heroes of this description with a sort of supernatural grandeur and dignity, and bent the spirits of inen before them, as beings intrinsically entitled to the homage and submission of inferior natures. It is above all things fortunate, therefore, when this spell can be broken, by merely reversing the operation by which it had been imposed; when the idols that success had tricked out in the mock attributes of divinity, are stripped of their disguise by the rough hand of misfortune, and exhibited before the indignant and wondering eyes of their admirers, in the naked littleness of humbled and helpless men,-begging life and subsistence from the pity of their human conquerors,-and spared with safety, in consequence of their insignificance.Such an exhibition, we would fain hope, will rescue men for ever from that most humiliating devotion, which has hitherto so often tempted the ambition, and facilitated the progress of conquerors. It is not in our days, at least, that it will be forgotten, that Bonaparte turned out a mere mortal in the end; and neither in our days, nor in those of our children, is it at all likely, that any other adventurer will arise to efface the im pressions connected with that recollection, by more splendid achievements, than distinguished the greater part of his career. The kind of shame, too, that is felt by those who have been the victims and the instruments of a being so mean, will make it difficult for any successor to his ambition, so to overawe the minds of the world again; and will consequently diminish the dread, while it exasperates the hatred, with which presumptuous oppression ought always to be regarded.

If the downfal of Bonaparte teach this lesson, and fix this feeling in the minds of men, we should almost be tempted to say that the miseries he has inflicted are atoned for; and that his life, on the whole, will have been useful to mankind. Undoubtedly there is no other single source of wretchedness so prolific as that strange fascination by which atrocious guilt is converted into an object of admiration, and the honours due to the benefactors of the human race lavished most profusely on their destroyers.-A sovereign who pursues schemes of conquest for the gratification of his personal ambition, is neither more nor less than a being who inflicts violent death upen thousands, and miseries still more agonizing on millions of innocent individuals, to relieve his own ennui, and divert the languors of a base and worthless existence :-and if it be true that the chief excitement to such exploits is found in the false glory with which the madness of mankind has surrounded their successful performance, it will not be easy to calculate how much we are indebted to him whose history has contributed to dispel it.

Next to our delight at the overthrow of Bonaparte, is qu

exultation at the glory of England.-It is a proud and honourable distinction to be able to say, in the end of such a contest, that we belong to the only nation that has never been conquered;-to the nation that set the first example of successful resistance to the power that was desolating the world,-and who always stood erect, though she sometimes stood alone, before it. From England alone, that power, to which all the rest have successively bowed, has won no trophies, and extorted no submission; on the contrary, she has been constantly baffled and disgraced whenever she has grappled directly with the might and the energy of England. During the proudest part of her continental career, England drove her ships from the ocean, and annihilated her colonies and her commerce. The first French army that capitulated, capitulated to the English forces in Egypt; and Lord Wellington is the only commander against whom six French Marshals have successively tried in vain to procure any advantage.

The efforts of England have not always been well directed, -nor her endeavous to rouse the other nations of Europe very wisely timed;-but she has set a magnificent example of unconquerable fortitude and unalterable constancy, and may claim the proud distinction of having kept alive the sacred flame of li berty and the spirit of national independence, when the chill of general apprehension, and the rushing whirlwind of conquest, had apparently extinguished them for ever, in the other nations of the earth. No course of prosperity indeed, and no harvest of ultimate success, can ever extinguish the regret of all the true friends of our national glory and happiness, for the many preposterous, and the occasional disreputable expeditions, in which English blood was more than unprofitably wasted, and English character more than imprudently involved; nor can the delightful assurance of our actual deliverance from danger efface the remembrance of the tremendous hazard to which we were so long exposed by the obstinate misgovernment of Ireland. These, however, were the sins of the Government,-and do not at all detract from the excellent spirit of the people, to which, in its main bearings, it was necessary for the government to conform. That spirit was always, and we believe universally, a spirit of strong attachment to the country, and of stern resolution to do all things, and to suffer all things in its cause ;-mingled with more or less confidence, or more or less anxiety, according to the temper or the information of individuals,-but sound, steady and erect we believe upon the whole,--and equally determined to risk all for independence, whether it was believed to be in great or in little danger.

Of our own sentiments and professions, and of the consisteney of our avowed principles from the first to the last of this mo

mentous period, it would be impertinent to speak at large, in discussing so great a theme as the honour of our common country. None of our readers, and none of our censors, can be more persuaded than we are of the extreme insignificance of such a discussion-and not many of them can feel more completely indifferent about the aspersions with which we have been distinguished, or more fully convinced of the ultimate justice of public opinion. We shall make no answer therefore to the sneers and calumnies of which it has been thought worth while to make us the subject, except just to say, that if any man can read what we have written on public affairs, and entertain any serious doubt of our zeal for the safety, the honour, and the freedom of England, he must attach a different meaning to all these phrases from that which we have most sincerely believed to belong to them; and that, though we do not pretend to have either foreseen or foretold the happy events that have so lately astonished the world, we cannot fail to see in them the most gratifying confirmation of the very doctrines we have been the longest and the, most loudly abused for asserting.

The most important of these doctrines was, that France could not now be successfully resisted, unless all the other great powers were united against her,-and that it was playing her game, there fore, and casting away the last hope of the world, to excite one or two of them to the contest, till the cooperation of the rest could be secured. The fate of all former campaigns, and the fate of the last, have equally illustrated this observation. France rose more audaciously triumphant from the result of all these minor coalitions-and she fell before the first impulse of that great one which we had always recommended. Europe sunk into deeper despondency and humiliation from the impotent and premature attempts which we had ventured to deprecate; and she was restored at once by that united effort, from which alone we had always said that her salvation was to be expected.

Our other leading doctrine w., that there was but little hope of an effectual resistance to France till the body of the people in the different nations of Europe could be made to take part heartily with their governments in the cause ;-and here, too, the event has corresponded with our prediction. The greater part of the late wars against France were undertaken by the respective courts who were engaged in them, without any regard to the disposition of their people; who were long indifferent, and in many instances disaffected to the cause. Their success accordingly was such as might have been expected. But after repeated shocks of national misfortune had thrown the sovereigns more entirely on the attachment of their people, and especially after these people had successively tasted

of the bitterness of French dominion, and learned by experience the miserable fate that awaited the victims of such a foe, the war assumed a different complexion, and was waged with a different spirit;-campaigns became obstinate, and supplies inexhaustible. The ardour of the troops encouraged their leaders to be enter prising; and it soon appeared that thrones might be overturned, while nations remained unconquered.

These, we think, were the chief of our hercsics; and we really cannot perceive that the events of the last six months should bring shame to their supporters; and least of all in a country, where the war against France has always been successful, precisely because it has been the war of the people, and because the people are free. Of Spain, we think as we have always thought. Of Russia, we are most willing to believe that we have spoken somewhat rashly;-though its condition under Paul must have resembled nothing so little as its condition under Alexander.

The last sentiment in which we think all candid observers of the late great events must cordially agree, is that of admiration and pure and unmingled approbation of the magnanimity, the prudence, the dignity and forbearance of the Allies. There has been something in the manner of these extraordinary transactions as valuable as the substance of what has been achieved,—and, if possible, still more meritorious. History records no instance of union so faithful and complete-of councils so firm-of gallantry so generous of moderation so dignified and wise. In reading the addresses of the Allied Sovereigns to the people of Europe and of France; and, above all, in tracing every step of their demeanour after they got possession of the metropolis, we seem to be transported froin the vulgar and disgusting realities of actual story, to the beautiful imaginations and exalted fictions of poetry and romance. The proclamation of the Emperor Alexander to the military men who might be in Paris on his arrivalhis address to the Senate-the terms in which he has always spoken of his fallen advery, are all conceived in the very hightest strain of nobleness and wisdom. They have all the spirit, the courtesy, the generosity, of the age of chivalry; and all the liberality and mildness of that of philosophy. The disciple of Fenelon could not have conducted himself with more perfect amiableness and grandeur; and the fabulous hero of the most sublime and philanthropic of all moralists, has been equalled, if not outdone, by a Russian monarch, in the first flush and tumult of his victory. The sublimity of the scene indeed, and the merit of the actors, will not be fairly appreciated, if we do not recollect that they were arbitrary sovereigns, who had been trained rather to consult their own feelings than the rights of mankind-who had been disturbed on their hereditary thrones by

the wanton aggression of the man who now lay at their mercy -and had seen their territories wasted, their people butchered, and their capitals pillaged, by him they had at last chased to his den, and upon whose capital, and whose people, they might now repay the insults that had been offered to theirs. They judged more magnanimously, however; and they judged more wisely-for their own glory, for the objects they had in view, and for the general interests of humanity. By their generous forbearance, and singular moderation, they not only put their adversary in the wrong in the eyes of all Europe, but they made him appear little and ferocious in comparison; and, while overbearing all opposition by superior force, and heroic resolution, they paid due honour to the valour by which they had been resisted, and gave no offence to that national pride which might have presented the greatest of all obstacles to their success. From the beginning to the end of their hostile operations, they avoided naming the name of the antient family; and not in words merely, but in the whole strain and tenor of their conduct, respected the inherent right of the nation to choose its own government, and stipulated for nothing but what was indispensable for the safety of its neighbours. Born, as they were, to unlimited thrones, and accustomed in their own persons to the exercise of power that admitted but little controul, they did not scruple to declare publicly, that France, at least, was entitled to a larger measure of freedom; and that the intelligence of its population entitled it to a share in its own government. They exerted themselves sincerely to mediate between the different parties that might be supposed to exist in the state; and treated each with a respect that taught its opponents that they might coalesce without being dishonoured. In this way the seeds of civil discord, which such a crisis could scarcely have failed to quicken, have, we trust, been almost entirely destroyed; and if France escapes the visitation of internal dissention, it will be chiefly owing to the con siderate and magnanimous prudence of those very persons to whom Europe has been indebted for her deliverance.

In this high and unqualified praise, it is a singular satisfaction to us to be able to say, that our own Government seems fully entitled to participate. In the whole of those most important proceedings, the Ministry of England appears to have conducted itself with wisdom, moderation, and propriety. In spite of the vehement clamours of their own party, and the repugnance which was said to exist in higher quarters to any negociation with Bonaparte, they are understood to have adhered with laudable firmness to the clear policy of not disjoining their country from that great confederacy, through which alone, either peace, or victory, was rationally to be expected :—and, going heartily