I have taken the liberty of representing the three attacks on General Hill’s position to have been all made about midnight, and in immediate succession, though, in fact, the first occurred late in the evening, the second only at midnight, and the third about day-break on the 28th. St. IV. l. 2.--_Promiscuous death._ It is certain that in the confusion of the night-fight, much loss was occasioned on both parts, by mistaking friends for foes. St. IV. l. 9.--_The Bard’s enthusiast lay._ ---- sed omnes illacrimabiles Urguentur ignotique longâ Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. _Hor. Od. 9, lib. 4._ St. IV. l. 12.--_Oh for a blaze._ A young and accomplished lady has discovered, as she fancies, a resemblance between the description of this night-fight, and that of the encounter of Tancred and Clorinda in the _Gierusalemme Liberata_. I am very far from agreeing with my fair critic in this notion, and any of my readers, who shall turn to the fifty-fourth and subsequent stanzas of the twelfth canto of the Jerusalem, will have the satisfaction, (not, I think, of detecting me in a presumptuous and unacknowledged imitation of Tasso,) but of reading one of the most striking passages of that splendid poem. St. VI. l. 23.--_Fifty thousand warriors._ The French acknowledge to have had 45,000 men engaged, and we know that the effective British scarcely, if at all, exceeded 20,000. ⁂ Since these pages were first published, there have appeared in the Moniteur of Sept. 28, 1809, notes on Lord Wellington’s dispatches, which admit the disparity to have been still greater than the most sanguine Englishman had thought--than even _we romancers_ had imagined. They state the army which attacked Lord Wellesley, (as they call him,) to have consisted of the 1st and 4th corps, and the reserve; and their force they allege to have been,--the 1st corps, 36 battalions; the 4th, 30 battalions; and the reserve, 20 battalions, exclusive of the cavalry, which was 40 squadrons. Now these 86 battalions, if complete, would have numbered about 60,000 infantry; and even if but _half_ complete, would have exceeded Lord Wellington’s force, (which they admit to have been but 20,000) by 10,000 of infantry alone, or, reckoning the cavalry, by 14,000 men. But, in fact, they may be taken at 500 men to each battalion at least, that is, in the whole, at 43,000 infantry, and about 4,000 cavalry. 1810. It is now known, that the French force consisted of about 50,000 men. 1812. St. VIII. l. 6.--_Cold allies._