sanctioned the prolongation of their

power.

The people now began to manifest a spirit more resolutely hostile to the ruling party than they had before displayed. This zeal appeared in the presentation of a great number of addresses to the king from the counties and corporations of Great Britain and Ireland, advising a dismission of his ministers. Some addresses, of an opposite nature, were also voted in different meetings.

In many of the anti-ministeral applications to his majesty, indignant mention was made of the disordered state of Ireland; and the same subject was investigated in both houses. After fruitless efforts to stigmatise the late neglect of the naval defence of that kingdom, motions for such an interference from the sovereign as might allay the discontent of the people were brought forward by the earl of Moira and Mr. Fox. The benevolent peer recommended the substitution of lenient measures for the coercive rigor which the ministers were so fond of exercising; but the lords were unwilling to admit that the proceedings of the government were too severe, or that the advice of the British parliament was necessary or justifiable on this occasion. Mr. Fox and other speakers imputed the disturbances of Ireland to the misconduct of the cabinet; but the majority refused to agree to an address which suggested the propriety of moderation.

In July, the last month of this session, the country was deprived, by death, of the political exertions of one of the greatest men of the age-Mr. Edmund Burke.

He had for some time retired from parlia ment, having resigned his seat to his son, whose decease in the flower of his age was a great shock to his declining parent. That Mr. Burke possessed great abilities, and a genius superior to that which is usually observed among mankind, will not, we think, be denied by any one. He had a great compass of mind, a considerable share of learning, and a never-failing stream of eloquence. He adorned every subject which he handled, and animated every speech with the excursions of fancy and the charms of imagery. His allulusions, however, were sometimes of the coarsest kind, drawn from the lowest objects of nature and of art. He was too digressive, frequently deficient in argument, and so absurdly hyperbolical, that he would magnify a speck to an immense body, or, if it equally suited the temporary purpose of his oratory, would diminish a mountain to a molehill. His invectives, both in speaking: and writing, were so bitter and severe,. that they seemed to argue a malignity of disposition, though they rather proceeded from an irritability of temper. His political principles were more favorable to aristocratical claims than to popular freedom; and he was in hisheart a Tory even when he affected (during the American war) to be a zealous Whig.. In private life he was generally benevo-lent and friendly; a kind husband, father, and master. He was a pleasing and in-structive companion; and no one could: long be a witness to his conversation without being convinced of the extent of his knowledge and the vigor of his mind.

IT

T would be useles to enlarge on the astonishing succession of events which distinguished the campaign of 1796, in Italy. Piedmont invaded, and the king of Sardinia reduced to the necessity of concluding an ignominious peace,-Lombardy subdued; both banks of the Po republicanized, the king of Naples detached from the coalition; the pope deprived of one-third of his dominions; the north of Italy a prey to the miseries of war, and to political convulsions; a country, notwithstanding the prevalence of indolence, superstition, and immorality, the most rich and fertile of continental Europe, robbed of its most valuable treasures, and its most admirable productions of antient and modern genius. Such is the picture presented to the observer by this memorable campaign, which will equally excite the regret and the admiration of posterity, and be commemorated in the annals of modern warfare, as only equalled in the importance and rapidity of its events by that of 1706. In that year the French were masters of Lombardy, and of the city and duchy of Mantua. One of their armies occupied these territories, while another besieged Turin. After the battle of Cagliano, samed by the duke de Vendome over general Reventlaw, prince Eugene was obliged to retreat as far as Roveredo and

Gavardo, but he speedily resumed the offensive, and advanced early in May as far as Verona. Two months afterwards he passed the Adige, notwithstanding all the efforts of the duke of Orleans, upon whom he had stolen several marches. He entered Piedmont, and endeavoured to raise the siege of Turin, after having gained a decisive victory over the French army. Returning, he re-entered the Milanese, successively drove the French from all their posts, and obliged them to evacuate Lombardy.

No one had contributed so much to the issue of the late campaigu as the commander-in-chief: none of the generals of the republic had performed services so important and so difficult. He was the only individual entrusted with command. Active, enterprizing, able, and, above all, fortunate, he had committed few military faults, had not suffered his adversaries to commit any with impunity, and had not in person experienced one defeat. made the war of Italy, which till 1796 had been an episode only of the general war, his principal and leading object, and, where the emperor appeared to entertain the slightest apprehension of disaster, occasioned him to experience the most afflicting losses and the most serious alarms.

He

If Buonaparte, as a general, deserved

the admiration of mankind, his 'conduct as a conqueror and a man, was not less impolitic than atrocions. The cruelty with which he treated the towns of Milan, Pavia, Lugo, and Arquata, the burning of Binasio and several other villages, the outrages and pillages perpetrated beneath his sanction, have tarnished the splendor of his victories, and left him no other claims to the admiration of posterity. The despotism which he exercised over the countries conquered by his arms, the excessive contributions which he imposed on the inhabitants, and the extreme and vindictive rigor with which he enforced the most sanguinary or rapacious measures of the French government, had fortunately contributed to weaken the admiration and enthusiasm which his triumphs might have produced among the Italian people. That nation must have been destitute of the common feelings of human nature, which could have remained unmoved by resentment and abhorrenee at the declaration of Buonaparte, that all the expenses of the army of Italy, during eleven months, had been paid by the conquered countries, and that he had sent 30,000,000 of livres (£1,250,000) to France.

If Buonaparte, by his political conduct, placed himself below the height to which he had been elevated by his military triumphs, he was still less successful in supporting his reputation as a soldier, by the display of his personal qualities. The bombast, the boasting, and the love of the marvellous, which characterise all his letters to the directory, the constant exaggeration of the losses of the enemy, the absurdly diminished estimate of his own, the perpetual representation of the destruction of the Austrian armies, when they had only been repulsed, the annunciations of the expected capture of Mantua so many months before that event occurred, the assertion that 4000 men laid down their arms at Lonado, in submission to his command, gave to his narrative the appearance of a military romance, and have left behind them reasonable doubts, not of the reality of his victories, but of the extent of their results.

At the end of the campaign, immediately subsequent to the conclusion of peace with the Roman pontiff, the loss of Buonaparte had amounted to within 15,000 men of that sustained by the Austrians. That the loss of the victors should so nearly approximate to that of the conquered can only be attributed to the indifference with which Buonaparte always lavished the blood of his soldiers, an indifference to which he was indebted for much of his 'success, in the affairs of Lodi, Fonteniva, and Arcola. The mortality was rendered still more destructive by the diseases arising from the climate, the blockade of Mantua, and the intemperance of the soldiers.

After having sustained so many losses and expenses, the cabinet of Vienna formed, during this campaign, six powerful armies in Italy, and made greater efforts and displayed greater resources towards its close than at its commencement. Though its exertions might have been more successful had they been carried to their full extent at an earlier period, its conduct may be attributed to the obvious policy of reserving its means in a war of which it was easy to foresee the long duration. Even the means of warfare actually supplied, would have commanded success, had they been directed with ability. But the Austrian generals in Italy persisted in their antient plan of tactics, while the archduke was advantageously adopting new ones in Germany. Their mode of carrying on the war was methodical and slow, while those of Buonaparte were rapid and adventurous. They were occupied in making combinations while he was fighting battles; they were making demonstrations on all points, while he considered it as indispensible to concentrate his forces so as to present a single aspect; they extended themselves and endeavoured to circumvent him by their manœuvres, while he contracted his lines and positions, and, advancing rapidly en masse, broke in a moment the lines and the combination they had formed against him. It was to this system combined with other changes in the conduct of

military operations, to which it will be necessary, as soon as I have closed the history of the next campaign, to devote a separate chapter, that he owed the victories of Melesimo, Montechiaro, Castiglione, Roveredo, and Rivoli: it was by the rapid transpositions and the unremitted employment of his troops that he gained the most brilliant successes in the months of August, November, and January; and that at each of these periods, in less than six days, he concerted plans and dispersed armies which had occupied two months in their formation and arrangement. Several secondary causes contributed to the issue of the campaign. The council of war at Vienna, chose, as it had done in former years, not only to prepare the general plan of the campaign, but to direct its execution, and the local application of particular manœuvres. The Austrian generals, afraid to undertake any enterprise contrary to their positive instructions, and less responsible for events than for their obedience to the orders received, were frequently obliged to sacrifice the most favorable opportunities of success, and were less desirous to obtain applause than to escape censure. The first dispositions of the Austrians being made with care, exactness, and often with ability; and the general executing them with scrupulous fidelity, were almost always crowned with temporary success. But when the talents of the enemy or the vicissitudes of war produced any unforeseen event, and reduced the Austrian generals to the necessity of deviating from the plan dictated at Vienna, and to reliance on their own discretion, their failure was nearly inevitable. Unaccustomed to obey the dictates of their own judgment, and fearing to commit themselves, they were incompetent and unwilling to act independently, and did not hazard those decisive movements which on many occasions would have secured easy victory.

Buonaparte had very ably employed a means of securing success very different from military skill or personal bravery. Imitating the prince Eugene, he spared

no exertion or expense, in procuring faithful spies, and obtaining the secrets of his enemies, while the Austrian generals, having little money to devote to the same object, were entirely unacquainted with the designs and intrigues of their adversary.

The theatre of war was, during the campaigns of 1796, very disadvantageous to the Austrians. The mountains of Piedmont and the Tyrol, are extremely difficult of access. The valleys which separate them are covered with mulberrytrees and vines, planted in hedge-rows or in arbors, forming narrow covered ways, which must be forced by the soldier one after the other. The roads are defiles lined with walls, and are nevertheless the only places where the cavalry can act. The ground in Lombardy is not more favorable for war. It is not mountainous, but is equally divided by vine and mulberry-hedges, and the culture of rice requires a vast number of ditches full of water, which are no less embarrassing. A general must not hope to direct the movements, of his troops on the ground; he can only manœuvre maps, and, according to the whole of his position taken together. In a country like this, where every footstep is difficult and dangerous, he is obliged to fight with a musket weighing eighteen pounds, to carry sixty cartridges, a very heavy knapsack, and a cloak around his breast, which almost stifles him. In this condition he is obliged to contend with the French soldier, whose musket weighs no more than a fowling-piece, who has nothing but a wretched coat upon his back, and whose natural agility and courage peculiarly qualify him for the species of warfare prosecuted by Buonaparte.

Every new system of military manœuvre and disposition have succeeded in war from the Macedonian phalanx to the tactics of Frederic. The French are indebted for a great part of their successes to the new mode of fighting which they have adopted. They precipitate themselves like a swarn of wasps on all the points which they desire to force. Fifty drums, attached to every army of 10,000 men, beat the charg