ttling musketry, to say nothing of
booming artillery, created such a smoke that no unmilitary person could
make head or tail of anything, the 49th Middlesex took advantage of a
hollow, and executed a flank movement that would have done credit to the
42nd Highlanders, and even drew forth an approving nod and smile from
the reviewing officer, who with his cocked-hatted staff witnessed the
movement from an eminence which was swept by a devastating cross-fire
from every part of the field.

When the artillery were ordered to another eminence to check the
movement and dislodge them from the hollow, the gallant 49th stood their
ground in the face of a fire that would have swept that hollow as with
the besom of destruction. They also replied with a continuous discharge
that would, in five minutes, have immolated every man and horse on the
eminence.

When, afterwards, a body of cavalry was sent to teach the gallant 49th a
lesson, and came thundering down on them like a wolf on the fold, or an
avalanche on a Swiss hamlet, they formed square with mathematical
precision, received them with a withering fire that ought to have
emptied every saddle, and, with the bayonet's point, turned them
trooping off to the right and left, discomfited.

When, finally, inflated with the pride of victory, they began to re-form
line too soon, and were caught in the act by the returning cavalry, they
flung themselves into rallying squares, which, bristling with bayonets
like porcupines of steel, keeping up such an incessant roar of musketry
that the spot on which they stood became, as it were, a heart or core of
furious firing, in the midst of a field that was already hotly engaged
all round. We do not vouch for the correctness of this account of the
battle. We received it from Pax, and give it for what it is worth.

Oh! it was, as Phil Maylands said, "a glorious day entirely for the 49th
Middlesex, that same Queen's Birthday," for there was all the pomp and
circumstance of war, all the smoke and excitation, all the glitter of
bright sunshine on accoutrements, the flash of sword and bayonet, and
the smoke and fire of battle, without the bloodshed and the loss of
life!

No doubt there were drawbacks. Where is the human family, however
well-regulated, that claims exemption from such? There were some of the
warriors on that bloodless battle-field who had no more idea of the art
of war than the leg of a telescope has of astronomy. There were ma