By torch and trumpet soon array’d, Each horseman drew his battle-blade, And furious every charger neigh’d, To join the dreadful revelry. Then flew the steed, to battle driv’n— Then shook the hills, with thunder riven— And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flash’d the red artillery! The allies under Schwartzenburg may now have outnumbered the French under Vandamme, but their _morale_ was depressed by the recent disasters at Dresden, and their _physique_ exhausted by their almost superhuman exertions in dragging their cannon, baggage, and ammunition over the rugged summits of the Bohemian mountains. On the other hand, the French were elated beyond measure by the recent and successive victories of Lutzen, Botzen, and Dresden—but still more by the star of Napoleon, which was now rising, like a Phœnix from the ashes of Moscow, and approaching its second zenith on the banks of the Elbe. Daylight, however, had scarcely enabled the armies to distinguish friend from foe, when they rushed simultaneously into mortal conflict. Vandamme lay between a great crescent of the allies on the West, and the towery ridge of Erzeberg in his rear, and from which he had descended the preceding morning. The “fiery Frank” fought like a tiger encompassed and goaded by hunters—while the “furious HUN” successfully repelled his repeated efforts to break the line of the allies, and even drove him nearer and nearer to the mountain behind. The pass of the Erzeberg, through which Vandamme descended into the valley, now presented the only opening by which he could effect his egress out of it. The order for retreat was given; but what was the surprize of the French on entering the defile from below, when they beheld a body of Prussians enter it from above! The surprize and consternation, however, were mutual. Kleist, who, with five or six thousand Prussians, had been wandering among the mountains since the disaster of Dresden, and who was now hurrying to Teplitz to join the allies, was thunderstruck to see the French scrambling up the defile to meet him, and considered his retreat as cut off. Vandamme looked upon himself as in precisely the same predicament. Kleist knew that the French columns were pressing onward in his rear—Vandamme knew full well that the Austro-Prusso-Russian army was close at his heels. The object of each corps in the defile was therefore to cut through its opponent, and escape in the direction of its friends. Under these impressions, they rushed into tumultuous combat, and were soon mingled in inextricable confusion. The officers of one corps were sometimes in the midst of the soldiery of the other, and _vice versa_—all fighting pell-mell like two hostile mobs, without order or command—individually rather than collectively—often wresting the arms from their opponents, and fighting with the weapons of their enemies! So desperate a struggle on such a precipitous pass, was