204
NOTES AND QUERIES. [U B . v. MAK. w, 191-2.
A splendid start was given to All the
Year Round by commencing in its first
number ' A Tale of Two Cities,' and by
Jhaving as its Christmas number ' The
Haunted House.' The courtesy of Wills
,to young aspirants was proverbial from
the first, and I should like to mention a
personal experience of this. When I was
quite a youth. I wrote a tale to be read at
ihome on a Christmas night : my father
<asked me to lend it to him, and I found, to
my surprise, that he had given it to Wills.
Of course, it was not good enough for pub-
lication: but although it was rejected, I
received from Wills such a kind reply, so
full of good advice, that I even felt it a
pleasure to be refused. His letter, which
I sii'l treasure, closed with the following
words :
" You will not, I am sure, take my hint?
- amiss, but rather perceive that they are suggested
.by the interest which your story has gis r en me in your endeavours."
When All the Year Round was founded, Dickens gave up the house in Wellington .Street, where Household Words had been published, and moved higher up in the same street, the old Household Words office being taken by Russell for his publication The Army and Navy Gazette. I have a letter of his to my father dated " January 10, 1860, Army and Navy Gazette Office, 16, Welling- ton Street (north), late Household Words Office." The house was on the right from the Strand, and was demolished when The Morning Post new offices were built. This fine building now extends to the Strand ; & portion of the ground, before it was taken by the Gaiety Theatre and Restaurant, was occupied by Exeter Change, which ran through from Wellington Street to Catherine Street. The idea was to have a sort of Lowther Arcade there, but the shops, with one or two exceptions, were never let ; and I have frequently walked through and found only one other person in the Arcade, namely, the beadle with his tall laced hat, and carrying a staff. Lower down the street were the offices of The Field and Queen ; and next door, in the Strand, for a time John Limbird }iad a shop. Limbird will always be re- membered as the father of our periodical literature. In The Athenaeum for the 22nd of January, 1831, Dilke speaks highly of his Mirror of Literature, then being published weekly at twopence.
JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS. (To be continmd.)
BRITISH MEMORIALS OF THE
PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.
THE British graves at Waterloo recently formed the subject of an article in one of the leading magazines. But the Hundred Days' Campaign was preceded by six years of stirring warfare in the Peninsula against the forces of Napoleon, during which period thousands of Britons found their last resting- place in Spanish or French soil.
The centenaries of these historic fights are now crowding upon u . Only to cite the most salient : Barrosa has been cele- brated, Salamanca falls this year, Vitoria and San Sebastian in 1813. These con- siderations have prompted this rapid review of such memorials as lie near the French frontier, principally in the hope that Anglo - Spanish or Anglo - Portuguese readers may- be found to complete the effort by contri- buting lists or notes of more distant battle- fields.
These lists are hardly likely to be of weari- some length. Gleig " The Subaltern " of 1813-14, who subsequently took holy orders and wrote a ' Life of Wellington assures us that a hundred years ago Tommy Atkins was " spaded under " without benefit of clergy, and it is highly improbable that any existing memorial marks nay, that any memorial ever marked the grave of even one of the thousands of British privates who lie among the Spanish hills and valleys. All that the tourist can hope to find in these distant and lonely spots is the occasional tomb of a British officer, or (quite exceptionally) of a favourite " non-com."
Apart from these humble contemporary tombstones, a few more modern memorials deserve passing mention. Biarritz, near which the Iron Duke wintered in 1813-14, contains a handsome Anglican church, attended by King Edward VII. during his last holiday. The patriotic initiative of a local resident (Mr. Philip Hurt, now deceased) resulted in the erection of an entrance tower to this building, the interior walls of which are covered with marble slabs bearing the badges and numbers of Wellington's regi- ments, with the names of the officers and the number of men who fell on French soil i.e., between the crossing of the Bidassoa and the sortie from Bayonne.
In France one may occasionally find what I have not personally seen in Spain British soldiers' tombs in a Catholic graveyard. The old parish church of Biarritz perched on the hill towards the Negresse station is
