What a fine thing a battle is!--not one of those Which one saw at the late Mr. Andrew Ducrow's, Where a dozen of scene-shifters, drawn up in rows, Would a dozen more scene-shifters boldly oppose, Taking great care their blows Did not injure their foes, And alike, save in colour and cut of their clothes, Which were varied, to give more effect to "_Tableaux_," While Stickney the Great Flung the gauntlet to Fate, And made us all tremble, so gallantly did he come On to encounter bold General Widdicombe-- But a real, good fight, like Pultowa, or Lützen, (Which Gustavus the great ended all his disputes in,) Or that which Suwarrow engaged without boots in, Or Dettingen, Fontenoy, Blenheim, or Minden, Or the one Mr. Campbell describes, Hohenlinden, Where "the sun was low," The ground all over snow, And dark as mid-winter the swift Iser's flow,-- Till its colour was alter'd by General Moreau; While the big drum was heard in the dead of the night, Which rattled the Bard out of bed in a fright, And he ran up the steeple to look at the fight. 'Twas in just such another one, (Names only bother one-- Dutch ones, indeed, are sufficient to smother one--) In the Netherlands somewhere--I cannot say where-- Suffice it that there _La Fortune de guerre_ Gave a cast of her calling to our Mousquetaire. One fine morning, in short, François Xavier Auguste, After making some scores of his foes "bite the dust," Got a mouthful himself of the very same crust; And though, as the Bard says, "No law is more just Than for _Necis artifices_"--so they call'd fiery Soldados at Rome,--"_arte suâ perire_," Yet Fate did not draw This poetical law To its fullest extent in the case of St. Foix. His Good Genius most probably found out some flaw, And diverted the shot From some deadlier spot To a bone which, I think, to the best of my memory, 's Call'd by Professional men the "_os femoris_;" And the ball being one of those named from its shape, And some fancied resemblance it bears to the grape, St. Foix went down, With a groan and a frown, And a hole in his small-clothes the size of a crown.-- --Stagger'd a bit By this "palpable hit," He turn'd on his face, and went off in a fit! Yes!--a Battle's a very fine thing while you're fighting, These same Ups-and-Downs are so very exciting. But a sombre sight is a Battle-field To the sad survivor's sorrowing eye, Where those, who scorn'd to fly or yield, In one promiscuous carnage lie; When the cannon's roar Is heard no more, And the thick dun smoke has roll'd away, And the victor comes for a last survey Of the well-fought field of yesterday!