between him and the queen, and we insert it chiefly to show the fallacy of such statements even when given with such semblance of authority.

At Tilsit the Emperor had an interview with the Queen of Prussia on the eve he said to one of his generals; They say she is a fine wo man.' 66 It will be," said the courtier, "a rose with a bunch of laurel." The beginning of this interview was polite, even delicate. "I expected, madam," said Bonaparte, “to have seen a beautiful queen, but you are the most beautiful woman in the world."-There were some roses in a vase; he took one, and presented it to her. "We know each other very little," she said, timid and confused; may I be made aç. quainted with your majesty's meaning?" "Accept it, madam, accept it; it is a pledge of the friendship which I shall henceforward bear you, as well as your husband." The queen took the rose: she was pale and trembling her women were alarmed. "Do not alarm yourself, madam," said the emperor: "I am wholly your's. If there be any thing that I could do to oblige you, do not deprive me of that pleasure."The queen was silent: he repeated the same sentiment several times. At length, with a hesitating voice, she requested the town of Magdebourg for her son. 66 Magdebourg!" exclaimed the emperor, starting from his seat; Magdebourg! you do not know, Madam, what you ask; let us hear no more of it;" and he hastily took his leave. This anecdote has been differently related: phrases of the most gross kind have been imputed to the emperor, but what I have given here is the truth; it was written down upon the spot.'

Now, although the testimony of the man may, for aught we know, be fully as good on most subjects as that of the master, yet as we happen to have heard that the latter tells the story differently, it is fair to give his version of it. He says that on presenting to the queen at dinner a rose which he had taken out of a vase that happened to be near him, she, on accepting it, asked whether it might be considered by her as a token of friendship, and a proof of his compliance with the request she had made in regard to Magdeburg;' that he parried this attack with a general answer, and some civil speeches, and studiously avoided during the rest of her stay holding out any expectations which might render her sanguine as to the success of her solicitations.

By one of the articles of the treaty, the French troops were. bound within a certain period to evacuate part of the Prussian territory. The time elapsed, but the hapless Prussians saw no symptoms of the departure of their odious visiters; and when Prince William, the brother of the king, was sent to Paris to remonstrate on the nonfulfilment of the treaty, and to point out the distress which was occasioned by the delay, his representations were met by all the political chicanery of the Corsican's school, and 'he was detained at the court of the French emperor," says Madame de Berg,

t

like another Arminius at the camp of Varus.'-But that gallant prince, like his German prototype, has nobly assisted in redeeming the tarnished lustre of the Prussian arms, and witnessed the full measure of revenge which his countrymen have wreaked upon the authors of all the calamities which they had for so long a period endured. In most of the capitals which Bonaparte had entered in triumph, some decency and order had been observed by his troops, but in Berlin their brutality and insolence exceeded all bounds. Let those who are disposed to reprobate the conduct of Blucher in the harshness of his behaviour to the people of Paris, and in his evident anxiety to leave behind him some lasting memorials of his talent for destruction, read the following extracts from Mr. James's work, and then blame the veteran, if they can.

Prussia, at the end of the above-mentioned war, was curtailed of one half of her dominions and population, reduced to the rank of a second-rate power of Germany, subjected to the privations of the continental system, and to the insults of French commissioners sent to execute its decrees. She was drained of men and money by her imperious conqueror; and yet to complete her humiliation, the year 1812 saw the governor of Berlin, and his commandant d'armes, superseded by a French general and his aid-de-camp, while the troops of the king were marched under foreign banners to assist in the subjugation of his former generous ally."-p. 74.

As the Russian army were advancing upon Berlin, the king, though narrowly watched by the French, contrived to make his escape by night, and fled to Breslau. The wretched citizens were now placed in the most awkward dilemma; their wishes and feelings were more than suspected by the French garrison and its commanders. The lower classes, incapable of restraining their expressions of hatred, instigated still more by the daily appearance of the Cossacks at their very gates, seemed every instant on the point of committing some daring act of open revolt against their oppressors; while they, on the other hand, conscious of the rancorous feeling they had provoked, redoubled their menaces of vengeance, and at one time in so high a tone of insolence, as publicly to declare that the first act of aggression on the part of the inhabitants should be followed by the explosion of the military magazines in the Place de Guillaume, which would infallibly have involved in their destruction more than one half of the city. The atrocious temper of the soldiery was well known, and every day seemed big with the threat of some dreadful catastrophe. After a few weeks spent in this fearful state of suspense, at length the French retreated: the gates were instantly thrown open, and the Russians took possession of the place, where they were received as deliverers. Long tables were spread in the streets, hospitality of every sort was profusely lavished on the welcome stran. gers; and, to complete the general satisfaction, the king, complying with the voice of his country, issued a manifesto declaring war against France. pp. 75, 76.

An association which was formed in Germany, under the name of the Bond of Virtue (Tugendbunde), for the laudable purpose of rousing the spirit of opposition to the tyranny of Bonaparte, has, as it appears from some pamphlets lately published on the subject, created some little alarm in Berlin, lest, since the original cause of their union is happily removed, this associated body might turn its attention to a less legitimate project of political interference. There is no danger, we fully believe, to be apprehended on this score. 'The Prussians are a people,' as Mr. James observes,' if properly treated, neither factious nor designing ;'--and it is alone to the unfortunate policy of the court, which was so long persisted in, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the nation, that we are to attribute the germs of those parties which have lately appeared, and which may prove of dangerous consequence to the state, if not properly dealt with.

'Had Prussia,' says he, 'been blessed with a representative system, had the feelings of the people been consulted, she would long since have decided, at a single blow, that war in which Europe was now engaged for the sixth time.

• Had Austria been so constituted-had a proper spirit of inquiry and activity thoroughly cleansed and purged the several parts of her political frame, that country, possessing the greatest national resources, and the finest troops in the world, would not have to lament the fatal reverses that have arisen from a disorganized government, administered by the hand of imbecility.'

A pure monarchy is found wanting in a defensive war. Bona parte never failed to take advantage of this form of government where it existed, and where it did not, introduced it himself in order to abet his schemes of universal domination, prohibiting in every state in Germany the accustomed meetings of the landstande, or parliament, and investing the sovereigns with despotic power.'

That policy which he so prudently adopted in practice, Bona parte, we understand, now supports in theory. Germany, according to him, is not calculated to bear a representative form of govern ment, any more than France, to which he only offered the semblance of one, in order to gratify the public feeling; and we doubt not that some of the dull hours of his banishment are cheered by anticipating the difficulties which may arise among the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, from the disposition which their subjects have shown to demand higher privileges than they at present enjoy. In spite, however, of such authority, we are inclined to think with Mr. James, that the rights of the lower orders in Germany might be more attended to, and the rigid aristocratic ideas prevalent in that country lowered, without proving detrimental either to one party or the other; and, indeed, as he observes, the steadiness'

with which the poisonous principles of the French Revolution were universally rejected by the Germans, shows, in the strongest point of view, that they are of a temperament fit to be intrusted with the advantages of a well regulated freedom.

Mr. James reached Berlin at an interesting period; it was at the close of the armistice between the allied powers and the French; and the first hostile movement, on the part of Oudinot, who advanced with 80,000 men to within ten English miles of the gate of the town, was of a nature to cause no little consternation among its inhabitants. The impending evil, however, was ably warded off by the battle of Gros Beeren, which our author appears to have withessed, and which he describes in a very interesting manner; here too he comes in contact with the Crown Prince of Sweden, who no doubt displayed much military talent in covering Berlin, and a degree of energy which was never manifested by him afterwards, except for the sake of his own private advantage.

We regret that Mr. James's excursions did not extend farther in this direction. He quitted Germany for Sweden at a time of great public interest, and had he not left the seat of war, we might, with other events, have gathered from him much desirable information respecting a warrior more after our own hearts, and one whose exploits we are in some degree pledged to illustrate. We allude to Prince Blucher, and we gladly seize the only notice of the veteran which the work before us presents, and which is so creditable to the character of all parties concerned.

The gallant Blucher was the idol of the whole army, and now the more held up to their notice, as having been the constant mark of the persecuting and vindictive spirit of Bonaparte he was ever adverse to the insidious schemes of France in peace as in war, and having refused to accept a command in one of his expeditions, the ignoble upstart had the meanness to demand that Blucher should be dismissed from the post with which the king had rewarded his long-tried fidelity. The affection borne him by the soldiery was eminently conspicuous in the late affair: the same rains that swelled the stream of the Katsbach had rendered the roads almost impassable, and some battalions, exhausted by the fatigue of their long marches, halted, declaring themselves unable to proceed farther. Blucher rode up to address them, "Are you wearied, my children?" said he. "Are you drenched with rain? Are you pressed by hunger? And am not I, in my old age, subjected to all these sufferings alike with every man amongst you? But the enemies of my king are in the land, and I have sworn to take no rest-follow me.' They instantly rose as if his words had wrought a miracle on their jaded bodies; they continued their march without a murmur, nor rested till they reposed on the field of victory.'-pp. 67, 68.

We have understood by some recent accounts from Berlin, that the King of Prussia, with that attention to those who have served

him faithfully, for which he is so distinguished, had prepared to receive this invaluable servant on his return to Berlin, with every possible mark of military honour. The whole garrison was to be drawn up to receive him before the gates of the town, the Princes of the Blood were to advance to meet him on the road, and the cannon were to fire without intermission from the moment of his appearance till he was lodged in his own quarters in the town; but to the inexpressible disappointment of all the citizens the general was too unwell for so much parade, and the fête was given up. The wound in his arm from which he was suffering obliged him to keep his room for some time, and lowered him considerably. We are glad to hear, however, that, in the opinion of the medical men, no serious change in his health is now to be apprehended.

Mr. James is very successful in his descriptions of picturesque scenery, and we should instance his account of the opening upon the view of the Lake Wettern, and of the effect produced by the first sight of Stockholm, to prove that he sees with the eye of a painter.

Uniting every beauty of wild nature with the charms attendant upon the scenes of more active life; echoing the clamour of the bustling populace amidst rocks, that have not yet ceased to ring with the woodman's axe; rivalling at one display the boasted cliffs of Edinburgh, the broad lake of Geneva and the streets and shipping of Venice: its view presents a romantic vision, that not even the highest powers of the art of description could ever attempt to delineate.

'The examples of architecture within the town, if we except the mansions of the royal family, are not of a style at all corresponding with these delightful environs. The private houses make little show; and the general air of the public buildings is not of the first style of magnitude, or in any way remarkable for good taste. One point may be selected, that exhibits in a single prospect all that the capital can boast, of this description. There is a long bridge of granite, connecting the city in the centre with the northern quarters of the town: immediately at one extremity rises the Royal Palace, a large square edifice, with extensive wings, and of the most simple and elegant contour: the other extremity is terminated by an equestrian statue of Gustavus Adolphus, forming the chief object of a square, that is bounded, on the sides, by handsome edifices of the Corinthian order; one the palace of the Princess Sophia, the other the Italian Opera-house.'-p. 112.

Nothing certainly can be more romantically striking than this northern capital in all its parts; and so singular an assemblage of the wild beauties of nature, capriciously combined with the finished productions of art, can no where else be found, as far as we know. There is something very imposing in the position and the solidity of the Royal Palace, and we think that Mr. James has net