"Beneath their fire, in full career, Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier, The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear, And hurrying as to havoc near, The cohorts' eagles flew. In one dark torrent, broad and strong, The advancing onset roll'd along, Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, Peal'd wildly the imperial name!" --SCOTT. The attack of the Household and Union Brigades at Waterloo is one of the most dazzling and dramatic incidents of the great fight. For suddenness, fire, and far-reaching results, it would be difficult to parallel that famous charge in the history of war. The Household Brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Dragoon Guards, with the Blues in support, moved first. Lord Uxbridge, temporarily exchanging the functions of general for those of a squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst through it, crossed the road--at that point of shallow depth--and met the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep, and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit, amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them. Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely followed by the Life Guards. The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear, struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men in the _melee_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute. Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the _melee_, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet and skull.