stance of much of that higher English and German Shaksperian criticism, in which this century has been so prolific; to which he has added many valuable original critical observations and suggestions. As an appropriate accompaniment to an edition enriched with numerous pictorial decorations and antiquarian illustrations of art, many of the more curious notices of costume, arms, architecture, etc., contributed to the English pictorial edition, have been selected or abridged, and prefixed to each play, with the addition of such original remarks, or information from other sources, as throw light either on the scenes of the dramatist, or the history of medieval art, taste, manners, or opinion. Those illustrations, whether literary or graphic, have a peculiar value in relation to the dramas of English History, and to those plays where the scene and date approach most nearly to the author's own time and country; as they enable us to call up before our own mind's eye' the personages and adjuncts of the scenes, in shapes and colors resembling those in which they rose before the poet's own mental vision.' An Introduction' is given to each play, containing some brief critical notices of their several characteristics of style, versification, design, and of tone and color of thought, together with a detailed bibliographical account of each, as to the probable date of its composition, the state of the text, and the variations between the several old editions. The merely bibliographical material herein contained is drawn, of course, from preceding editors; but the whole has been re-cast for this purpose; partly because Mr. VERPLANCK often dissents from the conclusions of the editors to whom he is most indebted for his facts, but chiefly because he wished to present the separate evidence, as to each play, in the same point of view and with the same object, as parts of a single inquiry, and that not one of purely antiquarian curiosity, but as tracing out SHAKSPEARE'S intellectual history and character, by gathering from various and sometimes slight and circumstantial or collateral points of testimony, the order and succession of his works, assigning each one to its probable epoch, noting the variations or differences of style and of versification between them, and in some cases the alterations and improvements of the same play by the author himself, in the progress of his taste and experience; thus following out, through each successive change, the luxuriant growth of his poetic faculty and his comic power, and, finally, the still nobler expansion of the moral wisdom, the majestic contemplation, the terrible energy, the matchless fusion of the impassioned with the philosophical, that distinguished the matured mind of the GREAT BARD. SHAKSPEARE'S works thus edited, elaborately illustrated with engravings, many of them exquisite in taste and spirit, and others equally valuable in a historical and antiquarian point of view; beautifully printed upon fine white paper, and presented with corresponding taste in all its externals; will secure alike the public admiration and a long-continued patronage.

PICCIOLA: THE PRISONER OF FENESTRELLA: or Captivity Captive. By X. B. SAINTINE. Edition, with Illustratious. In one volume. pp. 154. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD.

A new

We are informed that during the eight years which have elapsed since the first appearance of the work whose title we have given above, it has assumed the position of a classic. It has been crowned by the Academy Française, and has passed through numberless editions, in every form and at every price, from the costly and elegant édition de luxe, to the cheap volume for schools. In England it has met with a cordial reception; and in this country the favor with which it has been re

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ceived is attested by the number of editions through which it has passed, the appearance of an impression in the original, and the demand for imported copies. Under these circumstances the publishers of this beautiful little tale have judged rightly in thinking that its numerous admirers would be pleased to possess it in a form more suited to its merits than any in which it has heretofore appeared in this country. It is embellished with good illustrations, and is furnished with an introduction from the author. We have read 'Picciola' through three times; and yet on going over it after each perusal, for the purpose of selecting the passages which had excited our deepest interest, and most forcibly enchained our attention, we felt the full force of what the French term l'embarras des richesses. When STERNE sets apart his solitary prisoner - isolate, alone, notching his still-beginning never-ending days of restless misery with a rusty nail upon his staff — although the picture is drawn with a very few touches of the pencil, we feel the pathos which characterizes it, and the iron enters our soul as it enters that of the poor captive. But in the book before us, so like Robinson Crusoe is it in its faithfulness, so Baron TRENCKISH in its interest, we are made familiar with all the thoughts of the captive. We watch with him the swelling of the paved walk which at length disparts, and introduces to view the little picciola plant; we survey with him its minutest characteristics, and await with the deep interest with which it impresses him its gradual unfolding to the consummate flower. These little incidents, with the accessories of the tale, for such we can hardly help regarding the other portions of the story, replete with entertainment though they are, make up, as we have said, one of the most delightful volumes we have read for years; and as such we commend it to the affections and admiration of our readers,

HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE MOST EMINENT BRITISH PORTS. BY WILLIAM HOWITT. In two volumes. pp. 1102. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THESE volumes are not strictly biographical; and for this reason there are some poets of considerable eminence of whom little mention is made, and others none, not because they were not entitled to much notice, but because there is nothing of deep interest or novelty connected with their homes and abodes. Here however are twenty-two poets, from CHAUCER down to BYRON; and in connection with a biographical sketch of each is given a picture of their dwellings. And a very pleasant thing it is, while you are reading of these eminent men of genius, who have filled the world with their renown, to be made acquainted with their homes and haunts;' to sit with MILTON in his cottage at Chalfont; or walk with POPE through his beautiful grounds at Twickenham; or muse with THOMSON in his cottage at Kew. Take the familiar narratives of the volume before us, in connection with the illustrations, to which Mr. H. W. HEWET, one of our best wood-engravers, has done ample justice, and you have familiarly before you the land-marks of their age, as they lived, moved, and had their being.' Such a work, one might well suppose, should secure a wide sale.

A MANUSCRIPT SPEECH OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

You will, I am sure, derive great pleasure, as I myself have done,' writes a Worcester (Mass.) correspondent, in the perusal of the following plans of BONAPARTE, which the writer heard him deliver himself at the first class of the Institute at which he presided in August, 1800, when he was First Consul, and had recently returned from Marengo. It was rendered from the original manuscript for a member of the Institute, who communicated it to the translator. It was transcribed into a port-folio of my father some

thirty years ago :'

'THE army of reserve assembled at Dijon gave me the advantage of passing rapidly either into Germany or into Italy, as the case might require. The season somewhat favored me: the monks of ST. BERNARD assured me that the snow had dissolved this year twenty days sooner than usual; they received our army, which was a little fatigued by the passage of the Alps, extremely well; I had preinformed them of our arrival; I had sent them money, and they furnished us with provisions and very good wine. The monks of ST. BERNARD are an order infinitely respectable; it is one of those institutions which governments ought never to destroy, but should protect and encourage, by all the means in their power.

'I arrived in Italy: I found myself behind the enemy, and master of all his magazines and equipages; I had obtained great advantages, but, once arrived at Stradella, I had a right to consider the campaign as finished. If Genoa had held out, I remained firm in my entrenched camp at Stradella, the strongest military position in Italy. I had five bridges over the Po, which rendered my communications easy with the divisions, CHABRAN, LAPEYRE, TURREAU and MONCEY: in case of necessity I could either summon them to my aid if attacked, or aid them in case they were. M. de MELAS, in short, was forced, in order to be able to open his communications, to come and offer me battle, on a ground which I myself had chosen ;* extremely intersected, covered with wood, very favorable to my infantry, and the reverse for his cavalry; and where I had the disposal of all my troops.

'The capture of Genoa changed the face of every thing; henceforward the enemy possessed a sure retreat, and very strong positions: he could either retire into Genoa, and defend himself therein, deriving his provisions from the sea, or line the heights of Bobbio with artillery, and retire, in spite of my efforts to oppose him, into Placentia, regain Mantua and Peschiara, put himself into communication with Austria, and reduce me to an ordinary war. All my plan of the campaign would have been frustrated. A great chance presented itself to me; I risked it. I set out from Milan, and traversed thirty-two leagues in seven hours. I commanded the battle of Montebello; we gained it, and this victory caused the enemy's retreat from Genoa; but this same victory weakened my army. I was obliged to leave two divisions on the other side of the Po, to close the entrance of the States of Milan; they were not, to say the truth, distant from me above three leagues, but they would require three days to effect them in; they must have passed by Placentia or by Stradella. I had also against me another disadvantage: the country, from Montebello to Alexandria, is nothing but an immense plain, most advantageous for the Austrian cavalry. I nevertheless resolved to offer a pitched battle, be

*PRECISELY in this way reasoned General TAYLOR at the great battle of Buena Vista, as SANTA ANNA, like M. de MELAs, found to his sorrow.'

cause I was in so extraordinary a situation, that I risked little to gain much. Beaten, I should retire into my entrenched camp of Stradella; I should pass the Po by my five bridges, protected by my batteries, without the possibility of the enemy's army being able to hinder it; I should unite my second division with the corps of MONCEY, LECCHY and TURREAU. I suffered one corps of MELAS to pass the Po, (and he desired no better;) then, superior in numbers, I could attack him with all my forces, if I beat him. Conqueror, I obtained the same results. His army, pent up between us and the river, would have been forced to have laid down their arms, or to have surrendered all their forts. Had I been beaten, which I believe impossible, I brought myself to a regular war; and I had Switzerland for my support.

'Determined to give battle, I ordered an account of the effective strength of my army to be rendered to me. I had in all twenty-six thousand men. M. de MELAS had forty thousand, eighteen thousand of which were cavalry. At two o'clock in the morning they came to inform me that the enemy had fallen on our advanced guard, and that our troops gave way. The French like not to be attacked. Our troops fell back somewhat in disorder; some betook themselves to flight; the enemy took some prisoners; we had retreated a league and a half. The generals of the advanced guard, LANNES, MURAT and BERTHIER, sent me courier after courier; they told me that their troops were in flight; that they could not stop them. They asked for support, and requested me to march with my reserve, I replied to all: 'Hold out as long as possible; if you cannot, fall back.' I perceived that the enemy had not yet employed his reserve; and in these kind of affairs, the great object is to make the enemy employ all his forces in managing your own, and to make him attack at right and at left, as long as you cannot be deceived; the difficulty being to make him employ his reserve. He had thirty-four thousand men, against at most twenty thousand, who were in flight: he had but to pursue his advantage. I repaired to the first line in an elegant uniform; I attacked them myself with a demi-brigade; I broke their order of battle; I pierced their line. M. de MELAS, who saw me at the head of the army, and his lines broken, imagined that I had arrived with the reserve to reinforce the combat. He advanced on this point with his own, six thousand Hungarian grenadiers, the flower of his infantry; this corps filled up the vacancy, and attacked us in our turn. Seeing this, I gave way; and, in a retreat of half a league, exposed to their cannon, I rallied all the army, and re-formed it in order of battle: arrived near my reserve, which was composed of six thousand men, had fifteen pieces of artillery, and DESSAIX for general, and which was my sheet-anchor. I opened, by an extremely rapid movement, the whole army. I formed the two wings of DESSAIX, and I showed them six thousand fresh troops. A tremendous discharge of artillery, and a desperate charge at the point of the bayonet, broke the line, and cut his two wings. I then ordered KellerMANN to attack them with eight hundred horse; and, as cavalry march quicker than infantry, they cut off from the rest of their army six thousand Hungarian grenadiers, in sight of the Austrian cavalry; but this was half a league off; they required a quarter of an hour to arrive, and I have always observed that it is these quarters of an hour which decide the fate of battles. KELLERMANN'S troops threw him toward our infantry; they were all made prisoners in a moment. The Austrian cavalry then arrived; but our infantry was in line, its cannon in the front: a line discharge and a barrier of bayonets prevented their attack; they retired, somewhat in disorder; I pressed them with three regiments which had just joined me; they deployed; and, in seeking to pass the bridge of Borunda, which is very narrow, a great many were drowned in the river. They were pursued till night.

'I learnt after the battle, from several general officers, prisoners, that in the midst of their success they were not without inquietude; they had a secret presentiment of their defeat. During the fight they questioned our prisoners, asking them, Where is General BONAPARTE?' He is in the rear,' they replied; and those who had already fought against me in Italy, who knew my custom to reserve myself for the end, exclaimed, 'Our day's work is not yet done! They confessed also that when I showed myself at the first line they were completely deceived, and that they believed all my reserve were engaged. In battles there is always a moment, when all the brave men have done their best, when they seek nothing better than to run away; but these are misgivings of the heart: they want a pretext; the talent is to give them one.

'At Arcole I gained the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I perceived the critical moment of lassitude in each army; I saw that the Austrians, in spite of their being old soldiers, would have been well content to find themselves in their camp; and that my Frenchmen, all brave as they were, had wished to be in their tents: all my forces had been engaged; more than once I had been forced to reestablish the battle. There remained to me but five-and-twenty guards; I sent them on the flanks of the enemy with three trumpets, sounding a charge very loud. Here is the French cavalry!' was the cry; and they were in flight. It is true that one must seize the moment; a moment sooner VOL. XXX. 11

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or later it had been useless: had I sent twenty thousand horse, the infantry would have executed a quarter of a conversion; covered by its pieces, it would have made a good discharge, and the cavalry would not even have attacked.'

'Afterward, turning to some members of the Institute: 'You see, two armies are two bodies which encounter each other; there is a moment of panic, which must be seized. All this is nothing but mechanism and moral principle; in fact, all this is nothing but habitude; when we have seen many affairs, we distinguish the moment to a nicety; it is as common as a sum in arithmetic.

f

The first time I penetrated into Italy, I found there a good government; a little despotic, it is true, but mildly administered. This time it was widely different: a reäction had commenced with fury; they had imprisoned, condemned and fined all those who had taken any part in the government. I had placed in different charges of the Cisalpine republic the partizans of Austria; because it is my system to neutralize the great masses, in order that the country where I carry the war may not be an enclosed list, but a theatre. Well!-all these people had been regarded with an evil eye, and confounded in the hatred which they bore to the revolutionists.

'Moreover, the English, Russians and Turks had, in Italy, by despising the religion of the country in the degree that they scrupulously observed their own, entirely indisposed the inhabitants, for whom the extent of religion is much more than with us in France. Still more, the Austrian notes were sixty per cent. beneath par, which they forced the Italians to take as ready money, and this completed the alienation of their good will. They were enchanted to perceive that we paid for every thing in hard cash: 'Here are the French Louis again;' Esci i Luigi di Francia tornati! It would seem that kings are at this moment at their seventeen hundred and ninety-three; they issue their assignats, make their requisitions, and they fatten their priests.

'It was a Turkish corps which guarded our Lady of Loretto, and who were cantoned in the church; I had not thus much difficulty in ranging the Italians on my side: I said to them, The Austrians pretend to be the defenders of your religion, and they bring you a set of Protestant English, who burn the Pope once a-year in St. Peter's-square; a number of Russians, who have been heretic and schismatic since the fifth century; and to crown all, a parcel of Mahometan Turks, a race of infidels. While I-I am a Catholic; I have fought against the Turks; I am almost a Crusader.' I established several priests in the government of the Cisalpine republic: the Italian priests are tolerant, but they form not a separate and powerful body, like the clergy in France; beside, accustomed to be conquered twice an age, they take any oath you wish; and such was all I wanted.

'In Italy I employed some priests: in Egypt it was my care to fill the administration with them; we knew not the language, but we had want of intermediators between us and the people. Their character and their wealth gave them a certain influence; beside, they are great cowards, know not the use of arms, nor how to mount a horse.'

In all the Conversations' and Reminiscences' of NAPOLEON which we have ever seen, we have never encountered any thing more comprehensive, or more characteristic of the Great Captain' than the foregoing, which will doubtless be as new and as acceptable to our readers as to ourselves.

THE DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDERS BY LIEUT. HUNTER, OF THE NAVY.- In the few remarks which ensue, we disclaim all intention of advocating disobedience of orders; yet we cannot resist the conviction that there are cases where it must be done, in order to accomplish a desirable result. The great responsibility assumed will always serve to prevent the frequent occurrence of such disobedience; and when, as in Lieut. HUNTER's case, it was for the honor of the service, and influenced too by circumstances of which the commander-in-chief must have been uninformed, it seems to us that there were good grounds for less harsh measures than were visited upon that gallant officer. Charges and specifications having been proved, the court-martial may have found itself obliged to award the sentence which it pronounced. The commander-in-chief had a noble opportunity of evincing a dignified magnanimity in