tion is the most useful, the most difficult, the most invidious, and therefore, perhaps, the noblest task of an honest investigator of historic truth. But it requires candour and delicacy no less than boldness and acumen. When it is attempted from an obvious sense of duty, we admire the unflinching sincerity of the assailant, even though we condemn his severity. But when he undertakes it in the exultation of superior discernment-when he performs it with the insolence of personal antipathy-his victory will be unhonoured and unsympathized with, and his defeat will be embittered by universal scorn and indignation. At We do not possess the technical knowledge necessary to dissect the criticisms to which we have alluded. We can only judge as unlearned mortals, let scientific tacticians say what they will, always must judge-by general results. We can only consider what Napoleon did, and whether, according to the ordinary doctrine of chances, it is conceivable that he could have done so much had he been a man of no extraordinary powers. Napoleon, then, commanded in person at fourteen of the greatest pitched battles which history has recorded. Five times-at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram—he crushed the opposing army at a blow; finished the war, in his own emphatic phrase, by a coup-de-foudre; and laid the vanquished power humbled and hopeless at his feet. Five times-at Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, and Ligny-he was also decidedly victorious, though with less overwhelming effect. Eylau the victory was left undecided. At Leipsic, the French were defeated, as is well known, by a force which outnumbered their own as five to three. At Waterloo, it is generally acknowledged that the overthrow of Napoleon was owing, not to any deficiency in skill on his part, but to the invincible obstinacy of the British infantry, who are admitted, even by the French accounts, to have displayed a passive courage, of which the most experienced warrior might be excused for thinking human nature incapable. At Aspern alone, to judge from the able account of Mr Alison, does the partial defeat of the French emperor appear to have been owing to any faulty arrangement of his own. Five of his ten actions were gained over equal or superior forces; and among the generals defeated by him, we find the distinguished names of Wurmser, Melas, Benningsen, Blucher, and above all, the Archduke Charles. We might produce still stronger testimonies. We might relate the glorious successes of his first Italian campaign, in which four powerful armies were successively overthrown by a force comprising, from first to last, but 60,000 men. We might notice his romantic achievements in Egypt and Syria, against a new and harassing system of hostility. We might enlarge on the most wonderful of all his exploits-the pro tracted struggle which he maintained in the heart of France, with a remnant of only 50,000 men, against the quadruply superior numbers of the Allies. But all this is unnecessary. If the successes to which we have alluded are insufficient to prove that Napoleon was a general of the first order, the reputation of no soldier who ever existed can be considered as established. If such numerous and extraordinary examples are insufficient to establish a rule, then there is no such thing as reasoning by induction. It is in vain to endeavour to explain away such a succession of proofs. Technical cavils can no more prove that Napoleon was a conqueror by chance, than the two sage Sergeants mentioned by Pope could persuade the public that Lord Mansfield was a mere wit. The common sense of mankind cannot be permanently silenced by scientific jargon. Plain men, though neither lawyers nor mathematicians, see no presumption in pronouncing Alfred a great legislator, or Newton a great astronomer. It is equally in vain to attempt to neutralize the proofs of Napoleon's superiority, by balancing them with occasional examples of rash presumption; or, even did such exist, of unaccountable infatuation. No number of failures can destroy the conclusion arising from such repeated and complete victories. The instances in which fools have blundered into brilliant success are rare; but the instances in which men of genius have been betrayed into gross errors are innumerable. And, therefore, where the same man has brilliantly succeeded and lamentably failed, it is but fair to conclude, that the success is the rule, and the failure the exception. Every man constantly forms his opinions respecting the affairs of real life upon this theory. In literature, in science, in the fine arts, no man's miscarriages are allowed to diminish the credit of his successes. Nobody denies that Dryden was a true poet because he wrote Maximin; for it was more likely that a true poet should write Maximin than that a dunce should write Absalom and Achitophel. Nobody denies that Bacon was a true philosopher because he believed in alchemy; for it was more likely that a true philosopher should believe in alchemy, than that an empiric should compose the Novum Organum. No classical scholar denies the merit of Bentley's edition of Horace, because he failed in his edition of Milton. No man of taste refuses to enjoy the wit and humour of Falstaff, because the same author imagined the pedantic quibbles of Biron. We shall not attempt to sketch the personal character of Napoleon. Yet it is a subject upon which, could we hope to do it justice, the ample materials supplied by the present history might well tempt us to linger. No laboured eulogium could impress us with so much admiration for his surpassing genius, as the simple details collected by Mr Alison. We never before so clearly appreciated the mighty powers of Napoleon-his boundless fertility of resource-his calm serenity in the most desperate emergencies his utter ignorance of personal fear-his piercing political foresight-the vast fund of miscellaneous knowledge collected by the almost involuntary operation of his perspicacious and tenacious intellect the rapid and vigorous reasoning faculties, which applied themselves, with the ease and precision of some exquisite machine, to every subject alike which for an instant attracted his attention. In his seventy-second chapter, Mr Alison has collected a variety of highly interesting details, respecting the private manners and habits of Napoleon. It is scarcely possible to describe the impression which its perusal leaves on the mind. The strange contrast of warm affection and vindictive hatred, of fiery impetuosity and methodical precision, of royal luxury and indefatigable self-denial, of fascinating courtesy and despotic harshness the indomitable pride, the vehement eloquence, the magnanimous power of self-command, the fearful bursts of passion-all combine to produce an effect by which the dullest imagination must be enchanted, but which the most versatile genius might fail in depicting. The interest of the portrait is augmented by those minute personal peculiarities on which the romantic devotion of Napoleon's followers has so often dwelt-by the classical features, the piercing glance, the manners, now stern, abrupt, and imperious, now full of princely grace-even by the small plain hat, and the redingote grise, which have supplanted the white plume of Henri Quatre in French song and romance. We almost sympathize with the attachment of his soldiers, wild and idolatrous as it was, when we remember Mr Alison's simple but imposing narrative of the events of the empire-of the congress of Tilsit, the farewell of Fontainbleau, and the unparalleledthe marvellous march to Paris. It is impossible, in reading the striking details which record the personal demeanour of Napoleon during such scenes as these, not to recall the noble lines in which Southey has described Kehama : "Pride could not quit his eye, Nor that remorseless nature from his front That sure he seem'd to be the king of men; ART. II.—The Life of Augustus Keppel, Admiral of the White, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1782-3. By the Hon. and Rev. THOMAS KEPpel. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1842. Ir is not often that naval subjects are brought under our consideration ; not that we are not fully impressed with the paramount importance of all that relates to this mighty arm of our power, essential, indeed, for the safety and protection of every part of the United Kingdom at home, and of its numerous dependencies abroad, and equally so for that of our valuable and extensive commerce and mercantile shipping. In fact, it so happens that, during the piping times of peace,' naval events are seldom of that stirring character as to cause much excitement in the public mind; but the biography of such of our brave naval defenders, who may have had the enviable good fortune of signalizing themselves in fight with the enemy, and of being placed in situations of great trust and responsibility, must always command a prominent place in the annals of the British empire. Already, the lives of Anson, Howe, St Vincent, Nelson, Rodney, and Saumarez are before the public; and the wonder is, that a Memoir of Keppel, the friend and associate of the first three of these, and we may also add, of Hawke, Saunders, and Duncan, should have been so long delayed. The task, however, though late, is now accomplished, and by one who has proved himself well qualified to do justice to the exploits, the character, and the memory of a meritorious and gallant naval officer;-by one who, owing to his first professional choice, is not altogether unacquainted with the naval service; who is descended from the same noble family; and who had access to private as well as official documents, of which he has made a copious and judicious use. In them we find the mental qualities and disposition of Admiral Lord Keppel amply developed-replete with every amiable feature-kind, benevolent, and sincere. He was a man liberal in his political opinions, which were those of his family and most intimate friends-Rockingham, Shelburne, Richmond, Burke, Fox, and many others of the Whig party. And if he was not so fortunate, in his long and successful service of more than forty years, almost wholly spent at sea, as to obtain, as commanderin-chief, any great and decisive success against the enemy, such as is usually designated by the name of victory,' yet he had his full share in the victories of Hawke, Anson, and Pococke; and achieved signal success in numerous enterprizes entrusted to his charge. Equally successful was he in conciliating the good opinion 6 and obtaining the applause of the public, and of his highly distinguished friends;-gaining a moral triumph over those few of his enemies who might be envious of his well-acquired reputation. The Honourable Augustus Keppel was the second son of the second Lord Albemarle, by Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of Charles first Duke of Richmond, and was born the 25th April 1725. He entered the navy at the early age of ten years, having quitted Westminster school for the cockpit of the Oxford frigate, passed his first two years on the coast of Guinea, and three in the Mediterranean, in the Gloucester. On his return in July 1740, he was appointed to the Centurion, under the command of Commodore Anson, destined for a voyage round the world. 'He thus,' says his biographer, 'shared in the hardships and dangers of that celebrated voyage, which for its inauspicious commencement, its strange and protracted disasters, and its final 'success, is, perhaps, without a parallel in the naval annals of any country. In the course of this voyage he contracted a steady friendship with that distinguished band of brothers-Anson, Saunders, Brett, Saumarez, Denis, Byron, Parker, and Campbell -which terminated only with their several lives. The incidents of this voyage are so well known that we pass over our author's summary, (of about sixty pages,) interspersed with a few sentences from Keppel's own journal noticing only one incident which, with becoming modesty, is omitted in that journal, but mentioned in Anson's Voyage,' and which occurred at the attack of Payta: it is, that one side of the peak of Keppel's jockey cap was shaved off, close to his temple, by a ball.' After the action with the Spanish galleon, Anson was so pleased with the conduct of Keppel, that he immediately gave him a lieutenant's commission. On the arrival of the Centurion at Portsmouth, in June 1744, and as soon as paid off, Keppel immediately applied for employment, and was ordered to join the Dreadnought, commanded by the Hon. Edward Boscawen,- Old ' Dreadnought,' as the sailors used to call him- the most obstinate,' as Walpole says, ' of an obstinate family.' But Pitt, who is higher authority than Walpole, said of him, When Í apply to other officers respecting any expedition I may chance to project, they always raise difficulties-Boscawen always finds expedients.' From this ship, in November of the same year, he was promoted to the rank of commander, and appointed to the Wolf sloop; and, in the following December, was advanced to that of captain, and transferred to the Greyhound frigate. Thus, in ten years from his entering the service, that is, at the age of twenty, he obtained what was then called post 6 |