80,000 or 90,000 of the best troops in France, he demanded and obtained the assistance of a corps of the Prussian army. This aid was readily given; but the Prussians could not reach the field of action until past four o'clock, and then only in partial force. For four hours, the duke had to sustain the French attack with only 68,221 men, half of whom were but indifferent troops. It was not till seven in the evening that, the whole of Gen. Bulow's corps having come up, the allied force had become equal to that under Buonaparte.

The French array has been, with great art and studied contrivance, reduced, in the Historical Memoir, to 68,650 men. But every figure in that statement is refuted by some sufficient contradiction. In that statement he calls the first corps 17,900 men: Ney, who commanded it, calls it above 25,000. He sets down the second corps, sometimes at 22,000, sometimes at 16,500: Lacroix, chief of the staff of that corps, declares it to have been 25,000. He reckons the cavalry of the guard and the cuirassiers at 10,000 in the table; but when he speaks of them in the narrative, he calls them "twelve thousand." By these glimpses of the truth, we easily perceive that the real strength of his army has been carefully reduced, in the tables given in the Historical Memoir, by about one-fourth; and that the truth was told in his original bulletin, when he only ventured to assert that his army was "less numerous" than the English and Prussian united, reckoning these at 95,000 men. We come, therefore, to the conclusion, that his army cannot have been much less than 90,000.

These 90,000 men-being literally the élite of the French army; containing above 20,000 of the famed Imperial Guard, and 7000 cuirassiers; the first corps, reckoned by Ney at 25,000; the second, stated by Lacroix at an equal number; and the sixth, of less strength-were brought to bear, at twelve o'clock in the day, upon the Anglo-Belgian army of 68,000 men; out of which only 17,616 were British infantry. This vast disparity of force continued, and the attack was sustained, in

spite of it, for more than four hours before the Prussian succour arrived. It was half-past four o'clock, according to the Prussian dispatch, before their corps came into action; and then only two brigades of General Bulow's corps had arrived.

The Duke's array was not yet, even with their aid, augmented to 80,000 men; nor was it till seven o'clock, when the whole of Bulow's corps had come up, that the allied force amounted to 90,000 men,equalling the French in numbers, but still inferior in composition.

And thus did the struggle continue until past eight o'clock in the evening, when Buonaparte's last attack having failed, and "the troops retiring from the attack in great confusion ;"*. -at that critical moment Marshal Blucher himself came into the field with a further reinforcement. The sun was just setting; but, encouraged by this aid, the Duke made all his line advance, the Prussians rushed upon the enemy's flank, and in a moment all was flight, havoc, and consternation.

Buonaparte endeavours to palliate his defeat by arguing that the Prussians ought not to have been there, and that Marshal Grouchy ought to have come up instead. That this is a mere after-thought we learn from his own bulletin; in which no complaint of Grouchy is made, and in which the interference of a Prussian corps is spoken of as foreseen. The only degree, therefore, in which Buonaparte's plea can be admitted is, that he might indulge some hope that Grouchy might have kept Blucher himself in play, and have prevented more then Bulow's corps from moving. This, however, was one of the "chances of war," and it turned up against him. Nor, if it had occurred, would it have materially affected the loss of the battle. The arrival of Blucher at half-past eight, was, by Buonaparte's own confession, just after the last French attack had been repulsed. It had no share in defeating the French; but it at once turned their defeat into rout, and wholly ruined their army.

Mr. Horne's conclusion of the whole matter is as follows:-

"It was a drawn battle between the English and French, even with the timely assistance of Bulow's division. The victory is attributable to the Prussians; that is, to the arrival of their 30,000 fresh men at the close of the day. In Prussia, the chief fame of the victory is awarded, not to Blucher, but to Bulow. In England it is, of course, awarded to the Duke of Wellington, though not, at this day, to a very popular extent.”

This is the customary tone of depreciation which is kept up throughout Mr. Horne's work. He dare not go the length of the Historical Memoir, and claim the whole honour for the usurper, but he scarcely allows any merit to either of his opponents. The simple truth, however, is, that

the Duke met the attack of Buonaparte-in which the latter, knowing his superiority of force, reckoned on an easy victory-with such consummate skill, that, after eight hours fighting, the French "retired in disorder.' Then rushed in the Prussian field-marshal with his fresh troops, thirsting to wipe off the disgrace of Ligny, and these turned the defeat, which was already realised, into an utter rout and slaughter. Finally, the whole of the plans and intentions of the duke were fully carried out, and were pre-eminently successful; while the schemes of the usurper were, by his own confession, countermined, reversed, and made to work out his own full and final destruction.

Of light no likeness is bequeathed."

Theodore Hook is dead! Fallen untimely; for though no longer in the "May of life," he had not o'ertaken the sear and yellow of his days, nor lost the summer freshness of his mind; which might be said to have attained to the maturity and ripeness of autumn without any of its decay. He "should have died hereafter!" Mr. Hook was an extraordinary man. Those who knew him only from his writings knew but a very slight portion of the surpassing faculties of his mind. It was necessary to be acquainted with him personally, and in society, to be able to form any thing like a just conception or appreciation of his excelling powers. His pen failed to do the writer justice -it never fully exhibited the extent and variety of his genius. It seemed as if his talent was essentially oral, and refused to give itself wholly to a more permanent means of sustaining his reputation. Mr. Hook himself had a poor opinion of his printed productions, and always spoke of them to his familiar friends with unaffected, though playful disdain, marvelling how "such trash" found acceptance with the public. He wrote professedly for money; and, as he was

"not sedulous by nature to indite," never attempted to write until the very moment he was pressed to do

SO.

What he did in a literary way was sudden and unpremeditated, like his wit in conversation, and never cost him more thought or time than that he employed in the immediate execution. He had not a grain of vanity. He would allow the commonest intellect in a person he liked to point out any alleged blot or imperfection in his compositions, and, if not too late, correct them under such criticism. Mr. Hook had been the darling of a remarkably talented mother, who dying while he was a mere boy, and his father, then at an advanced age, making a second marriage, an act naturally distasteful to his young son, to whom he had not given any profession, Theodore yielded to circumstance, threw himself upon the world's resources for his happiness, became the spoiled child of Society; and before he was eighteen, his company was coveted and courted by a wide range of fashionable and noble friends, as well as literary contemporaries.

In the year 1805 he became acquainted with Mathews. Hook having commenced dramatic authorship in a farce entitled the Soldier's Return, acted with great success at Drury Lane, had free access thenceforward to the green-room, wherein he conceived a great friendship for the comedian, at whose house he visited frequently

nay, daily (for they were near neighbours), for many years after.

Theodore was at that time a tall, slim, fashionable-looking youth, with a fine figure; black clustering curls hanging about his animated face, every line of which was full of intelligence and genius. Without being handsome, he was extremely goodlooking; with dark and lustrous eyes, which were ears also in expression, for he seemed to hear as well as see with them. He thought himself ugly; and often with undoubted sincerity declared that, had a choice been given to him, he would have preferred beauty to any other earthly possession. As he grew older he treated this subject, as he treated many others, with a humour that was delighting to all near him; and in later days was very fond of exercising his pencil, with a power he possessed in no mean degree, in producing caricatures of his own increased figure and altered face, by such means goodhumouredly anticipating and blunting the observations that others might be inclined to make upon his prematurely changed appearance.

Mr. Hook's early love of "fun" was uncontrollable; his perceptions of the ridiculous, keen and unerring; and his desire to amuse himself and others with his observations and experiments upon folly and credulity was irresistible. His descriptions, then and since, of circumstances, men, and things, were curiously graphic and entertaining; and the most trivial particulars in detail were made important and laughable by his peculiar style of narration.

In other respects he loved in his youthful glee to divert those with whom he was intimate, and also to startle them by the feats of nerve displayed by him in any rash undertaking. No juggler, practising his varied sleights of hand successfully upon his audience, and perceiving the wonder his dextrous ingenuity excited, could feel more triumphant pride than did the youthful Theodore when "astonishing the natives," or his friends and companions by his venturous exploits and practical exertions for their amusement, and at the same time his own. In the quality of a dramatic author, it has been mentioned he had the entrée of the greenroom, where he became for the time

the Little Pickle of the building, enacting as much mischief as the renowned original himself ever concocted in the person of the inimitable Mrs. Jordan. Some of his boyish frolics, not generally known, may not be unentertaining to the reader. One season at Drury Lane theatre, during the run of a stilted melodrama, made up of magic and mysticism, a gigantic oracle had occasion to send forth in brazen voice certain awful revelations to the victimising hero of the scene; Theodore one night crossing behind the stage on his way out of the theatre, found himself close to the wood and canvass which composed the form and substance of the oracular prophet; and observing the tube through which some appointed person nightly issued the supernatural intelligence requisite "for the better carrying on of the plot" lying ready, but unattended by the person who had to perform the duty in question, Theodore spontaneously undertook the part.

This happened at a period of great political excitement on the hustings; and ere the proper person could regain the tube, and at the moment before the demon-hero expected to hear the soul-harrowing intimation that "the clock had struck !" Theodore, through the medium of oracular eloquence, blew a blast so loud and dread, that the expectant actor and the whole theatre were electrified by the extraordinary noise, and in the next minute all party-feeling was astonished, agitated, and confounded, by another almost stunning shout, which defied the characteristic unity of the drama's time and place, and all chronological consistency, by the popular and deafening acclamation of

(6 BURDETT FOR EVER!"

On another occasion Theodore placed himself one night under the stage of the Haymarket theatre just as Mr. Liston was preparing in the comedy called the Finger-Post, to sing a song as a Quaker, the air as well as the words of which was extremely quaint and precise in its character. Hook had provided himself with a child's wooden trumpet, the squeak of which he introduced at the end of every line of each verse in such a manner as to occasion the most up

roarious bursts of laughter all over the house. The singer, also, being so convulsed by the oddity of the mysterious accompaniment, with great difficulty proceeded with the song, which was encored partly for the novelty which attended it; and the same result of universal laughter rewarded the subterraneous musician, who, with great skill, gave most fanciful variations to his repeated efforts, for the increased diversion of his hearers. Many, many such pranks were at that period of life successfully enacted by the young Theodore; some of which he has since ascribed to Daly, in the halftrue, half-fictitious history of Gilbert Gurney. These off-sets of an untamed and irrepressible vivacity in perfect leisure, were generally performed spontaneously, and mostly without any of the persons acted upon being at the time aware of the perpetrator.

A more elaborate and difficult undertaking, however, than either of those just recorded was fulfilled by Theodore in one of these idle hours of youth. It was his invariable habit, whether engaged formally, or destined to take a chop alone at a coffee-house, or an unceremonious dinner with a friend, to put on a dinner dress, which in that day rigorously demanded shoes neither boots with their shining, then unknown, adjunct, patent-blacking, nor black silk neckcloths, being, as now, admitted into an evening drawing-room. It happened one winter's day that Theodore had made up his mind to dine tête-à-tête with a bachelor friend, who it was understood was to be found at home always on a particular day of the week; and arriving at the house of this friend, to whom we will on this occasion lend the name of Perkins, he found him prepared to step into a hackney-coach to attend a dinner engagement elsewhere. Theodore, quite upset in his plan by this untoward arrangement, entered the coach with Mr. Perkins, inquiring, as they drove off, whither he was going, with the view of accompanying him in his visit, if to the house of any mutual friend; for Theodore had reason to know that he would be

welcomed with gladness wherever he was known. It, however, happened that Perkins was going to a more formal engagement than Hook chose to partake in; and the rain pouring hard at the moment, the dinnerless wight was puzzled what to do with himself, sportively declaring, however, that he would stop somewhere to dine, before Perkins was set down at his destination; and just as he made this declaration the crawling hack passed a genteel-looking house, where by the fire-light in the diningroom (the curtains of which had not yet been closed) a table was laid with about a dozen covers; and Hook, remarking that it looked very inviting, put his head out of the window of the coach, crying, "Stop, stop!" adding, as he turned to his friend, "I'll dine here;" and instantly prepared to alight as the coachman let down the steps.

"What!" inquired Perkins, "do you, then, know the people who live there?"

"Oh, no!" replied Theodore, with his droll, murmuring chuckle of a laugh, "I haven't the remotest idea who they may be; but I'll dine with them, nevertheless. I dare say they'll have no objection; so call for me on your return home, and you will find me snugly domiciled."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed his incredulous friend; "you would not think of introducing yourself in such a manner to strangers? I won't believe you have nerve for such a proceeding."

This was enough. Perkins's doubt acted as a challenge. Theodore's mind was made up to "the stickingplace;" and a wager's risk decided the point. He promised Perkins that he would not only dine at the house in question, but make it indisputable to his friend, if he would call for him on his return home, that he had not previously known the owner of the house. "Inquire for me,” said Hook,

on your way back, and you will find me." He then descended, and immediately knocked at the door of the house, where his friend in utter amazement saw the intruder enter, and then drove off.

At the time fixed Mr. Perkins

stopped again at the door which he had seen close upon his adventurous friend a few hours before, and, timidly inquiring whether "Mr. Hook was there," he was respectfully requested to alight, and forthwith ushered up-stairs; at the top of which he was met by the master of the house, who politely assured him that any friend of Mr. Hook's was most welcome. He then conducted him into the drawing-room, whence joyous sounds of merriment had previously reached his ear as he ascended the staircase; and were now easily understood, for he beheld Theodore seated, quite at his ease, surrounded by a delighted circle of ladies and gentlemen, who had neither eyes nor ears for any thing but the charming person before them. Perkins was dumb with admiration and confusion; but no one observed his embarrassment-indeed, no one saw him enter, so much were all absorbed by another object. The master of the house, however, reluctantly withdrew his attention from the hero of the scene occasionally, and sacrificed his own pleasure now and then to politeness and the new-comer. By what Mr. Perkins elicited from his host, he was soon satisfied that Hook's visit there was purely unexpected,- the master of the house congratulating himself upon the fortunate mistake of Mr. Hook; adding, that he was the most fascinating person he had ever known. And by degrees Mr. Perkins became informed of the process by which his friend had established himself within the house.

It appeared that on the opening of the street-door, after he had been let out of the hackney-coach, Theodore gave his name, with his hat and cane, to the servant, following the announcement of it into the drawingroom, where, looking about him with affected surprise, of which the host and hostess evidently partook in no small degree, he inquired whether he was not in the house of Mr. -? and was immediately answered in the negative,

"Bless me!" cried the astonished youth, "surely I've made no mistake! This is No. 8 ?"

"Oh, certainly," was the response. “ And does not Mr.. live here?" He was again answered in the negative.

"How very extraordinary!" exclaimed Theodore. "If, then, he does not live here, I have forgotten the street in which my friend's note mentioned he had taken a house. What a dilemma! I must give up all hope of finding him out to-day. He's at this moment, doubtless, waiting dinner for me; and wait he must, for I haven't the slightest recollection of his address if this be not it. Unfortunately, too, the carriage that set me down has driven off with a friend whom I requested to take me up again on his way home at night. Very awkward, indeed!"

Many apologies succeeded this unlooked for embarrassment, and were met with as many polite assurances from the master of the house that there was no occasion for them. Hook requested, perceiving, as he said, that it still poured with rain, that a servant might be permitted to call him a coach; and in the interval the intruder talked very pleasantly, so pleasantly, that before the coach arrived, the gentleman of the house having telegraphed with his wife, and been answered satisfactorily in the same manner-just as Hook requested the additional favour that a message might be delivered to his friend Perkins when he called, to account to him for not meeting him there, and was retreating with a graceful bow, the master of the house interposed a polite hope that, as all chance of Mr. Hook's engagement being fulfilled was out of the question, he would honour him by taking a seat at his dinner-table that occasion, and await his friend's arrival, who doubtless would be much disappointed at not finding him there. To this hospitable proposal the modest Theodore offered some faint scruples, but at length hesitatingly assented after a more earnest entreaty, seconded by the handsome mistress of the house; and the unexpected guest, with the hospitable lady on his arm, descended in secret triumph to the dinner-room, where it is sufficient to say the guest rapidly developed his engaging powers, and insensibly won all hearts. The ladies quitted the table tardily,

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