ever, to be extremely steep and narrow; and when two-thirds of the ascent had been won, the struggle was so violent that the men paused, and every musket in the crowd was snapped under the instinct of self-defence, though not one was loaded. Major Napier, however, who was at this moment struck down by a grape-shot, called to the troops to trust to their bayonets. The officers all at once sprung to the front, and the summit was won. Then arose a loud shout from every quarter; for Pack's Portuguese at the same moment had escaladed the walls on the opposite side. The light division now pushed on in great numbers, and, not forgetting their orders, turned sharp to the right, and with loud cheers assaulted in flank the intrenchment at the great breach, where the third division had been arrested; and by a mighty effort of both united, the barriers were burst through, and the troops rushed in.” This capture was an extraordinary triumph; a success of much higher order than the fall of a fortress-it was a victory over the precautions, the opinion, and the arms of the French empire. No success of the whole war was more calculated to sting Imperial vanity, or acquaint the world with the great fact, that the French might be mastered alike in council, tactics, and arms, and that the British army was the noble instrument by which this was to be done. The value of Ciudad Rodrigo had been always regarded by Napoleon as incalculable, and all the movements of his troops between it and the Pyrenees, had been directed with a view to its preservation. It was now taken before his face. The preparations for this great operation had been conducted with such skill, that the batteries had opened their fire before the enemy, though only a few marches distant, had heard of the British advance; and the place was taken before they could put a single soldier in motion. Its capture, too, even when garrisoned only by Spaniards, had cost Massena six weeks, at the head of 80,000 men, and in the finest season of the year. It was taken from a French garrison by the British general, at the head of but 40,000 men, in twelve days, in the depth of winter, and by assault. Its immediate results were important: it threw into the conquerors hands 150 guns, including Marmont's whole battering train. But the more remote and loftier NO. CCXCVII. VOL. XLVIII. results were, its transfer of the palm from France to England, and its announcement to Europe that the invincibility of Napoleon was no more. The wrath of the Emperor showed how keenly he felt the loss of Ciudad Rodrigo; and the letters of his warminister to Marmont, are full of the bitterest reproaches. "The Emperor which you have evinced in the affair is highly displeased at the negligence of Ciudad Rodrigo. Why had you not advices from it twice a-week? What were you doing with the five divisions of Souham? This is a strange mode of carrying on war; and the Emperor makes no secret of his opinion, that the disgrace of this disaster attaches to you. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo is an affront to you,"-&c.&c. But a still heavier affront, because a repetition on a bolder and more difficult scale, and involving the character of the most distinguished soldier of France next to the Emperor himself, was immediately offered. Soult was now to be the sufferer, and this, too, when his vigilance was necessarily awakened by the disgrace of Marmont, and when the British general's rapid facility of taking fortresses had awakened it especially for the safety of the great fortress on which his communications with France chiefly depended. The eye of the British general had been turned on Badajoz from the beginning of the campaign; and his preparations for its capture began instantly from the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. Cannon, provisions, ammunition, were all to be transported almost in the presence of the French, yet without exciting their suspicions. All this was effected with such matchless skill, that Napoleon and his marshal were equally led astray, the Emperor himself being the chief dupe. Even this was not without remonstrance, for Marmont, warned by his late disaster, urgently stated his fears for Badajoz. Napoleon's answer, through Berthier, was, "You must suppose the English mad to imagine that they will march upon Badajoz, leaving you at Sala manca. * I repeat it, then; the instructions of the Emperor are precise. You are not to quit Salamanca; you are even Let your to re-occupy the Asturias. headquarters be at Salamanca, and never cease to menace the English from that point." We recognise the F peremptory style of one who thought himself superior to the possibility of deception. Yet never was man more completely and contemptuously deceived. We can imagine no more pungent subject for the ridicule of a Swift or a Cervantes than the feelings of this human oracle, when it was told him by some pallid and faltering minister that the whole British army was in full march for Badajoz, or perhaps no finer subject for the pencil of some great master of the human passions, than Napoleon's powerful and foreboding countenance as he stood, with the despatch in his hand, announcing its fall, and measuring in it the declining course of his own stricken star. Yet the strength of Badajoz might have been some justification of imperial security, if any thing were to be regarded as safe in war, in the presence of British troops. The fortress was commanded by Philippon, already distinguished for its defence. Its garrison amounted to 5000 troops of the line. It was amply provisioned, and six months had been employed in completing its defences to the highest point of art. Perhaps no siege was ever undertaken under greater difficulties. Marmont might be expected to pour down on one flank, and Soult was known to be advancing from An dalusia on another. The season was singularly inclement, and the trenches were flooded, while the same cause filled the ditches of the place with water. The French garrison, animated by their governor, and determined not to share the disgrace of Ciudad Rodrigo, fought well, made sorties, and caused the defence of a single outwork to cost the assailants 350 men. The rapidity of the siege was unexampled but by those of the British themselves in the Peninsula. Ground was first broken on the 17th of March; but a tempest stopped all operations for four days. On the night of the 24th, the great outwork, La Picurina, was stormed; and on the night of the 27th, the British in four divisions, under Picton, Leith, Colville, and Bernard, gallant names, long to be remembered in the annals of the brave, rushed to the assault. We turn from the narrative of the central storm, excellently told as it is, to the progress of the single column which first mastered the rampart, the troops under Picton. The general assault had been fixed for ten o'clock at night; but a shell bursting in front of Picton's battalions, disclosed their line, and made their instant advance necessary. Moving half an hour before the assault on the breach, and crossing a stream, which compelled them to move in single file, exposed to a perpetual fire from the ramparts, they still pushed on, though the light of the guns and combustibles showed every man as clear as day. There "Forming on the other side, they rushed quickly up the rugged steep to the foot of the castle wall. Kempt, who had hitherto headed the assault, was struck down, and Picton was left alone to conduct the column. To the soul of a hero, however, he united the skill of a general; and well were both tried on that eventful night. Soon the palisades were burst through, and in ran Picton followed by his men; but when they got through and reached the foot of the wall, the fire almost perpendicularly down was so violent that the troops wavered; in an instant the loud voice of their chief was heard above the din, calling on them to advance, and they rushed in, bearing on their shoulders the ponderous scaling ladders, which were immediately raised up against the wall. Down in an instant, of wood, heavy stones, shells, and handwith a frightful crash, came huge logs grenades, while the musketry with deadly effect was plied from above, and the bursting projectiles, illuminating the whole battlements, enabled the enemy to take aim with unerring accuracy. Several of the ladders were broken by the weight of the throng who pressed up them; and the men falling from a great height, were transfixed on the bayonets of their comrades below, and died miserably. Still fresh assailants swarmed round the foot of the ladders. Macpherson of the 45th, and Pakenham, now Sir Edward Pakenham, reached the top of the rampart, but were instantly and severely wounded and thrown down. Picton, though wounded, called to his men that they had never been defeated, and that now was the time to conquer or die. If we cannot win the castle, said he, let us die upon the walls. Animated by his voice, they again rushed forward, but again all the bravest were struck down, Picton himself was badly wounded, and his men, despite all their valour, were obliged to recoil, and take shelter under a projec tion of the hill. "The attack seemed hopeless, when the reviving voice of Picton again summoned the soldiers to the attack, and he directed it a little to the right of the former assault, where the wall was somewhat lower, and an embrasure promised some facility for entrance. There a young hero, Colonel Ridge of the 45th, who had already distinguished himself at Ciudad Rodrigo, sprang forward, and calling on the men to follow, himself mounted the first ladder." The castle was won. A brigade under Walker soon after made their way in an opposite quarter, the troops joined in the centre of the fortress, and Badajoz was in the hands of the British general. This was one of the most desperate struggles in military history. The slaughter in Turkish fortresses has been greater, but there it was the slaughter of fugitives. Here the slaughter was bayonet to bayonet, and bullet for bullet; the long, persevering, and resolute effort of bravery, that nothing could quell on either side but wounds and death, The storm cost the British the unexampled number of 3500 killed and wounded in the breach! But Badajoz was taken. The war had never before exhibited such a prize: 170 heavy guns; 3800 soldiers, with their governor, prisoners; and, most important of all, the reputation of France, which was its power, shaken by an additional and mortal blow, on the eve of a war with all Northern Europe. The loss of Ciudad Rodrigo had broken one wing of the Imperial eagle, the loss of Badajoz now broke the other; and from this moment it never rose from the ground in Spain. We must now, and it is with reluctance, close our sketch of this important performance. We have seen no work more adapted to interest the existing generation, or more secure of being valued by the future. Its subject unites the vivid and breathless excitement of romance, with the solid and solemn grandeur of history; and its style is perfectly suited to the strongly defined character of its subject. Simple where plain things are to be told, and eloquent and imaginative where the subject demands a loftier wing. Though Mr Alison frequently gives the precedence to Colonel Napier in his military pictures, we think his own much better; and gladly turn from the melodramatic colouring of the gallant colonel, to the natural hues and classic outline of his own pencil. The remainder, about one half of the volume, is occupied with the Russian war of 1812, which it brings down to the retreat from Moscow. The writer is to be greatly envied who has the opportunity and the powers to treat such a subject. The vastness of the contest, the rapid and consummate nature of the collision, and the unlimited consequences to the earth, make it almost a subject of awe. The hand of a mightier disposer than man never was so visibly disclosed since the fall of the Roman empire. In turning from the monotonous and trifling transactions of our day to the majestic events of those pages, we feel, not unlike the explorers of some of the great Egyptian catacombs, leaving all above sand and sunshine, palpable and arid, to plunge into silence and shade, yet surrounded with the relics of the mighty, the monuments of warriors and kings; the dust of men before whom the world bowed down in reverence or in terror; all long since passed away, yet still sepul. chred and enshrined; forgotten by the idle world above, but administering recollections of illustrious memory to the thoughtful, and lessons of solemn wisdom to the wise. CIRCASSIA. SINCE the middle of the 16th century, when Russia, under the martial Ivan Vasilievitz, first began to seek extension for her empire towards the south, her efforts in furtherance of that object, whether by war, by diplomacy, or by intrigue, have been incessant; and a study of the expedients by which she has succeeded, will amply reward those who desire to know her native character, divested of the hypocritical guise she has ever worn toward Europe. But the history, or even a summary, of this eventful portion of her careerof the perfidies and atrocities through which she possessed herself of the various Tatar Khanats-of her simulated friendship for, and final betrayal of, the ill-starred Georgians-of her cajolery of the obtuse Ossetes-of her politic acknowledgment of the independence of the heroic Kabardans, as a preparatory step toward annexing their fertile plains to her territory-of her fierce and frequent struggles with those invincible and intractable mountaineers, the Lesghis, Mitsdjeghis, and Koomooks-might distract attention from the subject upon which alone we scek, for the present, to concentrate it -Circassia. Although that portion of Kabarda which lies to the eastward of the river Kooban, be inhabited by a race of Circassians who yield to none in purity of blood, in patriotism and heroism of character; yet in Europe, where the nomenclature of the Caucasian races has been dictated by Russia, they appear to be no longer ranked among the parent-stock, with which are associated, among us, so many ideas of romance and gallantry. This is but a sorry return for the desperate valour with which, throughout the greater portion of the past century, they opposed the progress of Russia-for the devotion with which they sigh for, and look forward to, a time when they may yet emancipate themselves from her thraldom. We shall, however, for the present, treat of Circassia as that portion of the region of the Caucasus comprised within the limits generally assigned to it; viz., the course of the river Kooban, to the eastward and northward; the shore of the Black Sea to the westward; and, to the southward, the prime mountain-range terminating on the coast at Gaghra: for that portion of the Azras who live to the northward of that range, have ranked themselves voluntarily under the national appellation of the Circassians-Adighe. Yet the much more numerous portion of that race who live to the southward, as far as the confines of Mingrelia, saving a few on the seashore, whom the more practicable nature of their territory has induced to make terms of peace, are equally allies of the Circassians, and as implacable as they in hostility to the common enemy. The greatest extent, in length, of the region above described, that is, from Mount Elbrooz to the embouchure of the Kooban, is about 300 English miles; and its greatest breadth, from the bend of the Kooban to the shore of the Black Sea, about 190. More than two-thirds of its surface are composed of the spurs (or vorgebirge, as the Germans more suitably say,) of the prime range of mountains; .the remaining third, toward the Kooban, consisting of rolling country and some plains. And the hills in question, though rarely loftier than from two to three thousand feet, are of such form, in great variety, as to make them in the aggregate quite impracticable for the usual operations of a modern army; were they not, moreover, wherever cultivation has not yet extended, clothed with impervious forests. The forests, being mostly of oak, prove the general fertility of the soil, which supports, throughout, a dense population, whose subsistence is chiefly derived from its culture. In the low country, toward the bend of the Kooban, some villages, of at most from four to five hundred inhabitants, are to be found; but elsewhere, the inhabitants are dispersed in single farmsteads, or in family hamlets, placed, for their protection, in such localities as are least accessible, or even discoverable, in wooded dells amid the hills, or in the skirts of forests in the valleys. It may thus be conceived, that a Russian army moving in mass, as it has always been compelled to do, cannot effect much mischief, even although the houses of the natives were not, as they are, of the simplest and least expensive construction, and their furniture of the most portable description. Circassia, like many other regions of the Caucasus, has never yet, with in the record of history, owned a master, or been subjected, even temporarily, by an enemy; and the adoption of Islamism-though but by a portion of its inhabitants, with the religious supremacy of the Padisha, or chief of that faith, thence accruing, as in the Crimea, in Bokhara, and other states formerly or still independent in matters of government-forms the only shadow of a pretext under which Russia has sought to establish a belief of its having owed allegiance to the Turkish Sultan-a claim which, on his part, was never yet put forward, even amid his earliest contests with his Muscovite antagonist for supremacy in the waters of the Black Sea and the sea of Azof, when, as head of the states of the Mussulman league, he was for a time in condition to dic. tate terms to their common enemy. But the experience and the farsightedness of Russia must have made her early aware of the long-continued and-costly efforts through which alone she might hope eventually to subdue the desperate valour and innate love of freedom of the tribes of the Caucasus; and thus it became her policy to have this region considered as the appendage of an empire which, as having its power concentrated, she might by a single and decisive blow, compel to make a transference to her: and then, under the plea of sovereignty and of the necessity of quelling revolt, carry on, at her leisure and convenience, a war of conquest, which, had this its true character been known, might have brought into question in Europe both her power and character. By treaties with Turkey, and not by conquest in Circassia, did Russia acquire that semblance of right by which she seeks now to abrogate the independence of that country. We shall therefore review them. "The first of these treaties, by which Russia advanced her frontier into immediate contact with Circassia, (as above limited,) was that of Kutchuk Kainardji, (in 1774,) which gave her the nominal sovereignty of the two Kabardas, (declared by herself at the peace of Belgrade, in 1793, to be independent,) the possession of Taganrog and of other towns on the sea of Azof, and the free navigation of its waters. The second is of primary importance; because upon its frail and most unstable foundation has since been constructed by Russia, aided by the negligence or the collusion of the foreign minister of England, a claim for sovereignty over people to this day free and independent, and an exclusive right to their trade on a coast comprising nearly 400 miles of the shores of the Black sea! This treaty, which was signed at Constantinople on the 28th December, 1783 9th January, 1784 or rather the 2d of its articles, which alone concerns Circassia, is thus expressed:-"La cour impériale de Russie ne fera jamais valoir les droits que les Chans des Tartares avaient formés sur le territoire de la forteresse de Soodjak Calessi; et par conséquent elle la raconnait appartenir, en tute souverainté, à le Porte !" Here is a claim which, justly or unjustly (unjustly we verily believe), was ascribed to the independent sovereign of the Crimea, transferred, by the sole ipsa dixit of the Russian Empress, to the sovereign of Turkey! The purpose for which such transference was made, instead of permit. ting the rights, if "formés," to expire, will appear hereafter. We shall only remark in passing, that the fort in question had been constructed by a native Circassian chief, in the course of the preceding century, chiefly for the purpose of affording security for foreign merchants; that it had become the principal place of residence of Tartars of the Crimea, and of villagers on the sea of Azof, who had fled from the aggressions of Russia; and that it continued to be such until the construction of Anapa, in 1781, when it became almost entirely deserted. The third treaty, or rather convention, occurred in the same year 1784, and it secured to Russia the Crimea, the isle of Taman, at the mouth of the Kooban, and territory up to the right bank of that river-on all which she had already seized, without justifi cation. In 1787, Turkey declared war against Russia, in consequence of her increased aggressions; in which declaration Sweden participated. In course of the hostilities thence resulting, General Bibikoff attempted, in 1790, to take Anapa, and was repulsed with great slaughter; but next year, General Goudovitch effected that enterprise; and after two sanguinary repulses, succeeded in his third attempt |