Many literary and artistic masterpieces have grouped themselves round Waterloo. One of the most striking passages in Vanity Fair refers to an imaginary incident in connection with the battle. Sir Walter Scott once said that in the whole range of English poetry there was nothing finer than the stanzas in Childe Harold, commencing with the line—
"There was a sound of revelry by night,"
and ending with the words—
"Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent."
Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ranks as a funeral dirge with Lycidas and Adonais. Napoleon's tomb in the Invalides may hold its own almost with the Tàj. Yet, when all is said and done, the fact remains that no hero of the battle, and indeed few victims of war, have ever received a more touching memorial than the one here set forth in the sight of all future generations of men by the love and the literary genius of Lady De Lancey.
B.R. Ward.
Halifax, N.S.,
April 1906.
