The terrible scenes consequent upon the siege and storming of San Sebastian, which occupy considerable portions of this and the preceding Canto, and form in their bare recital an illustration never surpassed of the horrors of War, are attested by so many authorities, that to enter into minute corroborative details would far exceed the limits which I have prescribed to myself. The following brief but vigorous description is from Gleig’s _Subaltern_: “The reader will easily believe that a man who has spent some of the best years of his life amid scenes of violence and bloodshed, must have witnessed many spectacles highly revolting to the purest feelings of our nature; but a more appalling picture of war passed by--of war in its darkest colours,--those which distinguish it when its din is over--than was presented by St. Sebastian, and the country in its immediate vicinity, I certainly never beheld. Whilst an army is stationary in any district, you are wholly unconscious of the work of devastation which is proceeding--you see only the hurry and pomp of hostile operations. But, when the tide has rolled on, and you return by chance to the spot over which it has last swept, the effect upon your mind is such, as cannot even be imagined by him who has not experienced it. Little more than a week had elapsed, since the division employed in the siege of St. Sebastian had moved forward. Their trenches were not yet filled up, nor their batteries demolished; yet the former had, in some places, fallen in of their own accord, and the latter were beginning to crumble to pieces. We passed them by, however, without much notice. It was, indeed, impossible not to acknowledge, that the perfect silence which prevailed was far more awful than the bustle and stir that lately pervaded them; whilst the dilapidated condition of the convent, and of the few cottages which stood near it, stripped, as they were, of roofs, doors, and windows, and perforated with cannon shot, inspired us with gloomy sensations. “As we pursued the main road, and approached St. Sebastian by its ordinary entrance, we were at first surprised at the slight degree of damage done to its fortifications by the fire of our batteries. The walls and battlements beside the gateway appeared wholly uninjured, the very embrasures being hardly defaced. But the delusion grew gradually more faint as we drew nearer, and had totally vanished before we reached the glacis. We found the draw-bridge fallen down across the ditch, in such a fashion that the endeavour to pass it was not without danger. The folding gates were torn from their hinges, one lying flat upon the ground, and the other leaning against the wall; whilst our own steps, as we moved along the arched passage, sounded loud and melancholy.