From the heroic character of the battle, our people have been prevailed on to credit many incidents, which, savouring of the romantic, suited their tastes, have been accepted as truisms, but which facts fail to corroborate. “One very prevailing idea that Wellington gave out the words, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’ is not borne out by fact, for it was afterwards ascertained from the Duke himself that he did not; and another, the meeting of his Grace and Marshal Blucher at La Belle Alliance, after the battle, is equally apocryphal. This, however, is to be one of the designs of the House of Lords, and will therefore be handed down to posterity as a fact.” For nearly forty years the Scots Fusilier Guards had been retained at home, in or around London. In 1853, the storm which had been long gathering in the north—presaging wrath to Liberty and to Man—at length burst forth, and descending with rapacious might upon the dominions of the Turkish Sultan, threatened to overwhelm in utter ruin the crumbling remnant of the empire of Constantine. The impatient covetousness of the Czar of Russia had put forth the hand of the spoiler, intending to appropriate the realms of the Sultan, and make Constantinople the southern gate of his colossal empire. Justly alarmed at the already gigantic power of Russia, which promised further to enlarge itself at the expense of the feebler Powers around, France and Britain took up arms, and threw the weight of their potent influence into the contest on behalf of the oppressed Turks, whose single arm had hitherto proved equal to the struggle. Accordingly, France, Turkey, and Britain, ultimately aided by Sardinia, entered the lists of war, to sustain the liberty of Europe against the despotism of the North, adopting as their watchword the memorable words of Lord John Russell, “May God defend the right.” [Illustration: DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. COLONEL Of THE SCOTS FUSILIER GUARDS.]