usied in preparations for
destruction."

"Have you ever been in the Sistine Chapel?" asked my companion.

"No; Italy has been hitherto beyond my flight; but the longing to see it
haunts me."

"Well, then, when your good fortune leads you to Rome, let your first
look be given to the noblest work of the pencil, and of Michael Angelo:
glance at the bottom of his immortal picture, and you will see precisely
the same wild activity, and the same strange and startling animation.
The difference only is, that the actors here are men--there, fiends;
here the scene is the field of future battle--there, the region of
final torment. I am not sure that the difference is great, after all."

At daybreak, the British line was under arms. I feel all words fail,
under the effort to convey the truth of that most magnificent display;
not that a simple detail may not be adequate to describe the movements
of a gallant army; but what can give the impression of the time, the
form and pressure of collisions on which depended the broadest and
deepest interests of the earth. Our war was then, what no war was since
the old invasions under the Edwards and Henrys--national; it was as
romantic as the crusades. England was fighting for none of the objects
which, during the last three hundred years, had sent armies into the
field--not for territory, not for glory, not for European supremacy, not
even for self-defence. She was fighting for a Cause; but that was the
cause of society, of human freedom, of European advance, of every
faculty, feeling, and possession by which man is sustained in his rank
above the beasts that perish. The very language of the great dramatist
came to my recollection, at the moment when I heard the first signal-gun
for our being put in motion.

"Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.
Now thrive the armourers; and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
Following the mirror of all Christian kings
With winged heels, as English Mercuries."

Our troops, too, had all the ardour which is added even to the boldest
by the assurance of victory. They had never come into contact with the
enemy but to defeat them, and the conviction of their invincibility was
so powerful, that it required the utmost efforts of their officers to
prevent their rushing into profitless peril. The past and the present