at the Duchess of Richmond's that night, even though it might be the last of their existence; we cannot subscribe to the poetical authority she quotes, which says, that pleasure is sweetest then

When danger to a soldier's soul endears

The human joy that never may return ;'

and even if we were so far disposed to refine upon our joys, as to endeavour to heighten them by the consideration that they may be our last, which however seems a somewhat doubtful source of satisfaction, yet as pleasure is not the primary end of existence, we must hold that at the prospect of a termination of it, some more important engagement might have presented itself to the consideration of reflective men, than that of a ball room. Nor can we admire the additional proof of bravery which the Commander in Chief gave, by remaining in it till two o'clock in the morning, after he had received a second despatch from Blucher, informing him of the serious aspect of the attack, that the French had taken Charleroi, and driven back the Prussians, and that it was necessary for the British to march immediately to their aid. The following extracts will afford a favourable specimen of the Author's animated manner of describing the state of Brussels at this moment.

Scarcely had I laid my weary head upon the pillow, when the bugle's loud and commanding call sounded from the Place Royale. "Is that the call to arms?" I exclaimed, starting up in the bed. Slaughed at the idea; but I heard it again, and we listened with eager and anxious suspence. For a few moments a pause of doubt ensued. Hark! Again! it sounded through the silence of the night, and from every quarter of the town it was now repeated, at short and regular intervals. "It is the call to arms!" I exclaimed. Instantly the drums beat; the Highland pibroch sounded-It was the call to arms! Oh! never, never shall I forget the feelings of that moment! Immediately the utmost tumult and confusion succeeded to the silence in which the city had previously been buried. At half past two we were roused by a loud knocking at our room door, and J's voice calling to us to get up instantly, not to lose a moment, that the troops were under arms-were marching out against the French, and that Major was waiting to see us

before he left Brussels.' p. 37.- Just as he left us the dawn appeared, and by the faint twilight of morning we saw the Place Royale filled with armed men, and with all the tumult and confusion of martial preparation. All was "hurry scurry for the field." Officers were looking in vain for their servants-servants running in pursuit of their masters-baggage waggons were loading-bât-horses preparing -trains of artillery harnessing-and, amidst the clanking of horses' hoofs, the rolling of heavy carriages, the clang of arms, the sounding of bugles, and the neighing of chargers, we distinctly heard, from time to time, the loud deep-toned word of command, while the incessant din of hammers nailing, 66 gave dreadful note of

preparation." p. 40. As the dawn broke, the soldiers were seen assembling, from all parts of the town, in marching order, with their knapsacks on their backs, loaded with three days' provision. Unconcerned in the midst of the din of war, many a soldier laid himself down on a truss of straw, and soundly slept, with his hands still grasping his firelock; others were sitting contentedly on the pavement, waiting the arrival of their comrades. Numbers were taking leave of their wives and children, perhaps for the last time, and many a veteran's rough cheek was wet with the tears of sorrow. One poor fellow, immediately under our windows, turned back again and again, to bid his wife farewell, and take his baby once more in his arms; and I saw him hastily brush away a tear with the sleeve of his coat, as he gave her back the child for the last time, wrung her hand, and ran off to join his company, which was drawn up on the other side of the Place Royale.' p. 43. During the whole night, or rather morning, we stood at the open window, unable to leave these sights and sounds of war, or to desist for a moment from contemplating a scene so new, so affecting, and so deeply interesting to us. Regiment after regiment formed and marched out of Brussels; we heard the last word of command-March! the heavy measured uniform tread of the soldiers' feet upon the pavement, and the last expiring note of the bugles as they sounded from afar.' p. 46.- Before seven in the morning the streets which had been so lately thronged with armed men and with busy crowds, were empty and silent. The great square of the Place Royale no longer resounded with the tumult and preparations for war. The army were gone, and Brussels seemed a perfect desert. The mourners they had left behind, were shut up in their solitary chambers, and the faces of the few who were slowly wandering about the streets, were marked with the deepest anxiety and melancholy. The heavy military waggons, ranged in order, and ready to move, as occasion might require, were standing under the silent guard of a few sentinels, The Flemish drivers were sleeping in the long tilted carts, destined to convey the wounded; and the horses ready to harness at a moment's notice, were quietly feeding on fresh cut grass, by their side. The whole livelong day and night did these Flemish men and horses pass in the Place Royale. A few officers were still to be seen, slowly riding out of town to join the enemy. The Duke of Wellington set off about eight o'clock, in great spirits, declaring he expected to be back by dinner time, and dinner was accordingly prepared for him. Sir Thomas Picton, who, like ourselves, had only arrived in Brussels the day before, rode through the streets in true soldier-like style, with his reconnoitring-glass slung across his shoulders; and reining in his charger, as he passed, to exchange salutations with his friends, left Brussels- -never to return.' p. 50.

The dreary suspence, the eager longings for intelligence, the contradictory reports, and the alternations of hope and fear which our travellers in common with others suffer during this anxious day, are described with much force and interest; and a number of domestic traits introduced without preparation or study, make us feel that the picture is from life.

At

Compelled at last, through considerations of even personal safety, to flee from Brussels to Antwerp, our lively Narrator still takes us along with her, and at every step of the road draws our attention to some object of interest, and by her own reflections, gives it an additional claim to our notice. Antwerp, after the most agonizing sensations having been excited by positive assurances, strengthened by almost every corroborative appearance, that the British army had been totally defeated, and that the French were already in possession of Brussels, the happy reverse is made known, victory is proclaimed in every street, and the frantic joy that is described as pervading all ranks of people, brings home to our bosoms once more the sensations with which these tidings were received in England, chastened with us, as well as among those who more immediately witnessed the sufferings of the wounded, with reflections upon the slaughter and bloodshed which had purchased it.

After a fortnight passed in making the tour of Holland, a journey in general as unfavourable to the display of wit, humour, or sentiment, as a walk round the Cave of Trophonius was to the exercise of the risible muscles, our Author takes her leave of it in the same spirit of disgust which prompted the concise farewell of a French wit: Adieu! Canaux, Canards, Canaille!' and returns to Antwerp with more tranquil sensations than those she brought with her on first entering it. After some good remarks on pictures, and in particular on those of the Flemish School, she retraces her course to Brussels, and enters it about the same hour that she had done for the first time.

Then,' she remarks, the British military were crowding every street; standing at every corner; leaning out of every window, in the full vigour of youth, and hope, and expectation: then they were gaily talking and laughing, unconscious that to many it was the last night of their lives. Now, Brussels was filled with the wounded. It is impossible to describe with what emotions we read the words, "Militaires blessés," marked upon every door; "un, deux, trois, quatre," even "huit Officiers blessés," were written upon the houses in white chalk. As we slowly passed along, at every open window we saw the wounded, " languid, and pale, the ghosts of what they were." In the Parc, which had presented so gay a scene on the night of our arrival, crowded with military men, and with fashionable women. A few officers, lame, disabled, or supported on crutches, with their arms in slings, or their heads bound up, were now only to be seen, slowly loitering in its deserted walks, or languidly reclining on its benches.' p. 240.

The scenes of anguish and mourning which our travellers could not avoid witnessing at Brussels, and in which they in some measure personally shared in consequence of the sufferings

of the military friend who had left England in their company, and was severely wounded at the battle of Waterloo, are briefly touched upon, with the energetic conciseness of true sensibility, which seeks to inspire sympathy, but wishes not to torture it when excited. A day's pilgrimage to the field of Waterloo, is narrated with many interesting particulars, which, if not new in themselves, are made to appear so from the light in which they are exhibited by the Author. Every where alive to patriotic and enthusiastic feelings, she is peculiarly sensible of their influence on this interesting spot, and seems to traverse the ground with a cheek glowing with heroic sentiments, and eyes ready to pay the tribute of her tears to the memory of those who have fallen. After relating some painful transactions that came within her own knowledge, she makes the following judicious remark.

I have forced myself to dwell upon these scene of horror, with whatever pain to my own feelings, because in this favoured country which the mercy of heaven has hitherto preserved from being the theatre of war, and from experiencing the calamities which have visited other nations, I have sometimes thought that the blessings of that exemption are but imperfectly felt, and that the sufferings and the dangers of those whose valour and whose blood have been its security and glory, are but faintly understood, and coldly commiserated. I wished that those who had suffered in the cause of their country, should be repaid by her gratitude, and that she should learn more justly to estimate the " price of victory," but it is impossible for me to describe or for imagination to conceive the horrors of Waterloo. p. 322.

We now take our leave of this lively and elegant writer. Few indeed of her sex and condition in life, have ever been enabled to contemplate so near, events of the magnitude and interest which an unpremeditated combination of events brought within the sphere of her observation; and few could have related the effect of them upon their minds with more judgement and interest.

Art. VI. Suggestions for the Prevention and Mitigation of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, comprehending the Abolition of Quarantines and Lazarettoes. With some opportune Remarks upon the Danger of Pestilence from Scarcity. Intended to serve as an Introduction to a Work, entitled, Researches in Turkey concerning the Plague, &c. By Charles Maclean, M.D. Lecturer on the Diseases of Hot Climates, to the Honourable East India Company. pp. 106. Underwoods. London. 1817.

WE have recently expressed our sentiments on the subject

of infectious maladies. We stated the difference which, in our minds, exists between contagion and infection; and while we objected to those sweeping dogmas which contend

5

for the absolute incommunicability, in any way, of fever, as a contagious disease, we admitted that the laws at present in force, for the purpose of preventing such communication, are founded upon false notions of the circumstances connected with the propagation of true fever.*

Recent, however, as have been our suggestions on this head, occurrences have still more recently taken place, illustrative as it appears to us of the principle for which we argued, namely, that genuine Fever, unlike the true contagious, may originate spontaneously, and without the application of a specific poison, while this very fever thus induced, shall be able, during its course, to engender such poison, which, (under certain circumstances, exterior and internal, of the recipient,) shall prove capable of imparting the disorder to another individual previously in a state of health.

Famine, as a source of fever, may be denied by those who contend for the necessity in all instances of a peculiar virus; but the facts recorded only a very few weeks since, in our daily journals, of the appearance of this malady in several of the Cantons of Switzerland, and elsewhere, are, to say the very least, strongly presumptive against the doctrine of contagion, as the necessary and sole cause of the constitutional disturbances in question. During the late more than common scarcity, we have indeed ourselves witnessed in this city the visitation of Typhus fever among the poor, which it seemed impossible to trace to any other source, than the bodily debility and mental depression resulting from the distresses of the times. Here then, says the anticontagionist, we find an explication sufficiently satisfactory, of fever's production; and why, therefore, busy ourselves with looking after occult sources of phenomena already accounted for? We do not, our opposer of contagion would continue to urge, see small-pox, measles, scarlet fevers, thus arise out of poverty, and filth, and wretchedness; nor do we witness the decline of this last order of diseases, in proportion as the conveniences and comforts of life are increased. Let us abandon then the untenable hypothesis of contagion as a cause of fever, and divest ourselves of the unfounded apprehensions which such hypothesis must necessarily bring with it.

It is the part of wisdom (says the writer of the tract before us) to be prepared for every event. And if we are properly prepared for that, which I have supposed possible, by making ourselves acquainted before hand with the true causes of epidemic diseases, and with the appropriate measures to be pursued for their alleviation, prevention,

*See our Review of " Dr. Adams on Epidemic Diseases.”* Vol. VI. page 463,