troops should perish by the sword, by famine, and afterwards by pestilence, rather than that he should avert useless destruction by composition with his foe. But he did hot in the least retrieve his position after this day of Leipzig; he merely drew the war on to the soil of France instead of Germany, wore out a few months in unsuccessful defence of his capital, and then surrendered not only his arms but his crown. The days of Leipzig were the days of Fate.

His personal courage, however, is very distinctly witnessed by the records of these events. It does not seem as if he courted, or defied, or despised danger in the chivalrous sense, so much as that his mind was so absorbed in the direction of his battles that he had no place in it for apprehensions about himself. Constantly we read of him standing in situations where his staff and others were being destroyed close to him, and where shot and shell were falling profusely about; while he, surveying and contemplating the fortunes of the field, was absolutely insensible to what was passing at his elbow. At Hanau, while he was giving some directions, a shell fell quite close to him. He paid no attention to it, and no one dared to interrupt his speech; but those about him hardly breathed while they awaited the explosion. The missile penetrated so far into the ground that its bursting was harmless. Napoleon does not seem to have been aware that there ever had been any danger. At the passage of the Elbe, when a ball struck some wood close to him, and sent splinter on to his neck, he so far recognised the danger as to say, "If it had struck me on the breast, all had been over." When he was suddenly recalled to Dresden by the unexpected attack of the Allies,

VOL. CXX.-NO. DCCXXIX.

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their fire was very hot over a space which he had to pass, and he crawled along there on his hands and knees, but never thought of waiting, or of seeking another path. Nobody has ever given a reason why fortune should constantly favour these strong adventurous men; nor why they should be aware, as they seem to be, that they are proof against accidents that may come to other men. Force. of will and physical vigour might be urged as the causes of the men's temerity; but strength of will or of body cannot keep off the strokes of shot and shell!

Most of those who have roamed over the vast theatre of his German defeat, and mused on his fortunes and character, will spend some time before Napoleon's portrait by Delaroche in the Museum. The momentous act of his life-drama which was begun at Leipzig ended at Fontainebleau; and, as we look at the fallen hero, the baffled politician, the conqueror who was to conquer no more, we ascertain the goal of his infatuation, and recognise the answer of Providence to one who has said, "Tush! God hath forgotten." All is past; all is lost; empire is vanishing away; and the fixed gaze peering space, and daring to regard neither the past nor the future, offers a terrible lesson. Not a scintilla of comfort derived from honour saved, or duty done, is to be traced in the expression. The glory had departed, and with it had gone all that could lift up the soul. That look of blank despair tells that nothing is left!

into

On being cleared of its invaders, Leipzig presented a series of scenes as horrible as the mind can conceive. Heaps upon heaps of dead and dying lay all round and all through it, some of them nearly filling the Frankfurter Strasse up

E

to the fatal bridge. The sick and wounded amounted to nearly forty thousand, besides an enormous number of unwounded prisoners. The resources of the town were utterly exhausted, so that one sees that these wretches who could not get away had but a miserable prospect; yet no anticipation of their misery could correctly foreshadow the event. It is certain that of the innumerable sick and wounded none had bed or shirt; and that a very large number had not even protection from the weather, but lay in sheds, on dunghills, and in

the

streets. Fifty-six hospitals were improvised, but these afforded scarce more than shelter from the weather. Medical attendance, appliances, or stores, were procurable in quantity altogether inadequate to the requirements of the occasion. Where the wounded were fortunate enough to find cover, they are described as packed together like herrings in a barrel, and lying in the blood-stained rags in which they were brought in from the field. Of course mortification, lock-jaw, and other horrors overtook the mutilated. Rough shingles were used for splints, and it is known that amputations were in many cases performed by persons who knew nothing of surgery. The town had been left so destitute of provision of food that it was impossible to feed the immense hosts that were left in it helpless; and it is a horrible truth that French soldiers were seen grubbing in the dirt-heaps for bones and apple or vegetable parings. In some parts of the town birds and dogs fed on human bodies. To crown all this, a pestilence, as might have been expected, broke out, and afflicted the peaceful inhabitants as well as the soldiers.

Where it was so hard to find

shelter for the sick, prisoners could not hope to fare very well. These were thrust into any place, no matter how noisome, where they could be secure Many of them were stowed in the cemeteries, in the vaults with the dead, whose coffins they burned to keep themselves from perishing of cold. The scenes and the suffering were altogether as dreadful and shocking as can be conceived. "It is well," says one of the German writers who recount these things, "that children should learn with what suffering their freedom has been bought."

our

It is a relief to turn from the recital or perusal of these horrors to the present aspect of the town and country where they were enacted. Spring is budding; the trees are alive with birds; and where the skaters were lately busy, you have dancing shadows and sparkling fountains. As warmth and sunshine gladden the sober industrious region, and the ploughman, in full security of his reward in autumn, begins his patient labour, the scenes are suggestive of only hope and peace. The small birds, not hunted and persecuted as they are elsewhere, skim across your path, or pursue their fancies, whatever they may be-the old ones foraging, the young trying their pinions, almost within your grasp, so little terror have they of humankind. Their tameness does not arise, like that of Alexander Selkirk's friends, from unacquaintance with man, but from long experience that man is not their enemy. German boys are not given to torturing and putting to death in a wanton way. If they go about in spring and summer equipped with fly-nets and canisters like candleboxes for the capture of insects, this is allowed in the interest of

science—a name that will excuse anything to a German understand ing; but it is no part of their creed that they have a mission requiring them to put to death every animal weaker than themselves. And so the little birds are very confiding, and perhaps a trifle happier than if they believed their lives to be in constant danger from the other two legged animals. It is all so It is all so quiet and peaceful, and has such an air of having been always quiet and peaceful, and going to be always quiet and peaceful, that "historic doubts" are engendered, and one questions whether it be not easier to believe that a narrative of strife and carnage has been forged than that these tranquil plains have ever resounded to "great ordnance in the field," or been enriched with the gore of tens of myriads. They show you a ball lodged in the angle of a church, or a hole through an old gable-good; but what do these prove? You may see, standing about, pillars commemorating this or that episode in the great epic; but we have heard before how a column sometimes "lifts its head and lies," and they who would write cunningly devised fables would chisel also false inscriptions. If Troy was a fancy, why Lot Leipzig? It would be pleasant to believe the latter to be but a glorious myth; and, standing here on this gentle April day, one feels. strangely tempted toward such a belief.

But no. Whatever nature may seem to cry aloud in this her tranquil mood, the testimony of "articulate-speaking men," of men who felt only too keenly all that they spoke and left on record, assures us that the battle of Leipzig was a great fact the greatest probably that has had place in Europe since the middle ages. On these plains

was in reality broken the devilish power of the French Revolution. There began that chastisement of an impious nation, which has never to this day ceased. Here religion, order, justice, national independence, again asserted themselves, and overturned the sway of the sword, of rapine, of unbelief, and of all the evil passions of fallen humanity. The tide of French aggression was fairly turned back; the limit of revolutionary success had been reached; and blighted, pillaged Europe was permitted once more to breathe freely, and entertain the trembling hope of one day being again at rest, and of men rearing vines and fig-trees which they might dare to call their own. Here set that star of which Napoleon spoke so arrogantly, and in which he placed so great trust. Hereafter he was but a broken adventurer, put to all his shifts to prolong his doomed empire, going from fall to fall, and at last perishing miserably!

If, then, the spot where a great blow has been struck for freedom should be sacred in men's eyes, these plains of Leipzig are hallowed ground. It is good to meditate in sight of them; and, from the midst of the silence and plenty and peace which now reign there, to cast back a thought to the havoc and misery which they have witnessed. Happy are the generations which inherit the prosperity without having known the sorrow with which it was purchased! but they must never forget the price that was paid, nor enjoy their blessings without a thought of the great struggle through which they are this day free. "He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest,.

and is quiet; they break forth into singing.'

Great scarcity of the sinews of war all over the continent of Europe is said by some of the very wise to be the sole cause of the nations being peacefully disposed at this moment. If so, we discover a new virtue in poverty. It is pleasant, too, to reflect that England, which has means, and which has some stake in the subjects of contention, is no longer content to be voiceless when so many throats are sounding their claims and designs. I do not think the cause of peace will be the least injured by England rousing herself; and I am sure that the respect of other Powers and our own self-respect will be largely in creased by her so acting. As long as the world continues to be such as it now is, the axiom will hold that they who desire peace should be ready for war - honourable peace, that is to say. Of course,

at the expense of being kicked and spit upon, a nation may for a time buy off hostilities. But this is but futile policy, as we learned three or four years since. A British Minister should deserve to have in his epitaph some words which were engraved over the shell of Commodore Trunnion: "He kept his guns ready loaded, and his tackle ready manned, and never showed his poop to the enemy except when he took him in tow." But I must not begin to scribble about politics after so long a letter on warlike matters. It has given me much pleasure to survey these battle-fields, and to learn what I could concerning them; and if you and the readers of Maga care to follow my wanderings, I shall again rejoice. Now, for the present, farewell. Accept, my dear Editor, these presents, and the warm regard of

A WANDERING ENGLISHMAN.

"DEAR! Did you really?

clever!"

How

"I can put up with everything about her, but that How clever !" cried Elizabeth, when the lady had departed. "It always comes out in the same tone, and with the same emphasis. Whatever one does, if it be but the veriest trifle, something that even a Lady Adelaide could accomplish herself without too much trouble, it is sure to obtain that ali-embracing epithet. I do not believe her vocabulary could supply any other note of admiration. She never rises above it, and never falls below. When she heard that Captain Webb had swum across the Channel, and that I had worked a crochet anti-macassar, she said of us both, How clever!"

Her friend laughed.

"Is it not provoking, Anne?" "Provoking? Perhaps; if it were worth being provoked about." "You think it is not? But you don't know till you have been tried. I had rather endure one good swordcut and have done with it, than be the victim of a thousand lancetpricks. How often did you hear that little soft ejaculation during the last half-hour? Be on your honour, Anne."

"More than once, I confess,"
"And you had noticed it?"
"Yes, I had."

"Well, was it not, as I said, called forth by great and small, somethings and nothings, alike? Was it not a most absurd comment most promiscuously applied, by a most stupid woman? Come, Anne, join me; it will do you good, or, if not, it will do me good to hear it. Say what you think, you prudent

Anne; confess, break forth, you fountain of wisdom, and overflow your banks like Jordan! You had noticed it, you had felt it all the time, and yet you shake your head, you knit your brows? Oh, I fear you not; I shall say my say, and moan my moan, and none shall stop me. See, I am the better for it already! I have not-upon my word, I have not felt so charitably disposed towards the poor dear lady for a long time."

Anne, smiling-"That does you credit, surely. The prick of a pin stirs up this tempest, and the tempest subsides with the same show of reason wherewith it arose. storm in a teacup, Lizzie. Much ado about

A

"Not nothing-not nothing, you tiresome creature! you will not surely pretend to declare that it is nothing?"

"You will not surely venture to affirm that it is something?"

"I affirm it, and maintain it, Anne."

"Then you are a little-foolish, dear."

"And you are a very great deal exasperating, darling."

Anne smiles, Elizabeth laughs. The door opens, and a footman, with uncertain bewildered steps, approaches the upper end of the

room.

"My lady's gloves, ma'am. Under the sofa, or on the mantelpiece, or on the floor."

"The locality being so precisely described, he cannot fail to find them immediately," observes his mistress aside.

"Look on the piano, William." On the piano the gloves are dis