the precepts of Christian charity; but to dwell further on this point, at this time, would be too digressive; I return, therefore, to my story.

Tormented with the thoughts of my own experience of one of the miseries of civilisation, and perplexed with the difficulty of breaking the matter to my father, I mechanically followed my horse into the stable and sat down upon the corn-bin. There I remained for a considerable time in a melancholy reverie. Our ancient coachman, who was now

grown full of years (and beer), but who still retained for me that affection which he had originally conceived for me as his quasi-foster-son, from the memorable circumstance of my nurse having borrowed for my use the baby-clothes of his own forthcoming heir-apparent, observed my depression; and seeing from the forlorn expression of my countenance that something lay heavy, like a truss of hay, upon my heart, he leaned benevolently on his pitchfork with which he was dressing up my horse's bed, and attempted words of comfort.

"Sorry to see you out of sorts, Master Leander."

Sometimes he called me master and sometimes mister; on occasions of ceremony making use of the latter distinction, and falling into the more familiar "master" at times when his sympathy was called into exercise by the show of any grief or disturbance on my part.

Sorry to see you out of sorts; nothing gone wrong noways with Sultan, I hope ?"

"Nothing," said I.

"Hasn't been down?" (here he smoothed down my horse's knees with his hand); "all right there?"

"No," said I.

"Been shy at his leaps, p'rhaps; you do put him to it sometimes, I must say, Master Leander; a horse is only a horse after all."

"It's not that," said I.

The old coachman took a deliberate and scientific survey of my favourite horse, including his fetlocks, shoes, and frogs, and ending with his tail, which he combed out affectionately with a comb which he took from his waistcoat-pocket.

"You see, Master Leander," said he, "that a horse is only a horse, and hasn't the sense of a Christian, although for that matter I've seen one of 'em do for an old horse that had lost his teeth what Christians wouldn't do for one another, and that is, chew his victuals for him, but still you see, they haven't got quite the sense of Christians; and if you've been a-putting him at that piece of water that you turned him over in t'other day, why you mustn't be surprised if he gibb'd a bit; a burnt child dreads the fire, you know, Master Leander, and so may a drowned horse shy the water."

Having delivered himself of this philosophical apophthegm, which he evidently regarded as a rhetorical hit, he applied himself again to the horse's tail to which he gave an additional finish with his iron comb, and then leaning complacently on his pitchfork, he awaited my reply.

"I never went near the water," I replied-still musing.

My old friend mused upon this, also; it was plain that there was something wrong with his young master, but what it was, since the horse was all right, it was out of his power to divine. But as a natural association of ideas suggested to him that my melancholy had something to do with the house which I had left; and as certain remarks had already been begun to be spread abroad about my adventures ghostly and otherwise, the affectionate instinct of my quasi-foster-father led him to surmise that the hitch lay in that quarter, and that my pretensions in respect to the young lady had not met with a satisfactory reception. This was a delicate point to touch on; but as he had my interest too much at heart not to enter into all my likes and dislikes as if they were his own, he contrived to

convey his inquiries and consolations, like the Eastern patriarchs of old, in the shape of parables :

"I've sometimes thought, Master Leander," said he, "that if we could sift away our troubles as I am sifting these oats, it would be a good thing for all of us. You see the same saddle won't fit every horse, and you can't have any thing quite the real thing in this world, Master Leander, not even oats, although master does give the best price for 'em as a gentleman should do, and they cost him almost as much as if he grew 'em himself! But, you see, there's chaff and husks in all our pleasures, Master Leander; now, to my mind it's the wisest thing to blow the chaff away and to riddle the husks through the sieve and enjoy the corn that's left behind without fretting about the rubbish."

"You are quite a philosopher," said I, with a melancholy smile.

"Well-I've heard that word before, tho' I can't say I understand exactly the meaning of it; but it's something complimental, no doubt, Master Leander, or you wouldn't make use of it to an old friend like me."

"It means that to drive through the world so as to be disturbed with the jolts as little as possible, one must be a philosopher."

"Well-Master Leander, I dare say what you say is very right, but to my mind now, it's best to drive so as not to make any jolts, and then, you see, you needn't trouble yourself about the bearing of them as you wouldn't have any to bear.'

"You speak," said I, "like a second Socrates!" "And whose coachman was he? Well-that's no odds; but you see the hay that the old coach-horse is straining after in the rack yonder; that bit that's fallen across the hoop. Now, you see, he can't get it strain as he may, for he can't make his neck longer than it is, let him strain never so much; but if you'll give it a shove down for him, then you see he can make a mouthful of it; and that's what I call one friend helping another, Master Leander."

"What I want is beyond your help!" said I, with a sigh.

"Sorry for it, Master Leander; I wish the wheel went round the other way:-but some troubles for certain are worse than others, as some horses have splints and sand-cracks more than others, and the best jockey that ever dealt in horseflesh can't tell the reason of it. I remember one day when I was waiting at table, I heard an army officer say, that the very worst troubles come from money and women, and that it is sometimes from having too little and sometimes too much of the one, and always from having too little of t'other; and I think what the gentleman said was right for I've observed with horses. . . ."

What was the point of philosophy which the worthy coachman intended to illustrate, and what were the points of similarity between women and horses which he was about to adduce, must be for ever lost to posterity, for at the words "money and women" unintentional and unpremeditated as was the hit, it came upon me suddenly, as a "hit upon the raw" to avail myself of stable phraseology, and I started up and paced up and down the stable for a brief space with evident signs of perturbation in my

countenance.

The old man evinced his sympathy with my trouble by a look of extreme anxiety and by a prolonged and meditative scratch of his head