number of secret murders, but, one year with another, they must amount to many thousands. In fact there are few men in England, of the age of fifty years, who have not married three times.'-p. 191.

It must be admitted that these facts, and particularly the last hinted at-that every Englishman who marries a second wife has murdered the first-do fully account for the immense consumption which the General mentions.

General Pillet's observations on the merchants and military, the lawyers and clergy, are all equally accurate-one circumstance relative to the latter affords, for a custom which we must all have observed, an explanation, that, we believe, was never before thought of.

The practice of the English clergy reading their sermons arises from a political cause. Every clergyman is obliged to submit his discourse to a magistrate, and to make an affidavit that he has used, or will use, no other words than those which are written in the copy laid before the magistrate.'-p. 369.

This wise precaution, however, does not prevent some very horrible doctrines being preached, as the general acquaints us from his own knowledge. In Litchfield, a clergyman told his audience, from the pulpit, that to kill a Frenchman, wherever one may meet him, is an act most agreeable to God:' (p. 371.) of course the cruelties suffered by the French prisoners, on parole in Litchfield, were, after this exhortation, dreadful: and M. Pillet assures us, that, after a similar sermon at Ashburne in Derbyshire, two Frenchmen were murdered by the people as they were coming out of church!

But the most surprizing part of his work is that which relates to the fair sex. Some specimens of the gallantry of this preur chevalier Français are absolutely necessary to complete our review of his work.

Nothing,' he says, 'is more surprizing than the hideous uniformity of female dress. The wife of the country shoemaker, butcher, or la bourer, are all, like the same classes in London, ladies; and the only dif ference, in the appearance of these ladies and the wives of London gentlemen, is not in favour of the latter, as it consists only in their greater slovenliness. The awkwardness of all, in dress and manner, being the same, it would be wrong to expect to distinguish the ranks of -society by ease or decorum of manners. English women in general, no matter of what condition, are destitute of grace and taste, and one may literally say, that an English woman has two left hands.'—p. 24.

So much for their appearance; which our readers will admit is: strictly portrayed; their manners are touched with a still bolder pencil.

'Shoplifting is very much in fashion, as I have just said, but more

particularly

particularly among ladies of rank. The shop-keepers of New Bond Street, (the Rue Vivienne of Paris,) were formerly proud of visits from those ladies, which, however, they always paid for by the loss of goods which the ladies carried off under their petticoats; but the shop-keepers consoled themselves for the loss by the privilege which they obtained of writing on their signs "Milliner to my lady this or that.' These are incontestible facts!'-p. 50.

Every one may remark that in an English drawing-room, about tea time, the ladies are tipsy, (entre deux vins,) though they are seldom seen to drink more than one little glass of wine at dinner. The oppor tunity for these ladies is when they retire from the gentlemen. A mysterious temple is destined to the same bacchanal uses as the gentlemen's dining-room, and the only difference is the liquor drank-the gentlemen drink Port, Madeira, Claret, and Champaigne the ladies drink only the best French brandy.

Young ladies are only admitted to this circle of sobriety after a sort of trial and a certain age, namely, about forty; after which period every English woman of rank or fashion gets drunk every night of her life un der pretence of keeping the wind out of her stomach-p. 319.

Nor are the higher morals of the English fair less candidly and livelily described.

'The virtue of English women is that of slaves; it lasts just as long as the watchfulness of the beast to whom they may have been married.' -p. 55.

The cause of that general spirit of licentious intrigue, of libertinism, in which girls of all classes live in England, is to be found in the difficulty of marriages, and the manner in which those marriages are undertaken. In France we have a proverb that " a girl should wait till she is asked;" precisely the contrary maxim prevails in England. ALL the young women of England live in a state of incontinence, and neither the Peasant, the Squire, nor the Lord, has ever the least scruple in the choice of a wife from what may have occurred previously to marriage.

The least dissolute class of women in England are, undoubtedly, waiting women in great families, who speculate on marrying the young lord, or some old rich and gouty voluptuary, if they keep a kind of character.'-pp. 234. 278. 280.

We have, perhaps, ventured too far in our quotations on this subject, but we assure our readers solemnly that we dare not even allude to half the crimes that General Pillet charges against all the women of England; and that if we did, the Attorney General would certainly prosecute us for obscenity, blasphemy, and every other species of horror. On reading such profligate wickedness the spirit of irony fails us, and we are obliged, in indignant seriousness, to throw down the book.

Our indignation does not, however, arise from any effect which General Pillet's absurd calumnies have on our temper as Englishmen; his malice is often so complimentary, and, when it is not,

VOL. XIII. NO. XXVI.

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it

it so ridiculously defeats itself, that we really feel that he has paid to our national character the only compliment which such a fellow could pay; but we regret, deeply regret, to perceive that a work so indecent, and in every way so shocking can be even tolerated in France-in France, the royal family and nobility of which are bound to this country by the most sacred ties of private and national hospitality and friendship-in France, whose boast it used to be that her sons were brave in the field, amiable in society, generous even in their enmities, and chivalrously respectful to the softer sex.-It is a bad sign that a wretch who is the very reverse of this character should dare to offer such a work to the eyes of society. To say that the book is popular, would be to attribute to France almost as great a laxity of morals as General Pillet attributes to England, for no modest eye can look on its pages without shame and horror; and we cannot but lament the fate of the King of France, and tremble for the stability of his throne, when he finds himself obliged to maintain such a stigmatized liar, a wretch so lost to all sense of truth, honour, and manhood, in the rank of majorgeneral of his army, and as a knight (' proh pudor !') of the royal and honourable order of St. Louis. As for the Legion of Honour, it is at once good policy and strict justice that men who resemble its founder should continue to fill its ranks.

ART IX. 1. Précis Historique de la Guerre d'Espagne et de Portugal, de 1808 à 1814. Par Auguste Carel, Chef de Bataillon, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. Paris. 1815.

2. Histoire de la Guerre d'Espagne et de Portugal, de 1807 à 1814. Par M. Sarrazin. Paris. 1814.

3. General View of the Political State of France, and of the Goverment of Louis XVIII. London. 1815.

4. An Answer to the Calumniators of Louis XVIII. By an Englishman. London., 1815.

5. Official Accounts of the Battle of Waterloo.

6. Battle of Waterloo. By Lieutenant-General Scott, &c.

WHEN Buonaparte landed from the Isle of Elba, npon the

last and guiltiest of his enterprizes, he said, many persons have read the first volume of my life; I shall give them a second.' Happily for mankind the threatened work has been cut short, and a supplementary chapter will suffice to close the bloody chronicle of this tyrant's crimes. The late events,

Wherewith all Europe rings from side to side,' belong to the life of Wellington also; and now that our great commander has set the seal upon his former exploits, crowning

them with a victory which, for its magnitude and consequences, has never been surpassed, we gladly take up the thread of his glorious history from the point at which our limits, and the prospect then before us, compelled us to break it off in our last Number.

General Sarrazin pronounces that Lord Wellington's movements, before the battle of Vittoria, were a masterpiece of strategy -mais il faut avouer que le général Anglais n'est pas aussi habile tacticien. Arrivé sur un champ de bataille par une série de manœuvres savantes, on est tout étonné de le voir agir, pour ainsi dire, au rebours du bons sens. Accordingly the General, with his usual acumen, shews in what manner the battle might have been better won, and how Lord Wellington might have renewed, as he expresses himself, the brilliant triumph of Marlborough at Blenheim: but, he says, the French themselves admit that they were clumsily attacked, and more clumsily pursued; and this accounts for the trifling loss of the French, who, as the General has been assured, did not lose, in killed and wounded, more than 3000, though the English lost nearly double that number. But if Lord Wellington manoeuvred so badly, and his troops fought so badly on this occasion, how much worse must the manoeuvring of the French have been? and how strangely must they have been frightened to run away and leave every thing behind them at a time when the contest was so much in their favour that they were killing two for one! General Sarrazin thinks also that Lord Wellington acted erroneously in cutting off the French from the road to Bayonne; il en aurait cu bien meilleur marché dans cette direction, que dans le pays fourré qui conduit à Pampelune : but the French had not been found hard dealers in the action, and after it they were easy customers in any direction. The General also overlooks the policy of turning the fugitives towards Pampluna, a city which was to be reduced by blockade, and where, in consequence, every additional mouth was upon active service in behalf of the besiegers.

The Battle of the Nile, for which Nelson said victory was too weak a word, was not more complete than the battle of Vittoria. The French themselves, in their greatest victories against the illdisciplined and worse-commanded Spanish troops at Medellin, or at Ocaña, had never seen an army so entirely dispersed, so irretrievably wrecked and ruined as their own veteran forces were upon that memorable day. The whole of their baggage, the whole of their artillery, were left upon the field-one solitary howitzer being all that was carried off. The plunder, the wardrobe, the sideboard, the larder, and the cellar of the mock king Joseph, fell into the conquerors' hands. So little did he and his generals seem to apprehend the possibility of such a defeat, that the superior officers had not even taken the precaution of placing their wives and mis

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tresses

tresses in safety. The wife of Count Gazan, the second in command, was among the women who were taken: they were all sent to Pampluna the following day in their own carriages, and with a flag of truce. The battle of Salamanca had effected the deliverance of Seville and the kingdom of Andalusia: that of Vittoria produced the deliverance of Arragon and of Zaragoza, a more deserving city and a nobler people, after that famous capital had been four years four months and sixteen days, (for the Zaragozans numbered the days of their captivity,) under the yoke of the French. That city had been defended with the utmost heroism by Palafox, a man whose virtues were equal to the occasion out of which they grew, and with which they seem to have ended. It was recovered by Espoz y Mina, the Scanderbeg of Spain; who, having long and glori ously laboured for the independence of his country, made a gallant effort in behalf of her liberties, and whose sterling worth was proved in the balance when Palafox was found wanting. Palafox deserves the rank and honours which he holds by those deeds which made him the admiration of Europe, though it was not for those deeds that he obtained them; but Espoz y Mina also has his reward, proscribed and in exile, he has his reward in the sympathy of all generous minds, in the testimony which history will bear to his principles as well as his exploits, and in his own heart,—the highest and most enduring reward, now and for ever. *

The flight of the French, from Vittoria, was favoured by the weather it rained heavily on the succeeding days, and this, with the consequent state of the roads, in some degree slackened the pursuit, the pursuers being impeded by obstacles which were disregarded by men flying for their lives. The fugitives took shelter in Pampluna, and Marshal Jourdan had time to throw between 3 and 4000 men into St Sebastian's before the allies could lay siege to it. Pampluna and St. Sebastian's were two of the four fortresses which Buonaparte thought it necessary to obtain possession of, before he threw off the mask and declared his intention of dethroning the Bourbon dynasty, and usurping Spain. Both are strong places; Pampluna one of the strongest in the Peninsula; this city might be taken by the slow and certain means of blockade:

*And here we may tak the opportunity of mentioning a fact which is highly cha racteristic of spanish punctilio and of the personal honour of Mina. When he had made his escape into France from persecution at home, he was, we know not under what weak pretence, arrested by the King of France's orders. Louis, however, though be had not the firmness to set the Spanish patriot at liberty, was yet too just to give him up to his pursuers-he therefore permitted Mina to reside in France on his pa role of honour. When, on the irruption of Buonaparte, the king was driven out of France, Mina, instead of feeling released from his parole, or of compromising with the usurper, made his way through France to Ghent to present himself to the king, and to receive his majesty's commands as to the place, either of confinement or parole, where he was to reside.

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