CHARACTERS. 



763 



in council), general M. seized the 

 earliest opportunity of turning his 

 attention to what had always been 

 his favourite study — military his- 

 tory and antiquities. He had al- 

 ready visited Paris, Spa, &c. but 

 the years 1774?, 1775, and 1776, 

 he devoted to a tour through 

 France, Switzerland, Italy, Ger- 

 many, the Low Countries, &c. 

 during which, besides the objects 

 of the fine arts, in which he pos- 

 sessed a very delicate taste, with 

 great sensibility of their beauties 

 and defects, he examined the scenes 

 of the most memorable battles, 

 sieges, and other military exploits, 

 recorded in ancient or modern 

 history, from the Portus Itius of 

 Caesar, on the margin of the Eng- 

 plish channel, to the Cannse of 

 Polybiiis, on the remote shores of 

 the Adriatic ; and from the fields 

 of Ramilies to those of Dettingen 

 and Blenheim. With Polybius and 

 and Cffisar in his hand, and refer- 

 ing to the most authentic narra- 

 tions of modern warfare, he traced 

 upon the ground the positions and 

 operations of the most distin- 

 guished commanders of various 

 periods, noting where their judg- 

 ment, skill, and presence of mind, 

 were the most conspicuous, and 

 treasuring up for future use the 

 evidences of the mistakes and er- 

 rors, from which the most eminent 

 were not exempted. Helving on 

 the authority of Polybius; and 

 guided by la raison de guerre, or 

 common sense applied to war, he 

 traced the route to Italy, pursued 

 by Hannibal, from the point where 

 he crossed the Rhone, in the 

 neighbourhood of Roquemaure, 

 up the left bank of that river, 

 nearly to Vienna, across Dauphine, 

 to the entrance of the moun- 



tains at Les Echelles, along the 

 vale to rhamberry, up the banks 

 of the Isere, by Conflans and 

 Moustier, over the gorge of the 

 Alps, called the Little St. Bernard, 

 and down their eastern slopes by 

 Aosti, and Ivrea, to the plains of 

 Piedmont, in the neighbourhood 

 of Turin. 



In tracing this route, which 

 seems to have been strangely dis- 

 regarded by commentators, histo- 

 rians, and antiquarians, of the 

 greatest note, although certainly 

 the most obvious for that illus- 

 trious Carthaginian to have fol- 

 lowed, general M. found the nature 

 of the country, the distances, 

 the situations of the rivers, rocks, 

 and mountains most accurately to 

 tally with the circumstances re- 

 lated by Polybius : nay, even the 

 Lcucopetron, that celebrated crux 

 criticorum, he discovered still to 

 subsist in its due position, and still 

 to be known under the identi- 

 cal denomination of La Roche 

 Blanche. Not satisfied, however, 

 with the evidence arising from so 

 many coincidences, general M. 

 crossed and re-crossed the Alps, 

 in various other directions, pointed 

 out for the track of Hannibal's 

 march ; but of those not one 

 could, without doing great vio- 

 lence indeed to the text of Poly- 

 bius, be brought in any reasonable 

 way to correspond to the narra- 

 tive. 



Newton is reported to have said, 

 that if he possessed any peculiar 

 advantage over his fellow-labourers 

 in the field of science, it consisted 

 merely in his allowing himself to 

 consider matters more patiently 

 and deliberately than the generality 

 of mankind. It was general M.'s 

 practice, ia his researches into 



truth, 



