Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/187

 12 s. iv. JULY, i9i8.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

J. D. Holt, d. Mar. 24, 1854, a. 85. Erected by their children. Arms, Arg., on a bend sa. three dolphins of the field.

16. Euphemia Wallace Crombie, d. Dec. 30, 1895. Erected by members of the Temperance Society.

SOUTH SIDE.

17. Thomas Marchant, Esq., of Deptford> b. July 10, 1796, d. Mar. 3, 1874. His only son, Thomas William Marchant, M.A., b. Ap. 28, 1833, d. June 14, 1902.

18. John Harrison, founder and first surgeon of the London Hospital, d. in 1753, and was buried in this churchyard. His body lies here, his work continues at the hospital.

INDEX ov NAMES.

Bell, 12 Garrett, 11 Pickernell, 9

Bowring, 3 Hanwell, 5 Price, 1

Chamberlin, 10 Harrison, 18 Putt, 10

Collier, 7 Hughes, 6, 7 Bolt, 16

Crombie, 16 Marchant, 17 Sayer, 6, 7

Ferguson, 4 Mortimer, 8 Shears, 12

Finch, 5, 8, 14 Peart, 2

INDEX OP PLACES. Barbados, 6 Hastings, 7

Belle Isle, 6 London Hospital, 18

Blackheath, 3, 8 Pett, Sussex, 7

Brighton, 2 Senegal, 6

Goree, 6 Tobago, 6

G. S. PARRY, Lieut. -Col. 17 Ashley Mansions, S.W.I.

THE LIGHT DIVISION'S MARCH TO TAT.A. VEBA, JULY, 1809. The forced march made .by the Light Division, under General -Craufurd, in order to join the army under Sir Arthur Wellesley at Talavera, has often been cited, and deservedly so, as an out- standing instance of the pluck and stamina of British soldiers. At the same time authorities differ as to the details. Napier in his ' History of the War in the Peninsula,' book viii. chap, ii., says :

" The troops, leaving only seventeen stragglers behind, in twenty-six hours crossed the field of battle in a close and compact body, having in that time passed over sixty-two English miles in "the hottest season of the year, each man carrying from fifty to sixty pounds weight upon his shoulders."

Napier, who was in the 43rd Regiment, did not actually take part in the march, having been left behind at Plaseucia owing to an attack of pleurisy, though he joined the Division (at grave risk to himself) a day or two after, and therefore traversed the same ground. See ' Diet. Nat. Bio- graphy.' His account is not, however, confirmed by Mr. Oman, who in his ' History of the Peninsular War,' vol. ii. p. 560, says that they marched forty-three miles in twenty-two hours, " though the day was hot, and every soldier carried some fifty

pounds weight on his back." In a foot-note on p. 561 he specifically states that " the distance was forty-three miles, not, as William Napier states, sixty -two." In support of his account he refers to ' Rough Sketches of a Soldier's Life,' by Col. Leach, 95th Regiment, and to the ' Autobiography ' of Sir Georye Napier, who was in the 52nd.

Mr. Fortescue in his ' History of the British Army,' vol. vii. p 265, says that they marched " before dawn on the 28th," and reached Oropesa at noon, where Craufurd weeded out a few sickly men, pushing forward with the remainder in. all possible haste. The next halt was at ten o'clock the same night :

" From thence they marched without further lingering straight on to the battle-field, where they arrived about six o'clock in the morning of the 29th, having covered between forty-five and fifty miles in about twenty-five hours."

As a possible explanation of the difference in the distance covered, as given by Napier and Oman, I would suggest that the former included the distance marched on July 27. He says (p. 178) :

"Those troops [i.e., the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th regiments] had been, after a march of twenty miles, hutted near Malpartida de Plasencia when the alarm caused by the Spanish fugitives spread to that part ; Craufurd, fearing for the army, allowed only a few hours' rest, and then, with- drawing about fifty of the weakest from the ranks, recommenced his march with a resolution not to halt until the field of battle was reached."

It would seem therefore that the actual forced march, which began according to Fortescue " before dawn," and was continued with a halt at noon, and another at ten o'clock at night, on July 28, was about forty-three miles, not sixty-two as stated by Napier. On the other hand, Oman makes the time only twenty-two hours. In any case it was a remarkable performance, following a march of twenty miles on the 27th, with only a few hours' rest that night.

T. F. D.

PROSE AND POETRY : NEWMAN AND MELTON. The late Mr. Alfred Austin stated that "Shakespeare .could by no possi- bility have borrowed prose passages from any one, and made poetry of them by turning them into verse. . . .The white heat the fine frenzy of the brain, in the moments of such composition precludes," &c. Shak- speare, with North's ' Plutarch ' in hand, did some such impossibility.

When, contrariwise, prose echoes verse, or borrows from it, is there poetry in both^J and if not as some sages say why not ?