advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according to the numbers of continental armies; and yet it was more than we could spare. As they rushed towards the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war. We could scarcely believe our senses! Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position? . . . . They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed by those who, without power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of twelve hundred yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line was broken-it was joined by the second, they never halted or checked their speed an instant. With diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries; but ere they were lost to view, the plain was strewed with their bodies and with the carcasses of horses. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to the direct fire of musketry.

Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between

We saw

them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. them riding through the guns, as I have said; to our delight we saw them returning, after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying towards us told the sad tale-demi-gods could not have done what they had failed to do. At the very moment when they were about to retreat a regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the Eighth Hussars, whose attention was drawn to them by Lieutenant Phillips, saw the danger, and rode his few men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss. .

It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of that band of heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately quitted in all the pride of life. At thirty-five minutes past eleven not a British soldier, except the dead and dying, was left in front of these bloody Muscovite guns.

IX. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

[In 1886, Mr. Gladstone, being then in his seventy-seventh year, brought in his first bill for Irish Home Rule. The wonderful series of speeches in its behalf was closed by one of great power on the night of June 7th. It was already clear that the secessions from the Liberal ranks would prevent the passage of the bill to its second reading. Just before the division the Prime Minister spoke. The extract given below reproduces his final appeal.]

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND

This is the earliest moment in our parliamentary history when we have the voice of Ireland authentically expressed in our hearing. Majorities of Home Rulers there may have been upon other occasions; a practical majority of Irish members never has been brought together for such a purpose.

Now, first, we can under

able to deal with her; we

stand her; now, first, we are are able to learn authentically what she wants and wishes, what she offers and will do; and as we ourselves enter into the strongest moral and honorable obligations by the steps which we take in this House, so we have before us practically an Ireland under the representative system able to give us equally authentic information, able morally to convey to us an assurance the breach and rupture of which would cover Ireland with disgrace. What is the case of Ireland at this moment? Have honorable gentlemen considered that they are coming into conflict with a nation? Can anything stop a nation's demand, except its being proved to be immoderate and unsafe? But here are multitudes, and I believe millions upon millions, out-ofdoors, who feel this demand to be neither immoderate nor unsafe. In our opinion, there is but one question before us about this demand. It is as to the time and circumThere is no question in our minds that it will be granted. We wish it to be granted in the mode prescribed by Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke said, in his first speech at Bristol:

stance of granting it.

"I was true to my old-standing, invariable principle, that all things which came from Great Britain should issue as a gift of her bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered

against struggling litigants, or at least if your beneficence obtained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight—not as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe of a rigid necessity."

The difference between giving with freedom and dignity on the one side, with acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving under compulsion, giving with disgrace, giving with resentment dogging you at every step of your path, this difference is, in our eyes, fundamental, and this is the main reason not only why we have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I understand it, is one of the golden moments of our history— one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return, or, if they return, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast.

There have been such golden moments even in the tragic history of Ireland, as her poet says

"One time the harp of Innisfail

Was tuned to notes of gladness."

And then he goes on to say—

"But yet did oftener tell a tale

Of more prevailing sadness."

But there was such a golden moment—it was in 1795—it was on the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. At that moment it is historically clear that the Parliament of Grattan was on the point of solving the Irish problem. The two great knots of that problem were, in the first place, Roman Catholic emancipation; and in the second place, the Reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips, and she was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely

and ruthlessly dashed it to the ground in obedience to the wild and dangerous intimations of an Irish faction.

"Ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri,

Spes Danaûm.”

There has been no great day of hope for Ireland, no day when you might hope completely and definitely to end the controversy, till now-more than ninety years. The long

periodic time has at last run out, and the star has again mounted into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for herself in 1795 we at length have done. The Roman Catholics have been emancipated-emancipated after a woeful disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine years, emancipated slowly, sullenly, not from good will, but from abject terror, with all the fruits and consequences which will always follow that method of legislation. The second problem has been also solved, and the representation of Ireland has been thoroughly reformed; and I am thankful to say that the franchise was given to Ireland on the readjustment of last year with a free heart, with an open hand, and the gift of that franchise was the last act required to make the success of Ireland in her final effort absolutely sure. We have given Ireland a voice; we must all listen for a moment to what she says. We must all listen-both sides, both parties, I mean as they are, divided on this question-divided, I am afraid, by an almost immeasurable gap. We do not undervalue or despise the forces opposed to us. I have described them as the forces of class and its dependents; and that as a general description-as a slight and rude outline of a description—is, I believe, perfectly true. I do not deny that many are against us whom we should have expected to be for us. I do not deny that some whom we see