we behold a war continued with much fury, and with various success. Supposing the losses on both sides to have been equal, and one half of her army to have fallen by sword or sickness, the account stands thus:-In this war alone (for Semiramis had other wars), in this single reign, and in this one spot of the earth, did three millions of souls expire, with all the horrid circumstances which ever attend wars, and in a quarrel in which none of the sufferers could have the least national concern!

"The Babylonian, Assyrian, Median, and Persian monarchies must have poured out seas of blood in their formation and destruction. Xerxes sacrificed two millions to his ambition; his successors, not less than four millions, in their various wars against the Scythians and Greeks. The struggle between the Macedonians. and Greeks, and before that the disputes of the Greek commonwealths among themselves, for an unprofitable superiority, form one of the bloodiest scenes of history. One is astonished how such a small spot could furnish men sufficient to sacrifice to the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres, or two or three more villages: yet, to see the

acrimony and bitterness with which this possession was disputed between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, what armies cut off, what fleets sunk and burnt, what a number of cities sacked, and their inhabitants slaughtered and captived,

-one would be induced to believe the decision of the fate of mankind at least depended upon it! But these disputes ended (as all such ever have done, and ever will do,) in a real weakness of all parties, a momentary shadow and dream of power in some one, and the subjection of all to the yoke of a stranger, who knows how to profit by their divisions. This was the case of the Greeks; and surely, from the earliest accounts of them to their absorption into the Roman empire, we cannot judge that their intestine divisions and their foreign wars consumed less than three millions of their inhabitants. What an aceldama,-what a field of blood,-Sicily has been, whilst the mode of its government was contested between the republican and tyrannical parties; and the possession struggled for between the natives, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans! You will find every page of its history dyed in blood, and blotted and confounded by tumults, rebellions, massacres,

assassinations, proscriptions, and a series of horrors beyond the histories of any other nation in the world; though the histories of all nations are made up of similar matter."

This unaccountable avarice of territory is well depicted in Zimmerman's Pride of Nations: it has been, undoubtedly, one of the strongest motives of wars. It was this that impelled the Romans to subdue more than half the civilized world; the Spaniards to overrun South America; and may have been a mixed motive in our own conquests in North America and the East Indies. In the same inducement originated the dismemberment of Poland. Maria Theresa professed to feel great scruples, both religious and political, in participating either in the disgrace or in the advantages of this transaction: but she was overruled by her son and Kaunitz; and she preferred a share in the booty to a terrible and precarious war. That armies should take the field on a mere point of honour, and potentates and kings "find glorious quarrel in a straw," is nothing new; but a war undertaken upon a point of honesty, a scruple of conscience, or from a general sense of the right opposed to the wrong,-this occurrence, certainly, would

have been unprecedented in history, and Maria Theresa did not set the example. When once she had acceded to the scandalous treaty, she was determined, with her characteristic prudence, to derive as much advantage from it as possible; and her demands were so unconscionable, and the share she claimed was so exorbitant, that the negotiations had nearly been broken off by her confederates: at length, a dread of premature exposure, and a fear of the consequent failure, induced her to lower her pretensions; and the treaty for the first partition of Poland was signed at Petersburgh on the third of August, 1772. We all know how effectually it was afterwards completed!

The eloquent author, to whom I am indebted for some preceding observations, after mentioning the devastations made by the Roman arms, thus continues: "Instances of this sort compose a uniform feature in history; but there have been periods when no less than universal destruction to the race of mankind seems to have been threatened; and these have probably been the wars of hunger, when barbarians have poured forth from the barren wildernesses of the north, to occupy more fertile regions.

Such

was the irruption of the Goths, Vandals, and Huns, who poured into Italy, Spain, Greece, and Africa, carrying destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving horrid deserts everywhere behind them.

"Vastum ubique silentium, secreti colles, fumantia procul tecta nemo exploratoribus obvius; is what Tacitus calls facies victoriæ."

Burke proceeds to enumerate the destruction caused by modern wars: he estimates the horrid effects of bigotry and avarice, in the conquest of America, to have cost at least ten millions of lives; and calculates the least number of lives lost in war, as collected in the page of History, to be thirty-six millions: and continues, "I need not mention those torrents of silent and inglorious blood which have glutted the thirsty sands of Africa, or discoloured the polar snow, or fed the forests of America for so many ages."

Those who wish to see more of what wars have been carried on by half-famished barbarians, may consult the elaborate researches of the author of the Essay on Population. He says, "One of the first causes and first impulses of war was, undoubtedly, an insufficiency of room