sunshine--all belong to the campaigner: he has his troubles, but his enjoyments are his own, exclusive, delicious, incomparable. An officer of the staff now rode up to make a report on some movement of the division intended to lead in the morning, and the duke gave me permission to retire. He galloped off in the direction of the column, and I slowly pursued my way to my quarters. Yet I could not resist many a halt, to gaze on the singular beauty of the bursts of flame which lighted the landscape. More than once, it reminded me of the famous Homeric description of the Trojan bivouac by the ships. All the images were the same, except that, for the sea, we had the endless meadows of Champagne, and, for the ships, the remote tents of the enemy. We had the fire, the exulting troops, the carouse, the picketed horses, the shouts and songs, the lustre of the autumnal sky, and the bold longings for victory and the dawn. Even in Pope's feeble translation, the scene is animated-- "The troops exulting sate in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground." Then follows the famous simile of the moon, suddenly throwing its radiance over the obscure features of the landscape. But Homer, the poet of realities, soon returns to the true material-- "So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays, A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shadowy lustre o'er the field. Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whose umber'd arms by fits thick flashes send; Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn." I leave it to others to give the history of this campaign, one of the most memorable of Europe from its consequences--the tramp of that army roused the slumbering giant of France. If the Frenchman said of a battle, that it was like a ball-room, you see little beyond your opposite partner; he might have said of a campaign, that you scarcely see even so much. The largeness of the scale is beyond all personal observation. I can answer only for myself, that I was on horseback before daybreak, and marched in the midst of columns which had no more doubt of beating up the enemy's quarters than they had of eating their first meal. All were in the highest spirits; and the opinions of the staff, among whom the duke had assigned me a place, were so sanguine, that I felt some concern at their reaching the ear of the captive aide-de-camp. This induced me to draw him away gradually from the crowd. I found him lively, as his countrymen generally are, but exhibiting at once a strength of observation and a frankness of language which are more uncommon.