ALISON'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
lbarma reviewed at some length the previous volumes of this work, little more remains for us to do than to announce the publi- cation of the sixth volume, and to say that it is characterized by the merits and defects of the others. Mr. Aersox is industrious in collecting facts, and conscientious in relating them. It is only in his arguments and reflections that Tory partisanship is appa- rent; and those who can reason and reflect for themselves may read his copious and fluent narrative with benefit as well as plea- sure. The chief fault of the book is diffuseness ; the consequence of which is that it is swelling into an immense bulk. This sixth volume—a ponderous octavo of nearly nine hundred ample pages —comprises the transactions of only two years, from the end of
1806 to the end ef 18e8. Seven years more remain, according to the author's plan ; and as they are seven eventful years, we must suppose that there will be at least three volumes more. A book of half the size would have been much more useful as well as
agreeable. " sn trite as it is, is wofully ue- glected by the manufacturers of books. The volume before us contains the history of NAPOLEON'S tre- mendous campaign of 1807, when the power of' his Russian and German enemies was crushed at Eylau and Friedland; and it embraces also the military transactions in Spain and Portugal down to the disastrous retreat of MOORE and the battle of Corunna. Mr. ALISON excels in military details, and seems to write about war with something of Scorr's con amore feeling. Eis accounts of the complicated movements of a great army are clear, and his descriptions of the scenes of a bloody field are ani- mated and graphic. There is something novel, as well as appal- ling, in the following pictur , of a night-attack made by the French on the Russian lines at the battle of Heilsberg.
The vehement cannonade which had so long illuminated the heavens now cea-sed, and the cries of the wounded in the (plain at the foot of the in- trenchtneuts began to be heard above the declining roar of the musketry. At eleven at night, however, a deserter came into the Russian lines, and announced that a fresh attack was preparing. Suitable arrangements were accordingly made ; and h..rdly were they completed, when dark masses of the enemy were seen, by the uncertain twilight of a midsummer night, to issue from the woods, and advance with a set ift pace across the bloody plain which separated them from the redoubt.. Instantly the batteries opened on the moving masses; they stagge-ed under the discharge, but still pressed on, without returning a shot ; but when they arrived within reach of the musketry, the fire became so vehe- ment that the heads of the columns were entirely swept away, and the remainder driven back in great disorder, after sustaining a frightful loss. At length, at =alright, after twelve hours' incessant fighting, the firing entirely ceased, and w rithing was heard in the narrow space which separated the two armies but the groans of the wounded, who, anticipating a renewal of the combat in the morning, and tortured by pain, implored removal, relief, or even death itself, to put a period to their sufferings. heavy rain fell in the early part of the night, which, !though it severely distressed the soldiers who were unhurt in their bivouacs, assuaged the thirst and diminished the sufferings of the host of wounded of both armies who lay mingled together on the plain. With the first dawn of day, the Russians again stood to their arms, expecting every moment to be attacked; but the morning pawed over without any movement on the part of the enemy. As the light broke, the French were descried on the skirts of the wood in order of bottle; but, more even than by: their well.appointed battalions and squadrons, the oyes of all were rivetted on a spectacle inconceivably frightful between their
lines anti the redoubts. This space, about a quarter of a mile broad and above
a mac in length, presented a sheet of naked human bodies, the greater part dead, but some showing by their motions that they preserved consciousness or
implored relief. Six thousand corpses were lucre lying together as close as they
had stood in their ranks, stript during the night of every rag of garment by the cupidity of the cairp-followers of either army, ghastly pale, or purple with the blood.which was still oozing from their wounds. I-low inured meter to the horrors of a campaign, the soldiers of both armies, even while theyloathed it, felt their eyes fascinated by this harrowing spectacle, which exhibited war, etript of all its pomp, in its native barbarity ; and, by common consent, the interval'of hostilities was employed in burying the dead sad re. moving the shivering wounded to the rear of the armies.
Like all the other Tory writers, Mr. ALisorr is unjust to the memory of Moons; whose disasters he ascribes to undue hesita- tion and despondency, "greatly enhanced by his connexion with the Opposition party, by whom the military strength of England had been always underrated, the system of Continental operations uniformly decried, and the power and capacity of the French Emperor, great as they were, unworthily magnified." This has been often said before, and as often refuted. The unprincipled attack upon Denmark, when an English armament battered down the buildings of Copenhagen upon the heads of its unoffending inhabitants, and robbed the Danes of their fleet to prevent the robbery from being committed by another, finds in Mr. ALISON a warm advocate. The subjugation of the Continent by NAPOLEON in 1807, is ascribed to the policy of the Whigs in refusing any longer to lavish English treasure in subsidies which repeated ex- perience bad shown to be worse than useless. Other similar in- stances and opinions abound; the evident partisanship of which is inconsistent with the calm dignity of history.
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