Malta.
* * * * *
Minor Notes.
_Waterloo._--I do not know whether, in any of the numerous lives of the
late Duke of Wellington, the following fact has been noticed. In Strada's
History of the Belgian war (a work which deserves to be better known and
appreciated than it is at present), there occurs a passage which shows
that, about three hundred years since, Waterloo was the scene of a severe
engagement; so that the late sanguinary struggle was not the first this
battle-ground has to boast of. The passage occurs in _Famianæ Stradæ de
Bello Belgico, Decas prima_, lib. vi. p. 256., edit. Romæ, 1653; where,
after describing a scheme on the part of the insurgents for surprising
Lille, and its discovery by the Royalists, he goes on:
"Et Rassinghemius de Armerteriensi milite inaudierat: nihilqve moratvs
selectis centvmqvinqvaginta peditibvs et equitibus sclopetariis fermè
qvinqveginta prope _Waterlocvm_ pagvm pvgnam committit."
What makes this more curious is, that, like the later battle, neither of
the contending parties on this occasion were natives of the country in
which the battle was fought, they being the French Calvinists on one side
and the Spaniards on the other.