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for a moment led by success from the calm and cautious forethought which marks every act; the latter seemed to become inflated with success until he thought defeat impossible. In difficulty and distress Wellington was ever thoughtful, ready, calm and firm; Napoleon in adversity talked instead of thinking, became confused, irritable and weak of purpose. Wellington's self-reliance increased with danger; and when others were appalled at the duration of the dreadful contest, the word was given that won the field of Waterloo; Napoleon in distress lost his self-reliance; he led his army by the wrong route from Russia, then left it to others to extricate, and striking his staff in the frozen snow, exclaimed, "It is written in heaven that henceforth every step shall be a fault ;"-he did not conquer or die in the last great fight for empire,—but he quailed before he sought the protection of an English seaman, and lived in his exile without dignity or calm submission to his lot. Justice, highmindedness and truthfulness of purpose mark every public act of Wellington; fraud, usurpation, midnight murder and crooked policy darken the career of Buonaparte. The one always adapted his means to his ends; the other, impatient of restraint and delay, left what could not be prepared to chance and plunder. The English hero led on his own soldiers to the performance of duties due by them to their country and the world; the Emperor of France incited his armies by appeals to empty glory and inflated vanity, by impious inferences of destiny and dreamy boasts of invincibility.

The English general was trained first in adversity and defeat;-then, where every military equipment was to be provided, where a tortuous policy required unceasing vigilance, and where the just administration of the matériel of an army had never been before maintained, then surrounded by jealous and weak allies, and opposed to the most renowned generals and troops in the world. The chief of the armies of France was flushed in early manhood by extraordinary success and constant victory, then by the acclamations of legions, and the acquisition of imperial rank, combined with unbounded power, and the submission of the crowns of many countries. The career of the former added to the power of every natural faculty necessary to ensure his renown and tri

every weakness which, when opposed to his rival, were certain of leading to defeat and irretrievable ruin. WAS THE FINGER OF PROVIDENCE THERE?

The General Orders of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington in Portugal, France and Spain, &c. from 1809 to 1818, THESE orders were all written in the Duke's own hand, and constitute a manual which ought to be a vade-mecum of every officer, as they comprise directions on every subject relative to an army in every situation, and of every circumstance connected with its civil administration, discipline and consequent efficiency. The volume contains so many curious things, and illustrates so many minute points, that every possessor of the "Dispatches" should purchase it as a necessary supplementary volume.

The introduction is a very masterly, instructive and amusing document, and gives the actual proceedings of an army on the march from the first bugle blast that roused them from their slumbers, to mounting the deadly breach, so graphically, that every movement is brought before the mind, and leaves a clear impression. We have learnt that it was written for a high-named periodical, and returned as being too purely professional! No matter; it is luckily before the world,-not in an ephemeral shape. We trust that it and the " Dispatches " may be brought out in cheap and uniform volumes; they must be of use among all classes, as containing lessons of economy, forethought and prudence.*

*Since this article was printed, a French work lately published has attracted our notice. It is called, " Journeaux des sièges faits et soutenus par les Francais dans la Peninsule de 1807 à 1814; rédiges d'après les ordres du Gouvernement sur les documents existant aux archives de la guerre et au dépôt des fortifications. Par J. Belmas, chef de bataillon du Génie. 4 vols., avec atlas et planches."

The title may carry with it some claims to authenticity and truth. Although the work is certainly less partial in the narrative of the events of the Peninsular War than most others written by French officers, it is full of incorrect, or to speak plainer, of false statements. In the last number of the Quarterly Review, there is an article under this title written by some one evidently not a military man, and not acquainted with the campaigns of the Peninsula; or many misrepresentations and falsehoods would have been detected, which from being thus unnoticed become uncontradicted history. We point out one among many, vol. i. p. 235. "Lord Wellington fit son entrée à Madrid le 12 Août avec 30,000 hommes. L' ivresse avec laquelle il fut reçu fit bientôt place à d'autres sentiments, lorsqu'il frappa cette ville d'une forte contribution." This is purely a French phrase and fiction, and we proclaim it to all Europe, that it is false; for, from the best authority, we can assert that the duke of Wellington never levied a contribution at

ARTICLE VI.

1. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. By W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, Esq. 3 vols. Bentley.

2. Michael Armstrong, or the Factory Boy. By FRANCES TROLLOPE. Nos. 1. to 10. Colburn.

THERE are signs in the present literary times, which, we think, claim importunately the strict attention of the public. They do not reveal themselves only to the keen searcher of nooks and corners, neither to catch their interpretation is a fine ear required; but they stand plainly evident in the highways; and the sound which accompanies them forces itself upon the notice through all that Babel of mingled discord and harmony, which (to speak fancifully) makes up the voice of life in England. The sign to be treated on the present occasion, is the condition of our lighter popular literature; a subject of serious importance, when viewed in conjunction with that grave and complex question, now occupying so prominent a place in our discussions-the education of the people.

As text to the considerations which follow, we avail ourselves of Mr. Ainsworth's last romance, which has gained him so bad a notoriety; and of Mrs. Trollope's attempt to rival Mr. Dickens, which, fortunately, has failed to increase a bad notoriety already gained. But, in the outset, we must observe, that, considering "Jack Sheppard" and "The Factory Boy" merely as the legitimate children of a long line of ancestorsas the cousins-german of many other works approved, for their tendency, by the feeling and philanthropic,-the protest here offered against them is no echo of that cry of astonished Innocence suddenly awakened in the midst of a dream of human perfectibility, which has been raised by some; still less, a chorus to that Anathema which a compulsory advertence to decorum has extorted from others, and those the very persons whose plaudits and sympathy have fostered their production. Well is it, that the press should raise its voice, and declare that this attempt to reproduce in the novel the jail-bird and the house-breaker, is vicious and offensive ;

tres crowded with the waifs and strays of the London streets to applaud agonizing scenes which had been spiced with their last groans and convulsions under the superintendence of Mr. Ainsworth himself,-to admire vivid tableaux arranged by his coadjutor, Mr. Cruickshank; the latter, alas! how sadly sunk from the high moral position he might have occupied as Hogarth's far-off successor! Well is it, that every police-case of crime and misdemeanour springing from this Jack-Sheppard mania, circulating among the idle and untaught myriads of St. Giles's and St. George's fields, should be brought forward and illustrated in severe italics. But better would it be if that same press could acquit itself of having begotten the monster now found so noxious-of having sharpened, if not created, that unwholesome appetite, which could not fail, at last, to condescend to garbage-of having hastened that movement, the final direction of which was the mire and the foul odours of the kennel!

In examining how far the press has or has not done this, and in illustrating our inquiry with facts and testimonies not easily to be put aside, the somewhat unusual course presents itself, of dwelling for awhile upon a detail previous to approaching the general features of the subject, that detail being the career and position of Mr. Ainsworth as an author. To describe this will be neither a long nor a difficult task. Mr. Ainsworth possesses the merit of being neither hasty nor frequent in his intercourse with the public. His early tale "Sir John Chiverton" is known to very few, and only to be regarded as an evidence of promise. If intermediate works there be, betwixt its appearance and that of "Rookwood," they have slipped out of sight:-for it is upon that romance and "Crichton," its successor, that the renown was based, which has now spread from boundary to boundary of the empire of the New Police, and too far, we fear, within the jurisdiction of many a county magistracy.

It is needless to recapitulate the incidents of the plot of "Rookwood." The author's manner of working is more to the purpose. As it is now (and the sign is worth noting) required of almost every writer of a certain popularity, to account for his dealings with the public by the profession of

strange mixture of slang, sportsmanship and sorcery, would probably say, that his tale was elaborated in illustration of the same solemn word as that to which the morbid splendours of Victor Hugo's 'Notre Dame de Paris' owe their accumulation. Destiny would probably bear the blame of the scenes in the church-vault and the doings of the fiend-like sextonDestiny would be brought to apologize for the monstrous wickedness of lady Rookwood in her husband's sick chamber -Destiny would be alleged to be the mover of the atrocities of the gipsies' haunt,-scenes, one and all elaborated with the utmost pains,—in their turgid distortion caricaturing the wildest extravagances of Maturin, but unredeemed by any glimpses of that poetical spirit, which, with all his tawdriness, Maturin possessed. Of this we hold Mr. Ainsworth to be devoid; celebrated though he be among his admirers, as successful in that sweetest exercise of poetry, song-writing. He can select the thoughts and images which arrange themselves effectively in a lyrical form, and make up a burden certain to catch, if not to keep, the ear; he is familiar with the quips and contrivances of versification; but of that melody of the heart, with which every lyric of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson overflows, and which our modern song-writers, Burns, Beranger and Moore, in a less measure possess, he has nothing. Not one of his songs has struck root. And it is the deficiency of this true poetical spirit which makes his prose descriptions labour as they proceed. Not one single touch or colour in them has of itself any significance. Effort is laid to effort, word piled upon word, allusion tacked to allusion, with as florid a liberality as that of the Irish streetballad maker, who intending to extol the charms of his mistress, compares her to "the famous duchess of Bavaria and Dido the African Queen." With much care, there is no force of dialogue; with much parade of wit and passion, never an exclamation or a repartee which either Tragedy or Comedy would consent to own.

Of the assertions we have just made, it may not be amiss to offer proof, by citing a passage from each of Mr Ainsworth's novels, chosen rather with regard to brevity, than as offering the fullest illustration of the positions we have laid down which could be found. The first, taken from "Rook

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