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favours? The losses were certainly immense, and out of all proportion to the advantages gained. Every one around him had to lament the loss of a friend, a relation, or a brother; for the fate of battle had fallen on the most distinguished. Forty-three generals had been killed or wounded. What a mourning for Paris! what a triumph for his enemies! what a dangerous subject for the reflections of Germany! In his army, even in his very tent, victory was silent, gloomy, isolated, even without flatterers!"

"Murat exclaimed, That in this great day he had not recognised the genius of Napoleon!' The viceroy confessed that he had no conception what could be the reason of the indecision which his adopted father had shown. Ney, when he was called on for his opinion, was singularly obstinate in advising him to

retreat."

We pass over the subsequent march to Moscow, the conflagration and pillage of that mighty city, and shall conclude with selecting one or two insulated incidents.

FRENCH CAMP AFTER THE FIRE.

In the fields, amidst thick mud, large fires were kept up with mahogany furniture, windows, and gilded doors. Around these fires, on a litter of damp straw, imperfectly sheltered by a few boards, were seen the soldiers, and their officers, splashed all over with mud and blackened with smoke, seated in arm-chairs or reclined on silken couches. At their feet were spread or heaped Cashmere shawls, the rarest furs of Siberia, the gold stuffs of Persia, and silver plates, off which they had nothing to eat but a black dough baked in the ashes, and half broiled and bloody horse-flesh. Singular assemblage of abundance and want, of riches and filth, of luxury and wretchedness!

THE RUSSIANS.

These Russians added, that they were particularly astonished at our security on the approach of their mighty winter, which was their natural and most formidable ally, and which they expected every moment: they pitied us and urged us to fly. "In a fortnight," said they, "your nails will drop off, and your arms will fall from your stiff and half dead fingers." The language of some of the cossack chiefs was also remarkable. They asked our officers, "if they had not, in their own country, corn enough, air enough, graves enough-in short, room enough to live and die? Why then did they come so far from home to throw away their lives and to fatten a foreign soil with their blood?" They added, that "this was a robbery of their native

land, which, while living, it is our duty to cultivate, to defend, and to embellish and to which after our death we owe our bodies, which we received from it, which it has fed, and which in their turn ought to feed it."

FIELD OF BORODINO.

After passing the Kologa, we marched on, absorbed in thought, when some of us, raising our eyes, uttered an exclamation of horror. Each instantly looked around him, and beheld a plain trampled, bare, and devastated, all the trees eut down within a few feet from the surface, and farther off craggy hills, the highest of which appeared to be the most misshapen. It had all the appearance of an extinguished and destroyed volcano. The ground was covered all around with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gunstocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards dyed with blood. On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half-devoured corses. A number of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the whole. It seemed as if death had here fixed his empire; it was that terrible redoubt, the conquest and the grave of Caulaincourt. Presently the cry, "It is the field of the great battle!" formed a long and doleful murmur. The emperor passed quickly. Nobody stopped. Cold, hunger, and the enemy urged us on: we merely turned our faces as we proceeded to take a last melancholy look at the vast grave of so many companions in arms, uselessly sacrificed, and whom we were obliged to leave behind.

SUFFERINGS OF THE FRENCH.

In vain did these poor unfortunates, feeling themselves benumbed, raise themselves, and already deprived of the power of speech and plunged into a stupor, proceed a few steps like automatons; their blood freezing in their veins, like water in the current of rivulets, congealed their heart, and then flew back to their head these dying men then staggered as if they had been intoxicated. From their eyes, which were reddened and inflamed by the continual aspect of the snow, by the want of sleep, and the smoke of bivouacs, there flowed real tears of blood; their bosom heaved heavy sighs; they looked at heaven, at us, and at the earth with an eye dismayed, fixed, and wild; it expressed their farewell, and perhaps their reproaches to the barbarous nature which tortured them. They were not long before they fell upon their knees, and then upon their hands; their head still wavered for a few minutes alternately to the right and left, and from their open mouth some

DIARY OF OCCURRENCES.

agonizing sounds escaped; at last it fell in its turn upon the snow, which it reddened immediately with livid blood; and their sufferings were at an end.

ANECDOTE OF MURAT.

Hitherto it was hardly possible for the king of Naples to regulate our flight any better; but at the moment he passed through Marienwerder on his way to Posen, a letter from Naples again unsettled all his resolutions. The impression which it made upon him was so violent, that by degrees, as he read it, the bile mixed itself with his blood so rapidly, that he was found a few minutes after with a complete jaundice. It appeared that an act of government which the queen had taken upon herself had wounded him in one of his strongest passions. He was not at all jealous of that princess, notwithstanding her charms, but furiously so of his royal authority; and it was particularly of the queen, as sister of the emperor, that he was suspicious.

REMAINS OF THE GRAND ARMY.

Napoleon entered Orcha with six thousand guards, the remains of thirty-five thousand! Eugene, with eighteen hundred soldiers, the remains of forty-two thousand! Davoust, with four thousand, the remains of seventy thousand!

This marshal had lost every thing, was without linen, and emaciated with hunger. He seized upon a loaf which was offered him by one of his companions in arms, and devoured it. A handkerchief was given him to wipe his face, which was covered with rime. He exclaimed, "that none but men of iron constitutions could support such trials, that it was physically impossible to resist them; that there were limits to human strength, the farthest of

which had been exceeded.”

With this extract we shall close our notice of the present work. Though count Segur is among the enthusiastic admifers of the transcendent powers of Napoleon, his history of the Russian campaign certainly does not tend to enhance the French emperor's military reputation. The illu-. sion which had hitherto supported him and his followers disappeared after this horrible disaster, and even the French marshals began to indulge in jokes on the "Star," which he had considered his protecting genius. As to the million of unhappy victims who strewed the bloody track of Napoleon from the Niemen to Moscow

There shall they rot-Ambition's honour'd fools!

Yes, honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!

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Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that tyrants cast away

By myriads, when they dare to pave their

way

With human hearts to what?-a dream alone!

Diary of Occurrences.

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April 1-THE LONDON UNIVERSITY. I wish Campbell success in this project. At first I had some doubts, but I am now convinced of its utility, and the many benefits it would confer on the metropolis. Cambridge and Oxford are inadequate to meet the demand for liberal education, arising out of the increasing population, opulence, and intellectual character of the community. Why then should not more extensive accommodation be provided? In favour of a metropolitan university many good reasons may be stated: first, it would combine the great advantage of domestic and public education. Students might pursue their studies without being withdrawn from parental surveillance they would live in society and the world, and at the same time enjoy all the benetion, and learned professors. Secondly, fits they could derive from classes, emula the London University would be extremely economical; instead of a liberal education being purchased at an expense of 300% or 400l. per annum, it would not cost more than 201. or 301. per annum. Thirdly, it would be a great accommoda tion to those classes who are shut out from the benefit of the national universities, because, from religious and conscientious scruples, they cannot subscribe to the thirty-nine Articles and other formalities. New Road, or anywhere else, at an expense Lastly, a noble university, erected on the of 150, or 200,000l. would be an honour and ornament to the metropolis, and form a far more noble embellishment than the

Thames Quay, or even St. Bride's Steeple.

The duke of Devonshire has purchased the first edition of Hamlet, from Messrs.

Payne and Foss, for nearly 200 guineas. The black-letter mania is as violent as ever. Evans sold on Monday the following bagatelle for twenty-two pounds and Boke, that speketh of Purgatorye, and of ten shillings." Here beginneth a Lyttel the Paynes that be therein. And for what Gulmine died lately near Parma, at the Synnes a Soul goth to Hell."-The signor age of a hundred and thirty-eight years; he was the first tenor in Italy, and leader of the band to Benedict XIV.-Yesterday parliament adjourned for a fortnight.-In consequence of what is called a row in the university of Oxford, the second

son of the "great captain of the age" has been rusticated.

2.-Went again to hear M'Culloch. Noladies there: having no share in legislation-I suppose they feel no interest in the laws which regulate accumulation, production, &c. Yet Mrs. Marcet has written a very clever work on the science.The dress intended to be worn by the duke of Northumberland at the French coronation is said to be amazingly fine, and eclipses the famous Hungarian jacket worn by prince Esterhazy at the coronation of his present majesty.-Col. Trench's plan for the Thames Quay is abandoned for the present session-and probably for

the next.

4.-WASHINGTON IRVING.-Read the Quarterly Review, which contains one good article, that on Rail Roads. The article on the Irish Church, as well as that on Washington Irving's "Tales," is very poor. The reviewer is certainly mistaken about the manner of observing Christmas in Yorkshire. I have spent a good many Christmases there, and know how the thing is done: most people have a yule clog on Christmas Eve-Christmas cake is baked in lieu of plum-pudding-and a round of visiting continues till Old Christmas-day, when the compliments of the season conclude. The fact is, Mr. Irving is as much astray on the present state of manners in England, as the renowned knight of La Mancha, when he commenced his journey of knight errantry. Customs, which Mr. I. supposes to exist, have pass ed away more than a century ago, and been succeeded by something much better than the relics of superstition and feudal oppression.

1747.-Simon lord Lovat was beheaded on Tower-Hill.

April X.-Low Sunday.
High Water, Morn. VII. 3m-Even. VIII.0 m.
Moon, last quarter, Morn. V.9 m.
Sunday Lessons: Morn. Numb. 16, Acts 7. Even.
Numb. 22, Heb. 12.

CUSTOMS. It was a custom among the primitive Christians, on the first Sunday after Easter-day, to repeat some part of the solemnity of that grand festival; whence this Sunday took the name of Low Sunday, being celebrated as a feast, though in a lower degree.

April XI.-Monday.

High Water, Morn. VIII. 30 m.-Ev. IX. 0 m.]
Length of Day 13 h. 32. m.

CHRONOLOGY.-1512. Was fought the famous battle of Ravenna, in the northeast part of Italy, when that celebrated hero, Gascon de Foix, was slain in the moment of victory, in the 24th year of his

age.

1689.-King William and queen Mary were crowned at Westminster.

1814.-Napoleon Buonaparte abdicated the government of France.

April XII-Tuesday.

High Water, Morn. IX. 30 m.-Even. IX. 59 m.

CHRONOLOGY.-1765. Expired, at his living at Welwyn, Dr. Edward Young, the celebrated author of "Night Thoughts,' a species of poetry peculiarly his own.

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1782. Admiral Rodney obtained a splendid victory over the French fleet, commanded by the count de Grasse.

The expense of obtaining a patent in America is only 50 dollars-67. 15s.-The receipts at Covent-garden Theatre to Miss Foote's performance during twenty nights, exceeded twelve thousand pounds—a sum far surpassing any thing upon record. Madame Pasta's engagement at the King's Theatre is said to be for twelve nights, at one hundred and sixty guineas per night. The public have been amused for some time about a pretended match between Wombwell's lion, Nero, and six mastiffs. To crown the hoax-for such it proved to be an account of the fight having taken place, and circumstantial details of the battle, appeared in several of High Water, Morn. 0. 0 m.-Even. 0. 10 m. the newspapers.

April XIII.-Wednesday.

High Water, Morn. X. 27 m.-Even. X. 53 m.

Oxford and Cambridge term begins.

On this day, 1824, died Jane Taylor, one of the contributors to the "Associate Minstrels," and authoress of " Display," and several other works of celebrity.

Weekly Calendar.

April IX.-Saturday.

Water, Morn. VI. 33 m.-Even. VII. 2 m.
Morn, V. 18m.; sets, VI. 52 m.

April XIV.-Thursday.

High Water, Morn. XI. 20 m.—Even. XI. 45 m.

April XV.-Friday.

London: Printed by A. APPLEGATH, Stamford Street, for THOMAS BOYS,. No. 7, Ludgate Hill, to whom all Commu nications (free of expense) are requested to be addressed; and sold also by all Booksellers, Newsmen, and Venders in Town and Country-Published every Saturday.'

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WE cannot say but we are glad these aërial voyages have been resumed this Easter. Amusements of some kind are necessary, and we really can imagine no recreation more philosophical and sublime, than to behold the majestic rising of a balloon in a cloudless sky. It is a spectacle too peculiarly adapted for public exhibition, from the facility it affords for gratifying an immense concourse of spectators. The only serious objection against aërostation is the fatal accidents that sometimes occur; but this ought rather to teach caution, than induce us to abandon_altogether this beautiful art. There is no amusement which may not be at

VOL. I.

tended with casualties, when improperly conducted; and we believe most of the accidents in balloon ascents have arisen either from the unskilfulness of the conductors, or from being attempted at an unsuitable season of the year. It is therefore the interest of the aeronauts to attend to these circumstances, if they are desirous that their art should stand well in public estimation.

We have been led into these reflections from witnessing the very beautiful ascent of Messrs. Green, from the City Road, on Easter Monday. A more lovely evening we scarcely remember, and at half-past five o'clock, when the signal gun was

fired, announcing that the ascent was about to take place, the entire atmosphere was unclouded. Mr. Green and his brother entered the car amidst the shouts and clapping of hands of the assembled thousands.

Three carrier pigeons were taken by Mr. Green in a small wicker basket, one of which he was to set at liberty on arriving at his greatest altitude, and the other two he was to despatch as soon as he effected his descent, to convey to his friends, at the Eagle-tavern, the name of the place where, and the time when, he descended.

When about the height of St. Paul's, the balloon moved slowly along, almost in a horizontal line, and Mr. Green did not throw out any ballast till he was over the county of Surrey, in which direction the voyagers sailed, the wind being northeast. The sand might be seen falling in diverging lines, and probably every grain, when it reached the earth, would be many score yards asunder; so that it is impossible, as some persons imagine, that the falling of it can be perceptible to the 'spectators.

MESSRS. GREEN'S ACCOUNT OF THEIR

VOYAGE.

"At half-past five o'clock the balloon left the earth, amidst the cheers of thousands of spectators; and as we passed over the metropolis, we heard the shouts of the inhabitants in the different streets. To give the public a more distinct view of the machine, as it moved with grandeur and sublimity through the atmosphere, we determined not to attain too great an altitude.

Our course was west by southsouth-west, and on crossing the river Thames, we passed directly between Waterloo and Blackfriars' bridges. The river Thames, with its serpentine form, appeared to the naked eye not larger than a boa-constrictor. When we were at our utmost altitude,.St Paul's did not appear o be larger than a dog-kennel, and the monument not bigger than a walkingstick! When at a distance of abont 4,000 feet from the earth, we liberated a pigeon. It has been stated that, in consequence of the extreme rarity of the air at such an elevation, a pigeon cannot use its wings; but we found that the moment the pigeon left the car, it flew with ease and rapidity in a zigzag direction towards the earth, till we lost sight of it. The thermometer varied from 69 to 75; the barometer, on leaving the earth, stood at 30 inches two-tenths; and when at our highest elevation, it stood at 21 fivetenths, giving an altitude of about a mile and three quarters. We passed through

.

slight currents of air, and at times the earth was completely obscured from our view by detached bodies of vapour. We did not pass through a single cloud, and our voyage was very pleasant. Having been in the atmosphere about an hour and three quarters, we determined on making our descent, the country appearing open and convenient for such purpose. The first sound we heard on descending was the barking of a dog; the barometer then stood at 26 inches, which showed that we were about three quarters of a mile from the surface of the earth. Having reached the earth without any concussion, and finding the spot on which we landed was a ploughed field, and unfavourable for emptying and packing up the machine, we agreed that one of us (Mr. G. Green) should alight; he did so, and Mr. Charles Green reascended, and proceeded onwards to a grass field about a quarter of a mile distant, on the estate of lady Glynn, in the parish of Ewell, a distance of nearly two miles from Epsom, where a safe descent was effected, with the assistance of a number of country people. Having packed up the balloon, we started in a chaise and four for London, and arrived at the Eagle-tavern about eleven o'clock the same night. To the directors and engineers of the Independent Gas Company, we feel ourselves particularly obliged, for their activity and good management.

"CHARLES GREEN. "GEORGE GREEN.

"Goswell-street, "Monday night, 12 o'clock, April 4.”

MR. GRAHAM'S BALLOON ASCENT. This gentleman ascended the same day from the Star and Garter, Kew-bridge, and appears to have enjoyed as auspicious and favourable an aerial voyage as Messrs. Green. Two persons were desirous of joining in the trip, and had offered 20%. and 251. for a seat, but their offers were refused.

The balloon then ascended with Mr. Graham alone, in a steady and majestic manner. After a pleasant journey of one hour and fifty minutes, Mr. Graham descended, at ten minutes past six o'clock, in a field in the village of Oakshot, a mile and a half beyond Claremont, twelve from London, and fourteen from Kew, and arrived in town at twelve o'clock at night. He says, that when in the air, he experienced the most severe cold, particularly in his feet. Owing to the clearness of the day, he had a delightful view of the country. The greatest altitude the balloon attained was about two miles,

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