flight of the French; but the Hamburghers, in the enthusiasm of their joy, forgot not what was due to their merciless oppressors, and the sequel will show the manner in which they proposed to liquidate any obligations which they might have contracted with their visitors.

On the day of the intended departure of the French from Hamburgh, the great body of the city porters, (the Krahnleute) a remarkably well conducted and trustworthy race, assembled in considerable numbers on the city quay, at that point where it was thought that the baggage of the French would be embarked. Here they found that a number of barges were engaged by the customhouse officers, who were superintending the loading of these vessels with goods from their depôts. The manner in which the pretended owners came by these goods was so well known to the persons employed in loading the vessels, that they suddenly refused to work any longer. Soldiers came down to force the men, who continued their labours for a short time, with the bayonets at their backs; but they soon stopped again. The troops were further strengthened, but the process of embarkation was not in the least expedited by the measure, for the people had now been completely organized against the custom-house officers, as well as the soldiers, and the spirit of hostility had by this time shown itself in various parts of the city:

The conduct of the garrison,' observes the author, during this furious period, exhibited the extreme uncertainty of depending on a military force in a popular insurrection. There is no ground that so soon slips away from under the foot of power as a regular army. The garrison might have driven the mob into the Elbe, yet they were panic-struck; they heard themselves execrated; they saw their barriers torn down before their faces, and their guard-houses burned over their heads; their antagonists were a mere rabble, many of them women and boys, yet they scarcely dared to fire a shot. The people ran from one object of destruction to another, and exercised their rude justice, without any impediment, except from their own precipitation.

One act of vengeance pleased every body. A French fellow in the police, who, by bis peculiar insolence and extortion, had attracted the favour of his employers sufficiently to be made a commissioner, was early marked out for especial retribution. As it was presumed that the garrison, however torpid during the morning, might at length make some resistance, the people prepared for this exploit with rather more than the usual force. After gathering their force in some of the bye-streets, and sending out a few women to reconnoitre the state of the commissioner's defences, which amounted to nothing but closing his shutters, the whole multitude made a grand attack upon his castle. Never was manoeuvre more expeditious, or more successful; the whole house was instantly in possession. The ladies were peculiarly heroic; they led the column of attack, and were seen in another moment at the windows in the full glory of patriotism and pillage. The commissioner had been a man of many callings; for, to his political character, he had added that of a trader in sugar and coffee, prizes which VOL. 1. (1833) No. 1.

now peculiarly stimulated the public zeal. The women returned into the streets with their caps and aprons loaded with spoil. When his stores were completely gutted, those heroines gave up the honours of the day to the men; the Arbeitensleute rushed in, tore down the furniture, flung a part of it out of the windows, conveyed the rest into carts, and, in the course of the day, completely cleared the house. The walls remained, and it was nothing but the scorn, or the weariness of the multitude, that spared even the walls. The police despot was completely stripped, unfeathered, plucked to the bone; never was public functionary more thoroughly taught the value of the vox populi.'-pp. 309-11.

The excess to which the mutual hostility of the garrison and the people was carried, produced so many mischiefs, and justified so much the apprehension of more occurring, that the chief men of Hamburgh determined to institute some plan of amicable separation. The result of their interference was, that the people and the soldiers shunned every opportunity of coming into contact. The former were the more disposed to abstain from making use of the power which they now possessed of avenging all their wrongs on the garrison, from the belief that the Russian troops were approaching Hamburgh, and that to them should be left the task of inflicting the proper proportion of punishment on the heads of the offending Frenchmen. In the meantime the latter, under a pretence that they were summoned by Napoleon to his quarters, rose up unexpectedly in the evening, and falling in on parade with their artillery, marched out of the city, leaving Hamburgh perfectly free. As they threatened no molestation, so none was offered to them; but they left behind them in the city the memory of a name, which has been embalmed in hate, and canonized in scorn.'

After a brief but animated description of the bombardment of Hamburgh by Davoust, the author proceeds to give us some details respecting the annals of that interesting city. The origin and effects of the Hanseatic league are copiously and learnedly illustrated, while those effects are shown to have become gradually so consolidated, as to render the existence of the league itself no longer necessary.

The greater portion of the second volume of this work is occupied with miscellaneous observations, anecdotes, and biographical sketches, connected with the campaign of 1812-13, and the chiefs who distinguished themselves on either side of the great contest. Amongst these is a visionary scene, entitled Generations of Napoleon.' It is destitute of all interest, and indeed, we may add, of all meaning, having been evidently composed in one of those intervals during which the author could not be properly said to have been either asleep or awake. The succeeding chapters are better; that entitled Napoleoniana,' being a collection of some of the sayings and doings' of that great man, obtained, no doubt,

6

upon the best authority, and not extensively known. The following are amongst the best of these anecdotes:

There are but two ways for a general to reconnoitre; one with a portion of his army so large, that the enemy cannot distinguish between a reconnoissance and the preparation for actual attack; and the other so unattended, as to be altogether unsuspected, if not unseen. Napoleon would take ten thousand men to a reconnoisance, or but one: the latter was his usual mode. He left his staff and escort under cover of some village or thicket, and went out with an officer, both wrapt in their cloaks, and at a little distance undistinguishable from the peasants.

At Dresden, while the allied armies were in the neighbourhood, he was up at day-break, toiling like a captain of engineers. While the staff were constructing a bridge in place of the one burnt by the Russians, he took his stand beside a building which had served for a depot of ammunition. The Russian fire was drawn upon this point, and a shell had nearly closed the campaign; it burst over the spot where he stood, struck the side of the building, and dashed a large fragment of wood or stone at his feet. While all around him were alarmed at his hazard, he coolly turned the fragment over, and observed," A few inches nearer, and it would have done its business!"

At the close of the battle of Lutzen, Napoleon was in the most imminent danger of being killed or taken. The Prussian brigrade of cavalry, which rushed forward so unexpectedly after night-fall, and when the engagement seemed to be entirely over, threw the very battalions among which he was riding at the moment into great confusion. They however formed squares, which in the darkness fired in all directions, without knowing at what they were firing. His suite all dispersed, equally to avoid the Prussians and their own men. The firing and the galloping continued in the meantime, and the Emperor was no where to be found. If the Prussians had followed up their charge, they might have taken him and half the general officers of his army.'-pp. 203-5.

The Napoleon theory of fighting a battle is thus described :

'His manœuvre is, always to have a detached army ready to fall on the rear of the enemy's movements. A day or two before the battle he marches a corps of from twenty to fifty thousand men to the left or right, with orders to advance on the sound of his guns. The enemy are then attacked in front, and held in play until the period of exhaustion arrives, and a general attack can be made. The result is secure the enemy suddenly see a new army in their rear. They must then either retreat at once, before the roads are closed up; or if they resist the attack in front, they are liable to the attack in rear by the fresh force; or if they are beaten in front, they must be driven directly upon that force.'-pp. 206, 7.

'Napoleon pays the greatest attention to ground; he has always inspected the enemy's position in person, if possible; but this hurried inspection was not enough; after the battle he inspected it again, and with extreme minuteness; rode over it foot by foot, and left not a nook unexplored. His first point gained by this was a nearer guess at the actual numbers opposed to him. His next was probably an insight into the prin

ciples on which their generals acted: he thus got the key to the cypher of their tactics. Another advantage was, his ascertaining the mistakes which had been made by both parties, the points on which the attacks should have been forced, and those on which he had formed erroneous conjectures the whole forming a fine military lesson.'-pp. 208, 9.

Napoleon's manner in the field is cool and composed; but he sees every thing. His decision is prompt; his orders are remarkably brief, thus of course leaving a good deal to the quickness of his officers; but their brevity prevents them from being mistaken, the usual source of failure in extended movements. His orders are principles; the application belongs to others: and the orders once given, he seems to think his part done. He then alights from his horse, and walks about, like an unconcerned person; or sits upon a hillock or a stone, with his telescope in his hand, gazing on the country, as if he were an amateur sketching the landscape.'-p. 214.

The strange combination of narratives and dissertations-the abrupt introduction of themes, for which the reader has been totally unprepared by the preceding pages-give to the concluding portion of this work a character of levity, which reflects no sort of credit on the judgment of the author. The whole of what is substantial in these volumes, might, without the slightest injustice, be limited to one-fourth of the pages devoted to the contents. The three remaining fourths, and especially the matter which fills nearly the whole of the second volume, are composed of that sort of degenerate literature, which has been designated by the title of rubbish, and would not be admitted into the columns of the most ill-conducted of the penny periodicals.

ART. VIII.-America, and the Americans. By A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. 1 Vol. 8vo. London: Longman, Rees, and Co. 1833.

It is not many years ago since America formed a portion, and a very inferior one too, of the savage regions of the world, in the credulous imaginations of the people of England. They believed that there was nothing in that country which could be stolen save grass or water-that every man in America was his own tailor, carpenter, and gardener; in short, that there were neither arts nor sciences, nor civilization nor common conveniences, to be found amongst the benighted inhabitants of that ill-fated territory. Things are somewhat changed at present; we have more definite notions now-adays of the American character;、we have found that we were mistaken in ascribing to them the decorations of tails, and paws, and woolly hair, and that they really are human beings, constructed according to the standard which we ourselves, for very sufficient. reasons, deem to be altogether unexceptionable.

Whilst, however, we blame the precipitancy and obstinacy of judgment by which England has committed so much injustice against America-whilst we remember with painful regret that the chief misrepresentations of American character are ascribable to the malice of Englishmen, yet we cannot overlook the fact so honourable to this country, that it is to Englishmen also that the inhabitants of the United States are indebted for that moral redress which they are now so abundantly receiving. Amongst the examples of that disinterested love of national justice which of late has been roused to the vindication of the true station of America in the scale of civilization, we hail with pleasure the performance before us, as by the good sense, sound judgment, and impartiality which it displays, we are induced at once to place confidence in the statements and opinions which it contains.

Having visited and resided in the United States of America with motives purely confined to commercial views, the author adopts the impressions which naturally followed from his intercourse with the Americans. He had no direct object in making himself a critic of their conduct, and of registering the comparative amount of their errors and their virtues. Neither did he present himself to that people in such a relation as would induce them to put on an artificial demeanour, in order to appear well in the eyes of a stranger. He lived with them, dealt with them, had seen them in public and in private, and has, for reasons that must be obvious to every well-directed mind, been led to give to the world the results of the observations made by an independent man of business.' The object of the work being now sufficiently understood, the reader will perhaps feel better prepared to accompany us through its contents.

The period of time to which the observation of the author refers, is comprehended in the interval between May, 1829, and June, 1831. When the habits of one who is entitled to the designation of a man of business' are considered, it would be quite superfluous to attempt to show that two years of close investigation of the customs and manners of the American people, afforded ample opportunity to the author for the due accomplishment of his task.

The novelty which appears to have been the first to strike the senses of the author upon his arrival at New York was the decent appearance and evidently high character of the working classes. There was a total absence in the streets not only of all mendicants in filth and rags, but likewise of any specimens of that class which is usually denominated a mob or rabble. The workmen were all well clothed, were intelligent and civil, without at the same time descending to any of those acts which, however trivial in themselves, still denote a spirit of servility in those who practise them: all exhibited an independence of feeling which never degenerated into vulgar insolence. The dresses of the more elevated orders