of distribution and art of continuity in his incident, and misses therefore much effect, which a coquettish writer for a magazine would not have failed to have brought out. In considering here, for instance, the state of mind and suffer-" ings of those who were buried alive, he gives you the instances among which you find the beginning of the story of Eloisa Basili; another portion comes in to exemplify the effect on their feelings after they were saved; and a third and last, when he speaks of their having lived in general but a few years after their escape. He was thinking of the principles, and not of what might be made out of the incidents. But in his political and military narrations, the momentum of his subject-matter keeps up his continuity; and though he never loses sight of principles, but on the contrary refers to them constantly, and discusses them ably and freely, and above all impartially, yet he does not allow himself, as here, to throw all that was said and done into mere corollaries. With due allowance for a reasonably good command of language, a clear head, and a full knowledge of his subject, we may attribute Colletta's success, his high and just reputation as a historian, in a very great degree to this-that in describing scenes in which he had been active, parties with which his own passions and interests had been bound up, and men who had been his personal friends or bitter enemies, who had done him great benefits or injuries, he kept his eye fixed on Truth. Under her behests he questioned his memory and his judgment; at her command he passed sentence of condemnation on many things he wished to believe; but at the same time he was enabled to fix in the eyes of the world and of posterity an enduring stigma on those characters and dogmas which reason, liberty, and humanity unite to execrate and condemn.

ART. VII.—History of the Peninsular War. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D., Poet-Laureat, etc. New Edition, in Six Volumes. London: 1838. John Murray.

IN Napoleon Bonaparte we have a striking exception to the truth of the maxim, that "the evil men do lives after them." So strong a glare has been thrown around him, by his splendid genius and his brilliant successes, that men's eyes have been blinded to his true character, and the crimes and cruelties by which he obtained, and for a time secured his triumphs, have been lost sight of, in the admiration for the mighty results effected by his unparalleled power and ambition. The monuments which an admiring age has raised to his glory and greatness, speak only of his martial exploits and his grand achievements; they say nothing of the vast amount of human misery which it cost to make this one man great. For the most part, the pen of the historian also has lent itself to perpetuate the deception and the flattery, but, in a few instances, it has, on the other hand, dared to record the truth. Of this latter class, and pre-eminently distinguished in its class, is the work whose title is written in our rubric. Its recent reprint has furnished us an occasion for calling our readers' attention to it; and we assure them, that it will richly repay them for the time they may bestow upon its perusal. It recommends itself by every requisite of a good history; fidelity, learning, deep insight into the character of the people described, sound judgment, impartiality, and a conscious sense of responsibility in the writer, and an admirable historical style. It is not, however, our purpose to enter minutely into the merits of the book, but to fill up our allotted space with a consideration of its principal subject, especially in a moral point of view, and to that we pass at once.

Bonaparte was the proper result of the French revolution and its principles; yet, inasmuch as those principles were nominally free, and tended to overthrow the old tyranny of established order, there was found a party in England to echo them across the channel. The views and feelings of this party were, of course, adopted on this side of the Atlantic. As a general rule, our notions of European politics are second-hand, and we naturally prefer those which bear the stamp of "liberal." Thus, the Emperor of the French

having been associated by no indirect chain of ideas, with republicanism and hostility to the old aristocracy, it became a part of our political creed to make an idol of one before whom legitimacy had been compelled to bend the knee.

We are no friends to that furious republicanism which cannot rest in peace until thrones and principalities, all over the world, are displaced by popular governments, no matter how. Kings may be unjustly dethroned, and subjects, in their rebellion, sin against Him, by whom kings reign. We wrong our republicanism, by acting as if it taught us a different lesson; for thus we array against it the facts of history, and the deductions of reason, and the declarations of the word of GOD. So rapid of late has been the growth of radicalism in our land, and so busy and artful have demagogues been in nursing it, that a falsehood so great as this, has become almost an essential part of our republican creed.

It is but one of the manifestations of this error, to feel kindly towards the usurping governments that succeeded the old French monarchy. Even the last form of Bonaparte's authority, when all the powers of government were centred in himself, and exercised at the promptings of a bad ambition, meets either downright approval or faint condemnation, because there is supposed to be something popular even in his worst usurpations. In like manner are his followers regarded. They were of common origin, and acquired all their renown in contending against long-constituted power, and, therefore, we take sides with them and their master, and are deaf to all the arguments of outraged humanity. Now, such sympathy is surely no more worthy of our respect, than that silly admiration which is caught by military fame, and that criminal idolatry which worships intellect. If these furnish us with no excuse for not measuring Bonaparte and his generals by the Christian's standard of morality, neither does that. An imagined identity, or similarity, or consanguinity of political views, ought to influence our judgment no more than great talents or great success. If we find that they really have influence, an endeavor, however feeble, to counteract them, is praiseworthy labor. Such an endeavor we purpose making in a brief and necessarily imperfect examination of the morality of the French during the Peninsular war, in which we shall not pretend to complete impartiality; for though we have no prejudices that would lead us

to gloss over iniquity for the sake of supposed political rectitude, yet we are so biased in favor of humanity, virtue, and religion, that we will not pretend to treat, with philosophic coolness, deeds whose chief characteristics were inhumanity, immorality, and impiety.

Every one, of course, has some general notion of injustice and violence attendant on Bonaparte's movements in the Peninsula ; but very few have a definite knowledge of specific facts. The volumes before us contain such a host of these, as painfully and clearly show how devoid of magnanimity, how reckless and unsparing of friends and foes, how perfidious, and without shame, was the great emperor. How he, who could make a pathetic speech over a dog on a field of battle, and shrink like a woman at the cracking of the bones beneath his carriage wheels, could for years deliberately send fire, sword, and famine, and woes of every sort and degree among an innocent people, merely because they would not submit to a lawless usurpation; how he, who was so kind in his disposition, as to make all his family kings and queens, was not able to comprehend that other men might own such a generous devotion to their kindred and firesides and altars, as to struggle amidst doubt, difficulty, defeat, and despair, until their country's soil was either their free possession or their grave. Equally depraved, and fit instruments to work out such ends, were almost all the French, from the "men of renown" who led the armies, down to the meanest soldier. They feared neither GoD nor man. We do not mean merely that they were bad men, who had no sense of religion; that would be to give too tame a character to these children of the revolution. By not fearing man, we mean, that, with very few exceptions, they set at nought all in which man sees any virtue or any praise. By not fearing GOD, we mean, that they worked their wickedness more boldly than even the lost spirits; for these tremble while they do ill, and confess the power that is to punish them; whereas the French, in the peninsula, committed, as a body, the most abominable crimes, with the coolest recklessness. It was, of course, to be expected that the common soldiery would shed blood and do violence; nor would we look for a very nice sense of honor or honesty in the camp herd. But these men were only a little worse than their officers; and vice in all its forms, found as apt disciples in marshals and generals, as in corporals and privates. Of faithlessness,

selfishness, cruelty, licentiousness, extortion, theft, and everything bad but cowardice, they were all guilty-not that all sinned in all these respects; but from some one or more, none were free. We bespeak special attention for the case of Junot and his companions, who actually stole, and hid their booty, and tried to get off with it unseen by the English. All of them submitted to be the tools of Bonaparte's ambition, because it subserved their own, or because, with their eyes open, they had not the courage to free themselves.

It would be vain to attempt a narrative of the conduct of the French throughout the whole of a war which lasted more than five years. If we were to select facts here and there, however numerous they might be, they would still present but a faint idea of the vast and connected system of immorality and oppression upon which they proceeded. We have therefore concluded that our object would be best attained by confining our attention to a particular period of the war, which may be taken as a specimen of the whole. In doing this we shall be careful to select such a portion as will exhibit, as nearly as possible, the average degree of that wickedness which marked, more or less, all the French operations in the Peninsula.

By the peace concluded with the emperor of Russia, at Tilsit, July, 1807, Bonaparte had been left at liberty to turn his attention to so tempting a prize as the Peninsula. As both its governments were perforce his humble allies, and no pretext for open violence presented itself, he was obliged to have recourse to diplomacy. The prime minister of Spain at this time was the notorious Godoy, the favorite of the monarch Charles IV., and the paramour of his worthless queen. The infamy of this man was so deep, and his administration so unprincipled and oppressive, that he was absolutely loathed by the whole nation. Conscious of their hatred, he was anxious to secure, in the emperor of the French, a powerful friend in time of need. Ferdinand, prince of Asturias, and heir apparent, who was little loved by his father, and positively hated by his mother, had gathered around him a party who desired the overthrow of Godoy, which, like most oppositions, was mainly kept together by having a common object of dislike, and whose component parts differed as the several periods of the day: -old Castilian honor, bright as noon; the bravo's malignity and revenge, black as midnight; and a hundred other characters,