TWO:The fire had soon become general, and a desperate struggle was raging along the whole line. Buonaparte threw column after column forward against the British squares; but they were met with deadly volleys of artillery and musketry, and reeled back amid horrible slaughter. A desperate push was made to carry La Haye Sainte and the farm of Mont St. Jean, on Wellington's left centre, by the cuirassiers, followed by four columns of French infantry. The cuirassiers charged furiously along the Genappe causeway, but were met and hurled back by the heavy British cavalry. The four columns of infantry reached La Haye Sainte and dispersed a body of Belgians; but Picton, advancing with Pack's brigade, forced them back, and the British cavalry, which had repulsed the cuirassiers, attacking them in flank, they were broken with heavy slaughter and left two thousand prisoners and a couple of eagles behind them. But the British, both cavalry and infantry, pursuing their advantage too far, were in turn repulsed with great loss, and Generals Picton and Ponsonby were killed. The French then again surrounded La Haye Sainte, where a detachment of the German legion, falling short of ammunition, and none being able to be conveyed to them, were literally massacred, refusing to surrender. In a little time the French were driven out of the farmhouses by shells.In literature, and the amount of genius in every branch of it, as well as in mechanical skill, few ages ever transcended that of George III. Though he and his Ministers did their best to repress liberty, they could not restrain the liberty of the mind, and it burst forth on all sides with almost unexampled power. In fact, throughout Europe, during this period, a great revolution in taste took place. The old French influence and French models, which had prevailed in most countries since the days of Louis XIV., were now abandoned, and there was a return to nature and originality. "The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," collected by Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, and the publication of the old Scottish ballads by Walter Scott, snapped the spell which had bound the intellect since the days of Pope, and opened the sealed eyes of wondering scholars; and they saw, as it were, "a new heaven and a new earth" before them. They once more felt the fresh breath of the air and ocean, smelt the rich odour of the heath and the forest, and the oracles of the heart were reopened, as they listened again to the whispers of the eternal winds. Once more, as of old to prophets and prophetic kings, there was "a sound of going in the tops of the trees." In Great Britain, Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Byron, Shelleyin Germany, Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Richterin Scandinavia, Tegner, Oehlenschl?ger, Stagneliuswith a world of lesser lights around them, stood in the glowing beams of a new morning, casting around them the wondrous wealth of a poetry as fresh as it was overflowing. As in poetry, so in prose invention. The novel and romance came forth in totally new forms, and with a life and scope such as they had never yet attained. From Fielding and Sterne to Godwin and Scott, the list of great writers in this department shed a new glory on the English name. In works of all other kinds the same renewal of mind was conspicuous; history took a prominent place, and science entered on new fields.
This theme features some wonderful photography courtesy of Death to the Stock Photo.
