with such force as he could muster, though a few days' delay would have brought great reinforcements. On his way he met a Norman monk, sent to him by William, with three alternatives: 1. To abdicate in his favor. 2. To refer their claims to the decision of the Pope. 3. To determine them by single combat. Harold refused all three, and quickened his march; but finding, as he drew nearer, that the Norman army was thrice the number of his own, he intrenched his host seven miles from their camp, upon a range of hills, behind a rampart of palisadoes and osier hurdles.

The impending night of the battle was passed by the Normans in warlike preparations, or in confessing their sins and receiving the sacrament, and the camp resounded with the prayers and chantings of priests and friars. As to the Saxon warriors, they sat round their camp-fires, carousing horns of beer and wine, and singing old national war-songs.

At an early hour in the morning of the 14th of October, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and bastard brother of the Duke, being the son of his mother Arlette, by a burgher of Falaise, celebrated mass, and gave his benediction to the Norman army. He then put a hauberk under his cassock, mounted a powerful white charger, and led forth a brigade of cavalry; for he was as ready with the spear as with the crosier, and for his fighting and other turbulent propensities, well merited his surname of Odo the Unruly.

The army was formed into three columns:-one composed of mercenaries from the countries of Boulogne and Ponthieu ; the second of auxiliaries from Brittany and elsewhere; the third of Norman troops, led by William in person. Each column was preceded by archers in light quilted coats instead of armor, some with long bows, and others with cross-bows of steel. Their mode of fighting was to discharge a flight of arrows, and then retreat behind the heavy armed troops. The Duke was mounted on a Spanish steed, around his neck were suspended some of the reliques on which Harold had made oath, and the consecrated standard was borne at his side.

William harangued his soldiers, reminding them of the exploits of their ancestors, the massacre of the Northmen in England, and, in particular, the murder of their brethren the Danes. But he added another and a stronger excitement to their valor Fight manfully, and put all to the sword; and if we conquer, we shall all be rich. What I gain, you gain; what I

conquer, you conquer; if I gain the land, it is yours.' We shall give, in our author's own words, the further particulars of this decisive battle, which placed a Norman sovereign on the English throne.

'The spot which Harold had selected for this ever-memorable contest was a high ground, then called Senlac, nine miles from Hastings, opening to the south, and covered in the rear by an extensive wood. He posted his troops on the declivity of the hill in one compact mass, covered with their shields, and wielding their enormous battle-axes. In the centre the royal standard, or gonfanon, was fixed in the ground, with the figure of an armed warrior, worked in thread of gold, and ornamented with precious stones. Here stood Harold, and his brothers Gurth and Leofwin, and around them the rest of the Saxon army, every man on foot.

'As the Normans approached the Saxon intrenchments, the monks and priests who accompanied their army retired to a neighboring hill to pray, and observe the issue of the battle. A Norman warrior, named Taillefer, spurred his horse in front of the line, and, tossing up in the air his sword, which he caught again in his hand, sang the national song of Charlemagne and Roland; the Normans joined in the chorus, and shouted, "Dieu aide! Dieu aide!" They were answered by the Saxons, with the adverse cry of "Christ's rood! the holy rood!"

"The Norman archers let fly a shower of arrows into the Saxon ranks. Their infantry and cavalry advanced to the gates of the redoubts, which they vainly endeavored to force. The Saxons thundered upon their armor, and broke their lances with the heavy battle-axe, and the Normans retreated to the division. commanded by William. The Duke then caused his archers again to advance, and to direct their arrows obliquely in the air, so that they might fall beyond and over the enemy's rampart. The Saxons were severely galled by the Norman missiles, and Harold himself was wounded in the eye. The attack of the infantry and men-at-arms again commenced with the cries of "Notre-Dame! Dieu aide! Dieu aide!" But the Normans were repulsed, and pursued by the Saxons to a deep ravine, where their horses plunged and threw the riders. The mêlée was here dreadful, and a sudden panic seized the invaders, who fled from the field, exclaiming that their duke was slain. William rushed before the fugitives, with his helmet in hand, menacing and even striking them with his lance, and shouting with a loud voice:-"I am still alive, and with the help of God I still shall conquer !" The men-at-arms once more returned to

attack the redoubts, but they were again repelled by the impregnable phalanx of the Saxons. The Duke now resorted to the stratagem of ordering a thousand horse to advance, and then suddenly retreat, in the hope of drawing the enemy from his intrenchments. The Saxons fell into the snare, and rushed out with their battle-axes slung about their necks, to pursue the flying foe. The Normans were joined by another body of their own army, and both turned upon the Saxons, who were assailed on every side with swords and lances, whilst their hands were employed in wielding their enormous battle-axes. The invaders now rushed through the broken ranks of their opponents into the intrenchments, pulled down the royal standard, and erected in its place the papal banner. Harold was slain, with his brothers Gurth and Leofwin. The sun declined in the western horizon, and with his retiring beams sunk the glory of the Saxon name.

The rest of the companions of Harold fled from the fatal field, where the Normans passed the night, exulting over their hardearned victory. The next morning, William ranged his troops under arms, and every man who passed the sea was called by name, according to the muster-roll drawn up before their embarkation at St. Valery. Many were deaf to that call. The invading army consisted originally of nearly sixty thousand men, and of these one-fourth lay dead on the field. To the fortunate survivors was allotted the spoil of the vanquished Saxons, as the first fruits of their victory; and the bodies of the slain, after being stripped, were hastily buried by their trembling friends. According to one narrative, the body of Harold was begged by his mother as a boon from William, to whom she offered as a ransom its weight in gold. But the stern and pitiless conqueror ordered the corpse of the Saxon king to be buried on the beach, adding, with a sneer, "He guarded the coast while he lived, let him continue to guard it now he is dead." Another account represents that two monks of the monastery of Waltham, which had been founded by the son of Godwin, humbly approached the Norman, and offered him ten marks of gold for permission to bury their king and benefactor. They were unable to distinguish his body among the heaps of slain, and sent for Harold's mistress, Editha, surnamed "the Fair" and "the Swan's Neck," to assist them in the search. The features of the Saxon monarch were recognized by her whom he had loved, and his body was interred at Waltham, with regal honors, in the presence of several Norman earls and knights.'

We have reached the conclusion of Mr. Wheaton's interesting volume, yet we are tempted to add a few words more

from other sources. We would observe that there are not wanting historians who dispute the whole story of Harold having fallen on the field of battle. Years afterwards,' we are told by one of the most curiously learned of English scholars, when the Norman yoke pressed heavily upon the English, and the battle of Hastings had become a tale of sorrow, which old men narrated by the light of the embers, until warned to silence by the sullen tolling of the curfew,' there was an ancient anchorite, maimed, and scarred, and blind of an eye, who led a life of penitence and seclusion in a cell near the Abbey of St. John at Chester. This holy man was once visited by Henry I., who held a long and secret discourse with him, and on his death-bed he declared to the attendant monks that he was Harold.* According to this account, he had been secretly conveyed from the field of battle to a castle, and thence to this sanctuary; and the finding and burying of his corpse by the tender Editha, is supposed to have been a pious fraud. The monks of Waltham, however, stood up stoutly for the authenticity of their royal reliques. They showed a tomb, enclosing a mouldering skeleton, the bones of which still bore the marks of wounds received in battle, while the sepulchre bore the effigies of the monarch, and this brief but pathetic epitaph:-Hic jacet Harold infelix.'

For a long time after the eventful battle of the conquest, it is said that traces of blood might be seen upon the field, and, in particular, upon the hills to the south-west of Hastings, whenever a light rain moistened the soil. It is probable they were discolorations of the soil, where heaps of the slain had been buried. We have ourselves seen broad and dark patches on the hill side of Waterloo, where thousands of the dead lay mouldering in one common grave, and where, for several years after the battle, the rank green corn refused to ripen, though all the other part of the hill was covered with a golden har

vest.

William the conqueror, in fulfilment of a vow, caused a monastic pile to be erected on the field, which, in commemoration of the event, was called the Abbey of Battle.' The architects complained that there were no springs of water on the site. Work on! work on!' replied he, jovially; if God but grant me life, there shall flow more good wine among the holy

*Palgrave, Hist. Eng., Cap. XV.

friars of this convent, than there does clear water in the best monastery of Christendom."

6

The abbey was richly endowed, and invested with archiepiscopal jurisdiction. In its archives was deposited a roll, bearing the names of the followers of William, among whom he had shared the conquered land. The grand altar was placed on the very spot where the banner of the hapless Harold had been unfurled, and here prayers were perpetually to be offered up for the repose of all who had fallen in the contest. All this pomp and solemnity,' adds Mr. Palgrave, ' has passed away like a dream! The perpetual prayer has ceased forever; the roll of battle is rent; the escutcheons of the Norman lineages are trodden in the dust. A dark and reedy pool marks where the abbey once reared its stately towers, and nothing but the foundations of the choir remain for the gaze of the idle visiter, and the instruction of the moping antiquary.'*

ART. IV. Journal of the Landers. of the Landers. B.B. H.atcher,

Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course and Termination of the Niger: with a Narrative of a Voyage down that River to its Termination. By RICHARD and JOHN LANDER. J. and J. Harper. New York. 1832.

We shall certainly be justified in pronouncing this work one of the most deeply interesting, in its kind, which has appeared in modern times. Independently of the very spirited running style of travellers, quite as good-humored and shrewd as they are energetic, and of the novelty attached to descriptions of new countries and people, and to a personal narrative of unusual vicissitude, it is sufficient to immortalize the Journal and its Authors alike, that it records the discovery of the long-sought termination of the Niger,-the river of Herodotus,full of crocodiles and flowing to the east,'-the Nile of Strabo,-the Arabian Nile of the Negroes,' pouring into the Sea of Darkness,'-the object of more inquiry and the occasion of more effort, perhaps, than any other locality on the face of the globe.

* Palgrave, Hist. Eng., Cap. XV.