umn, and the terrible suspense he suffered when the smoke of battle wrapped it from sight, and the utter despair of his great heart when the curtain lifted over a fugitive army, and the despairing shriek rang on every side, "la Garde Recule, la Garde Recule," make us for the moment forget all the carnage in sympathy with his distress.

Ney felt the pressure of the immense responsibility on his brave heart, and resolved not to prove unworthy of the great trust committed to his care. Nothing could be more imposing than the movement of that grand column to the assault. That guard had never yet recoiled before a human foe, and the allied forces beheld with awe its firm and terrible advance to the final charge. For a moment the batteries stopped playing, and the firing ceased along the British lines, as without the beating of a drum, or the blast of a bugle to cheer their steady courage, they moved in dead silence over the plain. The next moment the artillery opened, and the head of that gallant column seemed to sink into the earth. Rank after rank went down, yet they neither stopped nor faltered. Dissolving squadrons, and whole battalions disappearing one after another in the destructive fire, affected not their steady courage. The ranks closed up as before, and each treading over his fallen comrade pressed firmly on. The horse which Ney rode fell under him, and he had scarcely mounted another before it also sank to the earth. Again and again did that unflinching man feel his steed sink beneath him, till five had been shot down. Then, his uniform riddled with bullets, and his face singed and blackened with powder, he marched on foot, with drawn sabre, at the head of his men. In vain did the artillery hurl its storm of fire and metal into that living mass. Up to the very muzzles they pressed, and driving the artillerymen from their own pieces, pushed on through the English lines. But at that moment a file of soldiers who had lain flat on the ground, behind a low ridge of earth, suddenly rose and poured a volley in their very faces. Another and another followed, till one broad sheet of flames rolled on their bosoms, and in such a fierce and unexpected flow, that human courage could not wholly withstand it. They reeled, shook, and stag

gered back. While in this state of confusion, and before they could finally rally again, a column of English infantry, advancing on the left flank, poured in their rapid and destructive volleys. The noble Guard, lifting heavily against the overwhelming masses, swerved one side to meet this new shock, when suddenly, with loud shouts, a brigade of cavalry broke upon the disordered right flank, and rode straight through the shattered column. All was now confusion, and to the terrific shout, "The Guard recoils! the Guard recoils!" the mighty mass rolled down the slope. Ney was borne back in the refluent tide, and hurried over the field. But for the crowd of fugitives that forced him on, he would have stood alone and fallen in his footsteps. As it was, disdaining to yield, though the whole army was flying, he formed his men into two immense squares, and endeavored to stem the terrific current, and would have done so had it not been for the thirty thousand fresh Prussians that pressed on his exhausted ranks. For a long time these squares stood, and let the enemy plough through them. Michel, in one of them, being called upon to surrender, replied, "The Guard dies, but never surrenders;" and fell a noble sacrifice to save its honor. But the fate of Napoleon was writ, and though Ney doubtless did what no other man in the army could have done, the decree could not be reversed. The star that had blazed so brightly over the world went down in blood, and the "bravest of the brave" had fought his last battle.-Napoleon and His Marshals.

HEARN, LAFCADIO, a Greek-American journalist and narrative and descriptive writer, was born at Leucadia, Santa Maura, June 27, 1850. His father, a gallant Irish surgeon of the English army, having married a beautiful maiden of the Ionian Isles, where he chanced to be stationed during the British protectorate, was one night attacked by a jealous rival and wounded almost fatally so that for days Doctor Hearn hung between life and death. Two sons were born to this romantic couple, Lafcadio being the younger. When still a child he was sent to relatives in Wales; and was educated in Great Britain and France, with a view to his entering the Catholic priesthood. But when nearing manhood he realized that the Church was not his vocation. His father died in India, and in a spirit of adventure he left home and came to the United States; experiencing at first "the chance and change of a roving life." From the East, where his occupation had been proof-reading, he drifted to Cincinnati; and there, as a reporter, took his first steps in journalism. Finding, after a stay of some duration, that the climate was too severe for his health, he went to New Orleans, and engaged in newspaper work there. Becoming greatly interested in Creole life and customs, he issued there his Gombo Zhèbes, a compilation of quaint sayings and proverbs in the different Creole patois. He contributed translations from the French to the New

Orleans Democrat, before it was merged with the Times, and continued this work after the consolidation of the two papers into the Times-Democrat, when he became a member of the editorial staff. He spent some time in the West Indies; and then he went to Japan; where he took a native wife and became a naturalized citizen of that country, and adopted the name of Y. Koijumi. He opened a school at Matsue, in the province of Udrumo, where he taught English to the Japanese for four years; he then removed to Kumamoto, in the southern island of Kyushyu. Hearn's American publications include an English translation of One of Cleopatra's Nights (1882), from the French of Théophile Gautier; Stray Leaves from Strange Literature (1884), being an interpretation of certain Eastern stories and legends; Gombo Zhèbes (1885); Some Chinese Ghosts (1887); Chita; a Memory of Lost Island (1889); Two Years in the French West Indies, and Youma (1890); Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894); Out of the East (1895), and Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life (1896).

"His style," says the Nation, "is exquisitely polished; his vocabulary in the cream of language; and his stories are told with literary art."

O. P. Caylor, writing in the Philadelphia North American, of Hearn's early struggles as a reporter says that his first newspaper triumph was won in descriptive work upon what is known in Cincinnati as the tan-yard murder, which occurred in 1874; and thus tells how the timid young author came to the Enquirer office a few weeks before the tan-yard tragedy to sell his first manuscript: "Upstairs he ventured, but there his courage

failed him. It was not enough to induce him to brave the awful editorial presence, so he paced up and down the hall with his velvet, restless tread until the awful door opened and the terrible giant came forth. Hearn would, no doubt, have run away, had he not been at the rear of the hall when Mr. Cockerill came out into the other end, and the stairway was between. Thus it occurred that the author of Chita sold his first manuscript, or had it submitted. He came with more on future occasions, but never could he persuade himself to knock at that editorial door for admission. Up and down, up and down the hall he would pace or glide until Colonel Cockerill came forth, whether the time consumed in waiting was ten minutes or two hours. However, Mr. Hearn finally was put on the regular staff of the Enquirer, and long did good work there."

From the Providence Journal we extract the following description of Hearn: "In person he is short, but strongly built. He is a bold and tireless swimmer, and would often spend hours at a time in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He is a true child of the South, and revels in sunlight. He lost an eye while playing ball in his childhood; and the other is exceedingly myopic. He is dark, with a clear-cut, handsome profile; his face is not easily forgotten. In dress he is rather unconventional, his favorite headgear being a sombrero of soft felt. It is a treat to hear him tell some odd story in his peculiarly low and gentle voice. He is an ardent bibliophile. His becoming a Japanese by adoption is regarded by his friends as a singu lar freak."