they lay in the open country, often in by the casualties and fatigues of the a swamp, without a tent to shelter march and inclemency of the weather, them; the baggage was detached, was as great as it would probably and they never saw it till they reached have been had he engaged them. For, Ciudad Rodrigo. It was share and besides those who perished on the share alike amongst men and officers, road, when the army got into winter and many of the latter were mere quarters, a vast number of men and striplings, who had but lately left the officers went into hospital, and months comforts of their English homes. elapsed before the troops were fully When they halted from their weary reorganised and fit for the field. At day's march, the ill-conditioned beasts a day's march from Ciudad Rodrigo, collected for rations had to be slaugh- Wellington's rear-guard had a smart tered; sometimes they came too late skirmish, and then Soult desisted from to be of any use, or the camp-kettles his pursuit, and the Anglo-Portuguese did not arrive in time to cook them ; were allowed to proceed without furand the famished soldiers had to set ther molestation. Although disastrous, out again, with a few pieces of dry and in some respects ill managed, the biscuit rattling in their neglected retreat was in no way disgraceful. stomachs, and driven to satisfy the The French, very superior in numbers, cravings of hunger with the acorns had, whenever they pressed forward, that strewed the forests. There was been bravely met, and invariably little money afloat, for pay was four repulsed. months in arrear, but millions would With this retreat, Mr Grattan's have been useless where there was Peninsular campaigns closed. · He nothing to buy. The country was returned to Ireland, and in the sumdeserted; every where the inhabitants mer of 1814, embarked for Canada. fied on the approach of the two armies. He rather refers to, than records the Disease was the natural consequence service he saw there ; taking occasion, of so many privations ; ague and however, for a strong censure on Sir dysentery undermined the men's George Prevost, who, after forcing strength, and many poor fellows, ill-appointed fleet on Lake unable to proceed, were left upon the Champlain into action, refused to allow road. Horses died by hundreds, and Brisbane and his brigade of "Peninsuthose which held out were for the lars” to take the fort of Platsburgh, most part sore-backed, one of the an enterprise easy of achievement, greatest calamities that can happen and which would have placed the to cavalry and artillery on the march. captured ships, and the victorious Fortunately Soult, who, with ninety but disabled American flotilla, at the thousand men, followed the harassed mercy of the British. But we have army, had some experience of British not space to follow the Ranger across troops. And what he had seen of the Atlantic, nor is it essential so to them, especially at Albuera and on do; for, although he gives some the Corunna retreat, had inspired him amusing sketches of Canada and the with a salutary respect for their Canadians, the earlier portion of his prowess. They might retreat, but he book is by far most interesting, knew what they could and would do and certainly the most carefully when driven to stand at bay. And written. We could almost quarrel therefore, although Wellington was with him for defacing his second by no means averse to fight, and volume with perpetual and not very actually offered his antagonist battle successful attempts at wit. We have on the very ground where, four months rarely met with more outrageous previously, that of Salamanca had specimens of punning run mad, than occurred, the wary Duke of Dalmatia are to be found in its pages. Barring declined the contest. He played a

that fault, we have nothing but what safe game: without risking a defeat by is favourable to say of the book. Its a general action, or attempting to tone is manly and soldier-like, and drive the British before him with the it is creditable both to the writer and bayonet, he hovered about their rear, to the service, by which, during the disquieted them by a flank movement last thirty years, our stores of military of part of his force, and had the and historical literature have been so satisfaction of knowing that their loss largely and agreeably increased.

our

LORD SIDMOUTH'S LIFE AND TIME.

To read a memoir of the late Lord point of view the victorious strength Sidmouth, is like taking a walk through which principle confers upon a people. Westminster Abbey. All the litera- Compared with this tremendous ture is inscriptions ; all the figures are scene, the political conflicts of the monumental; and all the names are preceding age were a battle on the those of men whose characters and stage, compared with the terrors of distinctions have been echoing in our the field. The spectators came to ears since we had the power to under- enjoy a Spectacle, and sit tranquilly stand national renown. The period admiring the brilliancy of the caparibetween 1798, when the subject of sons and the dexterity of the charge ; this memoir made his first step in but perfectly convinced that all would parliamentary life as Speaker, and end without harm to the champions, 1815, when the close of the war so and that the fall of the curtain would triumphantly finished the longstruggle extinguish the war. But, in the trials between liberty and jacobinism, was of the later time, there were moments beyond all comparison the most me- when we seemed to be throwing our morable portion of British history. last stake; when the trumpets of

In this estimate, we fully acknow. Europe, leagued against us, seemed to ledge the imperishable fame of Marl- be less challenging us to the field, borough in the field, and the high than preceding us to the tomb; and ability of Bolingbroke in' the senate. when the last hope of the wise and The gallantry of Wolfe still throws good might be, to give the last maniits lustre over the concluding years of festation of a life of patriotic virtue. the second George ; and the brilliant In language like this, we are not declamation of Chatham will exact abasing the national courage. We the tribute due to daring thought, and are paying the fullest homage to the classic language, so long as oratory is substantial claims of the English honoured among men. But the age heart. It is only by the severest which followed was an age of realities, national struggles that the superiority stern, stirring, and fearful. There was of national powers can be developed : scarcely a trial of national fortitude; and without doubting the qualities of or national vigour, through which the the Marlboroughs and Chathamssinews of England were not then forced or even without doubting, that if to give proof of their highest powers of thrown into the battle of the last endurance. All was a struggle of the fifty years, they would have exhibited elements; in which every shroud and the same intellectual stature and tackle of the royal ship of England powerful adroitness which distinwas strained; and the tempest lasted guished their actual displays-yet through nearly a quarter of a century. they wanted the strong necessities of England, the defender of all, was the a time like ours, to place them on a sufferer for all. Every principle of similar height of renown. Still their her financial prosperity, every mate- time continues an admirable study. rial of her military prowess, every But it is like the story of the Volscian branch of her constitutional system, and Samnite combats, read in the day every capacity of her political exis- when the consul, flying through the tence, her Church, her State, and her streets of Rome, brought the news of Legislature, were successively com- Cannæ. pelled into the most perilous yet most The wars and politics of the eighpowerful display; and the close of the teenth century were the manœuvres of most furious hostility which Europe had a garde du corps, and the intrigues of a ever seen, only exhibited in a loftier boudoir. Our fathers saw no nation

The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth. By the Honourable GEORGÉ PELLEW, D.D., Dean of Norwich. 3 vols. J. Murray. VOL. LXI.-NO. CCCLXXVIII.

21

of thirty millions rushing to the field; proprietorship of the small estate of frantic with the passion for overthrow, Fringford, in Oxfordshire, from the no Napoleon thundering at the head year '1600, and to have had a of vassal Europe against England ; residence in Bannebury about & no conspiracy of peoples against century and a half before;—the first thrones ; no train of crouching sove- descendant of this quiet race who reignties, half in terror and half in became known beyond the churchservility, ready to do the wildest will yard where his village fathers sleep," of the wildest despot of the world; being Dr Addington, who died in no army of five hundred thousand 1799. Genealogies like those give a men ready to spring upon our shores, striking view of the general security and turning off only to the overthrow of landed 'possession, which the of empires. All was on a smaller habits of national integrity, and the scale; the passions feebler, the means influence of law, must alone have narrower, the objects more trivial, the effected, during the turbulent times triumphs more temporary, the catas- which so often changed the succession trophe more powerless, and the glory to the throne of England. more vanishing

Dr Addington, who had been All has since subsided; and the mind educated at Winchester school, and of man is turned to efforts in direc- Trinity College, Oxford, having tions totally new. All now is the adopted medicine as his profession, rigid struggle with the physical dif- commenced his practice at Reading, ficulties of society. The grand pro- where he married the daughter of the blems are, how to level the mountain, Rev. Dr Niley, head-master of the and to drain the sea : or, if we must grammar-school. The well-known leave the Alps to be still the throne trial of the wretched parricide, Miss of the thunder, and suffer even the Blandy, for poisoning, in which he Zuyder-zee to roll its sullen waves was a principal witness, brought him over its incorrigible shallows; yet to into considerable notice; and probably tunnel the mountain and pass the sea on the strength of this notice, he rewith a rapidity, which makes us re- moved to London, and took a house gardless of the interposition of obsta- in Bedford Row, where the late Lord cles that once stopped the march of Sidmouth, his fourth child, but eldest armies, and made the impregnable for- son, was born. He next removed to tresses of kingdoms. But the still Clifford Street, a more fashionable severer trials of human intelligence quarter, which brought him into interare, how to clothe, feed, educate, and course with many persons of distincdiscipline the millions which every tion. Among these were Louth, passing year pours into the world. The Bishop of London, the Duke of mind may well be bewildered with a Montagu, Earl Rivers, and, first of the prospect so vast, so vivid, and yet so first, the great Earl of Chatham. perplexing. Every man sees that With this distinguished man, Dr old things are done away, that phy. Addington seems to have been on sical force is resuming its primitive terms of familiar friendship, as the power over the world, and that we following extracts show :- Chatham are approaching a time when Mechan, writes from Burton Pynsent, in 1771. ism will have the control of nature, “ All your friends here, the flock and Multitude the command of society. of your care, are truly sensible of the

kind attentions of the good shepherd.

My last fit of the gout left me as it There are many families in England had visited me, very kindly. I am which, without any change of circum- many hours every day in the field, stances, without any increase of and, as I live like a farmer abroad, I fortune, or any discoverable vicissi- return home and eat like one. tudes, have existed for centuries, in “ Ale goes on admirably, and agrees possession of the same property, perfectly. My reverence for it, too,

enerally a small one, and handed is increased, ing just read in the down from father to son as if by a manners of our remotest Celtic anceslaw of nature. The family of Lord tors much of its antiquity and invigoSidmouth is found to have held the rating qualities. The boys all long

Chancellor's prize for an English essay and Pitt, not yet twenty-five, was on “the affinity between painting and appointed prime minister. In the writing in point of composition;" and course of the month, an interview at the recital of this essay in the theatre took place between Pitt and Addinghe first became acquainted with ton, which gave his friends strong Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquis hopes of seeing him in immediate office. Wellesley, an intimacy which lasted His friend Bragge thus writes to him: for sixty-two years. He now adopted "I give you joy of the effects of the law as his profession, took chambers in interview of last Sunday, of which I Paper Buildings, and kept his terms am impatient to hear the particulars. regularly at Lincoln's Inn. In 1781, Secretary, either official or confidential, he married Ursula Mary, eldest daugh- I should wish you, and indeed all the ter and co-heiress of Leonard Ham- boards are already filled." mond, Esq. of Cheam, in Surrey, and Still, he remained unappointed, took a house in Southampton Street, though his intimacy with the minister Bloomsbury, where he determined to

grew more confidential from day to follow the profession of the law. But day. Pitt was at this time engaged this determination was speedily over- in a desperate struggle with the Opruled by the success of the celebrated position, who, ruined as they were in son of Chatham. On the 26th of character, yet retained an overwhelFebruary, 1781, William Pitt, then ming majority in parliament. On only in his twenty-second year, mad this occasion, the young statesman his first speech in the House of Com- gave perhaps the most triumphant mons, in support of Burke's bill for the evidence of his remarkable sagacity. regulation of the civil list. This Every one was astonished, that he had epoch in parliamentary annals is not at once dissolved a parliament noticed in a brief letter from Dr which it seemed impossible for bim Goodenough to Pitt's early tutor, either to convince or conquer. But, Wilson, who sent it to Mr Adding- with the House of Lords strongly diston, among whose papers it was posed towards him, and the King for found:

his firm friend, Pitt fought the House “Dear Sir,–I cannot resist the na- night after night, until he found the tural impulse of giving pleasure, by national feeling wholly on his side. telling you that the famous William Then, on the 25th of March, 1784, he Pitt, who made so capital a figure in dissolved the parliament, and by that the last reign, is happily restored to act extinguished the whole power of his country. He made his first pub- Whiggism for twenty years. There lic re-appearance in the senate last never was a defeat more ruinous ; night. All the old members recog- more than a hundred and sixty memnised him instantly, and most of the bers, who had generally been of the young ones said he appeared the very Foxite party, were driven ignoman they had so often heard described: miniously from their seats, and the the language, the manner, the gesture, party was thenceforth condemned to the action were the same; and there linger in an opposition equally bitter, wanted only a few wrinkles in the fruitless, and unpopular. In the new face, and some marks of age, to iden- parliament, Addington was returned tify the absolute person of the late for the borough of Devizes in place Earl of Chatham."

of Sutton, his brother-in-law, who, Addington, at this period, had a being advanced in life, made over his good deal of intercourse with Pitt, who interest to his young relative. On became Chancellor of the Exchequer this occasion, he received a letter at the age of twenty-three, and whose from his old master, Joseph Wharbrilliant success in parliament evi- ton :dently stimulated his friend to po- “I cannot possibly forbear ex. litical pursuits. But the infamous pressing to you the sincere pleasure I coalition broke in, and Pitt was feel, in giving you joy of being elected dismissed from the ministry. Its into a parliament that I hope and existence, however, was brief: it not trust will save this country from demerely fell

, but was crushed amidst struction, by crushing the most shamea universal uproar of national scorn ; ful and the most pernicious coalition