SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Theroae. History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restomtiou of the Bourbons in 1815. By Archibald Alison. F.R.S.E., Advocate.

Volume the Tenth Blackwood and Sons.

STATISTICS.

Belgium since the Revolution of 1830: comprising a Top graphical and Antiquarian Description of the Country, and a Review of its Political, Commercial, Literary, Religious. and Social Relations. as affecting its present condition nod future pros.

poets. By the Reverend W. Trullope, M How and Parsons. Form,

The Poetical Work. of Miss Susanna Blamire, " The Muse of Cumberland." Now for the first time collected, by Henry Lonstiale, M.D. With a Preface. Memoir. and Notes, by Patrick Maxwell. Translator of Mme Dard's " Narrative of the Picard Family," and "Wreck of the French Medusa Frigate."

ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.

Br extending his tenth volume to 1,130 pages, Mr. ALISON has completed his History of Europe. Though possessing many and great faults, it is undoubtedly a work of considerable interest and importance, and forms a refreshing contrast to the quantity of rubbish, or mediocrity of even less mark than rubbish, which the press is continually bringing forth. An encumbering diffu- sion ever pervades the style; the disquisitions, though sound in their basis, are too numerous, often delaying the march of the history, and oftener wearying the reader by an inflated solemnity of manner, in which the rhetorician and the preacher are oddly conjoined ; whilst the diction of the author is frequently too ambitious, and his terms hyperbolical. But the magnitude of the events, the number, variety, and force of the characters, the interest, sometimes romantic and sometimes heroic, which attaches to many of the incidents, and the all but contemporary na- ture of the whole, more than counterbalance the very great de- fects of the history. The work, moreover, supplies a want : not merely does it tell in a continuous form the story of the French Revolution and its immediate consequences to the world, but it exhibits the baseless fabric of the Imperial dominion even at the height of its apparent grandeur, and the uncertain tenure of NAPOLEON'S power, arising from his selfish and unprincipled cha- racter: so that ALISON'S History of Europe may be said to dis- seminate the essence of truth, and to show that what appears miraculous is really natural. To readers of the present day the work is a necessity ; for in no other English book can they get what this contains. As regards "all time," it is more than probable that Mr. ALISON might have spared himself the trouble of his elaborate address to the House of Commons touching the law of copyright in regard to this identical work, for it is too bulky and verbose for posterity. Without discussing the question whether this author's genius and culture are equal to the production of an enduring work, it may be said that no writer, be his genius what it may, will be popular beyond his own age, who does not by a compressed composition and frequent revision get rid of all that is superfluous, so as to present the largest quantity of matter in the smallest and most attractive form. Judging from results, Mr. Amon neither aims at compression nor revises.

The subjects in the volume before us consist of—the final cam- paign in France before the first abdication of NAPOLEON, when the banded forces of the Allies were pressing upon him in the North, and WELLINGTON in the Southern provinces was attacking the weakened and disheartened troops of SOULT, resisting step by step; the first restoration of the BOURBONS, and the acts of folly by which they alienated the minds of the French people and prepared the success of NAPOLEON'S invasion ; the reign of the Hundred Days, including the veni, vidi, vici progress of NAPOLEON from Cannes to Paris; his internal difficulties, from the exhausted state of the country, the of the respectable classes, the apathy of the peasantry, and the suspicions of the old Jacobins on whom he had to rely to govern ; the brief campaign of Waterloo, and the final occupation of France by the Allied armies, with the second return of the BOURBONS. Intermediate between the first and second downfal of BONAPARTE is placed the narrative of the American war; including an exposition of the Democratic institutions of the United States, some specula- tions as to the character and probable workings of their Demo- cracy, and an expose of the true mode of carrying on any future war. The work is wound up by a long and lumbering disquisition on the Revolutionary principle, the corruption of man, the moral government of the universe, Aristocracy and Democracy, the coun- tervailing benefits flowing from war, the tendency of nations to de- teriorate and decline, the necessity of infusing new life into a corrupt people by the severe remedy of foreign conquest, and the not very new opinion that no nation which retains its courage and its virtue is liable to be subdued. This disquisition, if not necessary, was at all events in place ; as the object of Mr. Arasom's History of Europe, either deduced from his inquiries or prejudged before he began, is to point out the ruinous effects to peace and freedom of the Democratic principle, (though he rather confounds the violence of Democratic Revolution with Democracy,) to show that NAPOLEON was compelled to constant wars by the necessities of his position, and that the Imperial ambition was only another phase of the Re- volutionary Jacobin action fulfilling a law of Nature, and not insti- gated by the individual,desires of the French Emperor. But in pointing, in a formal disquisition, the moral of so large a subject and so long a work, no effort, no care, no labour should have been spared to raise the composition to a level with the theme. We, however, scarcely know any chapters of Mr. ALisois's writing that might be so truly selected for a specimen of his worst style as his closing disquisition. Preachy and prosy is the character of the manner ; here and there an idea may be found of sonic novelty if of questionable soundness ; but the thoughts are generally the merest commonplace, and the topics are the standing themes on which unfledged orators declaim at schools and colleges. The ninety pages of which the peroration chapter consists might be compressed into twenty, probably into ten ; but though a nervous vigour of composition might result from the process, the matter, after all, would be essentially stale, if no change were made in the ideas themselves. Looking at the bulk of the volume, and its hundred asterisk pages, it would seem as if the close had been huddled up in haste. We formerly observed that Mr. Amsort might find some difficulty in dealing with the death of NET, and others executed in despite of the capitulation of Paris. His comment upon the transaction is just and bold, but lie escapes from the natural conclusion. If the Bourbon Government were not justified in executing the persons, it was the bounden duty of the authors of the capitulation (WEL- LINGTON and BLUCHER) to interfere to prevent the execution ; and if their protest was unavailing, to withdraw from further connexion with men and a service which had dishonoured them. It was not thus that SOUTHEY shrank from the stern condemnation of NELSON at Naples.

TILE TAKING-OFF OF NET.

Being brought in a carriage to the place selected in the gardens of the Luxemburg, near a wall, the Marshal stood erect, with his hat in his left hand and his right on his heart, and faring the soldiers, exclaimed, " My comrades, fire on me!" He fell, pierced by ten balls. The place of his execution is still to be seen in the gardens of the Luxemburg; and few spots in Europe will excite more melancholy emotions in the mind of the traveller. The death of Ney is a subject which the English historian cannot dismiss without painful feelings. His guilt was self-evident ; and never perhaps was the penalty of the law inflicted upon one for a political offence who more richly deserved his fate. But the question of difficulty is, whether or not he was pro- tected by the capitulation of Paris? The clause in that treaty has been already given, which expressly declares that no person should be molested for his political opinions or conduct during the Hundred Days; and it is very diffi- cult to see how this clause could be held as not protecting Ney, who was within the city at the time of the treaty. Wellington and Blucher concluded the capitulation ; their Sovereigns ratified it ; Louis the Eighteenth took benefit front it. He entered Paris the very day after the English army, and esta- blished himself in the Tuileries under the protection of their guns. How., then, can it be said that be, as well as the Allied Sovereigns, were not bound by the treaty, especially in so vital and irreparable a matter as human life, and that the life of such a man as Marshal Ney ? It is very true, a great example was required; true, Ncy's treason was beyond that of any other man ; true, the Revolutionists required to be shown that the Government could ven- ture to punish. But all that will not justify the breach of a capitulation. The very time when justice requires to interpose is when great interests or state necessity are urgent on the one hand and an unprotected criminal exists on the other. To say that Louis the Eighteenth was not bound by the capi- tulation, that it was made by the English General without his authority, and that no foreign officer could tie up the hands of an independent sovereign, is a quibble unworthy of a generous mind, and which it is the duty of the historian invariably to condemn. This was what Nelson said at Naples, and what Schwartzenberg said at Dresden; and subsequent times have unanimously spoken out against the violation of these two capitulations. Banished from France, with his double treason affixed to his forehead, Ney's character was irrecoverably withered; but to the end of the world his guilt will be forgotten in the tragic interest and noble heroism of his death.

The criticism on the battle of Waterloo is equally impartial, but more comprehensive. Giving great credit to the Duke of WEL- LINGTON for the conduct of the battle itself, Mr. Amon concludes that in the previous management both commanders were faulty. Besides criticism, his remarks indicate the profound and skilful strategy of NAPOLEON, which only seems to have been defeated by the delay of NET'S attack upon Quatre Bras and the bull-dog determination of the British infantry at Waterloo. "1. Iii the first place, it is evident, whatever the English writers may say to the contrary, that both Blucher and the Duke of Wellington were surprised by Napoleon's invasion of Belgium on the 15th of June ; and it is impossible to hold either of them entirely blameless for that circumstance. It has been already seen from the Dukes despatches, that on the 9th of June, that is six days before the invasion took place, he was aware that Napoleon was trol- lecting a great force on the frontier, and that hostilities might immediately be expected. 'Why, then, were the two armies not immediately concentrated, and placed in such a situation that they might mutually, if attacked, lend each other the necessary assistance? Their united force was full one hundred and ninety thousand effective men ; while Napoleon's was not more than one hun- dred and twenty, or, at the utmost, one hundred and forty thousand. Why, then, was Blucher attacked unawares and isolated at Ligny, and the British infantry, unsupported either by cavalry or artillery, exposed to the attack of • superior force of French, composed of all the three arms, at Quatre Bras? It is in vain to say that they could not provide for their troops if they had been concentrated, and that it was necessary to watch every by-road which led to Brussels. Men do not eat more when drawn together than when scattered over a hundred miles of country. Marlborough and Eugene had long ago maintained armies of a hundred thousand men for months together in Flanders; and Blucher and Wellington had no difficulty in feeding a hundred and seventy thousand men drawn close together after the campaign did commence. It is not by a cordon of troops scattered over a hundred miles, that the attack of • hundred and twenty thousand French is to be arrested. If the British army had from the first been concentrated at Waterloo, and Blucher near Wavres, Napoleon would never have ventured to pass them on any road, however un- guarded. Those who, in their anxiety to uphold the English General from the charge of having been assailed unawares, assert that he was not taken by sur- prise in the outset of the Waterloo campaign, do not perceive that in so doing they bring against him the much more serious charge of having so disposed his troops when he knew they were about to be assailed, that infantry alone, with- out either cavalry or artillery, were exposed to the attack of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,in superior numbers, contrary not only to the plainest rules of the military art but of common sense on the subject. " 2. It results from these considerations, that in the outset of the Waterloo campaign Wellington and Blucher were outmanceuvered by Napoleon. Being superior by at least seventy thousand troops to those at the command of the French Emperor, it was their business never to have fnight at a disadvantage, and not made a final stand till their two great armies were in a situation mutu- ally to assist and support each other. There seems no reason why this should not have been done bytheir mutually converging from the frontier to Waterloo without abandoning Brussels. But even if it had been necessary to evacuate that capital before the union was effected, prudence suggests that it would have been better to have done so, even with all its moral consequences, than to have exposed either army to the chance of serious defeat in consequence of being singly assailed by greatly superior forces. Nevertheless, Napoleon so managed matters in the outset of the campaign, that though inferior upon the whole by full seventy thousand men to the Allied armies taken together, be was superior to either at the points of attack at Ligny and Quatre Bras. That is the most decisive test of superior generalship."

Let us turn to another theme, which, happily for the estimate of human nature, cannot often be illustrated upon a striking scale ; for Mr. ALISoN errs much in supposing that fallen power is deserted only by revolutionary supporters.

DESERTION OP THE FALLEN.

And now commenced at Fontainbleau a scene of baseness never exceeded in any age of the world, and which forms an instructive commentary on the prin- ciples and practice of the Revolution. Let an eye-witness of these hideous ter- giversations record them; they would pass for incredible if drawn from any less exceptionable source. "Every hour," says Caulaincourt, "was after this marked by fresh voids in the Emperor's household. The universal object was how to get first to Paris. All the persons in office quitted their post without leave or asking permission; one after another they all slipped away, totally forgetting him to whom they owed every thing, but who had no longer any thing to give. The universal complaint was, that his formal abdication was so long of appearing. ' It was high time,' it was said by every one, ' for all this to come to an end : it is absolute childishness to remain any longer in the an- techambers of Fontainbleau, when favours are showering down at Paris' : and with that they all set off for the capital. Such was their anxiety to hear of his abdication, that they pursued misfortune even into its last asylum ; and every time the door of the Emperor's cabinet opened, a crowd of heads were seen peeping in to gain the first hint of the much-longed-for news." No sooner was the abdication and the treaty with the Allies signed, than the desertion was universal: every person of note around the Emperor, with the single and honourable exceptions of Maret and Caulaincourt, abandoned him : the ante- chambers of the palace were literally deserted. Berthier even left his benefac- tor without bidding him adieu! " He was born a courtier," said Napoleon when he learned his departure : "you will see my Vice-Constable mendicating employment from the Bourbons. I feel mortified that men whom I have raised so high in the eyes of Europe should sink so low. What have they made of that halo of glory through which they have hitherto been seen by the stranger? What must the Sovereigns think of such a termination to all the illustrations of my reign !" • • • * * •

Meanwhile, the Imperial Court at Blois, where the Empress Marie Louise and the King of Rome had been since the taking of Paris, was the scene of selfishness more marked, desertions more shameless, than even the saloons of l'ontainbleau. Unrestrained by the awful presence of the Emperor, the egotism and cupidity of the courtiers there appeared in hideous nakedness, and the fumes of the Revolution expired amidst the universal baseness of its followers. No sooner was the abdication of the Emperor known, than all her Court de- serted the Empress: it was a general race who should get first to Paris to share in the favours of the new dynasty. Such was the desertion, that in getting into her carriage on the 9th April, at Blois, to take the road to Orleans, no one re- mained to hand the Empress in but her Chamberlain. The Empress, the King of Rome, were forgotten : the grand object of all was to get away, and to carry with them as much as possible of the public treasure which had been brought from Paris with the Government. In a few days it had all disappeared. At Orleans, the remaining members of Napoleon's family also departed : Madame Mere and her brother the Cardinal Fesch set out for Rome ; Prince Louis, the ex-King of Holland, for Switzerland ; Joseph and Jerome soon after fol- lowed in the same direction. The Empress at first declared her resolution to join Napoleon; maintaining that there was her post, and that she would share his fortunes in adversity as she had done in prosperity. The wretched syco- phants, however, who were still about her person, spared no pains to alienate her from the Emperor: they represented that he had espoused her only from policy; that she had never possessed his affections ; that during the short pe- riod they had been married he had had a dozen mistresses, and that she could now expect nothing but reproaches and bad usage from him. Overcome partly by these insinuations, and partly by her own facility of character and habits of submission, she too followed the general example : her French guards were dismissed, and replaced by Cossacks : she took the road from Orleans to Ram- bouilhet ; where she was visited successively by the Emperor her father and the Emperor Alexander ; and at length she yielded to their united entreaties, and agreed to abandon Napoleon.

THE FAITHFUL FEW.

Amidst the general and humiliating scene of baseness which disgraced the French functionaries at the fall of Napoleon, it is consolatory for the honour of human nature to have some instances of a contrary character to recount. Car- not remained faithful at his post at Antwerp till the abdication of Napoleon was officially intimated; and then he announced his adhesion to the new Government, in an order of the day to the garrison, in which he concluded with the memorable words which comprise so much of a soldier's duty—" The armed force is essentially obedient ; it acts, but never deliberates." Soult was one of the last to give in : his adhesion is dated Castelnaudary, 19th April, nine days after the battle of Toulouse, and when, in reality, there was no alternative, as the whole nation had unequivocally declared itself. Of the few who remained faithful to the Emperor at Fontainbleau it is impossible to speak in terms of too high admiration. Caulaincourt, after having nobly discharged to the very last his duties to his old master, at his earnest request returned to Paris a few days before he departed for Elba, and bore with him an autograph letter from Napoleon to Louis the Eighteenth, in which he strongly recommended him to his service. The Emperor obviously thought, and justly, that his presence there was indispensable to watch over the performance of the treaty of Fon- tainbleau. General Bertrand, Generals Drouot and Cambronnc, Maret, Gene- ral Belliard, Baron Fain, General Gourgaud, Colonel Anatole, Montesquieu, Baron de la Place, Generals Kosakowski and Vonsowitch, remained with him to the last at Fontainbleau; and Bertrand shared his exile as well at Elba as at St. Helena. Macdonald, though the last of his Marshals to be taken into favour, was faithful to his duty ; he did not forget his word pledged on the field of Wagram. Napoleon was so sensible of his fidelity, that on the morn- ing when he brought him the ratification of the treaty of Fontainbleau to sign, he publicly thanked him for his affectionate zeal, and lamented the coldness which had at one period estranged them from each other. "At least," said the Emperor, "you will not refuse one souvenir—it is the sabre of Mourad- Bey, which I have often worn in battle; keep it for my sake. Return to Paris, and serve the Bourbons as faithfully as you have served me!"

The following story is no doubt believed by Mr. ALISON; and he has, as he says, authority for it, which he no doubt thinks sufficient. But when making charges of this nature in a work of' this pretension, he ought, in despite of delicacy, to possess the public with what his authority is, that they may judge of it. We say charges, because is evident, if not to Mr. ALISON, that his story represents the King of the Belgians as an unscrupulous trifler with the affections of every woman that fell in his way, and an impudent and unprin- cipled fortune-hunter, ready at any time to propose to anybody and to sell himself to the best advantage. " One other circumstance, of domestic interest in its origin but of vast im- portance in its ultimate results, deserves to be recorded of this eventful period. At Paris, during the stay of the Allied Monarchs, there was Lord —, who had filled with acknowledged ability a high diplomatic situation at their isead- quarters during the latter period of the war. His lady, of high rank, had joined him to partake in the festivities of that brilliant period, and with her a young relative, equally distinguished by her beauty and talents, then appearing in all the freshness of opening youth. A frequent visiter at this period in Lord —'s family was a young officer, then an Aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Constantine, a younger brother of an ancient and illustrious family in Germany, but who, like many other scions of nobility, had more blood in his veins than money in his pocket. The young Aide-de-camp speedily was cap- tivated by the graces of the English lady ; and when the Sovereigns were about to set out for England, whither Lord — was to accompany them, he bitterly lamented the scantiness of his finances, which prevented him from following in the train of such attraction. Lord — goodhumouredly told him be should always find a place at his table when he was not otherwise engaged ; and that he would put him in the way of seeing all the world in the British metropolis, which he would probably never see to such advantage again. Such an offer, especially when seconded by such influences, proved irresistible, and the young German gladly followed them to London. He was there speedily introduced to and ere long distinguished by the Princess Charlotte, whose projected alliance with the Prince of Orange had recently before been broken off. Though the Princess remarked him, however, it was nothing more at that time than a passing regard ; for her thoughts were then more seriously occu- pied by another. Having received at the same time what be deemed some encouragement, the young soldier proposed to the Princess, and was refused; and subsequently went to Vienna during the sitting of the Congress at that place, where his susceptible heart was speedily engrossed in another tender affair. Invincible obstacles, however, presented themselves to the realization of the Princess Charlotte's views, which had led to her first rejection of the gallant German. He received a friendly hint from London to make his atten- tions to the fair Austrian less remarkable : he returned to the English capital. again proposed to the English Princess, and was accepted. It was Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg ; and his subsequent destiny and that of his family exceeds all that romance has figured of the marvellous. He married the heiress of England, after her lamented end he espoused a daughter of France; lie was offered the throne of Greece, be accepted the crown of Belgium. I consequence of his elevation, one of his nephews has married the heiress of Portugal, another the Queen of England; and the accidental fancy of a young German officer for a beautiful English lady has in its ultimate results given three kingdoms to his family, placed on one of his relatives the crown of the greatest empire that has existed in the world since the fall of Rome, and re- stored to England, in hazardous times, the inestimable blessing of a direct line of succession to the throne."

Among the isolated points of something more than an unsound- ness in which Mr. ALISON indulges, is his old story about PITT'S Sinking-fund. "If that noble establishment had been kept up," says be, " by maintaining the indirect taxes set apart by the wisdom of former times for its maintenance, it would have paid off the whole National Debt by the year 1845" : and he refers for proof to an account in the appendix. From that document we see that the sums raised by loan in the year spoken of amounted to 39,400,000/. ; out of which we paid off some 12,900,0001., leaving a permanent addition to the Debt of 26,500,0001. This is getting beyond SHERIDAN'S joke, " If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you ? "