out with predilection. It may be contended this is the province of those who write histories of inventions, of science, of literature, of architecture, or the arts; but there are also peculiar historians of military affairs, whose province it is to treat of the exploits of armies and navies, with a view to the improvement of the art of war; those who undertake general history are not to usurp more on the province of the latter than of the former class of special historians. Yet they habitually do; and with mischievous result: hinc ille clades. Men are slain, because historians convoke around the are na of warfare the greatest crowd of spectators. Are those the only games of glory, in which boys and barbarians are most fitted to excel? We are for invert ing the plan of Mr. Mayo, for composing the history of human culture and social improvement, and for throwing by, into supplementary chapters, the scuffles and skirmishes of troops and ships. The useful appendix of miscellanies much atones here for the omission of such topics in the text. The interruptions of the progress of a community in amelioration should not, however, be treated by the historiographer as interfering with his end and purpose.

To apply a detailed criticism to all the parts of this complex composition, would overstep the bounds of our convenience, and employ more time than would be welcome to the reader. We will notice therefore only a few defects in the account of Poland. Our author's relation of the revolution there (vol. iii. p. 213) is couched in these words:

"When the diet had framed that system of government which was the result of their labours for the national good, asystem which every disinterested person must acknowledge to be marked with judgment and patriotisin, the leading members of it, actuated by the confidence which the justness of their cause and the greatness of their object gave them, assembled in the royal chainber, on the third day of May, and solemnly engaged, in the presence of their sovereign, never to separate till the intended revolution should be accomplished.

"His majesty then opened the assembly of the diet; and, as a preparation to their deberations and an incentive to perseverance, he apprised them of the machinations against their welfare, carrying on among those powrs who had before violently despoiled them of their provinces, and of their intention to oppose the constitution which awaited their approbation, and on which they built their

hopes of prosperity. Some debates ensued ; in which the representatives of the provinces of Voll and Podolia declared against the new stern. After long discussion, when it appea that there was a majority of ten to diet, the king called the bishop of Cracow, one in favour of the plan submitted to the and took the oath at his hands. A great ma jority of the assembly followed his example. They then repaired to the cathedral, and there again solemnly engaged, before God and their country, to maintain a constitution which, combining liberty with subordina tion, and subjecting equally citizens of all means of happiness, and gave them the true rauks to the law, secured to all of them the enjoyment of their rights. After that, the te deum was sung, and the new constitution was announced to the people by the discharge of 200 pieces of artillery. A small number of deputies protested against these proceedings. But this did not prevent the ratification of them two days after.

stitution were these. That the Roman catho"The most important articles of this con lie faith shall be the dominant national religion; but that persons of all other religions shall have the freedom, liberty, and the protection of government. The nobles were secured in the pre-eminence and prerogatives granted to their order by Cassiter the First. of the republic were declared to be a part of The royal free towns within the dominions the present constitution, and were secured in their immunities. A particular re gard was paid by this constitution to the rights and privileges of peasants and husbandmen, for the encouragement of population and the advancement of agricultural improvements. All power was declared to be derived from the will of the people; whereof ed in the states; the executive in the king the legislative branch was declared to be vestand the council of inspection; the judicial in jurisdictions existing, or to be established. The diet, or legislative power, was to be divided into two houses; viz. the house of nuncios, or deputies, and the house of senators, where the king is to preside, consisting of bishops, palatines, castellans, and minis ters. All bills were to be decided first in the house of deputies. The ordinary diets were to be elected every two years: and an extraordinary constitutional diet was to be held, for the purpose of revision, once in twentyfive years. The crown was declared to be hereditary; and the right of succession to be in Frederic Augustus, elector of Saxony, and his male descendants. The king was to have the command of the national forces, but not the power of declaring war. He was to have the nomination of bishops, senators, ministers, as members of the executive power, and was also to patentee officers in the army. The council of inspection were made responsible for their conduct with their persons and fortunes. By this excellent constitution, appointments in the army, the law, the church

and the civil government would have been attainable to the nation at large; and all men of merit would have been eligible to them." In the first place the diet did not frame the constitution in question. It was contrived by certain leaders in CORcert with the king, and presented ready cut and dry to the dict on the celebrated sitting on the 3d of May 1791. Prince Czetwertinski complained in his place, that these sheets of paper called a constitution, which the diet was invited to decree instantly, then met his eye for the first time: it abolished, he observed, elective monarchy, to bestow unlimited power on future hereditary kings. "To me," he added, "it appears the grave of freedom, I will not dip a spade in it: may God annihilate me and my three children, if any personal interest motives my declaration against this act; but I call on the assembled nation to bear witness that I deplore it, that I oppose it, that I enter against it my protest." Prince Sapicha also complained of the headlong inconsiderate manner in which this fundamental change was brought forwards. He wished for unanimity, not for that unanimity which the shouts and cries of a surrounding populace were demanding with threats; but for the unanimity which might result from patient discussion and reciprocal concession. Without unanimity there was little chance of preserving the integrity of the country: he would support, he said, whatever was decreed, but he thought it his duty to move a second reading. The minority was not count. ed: the new constitution passed by acclamation: the scnators marched in pro. cession without further deliberation to the cathedral, and there swore, after the king's example, to this royal edict. When it came to Sapieha's turn to swear, he declared aloud that the constitution was a paper wholly new to him, that he ap. proved the election of the elector of Saxony as the intended king of Poland, that he disapproved the introduction of hereditary monarchy; but that he feared division more than error: as the one was a danger of to-day, and the other would be corrigible to-morrow. He then swore.

And what is the substance of this constitution so bepraised by Mr. Mayo? The first article declares that the Roman catholic religion shall conti.

nue the domincering one; and that com version to any other faith shall be subject to the punishments enacted agains: apostacy.

It expressly withholds therefore th political equality of religious sects: though a principal cause of the Poli divisions had been the habitual oppression of the unitarian dissidents.

The second article declares that the noble order shall retain all its privilege, precedence in private life and preference for civil office but it withdraws the dis tinction between the equestrian and patrician order. It exempts noble pro perty from taxation, abolishing th crown-regalia and other forms of levy hitherto usual.

The third article recognizes certain royal boroughs as parts of the consti tution.

The fourth article confirms the va salage of the peasantry; but it abolishes a right of resumption formerly exercis by the heir, to the prejudice of those w had purchased their emancipation of h predecessor.

It expressly withholds therefore th community of civil rights. The nob: lity obtained liberty to go untaxed, ard equality of rank; but neither liberty n equality were conferred in any sen on the people. The fifth and sixth cr ticles vest the legislative power in a d of two bodies; the executive power the king and council (Stras, watch, i their Polish designation); and the jud cial power in the extant magistracy The lower house, or house of depur is first to discuss and vote on all public measures. The upper house, or hou of senators, is to consist of the bishop the waywodes, the castellans, and i. ministers, provided by the king, who h the casting vote. The suffrage contere on the ten ministers nominated by the crown was a constitutional innovation, and sufficed with the ecclesiastical and civil patronage to center upon the crown an habitual, irresistible majority in the upper house. To this upper house vas given a right of sending back to the com mons for rediscussion any unwelcome law; and of quashing that law entirely, if still disapproved, when proposed to them a second time. So that the repie sentative body was in fact now first re dered impotent. The lower house was

to be renewed biennially, and the liberum te abolish ed. Thus the commons lost even their own negative against the se

nate.

The seventh article makes the crown hereditary in a new dynasty, the clectoral family of Sarony. Heirs male were to succeed in their own right: in defect of heirs male the husband of the daughter but the consent of the Polish diet to her marriage was rendered necessary. Frederic Augustus of Saxony had only an unmarried daughter; so that the elec. tive character of the crown, although inveighed against in words, was in fact preserved.

And shall the perfidy of history hold up such changes as meritorious, where nothing was done to remedy one acknowledged grievance, where new grievances were created, and a house of commons reduced to the insignificance of Parisian tribunes, and the nobility bribed with privileges to extend the royal inFence? Indeed it was not worth the bile of the citizens of Poland to attempt the defence of their country against par, for so paltry a sheet of gallic verbiage from the royal secretary. The magic words liberty and equality were however in the deed: the newspapers, filled with French discussions, had associated ideas of donative with the expressions, and this aristocratic parody of the Parisian revolution, passed, with the inattentive and ignorant, for an analo. gs change. The new constitution of and was probably encouraged by the ables of the Prussian party with the expretation of getting the house of Brandenburg nomimated as the new hereditary dynasty: this would have founded a dormant claim to more of Poland than the Partition of Poland was to bestow, and night at a remote futurity be of value. The new constitution of Poland was probably encouraged by the king with the

tion of marrying the heiress of Freeric Augustus. Hope of resistance by rce for any length of time could hardly he entertained; but there was a hope that the united efforts of France and England would be used to qualify the partition; and to leave a corner of PoLand independent, lest one more fugitive king should have to pass his carnivals at Venice. The lover too relied on the recollections of Catharine to allow him 2 marriage portion worthy of Saxony: but the massacre of the Russians in

Warsaw, with the connivance of the noble revolutionists, could never be pardoned by the patriotism of the cmpress.

The demagogic words and public swearings of the king and the nobility were accompanied with little or no prac tical effort to preserve the independence of the country, otherwise than by nego tiation and territorial sacrifice. According to Sirisa, who, though partial to the partitioners, is a thoroughly informed historian, the perpetual fermentation of the public mind, and the discontent of a large portion of the inhabitants first broke loose on the 3d of February 1794 at the assembly of deputies, who disbanded suddenly a large portion of the army. One brigade of fourteen hundred men at Pultusk opposed the reduction in arms: they refused to inlist in the Prussian or Russian corps, and demanded a continuance of pay and of subsistence. Madalinski, the brigadier of the nation il cavalry, followed this example; he collected his eighteen hundred men in the neigh bourhood of Warsaw, strengthened them to 3000, and administered to them the oath of liberty and independence, or death. He then attacked a Russian regiment, made himself master of a chest of thirty thousand roubles, entered Southern Prussia, and levied contributions on the salt works, and thus founded a revo lution-treasury of sixty thousand ducats. He now withdrew toward Cracow, and met Kosciusko, whom other fragments of the disbanded army had been induced to join. Kosciusko had less simplicity of object than Madalinski: he derived authority from the king and his constitution-mongers, and he drilled the soldiers to swear to the constitution. dalinski's views might have called out leaders adequate to the difficulty; Kosciusko secured the ascendancy of a party of heartless courtiers.

Ma

The people daily doubted more and more the value of his success: they took but a declining interest in his cause; and supported his final defeat with much of the firmness of indifference.

The number of Kosciusko's adherents was estimated in Cracow at seven thou sand men, beside whom he had concealed friends and adherents throughout the republic and in the retained army. He took all the military chests under his centroul, ordered the plate of the churches to be delivered up, and con

stituted a revolutionary tribunal of fourteen persons, who opened their career with the execution of the castellan Rimiszewski. He published a proclama tion ordering every fifth chimney in the cities to furnish a conscript. The Russian general Igielstrom, in order to counteract these proceedings, ordered many of his troops from Warsaw, where he retained a garrison only of six thousand men. This gave great encouragement to the revolutionists. In the night of the 16th of April an uproar began in the metropolis. The people collected in the market-place. The alarm bells were rung: the drums beaten. "Down with the Russians" became the popular watch word. The king pointed out to general Igielstrom the expediency of a retreat, and the fittest road, but he made an attempt to fortify himself in the arsenal, which had already been broken open by the people, and was supplying them with weapons. The union of the people and of the Polish troops supplied a mass of thirty thousand furious individuals, who began a massacre of the Russians, analogous to the Sicilian vespers. General Igelstrom persevered in defensive hostility for thirty-six hours, during which an irregular slaughter of the Russians was continually going on: he withdrew on the 18th of April with twelve hundred men, and general Nowicki with two thousand more than two thousand Russians had been slain: among the prisoners were three generals and 122

wounded men.

Secure of the metropolis, Kosciusko began an extensive plan of operations: he provided for the sicge of Cracow, he organised at Wilna and at Grodno attacks on the Russian garrisons, and his military or revolutionary tribunal executed on the 9th of May at Warsaw a bishop, two generals and a marshal.

The interference of Prussia, and the approach of Suwarrow soon narrowed the circle of his influence and his hopes. On the 10th of October was fought, with admirable bravery on both sides, the decisive battle, in which Kosciusko was repeatedly wounded, and at length struck down by a sabre, exclaiming finis Polonia. The words were but too prophetic. The courage rather than the humanity of his proceedings; the principles which animated his adherents, rather than the specific objects of their leaders; give a sacredness to his cause. He was the

chieftain of men who chose to live free or die.

To the teachers of opinions it may be a mortifying reflection, but it is surely a true one, that moral principles, and speculative notions, act but little on the practical warrior. To the sudden dis banding of the Polish army, arising from the financial penury of the state, was due the creation of this army of independ ence. The revolutionary principles were as well a pretext, as a cause of combina tion. Much of this spirited resistance to the partitioning powers resolves itself into Cesar's declaration: "With these soldiers we shall get money: and with that money, more soldiers."

A narration of the attack on Copenhagen, which has eventually been so injurious to British popularity in the north of Europe, will give a sufficient idea of our author's ever gentle tone of criticism.

"The court of London well knew that, should an ambassador be sent, unattended by an armed force, the confederate powers must eventually be gratified. Therefore, at the same time that Mr. Vansittart was di patched with a flag of truce to join Mr Drummond, the British minister at Copenand its allies, admiral Hyde Parker, with hagen, in negotiations with the Danish court vice-admiral Nelson and rear-admiral Graves, were sent with a fleet of eighteen sail of the line, four frigates, and thirty gun-boats, to enforce them.

"The Danish navy, at this time, consisted of twenty-three ships of the line, the Swedish of eighteen, and the Russian of forty-seven: and the forts of Helsingburg and Cronenrisoned, and batteries had been crected in burg, which guard the Sound, were well g every point where the guns could reach the English ships.-Such was the naval forc with which Great Britain had to contendi the Baltic, when Mr. Vansittart, on th twentieth of Marchi, arrived at Elsineur, and presented the ultimatum of his court to the Danish " that Degovernment, requiring, "mark should secede from the northern all"ance; that a free passage should be granted "to the English fleet through the Sound

and that the Danish ships should no longe "sail with convoy." These requisitions not being complied with, the British ministers took their departure from Copenhagen.

"The English admiral arriving in the Sound, seven days after the plenipotentiars. the determination of the Danish court re demanded of the governor of Cronenborg specting the matter in dispute; and whethe he had orders to fire on the English fleetThe governor's answer implied, that he w unacquainted with political transactions; bu

at he was not at liberty to suffer a fleet, hose destination was not known, to apreach the fort which he commanded. After patching a second letter, importing, that considered the governor's answer as a dearation of war, the English admiral entered eSound; and, being fired on by the governor, he returned his salute by a slight abardment. Then, passing on, he came anchor near Hwen island, between the Sound and Copenhagen.⚫

dition; and that the city was defended by a strong garrison. He therefore availed himself of the dismay impressed on his enemy by the havock made among them, instantly to address a letter to the prince royal, before he should be apprised of the state of the British ships, "representing the expediency of his allowing a flag of truce to

pass; and that, if this were refused, he "should be under the necessity of destroying "the floating batteries, which were now in "his power, with the brave men who defend"ed them."

"This letter, addressed "To the brothers of Englishmen the Danes," had the desired effect. Nelson going on shore, in consequence of the honour shewn it, was greeted with hearty acclamations by the people, and was received with the utmost courtesy aud respect by the prince.

= 10,000 men.

To attack a fortress thus prepared for defence, was an act of the most daring boldtess: the influence which success would have n the issue of the enterprise, alone could stify it. But is was such in which Nelson red to display his valour, when his counn's service demanded it. Being gratified -th the honour of conducting the attack, he shanced, with twelve sail of the line, and a umber of small vessels, to Draco Point, here he was to make his final disposition; whilst the remainder of the fleet were to corate, by bombarding the batteries at the trance of the harbour.

The awful moment of preparation being passed, Nelson came to the attack †, captain Array, in the Edgar, leading the van. A Paramus battle ensued, in the course of which English admiral and his brave crews exted prodigies of valour. The Danes, on e other hand, shewed themselves worthy vala, as well as antagonists, of the British ; and the prince of Denmark ani1ted his forces to exertion, by the compoand spirit which he displayed in this ar of danger. When the battle had raged th prodigious slaughter above four hours, seventeen Danish ships of the line were aken, sunk, or burned, their batteries were arost silenced, and the city was, apparently, the hands of the British admiral. This was one of the favourable moments which splayed the character of Nelson in the most antageous light: it evinced that, with be most undaunted courage, he possessed hat discretion and presence of mind, which drtinguished the accomplished commander from the knight errant. He reflected that three of his ships, the Bellona, the Russel, and the Agamennon, were aground; that sether ships were in a very shattered con

"An armistice was then agreed to, that the prince and admiral might settle the terms of peace. Some difficulties obstructed the adjustment, originating, it was supposed, in the demand, that Denmark should abandon the alliance of Russia. The negotiation was still on foot, when intelligence arrived of an event, which made a sudden and total change in the state of things in the north," and had a material influence on the councils of all the powers of Europe that was the death of the emperor Paul, who was found dead in his bed on the twenty-second of

March.

"His son, and successor, the emperor Alexander, who was fice from the passions which had actuated his father, perceived the folly of that system of policy into which he had been hurried, when he had blindly suffered himself to become the dupe of France. Immediately declaring for that system of foreign policy which the empress Catharine had adopted in her latter years, he cancelled all his father's hostile acts towards Great Britain, and dispatched a minister to the court of London, to testify his friendship for hi Britannic majesty. Both parties being disposed to amity, a convention was soon concluded, by which, in order to prevent disputes in future, the right of search of me:→ chant ships going under convoy was liited to the sole cases, in which the belligerent power may experience a real prejudice by the abuse of the neutral flag. It was also agreed, that the treaty of commerce, as settled in 1797, should be renewed; and that such ar rangements should be made, respecting vari ous matters between the two countries, as may answer their good understanding.

Agreeably with an article in this convention, the kings of Sweden and Denmark were invited to become parties in it. Th exploit of the British arms in the Baltic being rendered more effectual, by the reduetion of the Danish and Swedish islands in the West Indies, these powers could have little