Iberia Won 12

Iberia Won 12

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.”