occasion, and performed, in which the Germans were represented as defeated, and the English begging for peace on their knees; the Emperor of the French granting it upon condition, that one hundred guineas, ready money, should be paid to each of his soldiers and sailors! Every corps was admitted gratis to witness this exhibition of the end of all their labors, and none but those who are acquainted with the fickle and inconsiderate character of the nation, can form an idea of the effect. Ballads, with the same predictions and promises, were written and distributed among the soldiers, and sung by the women sent to the coast. All productions of this sort were, as usual, liberally rewarded by the Emperor's orders; and they poured in from all parts of the empire. As a specimen of the abuse which some of these hired French poets bestowed on the English nation, to flatter and inflame the vanity of the French troops, one of them is made to sing:

"A Londres on vit briller d'un éclat éphémère

Le front tout radieux, d'un ministre influent;

Mais pour faire pâlir l'étoile d'Angleterre,
Un soleil tout nouveau parut au firmament,
Et ce soleil du peuple Français,

Admiré de l'Europe entiere,

Sur la terre, est nominé Bonaparte le grand." p. 7.

These lines (which we translate,) are extravagant nonsense, as adulatory stanzas, and time-serving songs, usually are, But we cannot discover that the English are very grossly abused in them, and that they must be ready to exclaim with Phoebe, "call you this railing!" The details concerning the prison of the Temple, and of the imprisonment, torture, and murder of the gallant captain Wright, are highly interesting. We refer the reader to the work itself, which is lively and amusing, and neither bulky nor dear.

Our formidable friends the Cossacs, with whom we hope never to have a visiting acquaintance en masse, are thus characterised:

"It is a curious fact, related to me by an officer of distinguished rank in the Russian service, that the Cossacs were not informed of their being out of the territories of the Emperor of Russia, until they were crossing the Rhine to enter France, otherwise they would have immediately commenced their usual system of plunder, even in the country of their allies." p. 65.

Mr. Fellowes gives a spirited account of the review of the allied troops on the 24th of July, 1815. We close our extracts with the following passage:

In London once shone with ephemeral beamn
The brow of a Minister ruling the State,

But to make England's star shed its last fading gleam,
Scon a new Sun of Glory was granted by Fate-

To France it was given in splendor supreme,

And on earth it is named Bonaparte the Great."

"When the Highland regitnents came up, playing their bagpipes, the attention of the foreign princes seemed particularly directed to them, from the novelty of their dresses; they played their favorite national airs as they passed. The band of the brave 42d regiment played "I'll gang nae mair to yon' town.'-My late gallant friend, Sir Robert Macara, whó commanded this corps in the battle of the 16th of June, was killed, with two-thirds of the officers and men, on that memorable day. It was melancholy to see how thin some of our regiments were-The 42d had only two hundred present, and the 44th, which Colonel O'Mally com manded on the 18th, had only one hundred and eighty; the few renaming survivors being in the hospitals, recovering trom their wounds.

"The Belgians appeared very strong. And well they may,' said an officer, who was hy my side, for they threw away their arms, and ran away by thousands, leaving the British and the other allies to fight the enemy. All the other troops behaved with the greatest gallantry. This officer told me, that when his regiment was formed into a square, and they expected to be overpowered, one of their serjeants tore the colours off the staff, and put them in his pocket.-It is impossible I can ever forget the sensations which this fine sight excited.

"Our troops, from the state of their clothing, did not perhaps appeir to so much advantage, after such a campaign, as the Prussians did, who had been new clothed since they entered France; but to every Lughsh man present, it was a proud sight and a gratifying reflection, that each individual had nobly supported the honor of his country, and that he did not require the aid of ornament or dress to impress the spectators with respect and admiration for the valour displayed by the British army in the late battle.

"The French, who seem so highly amused with the Highland dresses, call them "ies Cossurs Anglois." It has been stated to me, on good authority, that the British army was alone engaged with the French unul six o'clock in the evening of the battle of the 18th of June. However glorious it was for the British arms, it was long doubttu!; and the subsequent destruction and final overthrow of the French army, was certainly owing to the Prussians coming up when they did. This seems to be the prevailing opinion with all the officers that I have conversed with-or that I have heard speak on the subject. It is also generally admitted, that had a retreat taken place on the part of the allies, it would have been a most disastrous one, as the Belgians would, it is believed, have joined the French, and cut off every avenue to the retreating army. Many of these troops, who behaved so ill in the action, plundered in all directions; and there was scarcely a regiment engaged on that day, that did not lose most of their things from the shameful conduct of those cowards." p. 126.

ART. VI.-Letter from Lord Erskine to the Editor of Mr. Fox's Speeches prefixed to that Collection. pp. 48. THE little prefatory address before us, though not very important in itself, is yet calculated to excite interest. It is the production of one who once made a conspicuous figure on the

busy stage of legal and political strife. The advocate, whose eloquence has often pleased, sometimes delighted every tribunal in our country, comes forward, after a long silence, to raise a memorial of his affection for one by whom his talents were fostered during almost the whole of his public life. The motive is amiable; the effort not unworthy him who makes it. Lord Erskine was at the bar for nearly thirty years; and for the greater part of that time at the head of it. It was a situation which he was eminently qualified to sustain. His mode of speaking, his style-and even his genius, are essentially forensic. Destitute (as is supposed) of the power of grasping the affairs of empires, and revolving schemes of extended policy; he was yet fully equal to the discussion of the individual cases which came before him. He saw all their bearings in an instant; he spread the light of his own mind over all their details; and presented every object to the view of juries with a peculiar distinctness. He was always a tolerable master of his subject; but he was master of that which is of infinitely more importancehis audience. There was a charm in his addresses to the feelings, which it was impossible to resist. He threw his whole soul, (sometimes his body too) into every cause of importance in which he was engaged. In all he said there was so much that came home to the bosoms of his hearers-the finer fibres of the heart were so delicately touched, that he frequently made them feel as if the existence of every social and christian charity depended on the success of his client.

His published speeches, which he avowedly corrected, are by far the best reported of any in modern times; so that we have a fair opportunity of estimating his merit as a speaker. They do not display much depth of thought-much force of intellect, or much grasp of imagination; but they are distinguished by a just sense of propriety, by a flowing natural diction, and admirable touches of the pathetic. If there is no power that can terrify, there is a gentleness that wins, and a manliness that commands. The speeches in the cases of adultery are exquisitely polished, yet apparently artless; and they are filled with beautiful and engaging pictures of domestic bliss, to form a contrast with the mournful details of its loss. In them are seen his master-touches.

The political speeches are beautiful too, whenever they do not treat of politics. It was in the kindlinesses and the gentleness of the heart-in the social and amiable feelings, that Lord Erskine found the best topics of his eloquence. As a pleader

for human errors and frailties, and as a eulogist of the finer affections of our nature, he once had no equal.

As we wish to imitate his charity, we shall say nothing of his political creed, or his parliamentary failures.-All who knew him will unite in agreeing that he has rendered his profession most important services. His high sense of honour, his manly spirit of independence, his undaunted assertion of the rights of the bar, have raised its character, and shed over it a lustre which will not speedily be dimmed.

The present essay will not, it cannot, add to a reputation that stood so high. Mr. Erskine ought always to have spoken. A habit of pleading is not favorable to composition for the press. The styles are essentially different, and cannot be made to assimilate. In one respect, indeed, this production has given us considerable pleasure; as containing a decided approval of the late glorious struggle to dethrone the base usurper whom so many pretended friends of liberty, among us, paradoxically insist on admiring. His Lordship thinks that Mr. Fox would, on this occasion, have agreed with the ministry; but we are inclined to hold a contrary opinion, especially when we look at many passages in the speeches to which the letter is appended. Not to mention that a leader of opposition might have felt himself inclined to think that wrong which ministry thought right, we can discern in Mr. F. a blind prejudice against every contest in which blood could be shed, however valuable the object to be secured-a kind of Quakerism which he would not have laid aside, had all the ribbons which the Prince Regent has given away during the last twelvemonth been presented to him at once. We are happy, however, to lay before our readers some of the sentiments of the noble author, in the expression of which they will trace something of the beauty of his eloquencethough the fiery spirit is wanting.

"But when this vague system of warfare was at last abandoned, when peace was offered upon the ordinary principles of security, when the treaty of Amiens was actually made, and when (without at all discussing the immediate principles of its short continuance) Buonaparte more manifestly began to pursue the most audacious, unprincipled and unbounded system of ambition; when he conducted himself with such violence and injustice to Holland, that to use Mr. Fox's own words, were he master of the use of colours and, could paint with skill, he would use the darkest to delineate his conduct :"-when, to use his own words again, as to the oppression of Switzerland, from which he said "by treaty as well as upon every principle of justice, he was bound to withdraw his troops, to leave the country to itself coen under the miserable government he had gizen to it, and to respect its independence; he nevertheless had established e dominion utterly repugnant to the principles and odious to the feelings of that people :"when, afterwards by a complicated, system of fraud, trea

chery, and violence, he overran, and butchered the Spanish nation, endeavouring after ages of darkness to assert and vindicate her own independence, and the general cause of freedom-when, to leave details which serve only to weaken the view of his odious and unprincipled plans of universal mischief, he became in his own person what it had been before absurd to predicate of a nation--the whole principle and character of the war was altered. Its origin, politicians might still continue to remove it from themselves and cast it upon their opponents; but its prosecution was no longer matter of choice but of painful and cruel necessity. For a long and dreadful interval, France continued to be the proud, revengeful, and desolating assailant; whilst the surrounding nations, discomfited by their unsuccessful contest when they were in the wrong, had not yet acquired the just confidence which always belongs to those who are in the right-hence, they were every where overthrown; and if, after the subjugation of so many kingdoms and the defection of others from the confederacy, he had stopped short in his hostile career, when the independence of France and his own security had been asserted by his unparalleled exertions, his dynasty, whatever might have followed from it, would, in all probability, have been as well established as any other in Europe or in the world.--By his divorce from Josephine and his marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria, he appeared for a while to have adopted this peaceful policy; but the restless and unprincipled character of his mind betrayed him-he was an evil spirit at variance with the social spirit of the world, and persisted without due reflection in his pernicious course-how else could he have hoped to enforce his Napoleon system, which demanded of all nations the surrender of every source of their prosperity? Men will submit to evil systems of government, while they are left in possession of their property, and with the free and necessary intercourses of the world: but they will not consent to be starved by an arbitrary system of unmitigated restriction and exclusion, imposed upon them by a foreign force, directed to no object in which they have an interest, and of which they cannot but be the victims." pp. 22-24.

After proceeding to argue that Buonaparte could never have been overthrown but by his own insane ambition, Lord Erskine draws the conclusion at which he aims, viz. that Mr. Fox's predictions respecting his invincibility and that of France were not ill-founded; and that had he been living "his sagacity would have predicted the event" by which all the speculations of opposition have been overthrown! Many people regretted and still regret the loss of Mr. Fox; but had he been spared we do not believe that any of his friends would have desired to see him deal any more in prophecy.

The rest of the letter is occupied in a defence of some other of Mr. Fox's opinions, and in giving a sketch of his character. The latter is the best, because it treats of things at home. Expanded national subjects are not quite suited to Lord Erskine's genius. Having no hopes of ever seeing his lordship again in a situation where the public can profit from his labours, we wish him a long enjoyment of the pleasing recollections which past exertions must afford him. But we also wish that those NO. VIII. Aug. Rev. VOL. I. 3 H