The lengthen’d numbers of the sons of fame:
Nor ‘mongst her humbler sons shall Shaw e’er die,
Immortal deeds defy mortality.
Posterity shall read the glowing page
That paints the glories of a former age,
Then shall their bosoms burn with patriot fires,
And, if their country calls, they’ll emulate their sires.”
In “Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk,” Sir Walter, writing from Paris of the Battle of Waterloo, observes:—“Amid the confusion presented by the fiercest and closest cavalry fight which had ever been seen, many individuals distinguished themselves by feats of personal strength and valour. Among these should not be forgotten Shaw, a corporal of the Life-guards, well known as a pugilistic champion, and equally formidable as a swordsman. He is supposed to have slain or disabled ten Frenchmen with his own hand, before he was killed by a musket or pistol shot.”
The “science of the sword” was possessed by Shaw in a superior degree, which, backed by British strength and resolution, tended to secure the fortune of the day, in reducing the confidence of Napoleon’s hitherto invincible cuirassiers:—
“A desperate charge the cuirassiers oppose,