number was ascertained, five rockets were thrown up. The signal was mistaken on shore, and an attack was expected. The long roll was beaten, and all the troops soon in line of battle; the corps of midshipmen was formed fully as soon as was the crack Seventh. The vessels proved to have on board four regiments, convoyed by the Harriet Lane. Among these troops were the New York Twelfth and the Rhode Island First; the other two I do not remember. In the morning the steamers moved up to the wharf and landed the men.

In the forenoon the Seventh treated the spectators to a drill, and in the afternoon the midshipmen were drilled as a battalion of infantry. The Seventh strenuously applauded their “doublequick," which has always been the strong point of their drill.

During this time all of the students from the Southern States sent in their resignations, as did also some of the officers. There were a few who did not resign, representatives of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee; and most of them are in the service now.

We all know the incidents of the march of the Seventh from Annapolis to Washington, they having been recorded by the pen of the gifted and lamented Winthrop; the other regiments, one after another, followed them, and soon only two or three were left.

At length came the final breaking up of the school. In the morning of Thursday the order was passed for the students to pack up their things preparatory to going on board ship in the afternoon. Those who had resigned went about from room to room, bidding good-bye to the departing ones. In the afternoon the battalion was formed for the last time, the baggage having previously been sent on board, and then marched down to the wharf. The walks on either side were lined with spectators, and on the wharf quite a crowd was gathered. Silence brooded over all; nothing was heard save the tread of the battalion as it filed down to the wharf and was halted. The commandant of midshipmen attempted to say a few farewell words; but his heart was too full; and as, pointing to the Stars and Stripes floating in the western sunlight, he faltered out, "Be true to the flag, young gentlemen! Be true to the flag!" there was not one dry eye to be seen. All wept at leaving their Alma Mater in the hands of strangers.

To the efforts of Captain (now Commodore) George S. Blake, the Superintendent, Lieutenant (now Commander) C. R. P. Rodgers, the Commandant of Midshipmen and Lieutenant (late Commander) George W. Rodgers, commanding the Constitution, the country owes the preservation of "Old Ironsides" and the Government property at the school. May she never be in want of such gallant defenders of her flag and of her honor!

CRITICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON NAPIER'S HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA AND THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL Sir William Francis Patrick Napier, K.C.B., born 1785, at Castletown, near Celbridge, county of Kildare, Ireland, was the third son of the Hon. Colonel George Napier by his second wife, Lady Sarah Lennox, seventh daughter of the second Duke of Richmond, and was brother to the late Generals Sir Charles James Napier and Sir George Thomas Napier. He entered the army as ensign, June 14, 1800; became lieutenant, April 18, 1801; captain, June 2, 1804; served at the siege of Copenhagen and battle of Kioge, in 1807, in Sir John Moore's campaign in Spain in 1808-9, and in the subsequent war in the Peninsula, 1809-14; became major, May 30, 1811; lieutenant-colonel, November 22, 1813; colonel, July 22, 1830; major-general, November 23, 1841; lieutenant-governor of the island of Guernsey, April, 1842-January, 1848; KnightCommander of the Order of the Bath, 1848; lieutenant-general, November 11, 1851; colonel of the 22d Regiment of Foot, September 19, 1853. (See these and other details in Knight's Eng. Cyc., Biog., iv. 1857, 424.) He died at Scinde House, Clapham Park, February 12, 1860. (See Obituary in Lon. Gent. Mag., April, 1860, 404.)

As an author, he was widely known by his History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France (1807-1814), London, 1828-40, 6 vols. 8vo. Republished, 3d edition, 1835 -40, 6 vols. 8vo; again, 1849, 6 vols.. p. 8vo; 1851, 6 vols. p. 8vo; 1853, 6 vols. p. 8vo; 1856, 10 parts p. 8vo; 1857, 6 vols. p. 8vo; 1860, 6 vols. p. 8vo; 1862, 6 vols. p. 8vo. American edition, with a copious index, 5 vols. r. 12mo, New York (J. S. Redfield), 1856; and republished. Respecting the alleged merits and demerits of this great work (for such it assuredly is), very different opinions have been expressed. Allan Cunningham declares (Biog, and Crit. Hist. of the Lit. of the Last Fifty Years, 1833) that he had heard good judges say that for vivid beauty of narrative it might vie with Cæsar or Tacitus. Sir Archibald Alison (Foreign and Colonial Review, April, 1844, and in his Essays, 1850, iii. 426) remarks that "Colonel Napier's descriptions of battles and the heart-stirring events of military warfare are superior to any thing in the same style, not only in modern, but almost in ancient, history. . . . But the great defect of his brilliant work is the want of calmness in the judgment of political events, and undue crowding in the details of his work. He is far too minute in the account of inconsiderable transactions." Blackwood's Magazine (xlviii. 93) preferred Alison's military

pictures to Napier's; though Professor Wilson declared (Blackwood's Mag. xxx. 248), "Napier's Spanish Campaigns are immortal." Lord Macaulay, in a depreciatory notice (Edin. Rev., Jan. 1830, and in his Essays, ed. 1854, i. 210) of Southey's Peninsular War, remarks, "The glory of producing an imperishable record of that great conflict seems to be reserved [vol. i. had been published two years before] for Colonel Napier.' Sir Robert Peel (Speech) called Napier "the faithful, impartial, and eloquent historian."

"The great work of General Napier does undoubtedly record this national tribute, and will continue to do so as long as the English language shall last."-Lon. Times.

"You should read Napier's volumes of the war in Portugal. He is a heroic fellow, equal to any thing in Plutarch, and, moreover, a long-headed, clever hero, who takes good aim before he fires."-Letters of Sydney Smith.

"Our English Thucydides, the historian of the Peninsular War."-WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR: on Orthography; Fraser's Mag., Feb. 1856.

"Colonel Napier," remarked the Edinburgh Reviewer, on the appearance of the last volume of the history, "has now, by the publication of his sixth volume, completed his arduous undertaking of recording the history of the war which England waged in the Peninsula for six years against the gigantic power of Napoleon. The task was difficult, the theme a noble one; and we may be proud that the great deeds of our countrymen have found a worthy historian."-January, 1841, 271-320.

And now let us look at the other side of the picture. Great interest was excited by a series of articles, strongly condemnatory of the historian, which appeared in the (London) Quarterly Review, viz.: Art. I., vol. lvi. 131-219; Art. II., vol. lvi. 437-489; Art. III., vol. lvii. 492-542; Art. IV., vol. Ixi. 51-96. This critic (believed to be General the Rt. Hon. Sir George Murray) failed to discover in his fellow-soldier's narration the merits so lavishly attributed to it by the preceding and other critics: e.g. the beginning and ending of the last article:

"We observed, towards the close of our first article on Colonel Napier's History, that to point out all its inaccuracies and expose fully the unjust partialities and systematic misrepresentations by which it is almost everywhere disfigured, would require a work more voluminous than itself. The necessity for such a work is, however, daily diminishing; and even before the colonel has finished his undertaking [he had then published all but the last volume] he will, we apprehend, discover that the sandy foundations on which he has rested his claim to lasting reputation, either as a writer of good taste or as an accurate and judicious historian, have already given way. . . . We hope cre long to resume our exposure of this author's historical and profes

sional blunders; and when we have concluded our examination of his book, we may probably give an article (which need not be a long one) to his so-called replies."-lxi. 51, 96.

The "so-called replies" appeared in an article prefixed to Napier's 5th volume (1836), entitled Answer to some Attacks in the Quarterly Review. The attacks referred to were those published in Quarterly Review, lvi. 131-219, 437-489. To his 6th volume (1840) Napier prefixes some "justificatory pieces," which should be read by all who read the book itself, and especially by those who have read the attacks upon it. The author speaks of his work as one which was "written honestly and in good faith," and at the cost of "sixteen years of incessant labor.' We give a list of separate publications-censures and justifications, charges, replies, and rejoinders-elicited by Napier's History.

I. Viscount Strangford's Observations on some Passages in Lieutenant-Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsular War, 1828, 8vo. II. Napier's Reply to Strangford's Observations, 1828, 8vo. III. Strangford's Further Observations occasioned by Napier's Reply, 1828, 8vo. IV. Lieutenant-Colonel Sorell's Notes on the Campaign 1808-9 in Spain, 1828, 8vo. V. Lord Beresford's Strictures on Certain Passages in Napier's History, 1831, 8vo. VI. Napier's Reply to Various Opponents, with Observations, &c., 1832, 8vo. VII. Napier's Justification of his Third Volume: a Sequel to his Reply, 1833, 8vo. VIII. Lieutenant-General Long's Reply to Lord Beresford's Strictures, 1833, 8vo. IX. Lord Beresford's Refutation of Napier's Justification of his Third Volume, 1834, 8vo. X. Napier's Reply to Lord Beresford, 1834, 8vo. XI. D. M. Percival's Remarks on Napier's Remarks on the Rt. Hon. Spencer Percival, 1835, 8vo. XII. Napier's Counter-Remarks to Mr. D. M. Percival's Remarks, 1835, 8vo. See also the comments on Napier's History, in H. B. Robinson's Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo, and Napier's response in the Preface to the 6th volume of his History. Consult also the reviews of Napier's History in the Westm. Rev. xv. 90, xxvi. 543 (by Sir W. F. P. Napier); Lon. Month. Rev., May, 1831; Blackw. Mag. xxiii. 716, xxvii. 508, xxviii. 200; N. York Review, viii. 460; Phila. Museum, xiii. 308, xv. 471. We have thus presented a fair view of this controversy; and the reader may amuse the "learned leisure" of some months by alternating between the assailants and the admirers of this important chronicle. Among the latter it would not be candid to place the philosophical Coleridge.

"I have been exceedingly impressed," he remarks, "with the evil precedent of Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsular War. It is a specimen of the true French military school: not a thought for the justice of the war; not a consideration of the damnable and damning iniquity of the French invasion. All is

looked at as a mere game of exquisite skill, and the praise is regularly awarded to the most successful player. How perfectly ridiculous is the prostration of Napier's mind-apparently a powerful one-before the name of Buonaparte! I declare, I know of no book more likely to undermine the national sense of right and wrong, in matters of foreign interference, than this work of Napier's."-Table-Talk, p. 119.

To this summary (originally prepared for a forthcoming biographical chronicle) we add the following:

"Sir William Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula has passed through several editions, and is now a standard work. Of all the wars in which Great Britain has been engaged, that war of six years was the most important, difficult, and expensive; and Sir William Napier's History is worthy of the transactions it records and the skill and heroism it celebrates. Perhaps no military history of equal excellence has ever been written. It cost the author sixteen years of continuous labor. He was himself a witness of several of the series of operations, and was engaged in many of the battles. His wide acquaintance with military men enabled him to consult many distinguished officers, English and French; and he was especially supplied with materials and documents by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult. The ordinary sources of information were embarrassing from their abundance. One mass of materials deserves especial mention. When Joseph Bonaparte fled from Vittoria, he left behind him a very large collection of letters, which, however, were without order, in three languages, many almost illegible, and the most important in cipher, of which there was no key. It was the correspondence of Joseph Bonaparte while nominally King of Spain. Sir William Napier was in a state of perplexity, and almost in despair of being able to make any use of these valuable materials, when his wife undertook to arrange the letters according to dates and subjects, to make a table of reference, and to translate and epitomize the contents of each. Many of the most important documents were entirely in cipher; of some letters about one-half was in cipher; and others had a few words so written interspersed. All these documents and letters Lady Napier arranged, and, with a rare sagacity and patience, she deciphered the secret writing. The entire correspondence was then made available for the historian's purpose. She also made out all Sir William Napier's rough interlined manuscripts, which were almost illegible to himself, and wrote out the whole work fair for the printers, it may be said, three times, so frequent were the changes made. Sir William Napier mentions these facts in the preface to the edition of 1851, and, in paying this tribute to Lady Napier, observes that this amount of labor was accomplished without her having for a moment neglected the care and education of a large family.