functions of a commander-in-chief, involving large knowledge of human nature, great energy in action, great decision of character, supreme moral courage, and, above all, that rarest species, which faces, without shrinking, civil responsibility. These qualities, in any eminent degree, are rare. But, confining one's view to the mere art of fighting a battle, I hold and insist upon it, that the military art is (intellectually speaking) a vulgar art, a mechanic art, a very limitary art; neither liberal in its nature, nor elevated (as some mechanic arts are) by the extensive range of its details. With such opinions, I am not a person to be confounded with mere John-Bull exulters in national prowess. Not as victories won by English bayonets or artillery, but as victories in a sublime strife of the good principle with the bad, I entered with all my heart into the fulness of the popular feeling: I rejoiced with the universal nation then rejoicing. There was the "nation of London" (as I have before called it) to begin with; there was also another nation almost, collected within the walls of London at that time. I rejoiced, as I have said: Lamb did not. Then I was vexed. CHAPTER IV. RECOLLECTIONS OF CHARLES LAMB. It was summer. The earth groaned under foliage and flowers fruits I was going to say, but, as yet, fruits were not and the heart of man under the burthen of triumphant gratitude: man, I say; for surely to man, and not to England only, belonged the glory and the harvest of that unequalled triumph. Triumph, however, in the sense of military triumph, was lost and swallowed up in the vast overthrow of evil, and of the evil principle. All nations sympathized with England-with England, as the centre of this great resurrection; centre for the power; centre, most of all, for the moral principle at work. It was, in fact, on that ground, and because all Europe felt and acknowledged that England had put a soul into the resistance to Napoleon, wherever and in whatever corner * It is a favorite doctrine with some of the Radical Reformers, (thanks be to God! not with all,) to vilify and disparage the war with France, froin 1793 to 1815, not (as might, perhaps, consistently be done, during some of its years,) but throughout and unconditionally in its objects, its results, its principles. Even contemplating the extreme case of a conquest by France, some of the Radicals maintain, that we should not have suffered much; that the French were a civilized people; that, doubtless, they (here, however, it was forgotten that this 'they' was not the French people, but the French army) would not have abused their power, even suppose them to have gained possession of London. Candid reader! read Duppa's account of the French reign in Rome; any account of Davoust's in Hamburgh; any account of Junot's in Lisbon. manifested therefore it was that now the crowned heads of Europe, with all their' peerage,' paid a visit to this marvellous England. It was a distinct act of homage from all the thrones of Europe, now present on our shores, actually, or by representation. Certain it is, that these royal visits to England had no other ground than the astonishment felt for the moral grandeur of the country, which only, amongst all countries, had yielded nothing to fear nothing to despondency; and also the astonishment felt, at any rate, by those incapable of higher emotions, for its enormous resources, which had been found adequate to the support, not only of its own colossal exertions, but of those made by almost half of Christendom besides. Never before in this world was there so large a congress of princes and illustrious leaders, attracted together by the mere force of unwilling, and, in some instances, jealous admiration. I was in London during that fervent carnival of national enthusiasm; and naturally, though no seeker of spectacles, I saw - for nobody who walked the streets of western London could avoid seeing the chief objects of public interest. I was passing from Hyde Park along Piccadilly, on the day when the Emperor of Russia was expected. Many scores of thousands had gone out of London over Blackfriars' Bridge, expressly to meet him, on the understanding that he was to make his approach by that route. At the moment when I reached the steps of the Pulteney Hotel, a single carriage, of plain appearance, followed by two clumsy Cossack small landaus, (or rather what used to be called sociables,) approached at a rapid pace: so rapid that I had not time to pass before the waiters of the hotel had formed a line across the foot. pavement, intercepting the passing. In a moment, a cry arose The Czar! the Czar!'-and before I could count six, I found myself in a crowd. The carriage door was opened, the steps let down, and one gentleman, unattended, stepped out. His purpose was to have passed through the avenue formed for him, in so rapid a way as to prevent any recognition of his person; but the cry in the street, the huzzas, and the trampling crowd, had brought to a front window on the drawing-room story a lady whom I had seen often before, and knew to be the Duchess of Oldenburg, the Emperor's sister. Her white dress caught the traveller's eye; and he stopped to kiss his hand to her. This action and attitude gave us all an admirable opportunity for scanning his features and whole personal appearance. There was nothing about it to impress one very favorably. His younger brother, the present Emperor, is described by all those who saw him, when travelling in Great Britain, as a man of dignified and impressive exterior. Not so with the Emperor Alexander he was tall, and seemed likely to become corpulent as he advanced in life, (at that time he was not above thirty-seven ;) and in his figure there seemed nothing particularly amiss. His dress, however, was unfortunate; it was a green surtout: now, it may be remarked, that men rarely assume this color who have not something French in their taste. His was so in all things, as might be expected from his French education under the literary fribble, Monsieur La Harpe. But, waiving his appearance in other respects, what instantly repelled all thoughts of an imperial presence, was his unfortunate face. It was a face wearing a northern fairness, and not perhaps unamiable in its expression; but it was overladen with flesh, and expressed nothing at all; or, if anything, good humour, good nature, and considerable self-complacency. In fact, the only prominent feature in the Czar's disposition was, an amiable, somewhat sentimental ostentation amiable, I say, for it was not connected with a gloomy pride or repulsive arrogance, but with a bland and winning vanity. And this cast of character was so far fortunate, as it supplied impulses to exertion, and irritated into activity a weak mind, that would else, by its natural tendencies, have sunk into torpor. His extensive travels, however, were judiciously fitted for rescuing him from that curse of splendid courts ; and his greatest enemy had also been his greatest benefactor, though unintentionally, through the tempestuous agitations of the Russian mind, and of Russian society, in all its strata, during that most portentous of all romances- - not excepting any of the crusades, or the adventurous expeditions of Cortez and Pizarro, still less the Parthian invasions of Crassus or of Julian — viz., the anabasis of Napoleon. There can be no doubt, to any reflecting mind, that the happiest part of his reign, even to Charles I., was that which was also, in a political sense, the period of his misfortunes-viz., the seven years between 1641 and 1649; three of which were occupied in stormy but adventurous war; and the other four in romantic journeys, escapes, and attempts at escape, checkered, doubtless, with trepidations and anxieties, hope and fear, grief and exultation, which, however much tainted with distress, still threw him upon his own resources of every kind, bodily not less than moral and intellectual, which else the lethargy of a court would have left undeveloped and unsuspected even by himself. Such also had been the quality of the Russian Emperor's experience for some of his later years; and such, probably, had been the result to his own comparative happiness. Yet it was said, that, about this time, the peace of Alexander's mind was beginning to give way. It is well known that a Russian emperor, lord of sixty million lives, is not lord of his not at any time. He sleeps always in the bosom own |