‘ STEPHENS’S HISTORY 
tell us of the event he narrates, than had 
already reached us through the chan- 
neled courses of intelligence. He who 
erversely employs his superior know- 
edge, who comments the chronicle of 
ages, like Voltaire, in order to extract 
from it, for the statesman, rules of con- 
duct, in which experience offers him no 
sufficient countenance, injures the com- 
munity in which he is trusted; al- 
though, by provoking fresh experiments, 
he eventually rectifies the general senti- 
ment. He who wants the graces and 
amenities of diction, rather injures him- 
self than his readers; he prevents the 
circulation, but he does not corrupt the 
moral of his tale: he has still expounded 
the voice of the event, and taught the 
lessons of experience. 
The author of the history before us 
has not, we think, displayed all the in- 
formation which the subject admitted. 
In domestic sources of intelligence he is 
indeed rich; and beside the printed do- 
cuments so abundantly supplied by our 
newspapers, registers and pamphlets, he 
has availed himself of much oral infor- 
mation, from naval and military men 
present at the engagements narrated. 
Wherever the fortunes of the English 
arms are concerned, that sort of pains 
seems to have been taken, which ought to 
be the foundation of a primary narrative, 
on which public criticism has here and 
there to hang its amendments. In 
French sources of intelligence, there is 
no very marked oversight; but no very 
meritorious abundance of research. In 
Italian and German consultation, there 
is a sensible deficiency: Posseli’s Tage- 
buch, or Journal of the War, for instance, 
which contains very interesting particu- 
lars, especially of the campaigns in Ger- 
many, and which had every claim to 
attentive and perpetual reference, is not 
among the authorities cited. 
Of the fidelity and impartiality of the 
relation, we form, on the whole, a fa- 
vourable opinion. The author shows 
indeed, at the beginning of the war, 
some leaning toward the cause of the 
French; but it was at that time the 
cause of liberty really, and of human 
happiness apparently ; so that to have 
any other bias would, in justice, be a 
ground of reproach, 
The style has most beauty where it 
has least burnish: an attempt at the so- 
lemn condensation of Tacitus is made in 
the preface and introduction; but the 
clearness and interest of the narrative 
OF THE LATE WARS. 253 
gain in proportion, as the historian by 
profession disappears. We shall ex- 
tract, from the preface, the author’s 
outline of his argument: 
** At no period either in ancient or in mo- 
dern times Sine the revered names of reli- 
gion, liberty, and social order, been so fre- 
quently invoked or so audaciously prostitut- 
ed ; and it is to be feared, that the civil rights 
of individuals, as well as that system of pub- 
lic morals called the law of nations, have re- 
ceived a deep and incurable wound. 
«* But, on the other hand, it is a series of 
singular, magnificent, and disastrous eyents, 
like that just alluded to, which affords suita- 
ble imagery for narrative, and constitutes at 
once the miseries of society and the materials 
for history. He who is destined to detail re- 
cent transactions, if actuated by the spirit of 
truth and independence, will have to recapi- 
tulate such a multitude of enormities, that 
the reigns of Nero and Domitian must appear 
less intolerable from comparison. The mur- 
der of prisoners in open day; the public 
detention and assassination of ambassadors ; 
the uncontroled reign of that panic ter- 
ror which appalled the innocent, and not 
unfrequently spared the guilty; the triumph 
of men of blood over the public enemy as 
well as the most virtuous of their fellow citi- 
zens; one faction swallowing up another, 
while the instrument of destruction was 
stretched forth, and the tomb yawned, for 
the victors; a frantic populace dividing the 
alpitating members of their victims, and a 
bing coolly murdering those subjects who 
had yielded to the faith of a solemn treaty ; 
the torture, at once the mark of a barbarous 
age and the opprobrium ofa civilized one, pub- 
licly inflicted; while, as if to form a climax’ 
and realise the metaphor of the ancient poets, 
the dogs of war were literally unchained, and 
the canine race employed to hunt down the 
human species ;—such is the som of crimes 
presented during this night of wonders. 
«© Yet, notwithstanding these hidecus pic- 
tures, Europe has displayed many uncom- 
P Peay Mf 
mon instances of heroism, and some scenes 
have occurred in a neighbouring country, 
which surpass all that is to be found during 
the boasted reigns of Marcus Aurelius and 
the Antonines. Never did any nation exhi- 
bit such magnanimity, when threatened with 
subjugation, slavery, and dismemberment, 
on the part of the combined monarchs of the 
continent. Never did so many orators, 
philosophers, men of letters, and statesmen, 
evince such a perilous and deadly enmity to 
anarchy, injustice, and bloodshed ; or prefer 
with so much readiness the uplifted axe of 
the executioner to the scorn of their contem- 
oraries and the reproaches of posterity.— 
ers the softer sex, assuming a masculine 
courage, maintained their principles on the 
scaffold, and perished without a sigh before 
the statue of outraged liberty. 
ie art of war too, during this mesnor- 
2 
