body of men, who can be readily brought into action, to suppress the destructive fury of popular insurrections. It calls forth also much activity of intellect, much ingenuity of mechanical contrivance, and the exercise of many noble virtues. "Il ne faut pas se faire un monstre du plus beau des malheurs-de la guerre," says the prince de Ligne. In a short commentary on this very fine expression, he observes with truth that war, with all its evils, is a school of the highest virtues.

This is a favourite theme of Lord Kames; and I will let him speak for himself:-" Wars give exercise to the elevated virtues of courage, generosity, and disinterestedness; which are all attended with consciousness of merit and of dignity. Friendship is, in peace, cool and languid; but, in a war for glory, exerts the whole fire of its enthusiasm. The long and bloody war, sustained by the Netherlands against the tyrant of Spain, made even Dutchmen heroes. They forced their way to the Indies, during the hottest period of the war; and gained, by commerce, what supported them against their ferocious enemy. What have they gained since by peace? Their immense commerce has eradi

cated patriotism, and every appetite but for wealth. Had their violated rights been restored without a struggle, they would have continued a nation of frogs and fishermen.* The Swiss, by continual struggles for liberty against the potent house of Austria, became a brave and active people, feared and courted by neighbouring princes. Industry, manufactures, and wealth, are the fruits of peace: but advert to what follows. Luxury, a never-failing concomitant of wealth, is a slow poison, that debilitates men, and renders them incapable of any great effort. Courage, magnanimity, heroism, come to be ranked among the miracles that are supposed never to have existed but in fable; and the fashionable properties of sensuality, avarice, cunning, and dissimulation, engross the mind. In a word, man, by constant prosperity and peace, degenerates into a mean, impotent, and sensual animal."

In another part of his very amusing work, Lord Kames gives the following instances of the virtues of humanity exhibited in war:-"Demetrius, having restored liberty to the Athenians,

* We know how gallantly they have fought, since this was written, at the battle of Waterloo.

was treated by them as a demi-god; and yet afterwards, in his adversity, found their gates shut against him. Upon a change of fortune he laid siege to Athens, resolving to chastise that rebellious and ungrateful people. He assembled the inhabitants in the theatre, surrounding them with his army, as preparing for a total massacre. Their terror was great, but short: he pronounced their pardon, and bestowed on them 100,000 measures of wheat. The emperor Charles the Fifth, after losing 30,000 men at the siege of Metz, made an ignominious retreat; leaving his camp filled with sick and wounded and dying. Though the war between him and the king of France was carried on with unusual rancour, yet the duke of Guise, governor of the town, exerted in those barbarous times a degree of humanity, that would make a splendid figure even at present: he ordered plenty of food for those who were dying of hunger; appointed surgeons to attend the sick and wounded; removed, to the adjacent villages, those who could bear motion; and admitted the remainder into the hospitals, that he had fitted up for his own soldiers. Those who recovered their health were sent home, with

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Sir Walter Raleigh-who was no advocate for war in general; whose ambition was not for conquest, but security; who proscribed all wanton outrage, or unnecessary invasions on the territory of another power, as idle and wickedsays, "It may be affirmed that the number of those that have been slaughtered by their fellow creatures exceeds the number of inhabitants that were at any one time living upon the face of the earth; yet very few of this infinite number, untimely slain, were ever masters of the grounds of the disputes for which they suffered, or the true reasons of their being led to battle; the truth with much artifice being kept from all but those who were parties to the designs resolved on. What deluded wretches, then, have a great part of mankind been, who have either yielded them

* In that very interesting work, the Life of Wilberforce, we find that after the 'untoward' but necessary attack of Copenhagen, a neutral power, to secure her fleet from falling into the hands of the French, Mr. Wilberforce proposed a subscription to assist the poorer of the individual sufferers to rebuild their houses. On which the biographer remarks: "It is delightful to see the rugged countenance of necessary war thus brightened by acts of Christian charity, which, by their healing influence, repress the brutalizing effects of conflict, blessing equally the giver and receiver." (Vol. iii. p. 348.)

selves to be slain in causes which, if truly known, their hearts would abhor; or have been the bloody executioners of other men's ambition! It is a hard thing to be slain for what a man should never willingly fight for: yet few soldiers have laid themselves down on the bed of honour under better circumstances."

"Is not a victory the most rapturous delight imaginable?" said a Parisian lady, after the battle of Waterloo. "Madam," said the duke of Wellington, "on the contrary; it is the most melancholy sensation imaginable—except that of a defeat." The joy of triumph must necessarily be embittered by the loss of friends; and after the ardour of battle is over, by the horrors that must shock the feelings under cooler contemplation. Defeat adds the sense of dishonour and disgrace to those miseries, and therefore is an aggravation of calamity.

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We, in this fortunate island, have been happily long exempt from the worst effects of warfare, the indiscriminate destruction of families, houses, and of all kinds of property; and the most bitter fruits that those, who are not actually engaged in warfare, experience from it are taxes. Qui non luit in persona, luit in crumena. We are