specimens of the true German character;-brave, generous, honest to a proverb, and distinguished by a simplicity of manners and a kindness of heart, which has often surprised and delighted the traveller, accustomed to the levity of the French, or the reserve of the English. The ardour which they displayed in the struggles of 1806 and 1813, proves that they had felt their disgrace as became an honourable nation. But their rulers were irresponsible, and they were without a remedy. Had FrederickWilliam been a limited sovereign, Napoleon would have been crushed for ever in the campaign of 1805. Even as it was, the grief and indignation of the people did, too late, what their legitimate interference would have done speedily and effectually. Frederick-William, though not a man of strong sense, was not destitute of all manly feeling. The united voice of his honest and loyal subjects, and the rash insults of the French emperor, at length roused him to a sense of his duty. An army of 120,000 men, who had lain idle in their barracks while Napoleon was struggling for life and empire in the valley of the Danube, marched to encounter him returning in triumph from Austerlitz. A decisive battle was fought--the Duke of Brunswick completed in the field what the King had begun in the cabinet-and a campaign of six weeks left Prussia the powerless slave of France for as many years. Never, with one terrible exception, did a civilized sovereign meet with a more deserved, a more signal, or a more strictly personal chastisement, than Frederick-William. The overthrow of his brave army, the capture of his capital, the misery of his faithful subjects, the shameful defection of his most trusted lieutenants-all this was but the more ordinary part of his punishment. He was compelled to attend at Tilsit, humiliated by his political ruin, and embarrassed by his intellectual incapacity-the helpless suppliant of the triumphant Napoleon, and the acute and accomplished Alexander. He was compelled to endure in person the insulting neglect, or the supercilious condescension of his ungenerous enemy, and his faithless ally. He saw his high-minded queen throw herself in tears at the feet of the French emperor, and receive an obdurate repulse. He returned home to witness her melancholy and lingering deaththe result of humbled pride and hopeless sorrow. He survived these miserable events many years he lived to see his country free and victorious, and he ended his life in peace and prosperity. His early want of faith had brought upon him such a prompt and overwhelming punishment as few princes have undergone in this life; and the honourable consistency of his subsequent conduct may induce us to hope that so dreadful a lesson was not inflicted in vain.

We are glad to find that Mr Alison's strong monarchical principles have not tempted him to imitate certain historians of that persuasion, in their perverted accounts of the Peninsular war. He relates the many indelible disgraces incurred by the Spanish nation in his usual tone of calm forbearance; but he does not disguise his opinion, that Spain owed to England alone her escapeif escape can be called, from becoming a French province. We acknowledge, however, that while we admire the steady equanimity of Mr Alison's remarks, we have occasionally, in reading this part of his history, felt more inclination to sympathize with the scornful indignation of Colonel Napier. We cannot help thinking that the resistance of the Spanish nation, fortunate as it was for Europe, was actually more discreditable to themselves than the tamest submission. Submission would at least have enabled us to suppose that the people were not averse to the French yoke. Thus the passive conduct of the Italian states in 1796, did not destroy the military reputation of their citizens. It merely proved that their unhappy political condition had, as might be expected, extinguished public spirit among them; and, therefore, no one was surprised at the bravery afterwards displayed by the Italian corps of Napoleon's army. But the struggles of Spain were as furious as they were feeble; and their rancorous violence displayed the resentment of the nation, without disguising its weakness. They made it clear, in short, that every Spaniard hated the French, but that very few had the courage to meet them in the field. Many of our readers will remember the enthusiastic sympathy which the Peninsular contest excited in England. Orators declaimed upon the impotence of military discipline to withstand righteous enthusiasm ; as if military discipline tended to extinguish enthusiasm, or as if enthusiasm were impossible except in a righteous cause. Poets wrote sonnets about the power of armies being a visible thing, while national spirit was invisible and invincible;-as if the spirit which impelled a brave German to march manfully to battle, had been less formidable, or less noble, than that which prompted a Spanish peasant to lurk in some remote sierra, shooting stragglers and robbing convoys. But the unsparing exposures of Colonel Napier at once and for ever fixed the opinion of the English nation upon the events of the Spanish war; the substance of his narrative is confirmed, generally speaking, by the more lenient statements of Mr. Alison; and their united testimony shows, that the Spanish nation displayed in that struggle a want of common sense, of common honesty, of veracity, of humanity, and of gratitude, scarcely to be paralleled in the history of Bengal or of China.

To some of our readers-though to none, we think, who have given much attention to the subject these observations may appear unjust and illiberal. Their justice is soon vindicated. Every British writer has allowed that the history of the regular Spanish armies, during the Peninsular war, is a mere tissue of folly, cowardice, and disaster. The shameful names of Somosierra, Rio Seco, Belchite, and Ocana, are sufficient to recall the long succession of their miserable overthrows. Their sole achievement in the field-the surrender of the French army at Baylen has long been attributed to its true cause-the unaccountable rashness, and more unaccountable despair, of the unhappy Dupont. A few, and but a few, of the sieges sustained by their towns, have done them more honour. The heroic defence of Gerona stands unrivalled, as an example of Spanish skill and valour. That of Zaragossa, considered merely as a military exploit, was one of far inferior brilliancy. The true glory of that celebrated city consists in the invincible patience with which its defenders endured the ravages of pestilence and famine. That is a species of courage in which the Spaniards have never been deficient. Like many unwarlike nations, they are endued by their moral or physical constitution with a passive courage, under suffering, which is rarely displayed by the bold and hardy soldiers of northern Europe. But, putting this out of the question, it was surely no unparalleled achievement for 30,000 regular troops, aided by 15,000 wellarmed peasants, to defend an imperfectly fortified town for six weeks against 43,000 Frenchmen.

There are persons who think the desultory exploits of the Partidas sufficient to redeem the honour of Spain; and who judge of Castilian skill and prowess, not from the disgraces of Blake and Cuesta, but from the adventurous feats of Mina and the Empecinado. We own that we attach little importance to the isolated and imperfect successes of such leaders as these. We see little glory in firing from a thicket, or rolling rocks down a ravine, especially at a moment when a regular force was vainly summoning recruits for the open defence of Spanish independence. It was not so that the gallant Tyrolese defended their country. They did not desert their Emperor to ensconce themselves in the fastnesses of their mountains. While a hope remained of resisting the enemy in the open field, they were constantly foremost in the ranks of the Austrian army. The partisan warfare of the Spanish peasantry may captivate romantic imaginations; but such are not the means by which a great nation should assert its independence. The details of modern warfare may wear an aspect of formal routine; but it is in the ranks of disciplined armies, with all their unpoetical accompaniments, that the true post of honour and danger

is to be found. A regiment of grenadiers, trudging along the high-road, may be a less picturesque spectacle than a party of brigands wandering among forests and precipices; but if they do their duty, they incur more risk, and perform more service, and therefore deserve more credit. Even were it otherwise, it is not the bravery of a few straggling guerillas that can efface the dishonour incurred by the regular Spanish armies. It would be a poor consolation to a Spaniard, that his country, with a population of twelve millions, and a military force of 70,000 regular soldiers under arms, found her most effectual defenders in a few thousand undisciplined sharpshooters.

The accusation of illiberality we are less careful to answer. We confess that we have no idea of complimenting away the hardly-won glory of our gallant countrymen-of displaying modesty and generosity at the expense of the heroic army which really delivered the Peninsula. Still less are we restrained by any scruple of delicacy from exposing the infamy of that unworthy ally, whose jealousy constantly thwarted our generals; whose cowardice repeatedly betrayed our soldiers; whose imbecility caused our dreadful loss at Albuera; who shamefully deserted our wounded at Talavera; and who actually assassinated our stragglers during the retreat from Burgos. The inflexible justice of Angelo is all that we can grant the Spaniards :-if in the strict letter of history they can find credit or excuse, it is well; if not, let them not seek it from us.

We now come to what we certainly consider the most incomprehensible peculiarity of Mr Alison's work-the strong and apparently causeless interest which he seems to feel in favour of the Russian nation. If this predilection had displayed itself by misrepresentations of the real history of Russia-by the suppression, or the sophistical palliation, of her numerous political crimes-it would have called for a tone of remonstrance very different from any which Mr Alison's work has given us occasion to employ. But we have been able to detect no such attempt. Judging solely from the account before us, we should unhesitatingly conclude that the national character of the Russians is very unamiable; that their domestic government is very corrupt; and that their foreign policy is very unprincipled. How far a hostile historian might have aggravated the picture, we shall not venture to pronounce; but certain we are that the ordinary prejudices against Russia require no stronger confirmation than the statements of Mr Alison. If, after fairly laying the case before his readers, the historian chooses to retain his own prejudices in defiance of his own facts and arguments, we cannot see that we are called upon to interfere. The truth, we suppose, is, that the formidable power and deep policy of

The

Russia have excited in Mr Alison's mind that species of capricious
quasi-admiration, which good and clever men sometimes feel for
certain worthless characters, so long as they are not seriously
called upon to form any practical judgment respecting them.
The pleasure with which the characters alluded to are contem-
plated, proceeds entirely from the taste and imagination; and
rather resembles our admiration of a striking work of art than
our love or esteem for a human being. If this is all that Mr
Alison feels toward Russia, we have little more to say.
prepossession, however, is not such as we should have expected
to remark in a British historian of the nineteenth century, nor is
its display always regulated by the best taste.
Still it may
amount to no more than this-that while Mr Alison acknow-
ledges the numerous faults of the Russian character, he is invo-
luntarily dazzled and attracted by some of its peculiarities. We
do not, by any means, sympathize with this feeling; but so long
as it does not betray its entertainer into any serious defence of
Russian policy, we are content to look upon it as a harmless
though somewhat unpleasing caprice.

The most interesting subject of Mr Alison's history, next to the great Revolution which forms the groundwork of the whole, is undoubtedly the character of the extraordinary man who made that Revolution the instrument of his power. We scarcely know any stronger illustration of the genius and influence of Napoleon Bonaparte, than the simple fact, that for twenty years his life and the history of Europe are convertible terms. During the whole of that time, the annals of the smallest European state would be absolutely unintelligible without a clear view of the policy and character of the French emperor; and, on the other hand, every change of rulers in the pettiest principalityevery intrigue at Petersburg or Naples-every motion in the British Parliament-was of immediate and vital concern to Napoleon. This is more than can be said of any other conqueror or statesman in modern times. The direct influence of Louis, Frederick, and Catharine, was comparatively limited. A Russian or a Turk cared little for the invasion of Holland or the Spanish succession; and an Italian was comparatively indifferent to the conquest of Silesia or the division of Poland. But no such supineness prevailed during the wars of the French empire. Wherever the great conqueror was engaged, the breathless attention of all Europe was fixed. Every citizen of every state felt his hopes or his fortunes raised or depressed by the event. The death of an English minister was hastened by the battle of Marengo; the treaty of Tilsit was felt as an object of interest in the deserts of Central Asia; the battle of Leipsic roused or paralysed every European from Cadiz to the North Cape. The

H