CHAPTER VI.

Winston so far succeeded in his design, that by hastening from Genoa,

and leaving Pisa unvisited, he was enabled to view the galleries of

Florence without being disturbed by any other beauty than that which

looked on him from the walls, or lived in the creations of the sculptor.

From Florence he had proceeded to Rome, and had surveyed its antiquities

and the marvels of art it contained, still undistracted by the too

fascinating Mildred.

But although he had secured his solitude from interruption by a person

likely to interest him too keenly, he was not equally resolute, or

equally successful, in keeping himself aloof from certain

fellow-travellers with whom he had scarce one thought or one taste in

common. Our readers may remember a young lady whom we attempted to

describe, figuring not very advantageously at the ball-room at Brussels.

This damsel belonged to a mamma who, in her own way, was a still greater

oddity, and who, indeed, ought to be made responsible for the grotesque

appearance of her daughter on that occasion. She insisted upon it that,

as all the world knew they were travellers, just looking in, as it were,

as they were passing through the town, they might very well go to the

ball in their travelling dresses; and as she was one of those who held

rigidly to the prudent maxim that “any thing was good enough to travel

in,” these dresses were not likely, be the occasion what it might, to be

remarkable for their freshness.

Mrs. Jackson was the widow of a citizen of London who had lately died,

leaving her and her daughter a very ample fortune. Now, although Mr.

Jackson had, ever since his marriage, been adding hundred to hundred by

the sale of wax and tallow candles in the city, yet had he continued to

inhabit the same little house at Islington into which he had first

packed himself with dear Mrs. Jackson immediately after the honeymoon;

nor had he, in any one way, made an effort to enjoy his increasing

income. An effort it would have been. What more did Mr. Jackson want?

What more _could_ he have enjoyed? The morning took him to his warehouse

in the city, and the afternoon brought him back with an excellent

appetite for an excellent dinner, and quite sufficiently fatigued to

enjoy that comfortable digestive nap, in which Mrs. Jackson also joined

him; and from which he woke up only the better prepared for the hearty

slumbers of the night. His wealth, had he been obliged to spend it,

would have added to his discomfort, instead of diffusing over him, as it

did, a perpetual pleasant glow of self-importance. A larger and finer

house, with the toil of receiving company in it, would have distressed

him beyond measure. It was bad enough to be compelled, occasionally, to

take his spouse to the theatre, or to a Christmas party: such

enterprises were looked forward to with uneasy apprehension; and the

gratification of having _got over_ them was the only one they afforded

him. His ledger--his newspaper--his dinner and a fireside, quiet but not

solitary, this was the summary of his happiness. His little wine-glass,

as Boswell would have expressed it, was quite full; you would only have

made a mess of it, and spoilt all, by attempting to pour in a whole

tumbler-full of happiness.

One daughter only had blessed the nuptials of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. She

was still at boarding-school when her father died. But, after this

event, her fond mamma could no longer bear the separation; and home she

came, bringing with her that accurate and complete stock of human

knowledge and female accomplishments which is usually derived from such

establishments, namely, infinite scraps of every thing and every thing

in scraps, with the beginning of all languages, of all arts, and all

sciences. There was in her portfolio a map of China, faithfully

delineated, and a group of roses not quite so faithful. She had strummed

one sonata till she played it with all the certainty of animal instinct,

and she had acquired the capability of saying, “How d’ye do?” in at

least three several languages beside the English.

But the loss of “Jackson” even the society of the accomplished Louisa

could not compensate. The widow was very dull. Her comfortable house at

Islington ceased to bring comfort to her; and she was tormented by a

most unusual restlessness. Her daughter, who had heard from her

favourite companion at the boarding-school, of the charms of foreign

travel,--of the romantic adventures, and the handsome counts and barons

that are sure to be encountered on the road, took advantage of this

restlessness to persuade her mamma to take a tour on the Continent.

After much discussion, much hesitation, infinite talking, and reading of

guide-books, and exploring of maps--they started.

Absurd!--impossible!--exclaims the intelligent reader--that good Mrs.

Jackson should commit herself and her daughter to all the casualties of

travel without a male companion. And for what purpose? What pleasure

could rocks and mountains, or statues and pictures, give to her, that

would be worth the trouble of getting to them? Very absurd and quite

impossible! we ourselves should, perhaps, have exclaimed, had we been

inventing incidents, and not recording a mere sober matter of fact. But

so it was. And, indeed, let any one call to mind the strange groups he

has encountered--scrambling about the Continent, the Lord knows why or

wherefore--and whatever difficulty he may have in explaining Mrs.

Jackson’s motives, he will have none in believing her conduct, were it

twice as absurd. Of pleasure, indeed, she had little, and very much

tribulation. To be sure she felt quite at home upon the steam-boat on

the Rhine;--“it did so remind her” of a trip she once took to Greenwich

with the dear departed. And then it was very amusing and instructive to

both herself and her daughter to find out all the places as they passed

on that “Panorama of the Rhine” which lay extended on their laps before

them. Being on the spot, they could study the map with singular

advantage. But it was not always they had a map of the country to look

at, nor even anyone to tell them the names of the places. The idea of

seeing a place and not knowing its name!--this always put Mrs. Jackson

in a perfect fever: as well, she would say, shake hands with the Lord

Mayor, and not know it _was_ the Lord Mayor! And then what she suffered

who can tell, from the strange outlandish viands put before, and alas!

too often put within her? and that daily affliction--imposed on her

with such unnecessary cruelty--of eating her meat without vegetables, or

her vegetables without meat?

Still on she went--bustling, elbowing, sighing, scolding,

complaining--but nevertheless travelling on. Being at Rome, in the same

hotel with Winston, and finding that he had answered one or two of her

questions very civilly and satisfactorily, both she and her daughter had

frequently applied to him in their difficulties. And these difficulties

generally resulted from a lack of knowledge so easily supplied, that it

would have been mere churlishness to withhold the necessary information.

These difficulties, however, seemed to increase rather than diminish

with their sojourn at Rome; and well they might. Louisa Jackson found

them the most convenient things imaginable. She had been all the way on

the look-out for adventures, counts, and barons, and had hitherto met

with nothing of the sort. But Alfred Winston was as handsome as any

count need be--why not fall in love with him? A gentleman she was

convinced he was; of wealth she had sufficient, and to do her justice,

had quite generosity enough to be indifferent as to his possessions; and

for the rest, she would let her eye, let her heart, choose for her. The

brave Louisa! And her eye and her heart--which mean here pretty much the

same thing--had made no bad selection. As she had mentally resolved to

bestow herself, and all her “stocks, funds, and securities,” upon our

hero, and as she had wit enough to see that her only hold upon him at

present, was through his compassion for their embarrassments, she was

determined to keep an ample supply of them on hand.

They came sometimes without being called for, and without the least

collusion on her part. It was from no principle of economy, but from a

curiosity which could not be gratified so well in any other manner, that

Mrs. Jackson and her daughter occasionally ventured to thread their way

on foot through the streets of Rome. On one of these expeditions they

found themselves in the neighbourhood of the Pantheon. Opposite this

building there is a sort of ambulatory market, outrivalling all other

markets, at least in the commodity of noise--a commodity in which the

populace of Rome generally abound. On approaching it you think some

desperate affray is going on; but the men are only parading and vaunting

their disgusting fish, or most uninviting vegetables. The merits of

these they proclaim with a perfect storm of vociferation. Mrs. Jackson,

who had heard of revolutions on the Continent, did not doubt for a

moment but that one of these frightful things was taking place before

her. She and her daughter hurried back with precipitation, haunted by

all the terrors of the guillotine and the lamp-post. Louisa remembered a

certain beautiful princess she had read of, who had been compelled to

drink a cup of blood to save her father. What if they should treat her

as they did the beautiful princess, and offer her such another cup, and

force her to drink it, as the only means of saving her mother? Her

heroism did not desert her. She resolved she would _drink half_. But as

they were hurrying away full of these imaginary dangers, they rushed

upon one of a more real though less imposing description. It is no joke

in the narrow streets of Rome, to meet with a string of carts drawn by

huge oxen, wallowing along under their uneasy yokes. Just such a string

of carts encountered them as they turned one of the many narrow streets

that conduct to the Pantheon. The enormous brutes went poking their

spreading horns this way and that, in a manner very quiet perhaps in the

animals apprehensions, but very alarming to those of Mrs. Jackson; huge

horns, that were large enough, she thought, to spit an alderman, and

still have, room for her at the top. The two ladies, seeing the first of

these carts approach, had drawn-up close against the wall, and placed

themselves on a little heap of rubbish to be more completely out of the

way. To their dismay the line of these vehicles seemed to be

endless--there was no escape--in that position they had to stand, while

each brute as he passed turned his horns round to them, not with any

ferocious intention, but as if he had a great curiosity to feel them,

and examine their texture--an attention which would have been highly

indecorous, to say the least of it.

What could Winston do, who encountered them in this predicament, but

offer his escort? He calmed their various terrors--both of mad bulls and

of revolutions--reconducted them to the Pantheon, and secured an

exceedingly happy day for one at least of the party.

Winston had now been some time in Rome, and with an inconsistency so

natural that it hardly merits the name of inconsistency, he found

himself looking about in the galleries and churches for Mr. Bloomfield

and his party, and with a curiosity which did not bespeak a very violent

determination to avoid them. He began to think that they had lingered a

long while at Florence. He had forgot the danger--he remembered the

charm.

One morning--having stolen out early and alone from his hotel--as he was

engaged in viewing, for perhaps the last time, the sculpture of the

Vatican, he observed standing before the statue of the Amazon, a female

figure, as beautiful as it, and in an attitude which had been

unconsciously moulded into some resemblance of the pensive, queen-like

posture which the artist has given to the marble. It was Mildred. He

hesitated--he approached. She, on her part, met him with the utmost

frankness. His half-uttered apologies were immediately dropped. He

hardly knew whether to be pleased or mortified, as she made him feel

that the peculiar footing on which they stood tasked him to no

apologies, no ceremonial, that he was free to go--and withal very

welcome to return.

“You are before the Amazon,” said he: “it is the statue of all others

which has most fascinated me. I cannot understand why it should bear the

name it does. I suppose the learned in these matters have their reasons:

I have never inquired, nor feel disposed to inquire into them; but I am

sure the character of the statue is not Amazonian. That attitude--the

right arm raised to draw aside her veil, the left hand at its elbow,

steadying it--that beautiful countenance, so full of sadness and of

dignity--no, these cannot belong to an Amazon.”

“To a woman,” said Mildred, “it is allowed to be indifferent on certain

points of learning; and, in such cases as this, I certainly take

advantage to the full of the privilege of my sex. I care not what they

call the statue. It may have been called an Amazon by Greek and

Roman--it may have been so named by the artist himself when he sent it

home to his patron: I look at it as a creation standing between me and

the mind of the artist; and sure I am that, bear what name it may, the

sculptor has embodied here all that his soul had felt of the sweetness,

and power, and dignity of woman. It is a grander creation than any

goddess I have seen; it has more of thought----”

“And, as a consequence, more of sadness, of unhappiness. How the mystery

of life seems to hang upon that pensive brow! I used to share an

impression, which I believe is very general, that the deep sorrow which

comes of thought, the reflective melancholy which results from pondering

on the bitter problem of life, was peculiar to the moderns. This statue,

and others which I have lately seen, have convinced me that the sculptor

of antiquity has occasionally felt and expressed whatever could be

extracted from the mingled poetry of a Byron or a Goethe.”

“It seems that the necessity of representing the gods in the clear light

of happiness and knowledge, in some measure deprived the Greek artist of

one great source of sublimity. But it is evident,” continued Mildred,

“that the mysterious, with its attendant sorrow, was known also to him.

How could it be otherwise? Oh, what a beautiful creation is this we

stand before! And what an art it is which permits us to stand thus

before a being of this high order, and note all its noble passions! From

the real life we should turn our eyes away, or drop them, abashed, upon

the ground. Here is more than life; and we may look on it by the hour,

and mark its graceful sorrow, its queen-like beauty, and this

over-mastered grief which we may wonder at, but dare not pity.”

They passed on to other statues. They paused before the Menander,

sitting in his chair. “The attitude,” said she, “is so noble, that the

simple chair becomes a throne. But still how plainly it is _intellectual

power_ that sits enthroned there! The posture is imperial; and yet how

evident, that it is the empire of thought only that he governs in!”

“And this little statue of Esculapius,” she added, “kept me a long while

before it. The healing sage--how faithfully is he represented! What a

sad benevolence! acquainted with pain--compelled to inflict even in

order to restore.”

They passed through the Hall of the Muses.

“How serene are _all_ the Muses!” said Winston. “This is as it should

be. Even Tragedy, the most moved of all, how evidently her emotion is

one of thought, not of passion! Though she holds the dagger in her

down-dropt hand, how plainly we see that she has not used it! She has

picked it up from the floor after the fatal deed was perpetrated, and is

musing on the terrible catastrophe, and the still more terrible passions

that led to it.”

They passed through the _Hall of the Animals_; but this had

comparatively little attraction for Mildred. Her companion pointed out

the bronze centaur for her admiration.

“You must break a centaur in half,” said she, “before I can admire it.

And, if I am to look at a satyr, pray let the goat’s legs be hid in the

bushes. I cannot embrace in one conception these fragments of man and

brute. Come with me to the neighbouring gallery; I wish to show you a

Jupiter, seated at the further end of it, which made half a Pagan of me

this morning as I stood venerating it.”

“The head of your Jupiter,” said Winston, as they approached it, “is

surpassed, I think, by more than one bust of the same god that we have

already seen; and I find something of stiffness or rigidity in the

figure; but the impression it makes, as a whole, is very grand.”

“It will grow wonderfully on you as you look at it,” said Mildred. “How

well it typifies all that a Pagan would conceive of the supreme ruler of

the skies, the controller of the powers of nature, the great

administrator of the world who has the Fates for his council! His power

irresistible, but no pride in it, no joy, no triumph. He is without

passion. In his right hand lies the thunder, but it reposes on his

thigh; and his left hand rests calmly upon his tall sceptre surmounted

by an eagle. In his countenance there is the tranquillity of

unquestioned supremacy; but there is no repose. There is care; a

constant, wakefulness. It is the governor of a nature whose elements

have never known one moment’s pause.”

“I see it as you speak,” said Winston. Winston then proposed that they

should go together and look at the Apollo; but Mildred excused herself.

“I have paid my devotions to the god,” she said, “this morning, when the

eyes and the mind were fresh. I would not willingly displace the

impression that I now carry away for one which would be made on a

fatigued and jaded attention.”

“Is it not godlike?”

“Indeed it is. I was presumptuous enough to think I knew the Apollo. A

cast of the head--esteemed to be a very good one--my uncle had given me.

I placed it in my own room; for a long time it was the first thing that

the light fell upon, or my eyes opened to, in the morning; and in my

attempts at crayons I copied it, I believe, in every aspect. It seemed

to me therefore that on visiting the Apollo I should recognise an old

acquaintance. No such thing. The cast had given me hardly any idea of

the statue itself. There was certainly no feeling of old

acquaintanceship. The brow, as I stood in front of the god, quite

overawed me; involuntarily I retreated for an instant; you will smile,

but I had to muster my courage before I could gaze steadily at it.”

“I am not surprised; the divinity there is in no gentle mood. How

majestic! and yet how lightly it touches the earth! It is buoyant with

godhead.”

“What strikes me,” continued Mildred, “as the great triumph of the

artist, is this very anger of the god. It is an anger, which, like the

arrow he has shot from his bow, spends itself entirely upon his victim;

there is no recoil, as in human passion, upon the mind of him who feels

it. There is no jar there. The lightning strikes _down_--it tarries not

a moment in the sky above.”

We are giving, we are afraid, in these reports of Mildred’s

conversation, an erroneous impression of the speaker. We collect

together what often was uttered with some pauses between, and, owing to

a partiality to our heroine, we are more anxious to report her

sentiments than those of her companion. She is thus made to speak in a

somewhat elaborate style, very different from her real manner, and

represented as rather the greater talker of the two; whereas she was

more disposed to listen than to speak, and spoke always with the

greatest simplicity--with enthusiasm, it is true, but never with effort,

or display of diction.

The delight which Winston experienced, (having already surveyed them for

and by himself,) in retracing his steps through the marvels of Rome with

such a companion, is indescribable. The pictures in the Borghese, and

other palaces, broke upon him with a second novelty, and often with a

deeper sentiment. But was there no danger in wandering through galleries

with one by his side to whose living beauty the beauty on the canvass

served only to draw renewed attention and heightened admiration? If he

fled at Genoa, why does he tarry at Rome? There are some dangers, alas!

that are seen the less the greater they become. He was standing with her

before that exquisite picture in the Borghese palace representing the

Three Ages; a youth is reclining in the centre, and a nymph is playing

to him upon two flutes. He had seen it before, but he seemed now to

understand it for the first time. “How plainly,” he murmured to himself,

“is youth the _all_ of life! How plainly is love the _all_ of youth!”

As he was now somewhat familiar with Rome, he could be serviceable to

the Bloomfield party in the capacity of cicerone. They were pleased with

his services, and he found every day some incontrovertible reason why he

should bestow them. The embarrassments of Louisa Jackson and her mamma

were quite forgotten; nor could their difficulties excite a moment’s

compassion or attention. In vain did Louisa sigh; no inquiry was made

into the cause of her distress. In vain did she even, with plaintive

voice, ask whether, “being a Protestant, she could take the veil, and be

a nun?” the question was unheeded, and its deep significance

unperceived.

EUGENE, MARLBOROUGH, FREDERICK, NAPOLEON, AND WELLINGTON.

Five generals, by the common consent of men, stand forth pre-eminent in

modern times for the magnitude of the achievements they have effected,

and the splendour of the talents they have displayed--Eugene,

Marlborough, Frederick, Napoleon, and Wellington. It is hard to say

which appears the greatest, whether we regard the services they have

rendered to their respective countries, or the durable impress their

deeds have left on human affairs. All had difficulties the most serious

to contend with, obstacles apparently insurmountable to overcome, and

all proved in the end victorious over them. All have immortalized their

names by exploits far exceeding those recorded of other men. All have

left their effects durably imprinted in the subsequent fate of nations.

The relative position of the European states, the preservation of public

rights, the maintenance of the balance of power, the salvation of the

weak from the grasp of the strong, has been mainly owing to their

exertions. To their biography is attached not merely the fortune of the

countries to which they belonged, but the general destinies of Europe,

and through it of the human race.

To give a faithful picture, in a few pages, of such men, may seem a

hopeless, and to their merits an invidious task. A brief summary of the

chief actions of those of them to ordinary readers least known, is,

however, indispensable to lay a foundation for their comparison with

those whose deeds are as household words. It is not impossible to convey

to those who are familiar with their exploits, a pleasing _resumè_ of

their leading features, and salient points of difference; to those who

are not, to give some idea of the pleasure which their study is

calculated to afford. Generals, like poets or painters, have certain

leading characteristics which may be traced through all their

achievements; a peculiar impress has been communicated by nature to

their minds, which appears, not less than on the painter’s canvass or in

the poet’s lines, in all their actions. As much as grandeur of

conception distinguishes Homer, tenderness of feeling Virgil, and

sublimity of thought Milton, does impetuous daring characterize Eugene,

consummate generalship Marlborough, indomitable firmness Frederick,

lofty genius Napoleon, unerring wisdom Wellington. Greatness in the

military, as in every other art, is to be attained only by strong

natural talents, perseveringly directed to one object, undistracted by

other pursuits, undivided by inferior ambition. The men who have risen

to the highest eminence in war, have done so by the exercise of

faculties as great, and the force of genius as transcendent, as that

which formed a Homer, a Bacon, or a Newton. Success doubtless commands

the admiration of the multitude; military glory captivates the

unthinking throng; but to those who know the military art, and can

appreciate real merit, the chief ground for admiration of its great

masters, is a sense of the difficulties, to most unknown, which they

have overcome.

PRINCE EUGENE, though belonging to the same age, often acting in the

same army, and sometimes commanding alternately with Marlborough, was a

general of an essentially different character. A descendant of the House

of Savoy, born at Paris, in 1663, and originally destined for the

church, he early evinced a repugnance for theological studies, and,

instead of his breviary, was devouring in secret Plutarch’s lives of

ancient heroes. His figure was slender, and his constitution at first

weak; but these disadvantages, which caused Louis XIV. to refuse him a

regiment, from an opinion that he was not equal to its duties, were soon

overcome by the ardour of his mind. Immediately setting out for Vienna,

he entered the imperial service; but he was still pursued by the enmity

of Louvois, who procured from Louis a decree which pronounced sentence

of banishment on all Frenchmen in the armies of foreign powers who

should fail to return to their country. “I will re-enter France in spite

of him,” said Eugene; and he was more than once as good as his word.

His genius for war was not methodical or scientific like that of Turenne

or Marlborough, nor essentially chivalrous like that of the Black Prince

or the Great Condé. It was more akin to the terrible sweep of the Tartar

chiefs; it savoured more of oriental daring. He was as prodigal of the

blood of his soldiers as Napoleon; but, unlike him, he never failed to

expose his own with equal readiness in the fight. He did not reserve his

attack in person for the close of the affray, like the French Emperor,

but was generally to be seen in the fire from the very outset. It was

with difficulty he could be restrained from heading the first assault of

grenadiers, or leading on the first charge of horse. His first

distinguished command was in Italy, in 1691, and his abilities soon gave

his kinsman, the Duke of Savoy, an ascendant there over the French. But

it was at the great battle of Zenta, on the Teife, where he surprised

and totally defeated Cara-Mustapha, at the head of 120,000 Turks, that

his wonderful genius for war first shone forth in its full lustre. He

there killed 20,000 of the enemy, drove 10,000 into the river, took

their whole artillery and standards, and entirely dispersed their mighty

array.

Like Nelson at Copenhagen, Eugene had gained this glorious victory by

acting in opposition to his orders, which were positively to avoid a

general engagement. This circumstance, joined to the envy excited by his

unparalleled triumph, raised a storm at Court against the illustrious

general, and led to his being deprived of his command, and even

threatened with a court-martial. The public voice, however, at Vienna,

loudly condemned such base ingratitude towards so great a benefactor to

the imperial dominions: the want of his directing eye was speedily felt

in the campaign with the Turks, and the Emperor was obliged to restore

him to his command, which he, however, only agreed to accept on being

given _carte blanche_ for the conduct of the war. The peace of

Carlowetz, in 1699, between the Imperialists and the Ottomans, soon

after restored him to a pacific life, and the study of history, in

which, above any other, he delighted. But on the breaking out of the war

of the Succession, in 1701, he was restored to his military duties, and

during two campaigns measured his strength, always with success, in the

plains of Lombardy, with the scientific abilities of Marshal Catinat,

and the learned experience of Marshal Villeroi, the latter of whom he

made prisoner during a nocturnal attack on Cremona, in 1703. In 1704, he

was transferred to the north of the Alps to unite with Marlborough in

making head against the great army of Marshal Tallard, which was

advancing, in so threatening a manner, through Bavaria; and he shared

with the illustrious Englishman the glories of Blenheim, which at once

delivered Germany, and hurled the French armies with disgrace behind the

Rhine. Then commenced that steady friendship, and sincere and mutual

regard, between these illustrious men, which continued unbroken till the

time of their death, and is not the least honourable trait in the

character of each. But the want of his protecting arm was long felt in

Italy: the great abilities of the Duke de Vendôme had well-nigh

counterbalanced there all the advantages of the allies in Germany; and

the issue of the war in the plains of Piedmont continued doubtful till

the glorious victory of Eugene, on the 7th Sept. 1706, when he stormed

the French intrenchments around Turin, defended by eighty thousand men,

at the head of thirty thousand only, and totally defeated Marshal Marsin

and the Duke of Orleans, with such loss, that the French armies were

speedily driven across the Alps.

Eugene was now received in the most flattering manner at Vienna: the

lustre of his exploits had put to silence, if not to shame, the

malignity of his enemies. “I have but one fault to find with you,” said

the Emperor when he was first presented to him after his victory, “and

that is that you expose yourself too much.” He was next placed at the

head of the Imperial armies in Flanders; and shared with Marlborough in

the conduct, as he did in the glories, of Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

Intrusted with the command of the corps which besieged Lille, he was

penetrated with the utmost admiration for Marshal Boufflers, and

evinced the native generosity of his disposition, by the readiness with

which he granted the most favourable terms to the illustrious besieged

chief, who had with equal skill and valour conducted the defence. When

the articles of capitulation proposed by Boufflers were placed before

him, he said at once, without looking at them, “I will subscribe them at

once: knowing well you would propose nothing unworthy of you and me.”

The delicacy of his subsequent attentions to his noble prisoner evinced

the sincerity of his admiration. When Marlborough’s influence at the

English Court was sensibly declining, in 1711, he repaired to London,

and exerted all his talents and address to bring the English council

back to the common cause, and restore his great rival to his former

ascendency with Queen Anne. When it was all in vain, and the English

armies withdrew from the coalition, Eugene did all that skill and genius

could achieve to make up for the great deficiency arising from the

withdrawal of Marlborough and his gallant followers; and when it had

become apparent that he was over-matched by the French armies, he was

the first to counsel his Imperial master to conclude peace, which was

done at Rastadt on the 6th March, 1714.

Great as had been the services then performed by Eugene for the

Imperialists, they were outdone by those which he subsequently rendered

in the wars with the Turks. In truth it was he who first effectually

broke their power, and for ever delivered Europe from the sabres of the

Osmanlis, by which it had been incessantly threatened for three hundred

years. Intrusted with the command of the Austrian army in Hungary, sixty

thousand strong, he gained at Peterwardin, in 1716, a complete victory

over an hundred and fifty thousand Turks. This glorious success led him

to resume the offensive, and in the following year he laid siege, with

forty thousand men, to Belgrade, the great frontier fortress of Turkey,

in presence of the whole strength of the Ottoman empire. The obstinate

resistance of the Turks, as famous then, as they have ever since been,

in the defence of fortified places, joined to the dysenteries and fevers

usual on the marshy banks of the Danube in the autumnal months, soon

reduced his effective force to twenty-five thousand men, while that of

the enemy, by prodigious efforts, had been swelled to an hundred and

fifty thousand around the besiegers’ lines, besides thirty thousand

within the walls. Every thing presaged that Eugene was about to undergo

the fate of Marshal Marsin twelve years before at Turin, and even his

most experienced officers deemed a capitulation the only way of

extricating them from their perilous situation. Eugene himself was

attacked and seriously weakened by the prevailing dysentery: all seemed

lost in the Austrian camp. It was in these circumstances, with this

weakened and dispirited force, that he achieved one of the most glorious

victories ever gained by the Cross over the Crescent. With admirable

skill he collected his little army together, divided it into columns of

attack, and though scarcely able to sit on horseback himself, led them

to the assault of the Turkish intrenchments. The result was equal to the

success of Cæsar over the Gauls at the blockade of Alesia, seventeen

centuries before. The innumerable host of the Turks was totally

defeated--all their artillery and baggage taken, and their troops

entirely dispersed. Belgrade, immediately after, opened its gates, and

has since remained, with some mutations of fortune, the great frontier

bulwark of Europe against the Turks. The successes which he gained in

the following campaign of 1718 were so decisive, that they entirely

broke the Ottoman power; and he was preparing to march to

Constantinople, when the treaty of Passarowitz put a period to his

conquests, and gave a breathing time to the exhausted Ottoman empire.[3]

From this brief sketch of his exploits, it may readily be understood

what was the character of Eugene as a general. He had none of the

methodical prudence of Turenne, Marlborough, or Villars. His genius was

entirely different: it was more akin to that of Napoleon, when he was

reduced to counterbalance inferiority of numbers by superiority of

skill. The immortal campaigns of 1796, in Italy, and of 1814, in

Champagne, bear a strong resemblance to those of Eugene. Like the French

Emperor, his strokes were rapid and forcible; his _coup-d’œil_ was at

once quick and just; his activity indefatigable; his courage undaunted;

his resources equal to any undertaking. He did not lay much stress on

previous arrangements, and seldom attempted the extensive combinations

which enabled Marlborough to command success; but dashed fearlessly on,

trusting to his own resources to extricate him out of any difficulty--to

his genius, in any circumstances, to command victory. Yet was this

daring disposition not without peril. His audacity often bordered on

rashness, his rapidity on haste; and he repeatedly brought his armies

into situations all but desperate, and which, to a general of lesser

capacity, unquestionably would have proved so. Yet in these difficulties

no one could exceed him in the energy and vigour with which he

extricated himself from the toils: and many of his greatest victories,

particularly those of Turin and Belgrade, were gained under

circumstances where even the boldest officers in his army had given him

over for lost. He was prodigal of the blood of his soldiers, and, like

Napoleon, indifferent to the sacrifices at which he purchased his

successes; but he was still more lavish of his own, and never failed to

share the hardships and dangers of the meanest of his followers. He was

engaged in thirteen pitched battles, in all of which he fought like a

common soldier. He was in consequence repeatedly, sometimes dangerously,

wounded; and it was extraordinary “that his life escaped his reiterated

perils.” He raised the Austrian monarchy by his triumphs to the very

highest pitch of glory, and finally broke the power of the Turks, the

most persevering and not the least formidable of its enemies. But the

enterprises which his genius prompted the cabinet of Vienna to

undertake, were beyond the strength of the hereditary states; and for

nearly a century after, it achieved nothing worthy, either of its

growing resources, or the military renown which he had spread around its

annals.

FREDERICK II., surnamed THE GREAT, with more justice than that title has

elsewhere been applied in modern times, was born at Berlin on the 24th

January, 1712. His education was as much neglected as ill-directed.

Destined from early youth for the military profession, he was in the

first instance subjected to a discipline so rigorous, that he conceived

the utmost aversion for a career in which he was ultimately to shine

with such eclat, and, as his only resource, threw himself with ardour

into the study of French literature, for which he retained a strong

predilection through the whole of his subsequent life. Unfortunately his

education was almost entirely confined to that literature. That of his

own country, since so illustrious, had not started into existence. Of

Italian and Spanish he was ignorant. He could not read Greek; and with

Latin his acquaintance was so imperfect, as to be of no practical

service to him through life. To this unfortunate contraction of his

education his limited taste in literature, in subsequent life, is

chiefly to be ascribed. He at first was desirous of espousing an English

princess; but his father, who was most imperious in his disposition,

decided otherwise, and he was compelled, in 1733, to marry the Princess

Elizabeth of Brunswick. This union, like most others contracted under

restraint, proved unfortunate; and it did not give Frederick the

blessing of an heir to the throne. Debarred from domestic enjoyments,

the young prince took refuge with more eagerness than ever in literary

pursuits; the chateau of Rhinsberg, which was his favourite abode, was

styled by him in his transport the “Palace of the Muses;” and the

greatest general and most hardy soldier of modern times spent some years

of his youth in corresponding with Maupertuis, Voltaire, and other

French philosophers, and in making indifferent verses and madrigals,

which gave no token of any remarkable genius. He had already prepared

for the press a book entitled “Refutation of the Prince of Machiavel,”

when, in 1740, the death of his father called him to the throne, its

duties, its dangers, and its ambition.

The philosophers were in transports, when they beheld “one of

themselves,” as they styled him, elevated to a throne: they flattered

themselves that he would continue his literary pursuits, and acknowledge

their influence, when surrounded by the attractions, and wielding the

patronage of the crown. They soon found their mistake. Frederick

continued through life his literary tastes: he corresponded with

Voltaire and the philosophers through all his campaigns: he made French

verses, in his tent, after tracing out the plans of the battles of

Leuthen and Rosbach. But his heart was in his kingdom: his ambition was

set on its aggrandizement: his passion was war, by which alone it could

be achieved. Without being discarded, the philosophers and madrigals

were soon forgotten. The finances and the army occupied his whole

attention. The former were in admirable order, and his father had even

accumulated a large treasure which remained in the exchequer. The army,

admirably equipped and disciplined, already amounted to 60,000 men: he

augmented it to 80,000. Nothing could exceed the vigour he displayed in

every department, or the unceasing attention he paid to public affairs.

Indefatigable day and night, sober and temperate in his habits, he

employed even artificial means to augment the time during the day he

could devote to business. Finding that he was constitutionally inclined

to more sleep than he deemed consistent with the full discharge of all

his regal duties, he ordered his servants to waken him at five in the

morning; and if words were not effectual to rouse him from his sleep, he

commanded them, on pain of dismissal, to apply linen steeped in cold

water to his person. This order was punctually executed, even in the

depth of winter, till nature was fairly subdued, and the king had gained

the time he desired from his slumbers.

It was not long before he had an opportunity of evincing at once the

vigour and unscrupulous character of his mind. The Emperor Charles VI.

having died on the 20th October, 1740, the immense possessions of the

house of Austria devolved to his daughter, since so famous by the name

of MARIA THERESA. The defenceless condition of the imperial dominions,

consisting of so many different and discordant states, some of them but

recently united under one head, when under the guidance of a young

unmarried princess, suggested to the neighbouring powers the idea of a

partition. Frederick eagerly united with France in this project. He

revived some old and obsolete claims of Prussia to Silesia; but in his

manifesto to the European powers, upon invading that province, he was

scarcely at the pains to conceal the real motives of his aggression. “It

is,” said he, “an army ready to take the field, treasures long

accumulated, and perhaps the desire to acquire glory.” He was not long

in winning the battle, though it was at first rather owing to the skill

of his generals, and discipline of his soldiers, than his own capacity.

On the 10th April, 1741, the army under his command gained a complete

victory over the Austrians, at Mollwitz, in Silesia, which led to the

entire reduction of that rich and important province. The king owed

little to his own courage, however, on this occasion. Like Wellington,

the first essay in arms of so indomitable a hero was unfortunate. He

fled from the field of battle, at the first repulse of his cavalry; and

he was already seven miles off, where he was resting in a mill, when he

received intelligence that his troops had regained the day; and at the

earnest entreaties of General afterwards Marshal Schwerin, he returned

to take the command of the army. Next year, however, he evinced equal

courage and capacity in the battle of Czaslau, which he gained over the

Prince of Lorraine. Austria, on the brink of ruin, hastened to disarm

the most formidable of her assailants; and, by a separate peace,

concluded at Breslau on June 11, 1742, she ceded to Prussia nearly the

whole of Silesia.

This cruel loss, however, was too plainly the result of necessity to be

acquiesced in without a struggle by the Cabinet of Vienna. Maria Theresa

made no secret of her determination to resume possession of the lost

province on the first convenient opportunity. Austria soon united the

whole of Germany in a league against Frederick, who had no ally but the

King of France. Assailed by such a host of enemies, however, the young

king was not discouraged, and, boldly assuming the initiative, he gained

at Hohenfriedberg a complete victory over his old antagonist the Prince

of Lorraine. This triumph was won entirely by the extraordinary genius

displayed by the King of Prussia: “It was one of those battles,” says

the military historian, Guibert, “where a great master makes every thing

give way before him, and which is gained from the very beginning,

because he never gives the enemy time to recover from their disorder.”

The Austrians made great exertions to repair the consequences of this

disaster, and with such success, that in four months Prince Charles of

Lorraine again attacked him at the head of 50,000 men near Soor.

Frederick had not 25,000, but with these he again defeated the Austrians

with immense loss, and took up his winter quarters in Silesia. So vast

were the resources, however, of the great German League, of which

Austria was the head, that they were enabled to keep the field during

winter, and even meditate a _coup-de-main_ against the king, in his

capital of Berlin. Informed of this design, Frederick lost not a moment

in anticipating it by a sudden attack on his part on his enemies.

Assembling his troops in the depth of winter with perfect secrecy, he

surprised a large body of Saxons at Naumberg, made himself master of

their magazines at Gorlitz, and soon after made his triumphant entry

into Dresden, where he dictated a glorious peace, on 25th December,

1745, to his enemies, which secured, permanently, Silesia to Prussia. It

was full time for the Imperialists to come to an accommodation. In

eighteen months Frederick had defeated them in four pitched battles,

besides several combats; taken 45,000 prisoners, and killed or wounded

an equal number of his enemies. His own armies had not sustained losses

to a fifth part of this amount, and the chasms in his ranks were more

than compensated by the multitude of the prisoners who enlisted under

his banners, anxious to share the fortunes of the hero who had already

filled Europe with his renown.

The ambitious and decided, and, above all, indomitable character of

Frederick, had already become conspicuous during these brief campaigns.

His correspondence, all conducted by himself, evinced a vigour and

_tranchant_ style, at that period unknown in European diplomacy, but to

which the world has since been abundantly accustomed in the

proclamations of Napoleon. Already he spoke on every occasion as the

hero and the conqueror--to conquer or die was his invariable maxim. On

the eve of his invasion of Saxony, he wrote to the Empress of Russia,

who was endeavouring to dissuade him from that design:--“I wish nothing

from the King of Poland (Elector of Saxony) but to punish him in his

Electorate, and make him sign an acknowledgment of repentance in his

capital.” During the negotiations for peace, he wrote to the King of

England, who had proposed the mediation of Great Britain:--“These are my

conditions. I will perish with my army before departing from one iota of

them: if the Empress does not accept them, I will rise in my demands.”

The peace of Dresden lasted ten years; and these were of inestimable

importance to Frederick. He employed that precious interval in

consolidating his conquests, securing the affections by protecting the

interests of his subjects, and pursuing every design which could conduce

to their welfare. Marshes were drained, lands broken up and cultivated,

manufactures established, the finances were put in the best order,

agriculture, as the great staple of the kingdom, sedulously encouraged.

His capital was embellished, and the fame of his exploits attracted the

greatest and most celebrated men in Europe. Voltaire, among the rest,

became for years his guest; but the aspiring genius and irascible temper

of the military monarch could ill accord with the vanity and insatiable

thirst for praise in the French author, and they parted with mutual

respect, but irretrievable alienation. Meanwhile, the strength of the

monarchy was daily increasing under Frederick’s wise and provident

administration. The population nearly reached 6,000,000 of souls; the

cavalry mustered 30,000, all in the highest state of discipline and

equipment; and the infantry, esteemed with reason the most perfect in

Europe, numbered an hundred and twenty thousand bayonets. These troops

had long been accustomed to act together in large bodies; the best

training next to actual service in the field which an army can receive.

They had need of all their skill, and discipline, and courage, for

Prussia was ere long threatened by the most formidable confederacy that

ever yet had been directed in modern times against a single State.

Austria, Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony, united in alliance for the

purpose of partitioning the Prussian territories. They had ninety

millions of men in their dominions, and could with ease bring four

hundred thousand men into the field. Prussia had not six million of

inhabitants, who were strained to the uttermost to array a hundred and

fifty thousand combatants--and even with the aid of England and Hanover,

not more than fifty thousand auxiliaries could be relied on. Prussia had

neither strong fortresses like Flanders, nor mountain chains like Spain,

nor a frontier stream like France. It was chiefly composed of flat

plains, unprotected by great rivers, and surrounded on all sides by its

enemies. The contest seemed utterly desperate; there did not seem a

chance of escape for the Prussian monarchy.

Frederick began the contest by one of those strokes which demonstrated

the strength of his understanding and the vigour of his determination.

Instead of waiting to be attacked, he carried the war at once into the

enemy’s territories, and converted the resources of the nearest of them

to his own advantage. Having received authentic intelligence of the

signature of a treaty for the partition of his kingdom by the great

powers, on 9th May 1756, he suddenly entered the Saxon territories, made

himself master of Dresden, and shut up the whole forces of Saxony in the

intrenched camp at Pirna. Marshal Brown having advanced at the head of

60,000 men to relieve them, he encountered and totally defeated him at

Lowositz, with the loss of 15,000 men. Deprived of all hope of succour,

the Saxons in Pirna, after having made vain efforts to escape, were

obliged to lay down their arms, 14,000 strong. The whole of Saxony

submitted to the victor, who thenceforward, during the whole war,

converted its entire resources to his own support. Beyond all question,

it was this masterly and successful stroke, in the very outset, and in

the teeth of his enemies, adding above a third to his warlike resources,

which enabled him subsequently to maintain his ground against the

desperate odds by which he was assailed. Most of the Saxons taken at

Pirna, dazzled by their conqueror’s fame, entered his service: the Saxon

youth hastened in crowds to enrol themselves under the banners of the

hero of the North of Germany. Frederick, at the same time, effectually

vindicated the step he had taken in the eyes of all Europe, by the

publication of the secret treaty of partition, taken in the archives at

Dresden, in spite of the efforts of the electress to conceal it.

Whatever might have been the case in the former war, when he seized on

Silesia, it was apparent to the world, that he now, at least, was

strictly in the right, and that his invasion of Saxony was not less

justifiable on the score of public morality, than important in its

consequences to the great contest in which he was engaged.

The allies made the utmost efforts to regain the advantages they had

lost. France, instead of the 24,000 men she was bound to furnish by the

treaty of partition, put 100,000 on foot; the Diet of Ratisbon placed

60,000 troops of the empire at the disposal of Austria; but Frederick

still preserved the ascendant. Breaking into Bohemia, in March 1757, he

defeated the Austrians in a great battle under the walls of Prague, shut

up 40,000 of their best troops in that town, and soon reduced them to

such extremities, that it was evident, if not succoured, they must

surrender. The cabinet of Vienna made the greatest efforts for their

relief Marshal Daun, whose cautious and scientific policy were

peculiarly calculated to thwart the designs, and baffle the audacity of

his youthful antagonist, advanced at the head of 60,000 men to their

relief. Frederick advanced to meet them with less than 20,000

combatants. He attacked the Imperialists in a strong position at Kolin,

on the 18th July, and, for the first time in his life, met with a bloody

defeat. His army, especially that division commanded by his brother, the

prince-royal, sustained severe losses in the retreat, which became

unavoidable, out of Bohemia; and the king confessed, in his private

correspondence, that an honourable death alone remained to him. Disaster

accumulated on every side. The English and Hanoverian army, his only

allies, capitulated at Closterseven, and left the French army, 70,000

strong, at liberty to follow the Prussians; the French and troops of the

empire, with the Duke of Richelieu at their head, menaced Magdeburg,

where the royal family of Prussia had taken refuge; and advanced towards

Dresden. The Russians, 60,000 strong, were making serious progress on

the side of Poland, and had recently defeated the Prussians opposed to

them. The king was put to the ban of the empire, and the army of the

empire, mustering 40,000, was moving against him. Four huge armies, each

stronger than his own, were advancing to crush a prince who could not

collect 30,000 men round his banners. At that period he carried a sure

poison always with him, determined not to fall alive into the hands of

his enemies. He seriously contemplated suicide, and gave vent to the

mournful, but yet heroic, sentiments with which he was inspired, in a

letter to Voltaire, terminating with the lines--

Pour moi, menaçé de naufrage,

Je dois, en affrontant l’orage

Penser, vivre et mourir en roi.

Then it was that the astonishing vigour and powers of his mind shone

forth with their full lustre. Collecting hastily 25,000 men out of his

shattered battalions, he marched against the Prince of Soubise, who, at

the head of 60,000 French and troops of the empire, was advancing

against him through Thuringia, and totally defeated him, with the loss

of 18,000 men, on the memorable field of Rosbach. Hardly was this

triumph achieved, when he was called, with his indefatigable followers,

to stem the progress of the Prince of Lorraine and Marshal Daun, who

were making the most alarming progress in Silesia. Schweidnitz, its

capital, had fallen: a large body of Prussians, under the Duke de

Bevorn, had been defeated at Breslau. That rich and important province

seemed on the point of falling again into the hands of the Austrians,

when Frederick reinstated his affairs, which seemed wholly desperate, by

one of those astonishing strokes which distinguish him, perhaps, above

any general of modern times. In the depth of winter he attacked, at

Leuthen, on the 5th December, 1757, Marshal Daun and the Prince of

Lorraine,--who had 60,000 admirable troops under their orders,--and, by

the skilful application of the _oblique_ method of attack, defeated them

entirely, with the loss of 30,000 men, of whom 18,000 were prisoners! It

was the greatest victory that had been gained in Europe since the battle

of Blenheim. Its effects were immense: the Austrians were driven

headlong out of Silesia; Schweidnitz was regained; the King of Prussia,

pursuing them, carried the war into Moravia, and laid siege to Olmutz;

and England, awakening, at the voice of Chatham, from its unworthy

slumber, refused to ratify the capitulation of Closterseven, resumed the

war on the continent with more vigour than ever, and intrusted its

direction to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who soon rivalled Turenne in

the skill and science of his methodical warfare.

But it was the destiny of the King of Prussia--a destiny which displayed

his great qualities in their full lustre--to be perpetually involved in

difficulties, from the enormous numerical preponderance of his enemies,

or the misfortunes of the lieutenants to whom his subordinate armies

were intrusted. Frederick could not be personally present every where at

the same time; and wherever he was absent, disaster revealed the

overwhelming superiority of the force by which he was assailed. The

siege of Olmutz, commenced in March 1758, proved unfortunate. The

battering train, at the disposal of the king, was unequal to its

reduction, and it became necessary to raise it on the approach of Daun

with a formidable Austrian army. During this unsuccessful irruption

into the south, the Russians had been making alarming progress in the

north-east, where the feeble force opposed to them was well-nigh

overwhelmed by their enormous superiority of numbers. Frederick led back

the flower of his army from Olmutz, in Moravia, crossed all Silesia and

Prussia, and encountered the sturdy barbarians at Zorndorf, defeating

them with the loss of 17,000 men, an advantage which delivered the

eastern provinces of the monarchy from this formidable invasion; dearly

purchased, however, by the sacrifice of 10,000 of his own best soldiers.

But, during the king’s absence, Prince Henry of Prussia, whom he had

left in command of 16,000 men, to keep Marshal Daun in check, was

well-nigh overwhelmed by that able commander, who was again at the head

of 50,000 combatants. Frederick flew back to his support, and, having

joined his brother, took post at Hohenkirchen. The position was

unfavourable: the army inferior to the enemy. “If Daun does not attack

us here,” said Marshal Keith, “he deserves to be hanged.” “I hope,”

answered Frederick, “he will be more afraid of us than the rope.” The

Austrian veteran, however, saw his advantage, and attacked the

Prussians, during the night, with such skill, that he threw them into

momentary confusion, took 150 pieces of cannon, and drove them from

their ground, with the loss of 7000 men. Then it was that the courage

and genius of the king shone forth with their full lustre. Though

grievously wounded in the conflict, and after having seen his best

generals fall around him, he rallied his troops at daybreak,--formed

them in good order behind the village which had been surprised, and led

them leisurely to a position a mile from the field of conflict, where he

offered battle to the enemy, who did not venture to accept it. Having

remained two days in this position to re-organize his troops, he

decamped, raised the siege of Niesse, and succeeded in taking up his

winter quarters at Breslau, in the very middle of the province he had

wrested from the enemy.

The campaign of 1759 was still more perilous to Frederick; but, if

possible, it displayed his extraordinary talents in still brighter

colours. He began by observing the Austrians, under Daun and the Prince

of Lorraine, in Silesia, and reserved his strength to combat the

Russians, who were advancing, 80,000 strong, through East Prussia.

Frederick attacked them at Cunnersdorf, with 40,000 only, in an

intrenched position, guarded by 200 pieces of cannon. The first onset of

the Prussians was entirely successful: they forced the front line of the

Russian intrenchment, and took 72 pieces of cannon. But the situation of

the king was such, pressed on all sides by superior armies, that he

could not stop short with ordinary success; and, in the attempt to gain

a decisive victory, he had well-nigh lost all. The heroism of his troops

was shattered against the strength of the second line of the Russians; a

large body of Austrians came up to their support during the battle, and,

after having exhausted all the resources of courage and genius, he was

driven from the field with the loss of 20,000 men and all his artillery.

The Russians lost 18,000 men in this terrible battle, the most bloody

which had been fought for centuries in Europe, and were in no condition

to follow up their victory. Other misfortunes, however, in appearance

overwhelming, succeeded each other. General Schmellau capitulated in

Dresden; and General Finch, with 17,000 men, was obliged to lay down his

arms in the defiles of the Bohemian mountains. All seemed lost; but the

king still persevered, and the victory of Minden enabled Prince

Ferdinand to detach 12,000 men to his support. The Prussians nobly stood

by their heroic sovereign in the hour of trial; new levies supplied the

wide chasms in his ranks. Frederick’s great skill averted all future

disasters, and the campaign of 1759, the _fourth_ of the war, concluded

with the king still in possession of all his dominions in the midst of

the enormous forces of his enemies.

The campaign of 1760 began in March by another disaster at Landshech,

where ten thousand Prussians were cut to pieces, under one of his

generals, and the important fortress of Glatz invested by the Austrians.

Frederick advanced to relieve it; but soon remeasured his steps to

attempt the siege of Dresden. Daun, in his turn, followed him, and

obliged the Prussian monarch to raise the siege; and he resumed his

march into Silesia, closely followed by three armies, each more numerous

than his own, under Laudon, Daun, and Lacey, without their being able to

obtain the slightest advantage over him. Laudon, the most active of

them, attempted to surprise him; but Frederick was aware of his design,

and received the attacking columns in so masterly a manner, that they

were totally defeated, with the loss of 12,000 men. Scarcely had he

achieved this victory, when he had to make head against Lacey, withstand

Daun, repel an enormous body of Russians, who were advancing through

East Prussia, and deliver Berlin, which had been a second time occupied

by his enemies. Driven to desperate measures by such an unparalleled

succession of dangers, he extricated himself from them by the terrible

battle and extraordinary victory of Torgau, on November 3, 1761, in

which, after a dreadful struggle, he defeated Daun, though intrenched to

the teeth, with the loss of 25,000 men--an advantage dearly purchased by

the loss of 18,000 of his own brave soldiers. But this victory saved the

Prussian monarchy: Daun, severely wounded in the battle, retired to

Vienna; the army withdrew into Bohemia; two-thirds of Saxony was

regained by the Prussians; the Russians and Swedes retired; Berlin was

delivered from the enemy; and the fifth campaign terminated with the

unconquerable monarch still in possession of nearly his whole dominions.

The military strength of Prussia was now all but exhausted by the

unparalleled and heroic efforts she had made. Frederick has left us the

following picture of the state of his kingdom and army at this

disastrous period:--“Our condition at that period can only be likened to

that of a man riddled with balls, weakened by the loss of blood, and

ready to sink under the weight of his sufferings. The noblesse was

exhausted, the lower people ruined; numbers of villages burnt, many

towns destroyed; an entire anarchy had overturned the whole order and

police of government: in a word, desolation was universal. The army was

in no better situation. _Seventeen pitched battles_ had mowed down the

flower of the officers and soldiers; the regiments were broken down and

composed in part of deserters and prisoners: order had disappeared and

discipline relaxed to such a degree that the old infantry was little

better than a body of newly-raised militia.”[4] Necessity, not less than

prudence, in these circumstances, which to any other man would have

seemed desperate, prescribed a cautious defensive policy; and it is

doubtful whether in it his greatness did not appear more conspicuous

than in the bolder parts of his former career. The campaign of 1761

passed in skilful marches and countermarches, without his numerous

enemies being able to obtain a single advantage, where the king

commanded in person. He was now, literally speaking, assailed on all

sides: the immense masses of the Austrians and Russians were converging

to one point; and Frederick, who could not muster 40,000 men under his

banners, found himself assailed by 120,000 allies, whom six campaigns

had brought to perfection in the military art. It seemed impossible he

could escape: yet he did so, and compelled his enemies to retire without

gaining the slightest advantage over him. Taking post in an intrenched

camp at Bunzelwitz, fortified with the utmost skill, defended with the

utmost vigilance, he succeeded in maintaining himself and providing his

troops for two months within cannon-shot of the enormous masses of the

Russians and Austrians, till want of provisions obliged them to

separate. “It has just come to this,” said Frederick, “who will starve

first?” He made his enemies do so. Burning with shame, they were forced

to retire to their respective territories, so that he was enabled to

take up his winter quarters at Breslau in Silesia. But, during this

astonishing struggle, disaster had accumulated in other quarters. His

camp at Bunzelwitz had only been maintained by concentrating in it

nearly the whole strength of the monarchy, and its more distant

provinces suffered severely under the drain. Schweidnitz, the capital

of Silesia, was surprised by the Austrians, with its garrison of 4000

men. Prince Henry, after the loss of Dresden, had the utmost difficulty

in maintaining himself in the part of Saxony which still remained to the

Prussians: in Silesia they had lost all but Glogau, Breslau, and Neiss;

and, to complete his misfortune, the dismissal of Lord Chatham from

office in England, had led to the stoppage of the wonted subsidy of

£750,000 a-year. The resolution of the king did not sink, but his

judgment almost despaired of success under such a complication of

disasters. Determined not to yield, he discovered a conspiracy at his

head-quarters, to seize him, and deliver him to his enemies. Dreading

such a calamity more than death, he carried with him, as formerly in

similar circumstances, a sure poison, intended, in the last extremity,

to terminate his days.

“Nevertheless,” as he himself said, “affairs which seemed desperate, in

reality were not so; and perseverance at length surmounted every peril.”

Fortune often, in real life as well as in romance, favours the brave. In

the case of Frederick, however, it would be unjust to say he was

favoured by Fortune. On the contrary, she long proved adverse to him;

and he recovered her smiles only by heroically persevering till the

ordinary chance of human affairs turned in his favour. He accomplished

what in serious cases is the great aim of medicine; he made the patient

survive the disease. In the winter of 1761, the Empress of Russia died,

and was succeeded by Peter III. That prince had long conceived the most

ardent admiration for Frederick, and he manifested it in the most

decisive manner on his accession to the throne, by not only withdrawing

from the alliance, but uniting his forces with those of Prussia against

Austria. This great event speedily changed the face of affairs. The

united Prussians and Russians under Frederick, 70,000 strong, retook

Schweidnitz in the face of Daun, who had only 60,000 men; and, although

the sudden death of the Czar Peter in a few months deprived him of the

aid of his powerful neighbours, yet Russia took no farther part in the

contest. France, exhausted and defeated in every quarter of the globe by

England, could render no aid to Austria, upon whom the whole weight of

the contest fell. It was soon apparent that she was over-matched by the

Prussian hero. Relieved from the load which had so long oppressed him,

Frederick vigorously resumed the offensive. Silesia was wholly regained

by the king in person: the battle of Freyberg gave his brother, Prince

Henry, the ascendant in Saxony; and the cabinet of Vienna, seeing the

contest hopeless, were glad to make peace at Hubertsbourg, on 15th

February, 1763, on terms which left Silesia and his whole dominions to

the King of Prussia.

He entered Berlin in triumph after six years’ absence, in an open

chariot, with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick seated by his side. No words

can paint the enthusiasm of the spectators at the august spectacle, or

the admiration with which they regarded the hero who had filled the

world with his renown. It was no wonder they were proud of their

sovereign. His like had never been seen in modern times. He had founded

and saved a kingdom. He had conquered Europe in arms. With six millions

of subjects he had vanquished powers possessing ninety millions. He had

created a new era in the art of war. His people were exhausted,

pillaged, ruined; their numbers had declined a tenth during the contest.

But what then? They had come victorious out of a struggle unparalleled

in modern times: the halo of Leuthen and Rosbach, of Zorndorf and

Torgau, played round their bayonets; they were inspired with the energy

which so speedily repairs any disaster. Frederick wisely and

magnanimously laid aside the sword when he resumed the pacific sceptre.

His subsequent reign was almost entirely pacific; all the wounds of war

were speedily healed under his sage and beneficent administration.

Before his death, his subjects were double, and the national wealth

triple what it had been at the commencement of his reign: and Prussia

now boasts of sixteen millions of inhabitants, and a population

increasing faster in numbers and resources than any other state in

Europe.

No laboured character, no studied eulogium, can paint Frederick like

this brief and simple narrative of his exploits. It places him at once

at the head of modern generals,--if Hannibal be excepted, perhaps of

ancient and modern. He was not uniformly successful: on the contrary, he

sustained several dreadful defeats. But that arose from the enormous

superiority of force by which he was assailed, and the desperate state

of his affairs, which were generally so pressing, that a respite even in

one quarter could be obtained only by a victory instantly gained, under

whatever circumstances, in another. What appears rashness was often in

him the height of wisdom. He could protract the struggle only by strong

and vigorous strokes and the lustre of instant success, and they could

not be dealt out without risking receiving as many. The fact of his

maintaining the struggle against such desperate odds proves the general

wisdom of his policy. No man ever made more skilful use of an interior

line of communication, or flew with such rapidity from one threatened

part of his dominions to another. None ever, by the force of skill in

tactics and sagacity in strategy, gained such astonishing successes with

forces so inferior. And if some generals have committed fewer faults,

none were impelled by such desperate circumstances to a hazardous

course, and none had ever so much magnanimity in confessing and

explaining them for the benefit of future times.

The only general in modern times who can bear a comparison with

Frederick, if the difficulties of his situation are considered, is

Napoleon. It is a part only of his campaigns, however, which sustains

the analogy. There is no resemblance between the mighty conqueror

pouring down the valley of the Danube, at the head of 180,000 men,

invading Russia with 500,000, or overrunning Spain with 300,000, and

Frederick the Great with 30,000 or 40,000, turning every way against

quadruple the number of Austrians, French, Swedes, and Russians. Yet a

part, and the most brilliant part of Napoleon’s career, bears a close

resemblance to that of the Prussian hero. In Lombardy in 1796, in Saxony

in 1813, and in the plains of Champaigne in 1814, he was upon the whole

inferior in force to his opponents, and owed the superiority which he

generally enjoyed on the point of attack to the rapidity of his

movements, and the skill with which, like Frederick, he availed himself

of an interior line of communication. His immortal campaign in France in

1814, in particular, where he bore up with 70,000 men against 250,000

enemies, bears the closest resemblance to those which Frederick

sustained for six years against the forces of the Coalition. Rapidity of

movement, skill in strategy, and the able use of an interior line of

communication, were what enabled both to compensate a prodigious

inferiority of force. Both were often to appearance rash, because the

affairs of each were so desperate, that nothing could save them but an

audacious policy. Both were indomitable in resolution, and preferred

ruin and death to sitting down on a dishonoured throne. Both were from

the outset of the struggle placed in circumstances apparently hopeless,

and each succeeded in protracting it solely by his astonishing talent

and resolution. The fate of the two was widely different: the one

transmitted an honoured and aggrandized throne to his successors; the

other, overthrown and discrowned, terminated his days on the rock of St.

Helena. But success is not always the test of real merit: the verdict of

ages is often different from the judgment of present times. Hannibal

conquered, has left a greater name among men than Scipio victorious. In

depth of thought, force of genius, variety of information, and splendour

of success, Frederick will bear no comparison with Napoleon. But

Frederick’s deeds as a general were more extraordinary than those of the

French emperor, because he bore up longer against greater odds. It is

the highest praise of Napoleon to say, that he did in one campaign--his

last and greatest--what Frederick had done in six.

If the campaigns of Eugene and Frederick suggest a comparison with those

of Napoleon, those of Marlborough challenge a parallel with those of the

other great commander of our day--Wellington. Their political and

military situations were in many respects alike. Both combated at the

head of the forces of an alliance, composed of dissimilar nations,

actuated by separate interests, inflamed by different passions. Both had

the utmost difficulty in soothing their jealousies and stifling their

selfishness; and both found themselves often more seriously impeded by

the allied cabinets in their rear, than by the enemy’s forces in their

front. Both were the generals of a nation, which, albeit covetous of

military glory, and proud of warlike renown, is to the last degree

impatient of previous preparation, and frets at the cost of wars, which

its political position renders unavoidable, or its ambitious spirit had

readily undertaken. Both were compelled to husband the blood of their

soldiers, and spare the resources of their governments, from the

consciousness that they had already been strained to the uttermost in

the cause, and that any farther demands would render the war so

unpopular as speedily to lead to its termination. The career of both

occurred at a time when political passions were strongly roused in their

country; when the war in which they were engaged was waged against the

inclination, and, in appearance at least, against the interests of a

large and powerful party at home, which sympathized from political

feeling with their enemies, and were ready to decry every success and

magnify every disaster of their own arms, from a secret feeling that

their party elevation was identified rather with the successes of the

enemy than with those of their own countrymen. The Tories were to

Marlborough precisely what the Whigs were to Wellington. Both were

opposed to the armies of the most powerful monarch, led by the most

renowned generals of Europe, whose forces, preponderating over the

adjoining states, had come to threaten the liberties of all Europe, and

at length produced a general coalition to restrain the ambition from

which so much detriment had already been experienced.

But while in these respects the two British heroes were placed very much

in the same circumstances, in other particulars, not less material,

their situations were widely different. Marlborough had never any

difficulties approaching those which beset Wellington to struggle with.

By great exertions, both on his own part and that of the British and

Dutch governments, his force was generally equal to that with which he

had to contend. It was often exactly so. War at that period, in the Low

Countries at least, consisted chiefly of a single battle during a

campaign, followed by the siege of two or three frontier fortresses. The

number of strongholds with which the country bristled, rendered any

farther or more extensive operations, in general, impossible. This state

of matters at once rendered success more probable to a general of

superior abilities, and made it more easy to repair disaster. No

vehement passions had been roused, bringing whole nations into the

field, and giving one state, where they had burnt the fiercest, a vast

superiority in point of numbers over its more pacific or less excited

neighbours. But in all these respects, the circumstances in which

Wellington was placed, were not only not parallel--they were contrasted.

From first to last, in the Peninsula, he was enormously outnumbered by

the enemy. Until the campaign of 1813, when his force in the field was,

for the first time, equal to that of the French, the superiority to

which he was opposed was so prodigious, that the only surprising thing

is, how he was not driven into the sea in the very first encounter.

While the French had never less than 200,000, sometimes as many as

260,000 effective troops at their disposal, after providing for all

their garrisons and communications, the English general had never more

than 30,000 effective British and 20,000 Portuguese around his standard.

The French were directed by the Emperor, who, intent on the subjugation

of the Peninsula, and wielding the inexhaustible powers of the

conscription for the supply of his armies, cared not though he lost

100,000 men, so as he purchased success by their sacrifice in every

campaign. Wellington was supported at home by a government, which,

raising its soldiers by voluntary enrolment, could with difficulty

supply a drain of 15,000 men a-year from their ranks, and watched by a

party which decried every advantage, and magnified every disaster, in

order to induce the entire withdrawal of the troops from the Peninsula.

Napoleon sent into Spain a host of veterans trained in fifteen years’

combats, who had carried the French standards into every capital of

Europe. Wellington led to this encounter troops admirably disciplined,

indeed, but almost all unacquainted with actual war, and who had often

to learn the rudiments even of the most necessary field operations in

presence of the enemy. Marlborough’s troops, though heterogeneous and

dissimilar, had been trained to their practical duties in the preceding

wars under William III., and brought into the field a degree of

experience noways inferior to that of their opponents. Whoever weighs

with impartiality those different circumstances, cannot avoid arriving

at the conclusion that as Wellington’s difficulties were incomparably

more formidable than Marlborough’s, so his merit, in surmounting them,

was proportionally greater.

Though similar in many respects, so far as the general conduct of their

campaigns is concerned, from the necessity under which both laboured of

husbanding the blood of their soldiers, the military qualities of

England’s two chiefs were essentially different, and each possessed some

points in which he was superior to the other. By nature Wellington was

more daring than Marlborough, and though soon constrained, by necessity,

to adopt a cautious system, he continued, throughout all his career, to

incline more to a hazardous policy. The intrepid advance and fight at

Assaye; the crossing of the Douro and movement on Talavera in 1809; the

advance to Madrid and Burgos in 1812; the actions before Bayonne in

1813; the desperate stand made at Waterloo in 1815--place this beyond a

doubt. Marlborough never hazarded so much on the success of a single

enterprise: he ever aimed at compassing his objects by skill and

combination, rather than risking them on the chance of arms. Wellington

was a mixture of Turenne and Eugene: Marlborough was the perfection of

the Turenne school alone. No man could fight more ably and gallantly

than Marlborough: his talent and rapidity of eye in tactics were, at

least, equal to his skill in strategy and previous combination. But he

was not partial to such desperate passages at arms, and never resorted

to them, but from necessity or the emergency of a happy opportunity for

striking a blow. The proof of this is decisive. Marlborough, during ten

campaigns, fought only five pitched battles. Wellington in seven fought

fifteen, in every one of which he proved victorious.[5]

Marlborough’s consummate generalship, throughout his whole career, kept

him out of disaster. It was said, with justice, that he never fought a

battle which he did not gain, nor laid siege to a town which he did not

take. He took above twenty fortified places of the first order,

generally in presence of an enemy’s army superior to his own.

Wellington’s bolder disposition, more frequently involved him in peril,

and on some occasions caused serious losses to his army; but they were

the price at which he purchased his transcendent successes. But

Wellington’s bolder strategy gained for him advantages which the more

circumspect measures of his predecessor never could have attained.

Marlborough would never, with scarcely any artillery, have hazarded the

attack on Burgos, nor incurred the perilous chances of the retreat from

that town; but he never would have delivered the South of the Peninsula

in a single campaign, by throwing himself, with 40,000 men, upon the

communications, in the North, of 200,000. It is hard to say which was

the greater general, if their merits in the field alone are considered;

but Wellington’s successes were the more vital to his country, for they

delivered it from the greater peril; and they were more honourable to

himself, for they were achieved against greater odds. And his fame, in

future times, will be proportionally brighter; for the final overthrow

of Napoleon, and destruction of the revolutionary power, in a single

battle, present an object of surpassing interest, to which there is

nothing in history, perhaps, parallel, and which, to the latest

generation, will fascinate the minds of men.

The examination of the comparative merits of these two illustrious

generals, and the enumeration of the names of their glorious triumphs,

suggests one reflection of a very peculiar kind. That England is a

maritime power, that the spirit of her inhabitants is essentially

nautical, and that the sea is the element on which her power has chiefly

been developed, need be told to none who reflect on the magnitude of her

present colonial empire, and how long she has wielded the empire of the

waves. The French are the first to tell us that her strength is confined

to that element; that she is, at land, only a third-rate power; and that

the military career does not suit the genius of her people. How, then,

has it happened that England, the nautical power, and little inured to

land operations, has inflicted greater wounds upon France by _military_

success, than any other power, and that in almost all the pitched

battles which the two nations have fought, during five centuries, the

English have proved victorious? That England’s military force is

absorbed in the defence of a colonial empire which encircles the earth,

is indeed certain, and, in every age, the impatience of taxation in her

people has starved down her establishment, during peace, to so low a

point, as rendered the occurrence of disaster, in the first years

consequent on the breaking out of war, a matter of certainty; while the

military spirit of its neighbours has kept theirs at the level which

ensures early success. Yet with all these disadvantages, and with a

population which, down to the close of the last war, was little more

than half that of France, she has inflicted far greater _land_ disasters

on her redoubtable neighbour than all the military monarchies of Europe

put together.

English armies, for 120 years, ravaged France: they have twice taken its

capital; an English king was crowned at Paris; a French king rode

captive through London; a French emperor died in English captivity, and

his remains were surrendered by English generosity. Twice the English

horse marched from Calais to the Pyrenees; the monuments of Napoleon in

the French capital at this moment, owe their preservation from German

revenge to an English general. All the great disasters and days of

mourning for France, since the battle of Hastings,--Tenchebray, Cressy,

Poitiers, Azincour, Verneuil, Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ramilies, Malplaquet,

Minden, Quebec, Egypt, Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Orthes, the

Pyrenees, Waterloo,--were all gained by English generals, and won, for

the most part, by English soldiers. Even at Fontenoy, the greatest

victory over England of which France can boast since Hastings, every

regiment in the French army was, on their own admission, routed by the

terrible English column, and victory was snatched from its grasp solely

by want of support on the part of the Dutch and Austrians. No coalition

against France has ever been successful, in which England did not take a

prominent part; none, in the end, failed of gaining its objects, in

which she stood foremost in the fight. This fact is so apparent on the

surface of history, that it is admitted by the ablest French historians,

though they profess themselves unable to explain it.

Is it that there is a degree of hardihood and courage in the Anglo-Saxon

race which renders them, without the benefit of previous experience in

war, adequate to the conquest, on land, even of the most warlike

Continental military nations? Is it that the quality of dogged

resolution, determination not to be conquered, is of such value in war,

that it compensates almost any degree of inferiority in the practical

acquaintance with war? Is it that the North brings forth a bolder race

of men than the South, and that, other things being equal, the people in

a more rigorous climate will vanquish those in a more genial? Is it that

the free spirit which, in every age, has distinguished the English

people, has communicated a degree of vigour and resolution to their

warlike operations, which has rendered them so often victorious in land

fights, albeit nautical and commercial in their ideas, over their

military neighbours? Or is it, that this courage in war, and this vigour

in peace, and this passion for freedom at all times, arise from and are

but symptoms of an ardent and aspiring disposition, imprinted by Nature

on the races to whom was destined the dominion of half the globe?

Experience has not yet determined to which of these causes this most

extraordinary fact has been owing; but it is one upon which our military

neighbours, and especially the French, would do well to ponder, now that

the population of the British isles will, on the next census, be _thirty

millions_. If England has done such things in Continental warfare, with

an army which never brought fifty thousand native British sabres and

bayonets into the field, what would be the result if national distress

or necessities, or a change in the objects of general desire, were to

send two hundred thousand?

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE THAMES.