Chesterfield says, that if we have a mind effectually to prevent the Pretender from ever obtaining this crown, we should make him Elector of Hanover; for the people of England will never fetch another King from thence."

And, surely, we are bound in affectionate attachment, as well as loyal duty, to the person and progeny of our gracious Queen, to re-echo this assertion of Lord Chesterfield's; or, if unwarranted in pronouncing an eternal proscription, as against the Stuarts, to express an earnest hope, that the necessity of reuniting the two crowns will never arise; for this hybrid connexion, we know from experience, would be the abounding origin of wars, alien to our interests and repugnant to our wishes. Even in the confederacy of the American States, though of a closer and more recognised form, we see that any single one of the four and twenty constitutive divisions, may, with deflective views, involve the entire Commonwealth in the most fearful conflict-a passing fact, which I would present to my countrymen, as a signal proof and pregnant warning of the danger inseparable from a loose and independent national association. Its fatal consequences to the great Transatlantic Empire itself can hardly be a subject of doubt. "As sure," said to me the ex-Monarch of Spain and Naples, the elder and favorite brother of Napoleon, " as sure as my own dissolution will be the work of nature, so sure will that of the American Republic flow from its discordant elements of legislation, of which perfect unity can be the sole conservative principle." And, added this eminent personage, "perhaps, after a residence of seventeen years, while, though a silent, I 2 L

VOL. II.

certainly was not an unobservant spectator of facts or feelings, nor without some experience elsewhere, I may be supposed not to have formed hasty or hazardous opinions on the subject, one to me, from affection and gratitude to the rising people, of deep concern, and mournful foresight." Contrary to his usual placid manner, he appeared, on this occasion, very animated, and, under the momentary excitement, presented the most expressive image of his immortal brother.

ENGLISH AND FRENCH CHARACTERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Cork, November, 1841.

MR. URBAN,-Your correspondent, CYDWELI, in a series of observations on the relative acts and characters of the English and French, states, that in regard of our naval and military heroes, the French, who willingly eulogise those of other nations, are generally silent, or depreciatory. And such is the fact, except as respects Marlborough, whom Cydweli represents as one of the objects of this injustice; for his talents and success are the uniform theme of their admiration, as their histories and biographies will testify. Hear what Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV., chap. xviii.) says,

Churchill, Comte et ensuite Duc de Marlborough, fut l'homme le plus fatal à la grandeur de la France, qu'on eût vu depuis plusieurs siècles ;" and elsewhere, "Aussi politique que Guillaume III. mais bien plus grand capitaine." Saint Simon, Dangeau, with numerous others, are not less free in their praises, which I forbear accumulating, but which, from the long intervention of time and subsidence of jealousy, are

now not more withheld than the meed of praise extended to the Edwards, Henrys, or Talbots of old. Not so, indeed, the fresher laurels of Nelson or Wellington, of which, because their perpetual conquerors, the French, in envious consciousness of their superiority, descend to every artifice of misrepresentation, to despoil them. The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, in particular, they cannot forget, nor consequently forgive. It was, according to their veracious writers-historians or poets-including even the Emperor himself, the fruit, not of able combination, but of faults, or, at best, of chance; and the victor of the mighty conqueror, as well as of his most distinguished marshals, has, in consequence, been characterised as-" Le héros du hazard!"

General Foy, in his narrative of the Spanish war, asserts, that several of our Duke's companions, whom he names, were equal, if not superior, to him-a compliment to the nation, though surely not intended as such, were their great commander's genius duly valued.

The Great Duke, we are again told, is supposed not to be more insensible, or less gallant, in the double acceptation of the word, than most other heroes; for, of few, truly, can it be predicated, as Puffendorf, (De Rebus Gestis a Carolo Gustavo, Norimbergæ, 1693, tom. 1,)* relates of Tilly, one of the most eminent

*It is in this work of the Swedish historian and legist, that the now trite, but striking lesson, of the Chancellor, Axel Oxiensterna, to his son, when proceeding to the Congress of Westphalia, where he subscribed the treaty of 1648, as Envoy from Christina of Sweden, appears-"Nescis, mi fili, quantillâ prudentiâ homines regantur,"—which Lord Chesterfield repeatedly impressed on his own son. Both young men were timid, and fearful of encountering the higher politicians of the day, whom their fathers stripped of their presumed superiority and dreaded approach.

"Veneris

commanders of the Thirty-years' War, vinique expertem tota ætate se fuisse jactavit;" a comprehensive teetotalism, truly, and to be deprecated, could we entertain any apprehension of an abstinence involving the extinction of a race that constitutes the pride of every people, being assumed as a model of imitation. History, indeed, in her transmitted records of great soldiers, presents them to us in a very different light, though some noble exceptions may be cited. The most familiar is probably that of Scipio, whose conduct in Spain and Africa, (Livy, lib. xxvi. cap. 49, and lib. xxx. 14,) has fondly exercised the pen and pencil of so many writers and artists. The performances of the latter are generally known-not so, I apprehend, that the first regular tragedy, after the revival of letters, was the Sophonisba of Trissoni, (1524, 4to.,) exhibited in the Roman theatre at the express desire of Leo X., and derived from the last quoted book of Livy. The continence of Scipio's great antagonist, Hannibal, is described by Justin, (lib. xxxii. cap. 4,) as not less conspicuous, and more meritorious in an African: "Constat eum nec cubantem cœnasse, aut plusquam sextario vini (a pint) indulsisse, pudicitiamque eum tantam inter tot captivas habuisse, ut in Africa natum quivis negaret.' Other extraordinary circumstances of this wonderful captain, but foreign to my subject, then follow in Justin. Several military characters have also emerged from a class of unfortunates, or effeminates, to whom the dissuasion of Jupiter to Venus might be apparently addressed—Οὔ τοι, τέκνον ἐμὸν, δέδοται πολεμήϊα ἔργα. (Homer II. E. 428,) such as Narses, Sigismond, Battori, &c., who, notwithstanding, have filled the pages of fame,