yet from whom courage and patriotifm were expected, after they had been accustomed to terror and subjection.”

We recommend it to thofe fapient politicians, who judge of all operations by the event, and who deem fuccefs the infallible criterion of greatness, to perufe with attention the mafterly examination of Bonaparte's plan of the campaign of 1797, in the seventh chapter of the fecond volume. This involves a difcuffion of the interefting queftion, whether previous to the conclufion of the armistice, Bonaparte "was or was not in a perilous fituation? Was he entitled to reap the fruits of his invafion, or to have been punished for daring to attempt it?” The author is clearly of opinion that his fituation was perilous, and that his attempt merited punishment; and the reafons which he affigus for his opinion is, to us at least, fatisfactory and convincive. We lament that the length of the investigation precludes the poffibility of inferting it, and neceffarily limits our extracts to the conclufions founded on it.

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"It is prefumed, that it has been fufficiently proved, that the plan of invafion pursued by this General, neither agreed with the principles of ordinary offenfive war, nor with those of a war of conqueft; that. prudence did not direct its execution, and that without the peace of Leoben, its iffue, far from being fuch as the French had promised to themselves, would have been more or lefs fatal. This judgment may rather be confidered as well founded, as it is alfo the opinion of many enlightened military men, who, in the examination of this interefting queftion, have not fuffered themselves to be influenced by their ticular affections, or by their political fentiments. Some perfons have indeed taken the oppofite fide; but fo little fufceptible is it of defence, that it has not been attempted by two men who certainly cannot be fufpected of partiality towards the Auftrians, Dumourier and Carnot. With whatever reluctance their evidence is reforted to, the judgment which they have publicly delivered on the subject under confideration cannot but be mentioned. If their morality is utterly contemptible, the fame cannot be said of their talents, and their authority must haye weight in military matters: unfortunately they have but too well proved that they know well, the one how to project, the other how to execute. Dumourier has not hesitated to say, that, without the conclufion of the armistice, Bonaparte could not have escaped com. plete deftruction; and he has given nearly the fame proofs of it that have been just adduced. In the answer to Citizen Bailleul, a work in which he never fuffers truth to elcape him, except where it is useful to his useless juftification, Camot fays, in fpeaking of the paffage of the Rhine, by Moreau :

"In the little work, intitled, Des nouveaux interêts de 'Europe, published in 1798."

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“ I did

. I did not myfelf expect fuch prompt fuccefs. To prevent the army of Italy from acting under a deception-To prevent its advancing too far before it could be fupported, and its placing itself in a dan gerous pofition, I ought to have tranfmitted to it literally the intel ligence which I received from the Rhine; I ought, confequently, to have informed it, that all was not yet ready, nor would be for fome time. The paffage of the Rhine was effected fooner than had been promised, fooner than had ever been hoped, because much was hazarded to extricate the army of Italy from its perilous fituation. But affuredly, had it been made known by the telegraph, that the Rhine would be paffed in two days, it would not have been the lefs necessary to conclude the treaty of Leoben. Joubert, notwithstanding a refiftance more than human, notwithstanding his battles of Giants, would not the less have been forced in the Tyrol; the enemy had not the lefs already re-entered Trjefte; the army was not yet the lefs menaced on both its flanks, and threatened in its rear by the infurgents of the Venetian States, waiting with their poignards for the moment to exterminate us.'

"However fuperior to all others, on this point, the authority of Carnot must be, who had himself the direction of this enterprize, and who had endeavoured, as he tells us in his work, to put Bonaparte in a condition to undertake it, we are not in want of his declarations to learn, that the French Government, and the Generals who were then at the Republican armies, confidered that of Bonaparte in a critical predicament. One word of Moreau's, made it appear at the time: in the acconnt which he fent to the Directory of the paffage of the Rhine, he fays, The position of the army of Italy, and the neceffity of forcing our enemies to a peace, demanded the paffage of the river, &c. &c. This phrafe fufficiently indicated, at once, the idea which this General had formed of the dangers to which his colleague was expofed, and of the means by which he flattered himself they might be avoided.

We may conclude then, that the armistice agreed on at Judemburg, the 7th of April, did more for the fafety of the French, than of the Auftrians; that if the latter had fhewn as great a degree of firmness as the former did of audacity; if the cabinet of Vienna had known how to bear up against a moment of danger, and had dared to wait the refult, it would have had an opportunity of repairing, in a great degree, the difafters of the preceding year; that this campaign of 1797, ought rather to diminish, than increase the military repa tation of Bonaparte; and that the expedition, which he undertook, can only be justified in the eyes of scientific people, by the certainty of its fpeedily terminating in peace, a certainty, which the known difpofitions of the cabinet of Vienna, and the intrigues which prevailed there, had pretty well allowed. It muft at the fame time be admitted, that Bonaparte proved himself an able politician; that he knew how to judge of his fituation; that his vanity did not deceive him, at the moment when his advantages, arrived at their highest point, could not but diminish; and that he made peace under circumstances, in which it was not only useful but neceffary, under circumftances, in which it fecured

fecured to him all the advantages of the paft, and precluded all apprehenfions for the future.

"If the brilliant refult which crowned the expedition of the French General was calculated to astonish the vulgar, the wife conduct of his illustrious rival is calculated to excite the admiration of men of the art. If Fabius, arrived at the maturity of age, after a youth spent in camps and a long experience of reverfes, which had given him the means of knowing the formidable enemy with whom he had to contend, if Fabius, a dictator, difpofing at his pleasure of all the resources and all the forces of Rome against an enemy, enfeebled by bloody cam. paigns, and having no hope either of fuccours or reinforcements from his country-if Fabius has acquired an immortal renown and the furname of the Buckler of Rome, for having fufpended by a wife tempo rifing fyftem the fuccefs of the Carthaginian General-what must be thought of a young prince, fcarcely twenty-five years of age, and brought up in all the effeminacy of a court, who, after having in the preceding year, repulfed from the heart of Germany, and forced to return upon their own frontiers, two formidable armies, quitted the theatre of his glory, in order to come to arreft the progress of the Conqueror of Italy, who having to oppofe to his triumphant army only the feeble relics of an army difcouraged by a series of difafters, who ill feconded by minifters and fubalterns, jealous or ill intentioned, made on all points of an immenfe line an obftinate refistance, difputed the ground ftep by step, infenfibly drew his rafh enemy into defiles, feparated them from their magazines, and harraffed them with boldnefs; and who, after having by this conduct augmented his own forces and diminished thofe of his rival, while he oppofed him formidably in front, furrounded and turned his flanks, threatened his rear, and left to the exhaufted victor no other reserve but that of a retreat, which was become almost impracticable.-Such was the ftate into which by the wife conduct of the Archduke, affairs had been brought, when the timidity of the court of Vienna, and the treaty of Leoben which was the refult, deprived this prince of the opportunity of raising his own glory upon the ruin of that of Bonaparte, and of becoming a second Fime the faviour of Germany."

(To be continued.)

ART. II. The Favourite Village; a Poem. By James Hurdis, D.D. Profeffor of Poetry, Oxford. Bishopftone. Suffex. Printed at the Author's own Prefs. 4to. Pp. 210, London. 1800.

DR.

R. Hurdis is well known, as a poet and he hath not been lefs noticed, as a carelefs and inaccurate writer, than as a man of a fine imagination. We fhall not attempt to delineate his poetic character, with critical precifion, or to affign to him, his exact ftation among the bards of the day. Yet, in the Favourite Village," we are happy to hail all the imagination

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imagination discoverable in his former productions, with very little of the negligence. It would have difgraced, indeed, the poetry profeffor of a learned univerfity, ftill to permit fuch performances to fee the light, as Ariftotle and even Horace (with all his allowances for the humana incuria), would deem worthy the fevereft cenfure; performances marked by the moft ftriking inequalities; a feeming feebleness of thought opposed to all the vigour of genius; extreme flatnefs to fine elevation, and an appearance of fterility to the richest luxuriances of fancy. "The Favourite Village" is brilliant, and highly polished, The faults we fhall have occafion to point out, may, for the most part, be corrected in a future edition.

In the production before us, Dr. Hurdis has painted from nature, on fo very extenfive a canvafs, that we are at a lofs what method to purfue, in order to give our readers a juft idea of its defign and execution. Inftead of a critical analysis of the poem, therefore, we fhall endeavour to difcriminate the poet's manner; a tafk, which, may be pleafingly performed by the juxta-pofition of fimilar defcriptions from the present writer, and feveral of his predeceffors. Before the existence of Cowper, it was thought that Thomfon had almoft exhaufted nature: and, after Cowper, many were ftrenuous in maintaining, that fcarcely an image remained undefcribed, for any future poet. But nature, in truth, is inexhaustible; fhe hath, always, novelties in ftore for genius. We fhall not refer to Thomfon, whofe beautiful pictures are fo familiar to the reader of tafte, that they will occur to his memory without an effort, when he is prefented with fimilar delineations. The difcriminating manner of Hurdis will appear from the following excerpts.

"The River Oufe." By CowPER,
"Here Oufe, flow winding thro' a level plain
Of fpacious meads with cattle fprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along its finuous courfe
Delighted. There, faft rooted in their bank
Stand, never overlook'd, our favourite elms,
That fereen the herdsman's folitary hut;
While, far beyond, and overthwart the stream
That, as with molten glass inlays the vale,
The floping land recedes into the clouds ;
Difplaying on its varied fide, the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberlefs, fquare tower,
Tall fpire, from which the found of cheerful bells
Juft undulates upon the liftening ear;

Groves, heaths, and fmoaking villages remote.'

The Talk, B. I.

"The

"The River Oufe." By HURDIS.
Where is the car that bore the hills away
To make yon ample bafin, bowl immense,
Vaft amphitheatre of fky-crown'd downs,
Where oft the hurried waters lofe their way,
And, fpreading wide, become an inland fea,
Land-lock'd by mountains? Where is the strong bar
Which loofen'd, fea-ward, the contiguous hills,
Hove them afide, and gave to Ouse between
Sufficient space for his meandering stream
To wind and wander, and to many a farm,
Village, and steeple, vifitation pay,
Or e'er he pours into the diftant deep,
Thro' the wide fauces of yon hiant cliffs
The obfequious lake that urges him along?"

Favourite Village, B. I. Pr. 16, 17.

"The Moonlight of a Summer Evening." By POLWHELE.

How oft, where your full umbrage, wave on wave,

Floated in air, in fweet delufion loft,

I rov'd; and fought at Eve the dripping cave;
And, as the lunar hour I valued moft,

Welcom❜d the line of dancing light that croft
The pond's deep shadow, or the ftill repofe

Of moonlov'd bank, that feem'd to sleep in frost

Delicious at the day's folftitial close,

Or the rush gleaming green, where lambent meteors rose.”

Local Attachment, B. VII. The Moonlight of a Summer Evening." By HURDIS.

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With delight
He fees the recent moon with horn acute
Faft by the ftar of evening glow, to grace
The crimson exit of departing day;
And ever with affection hails her beam,
Whether her kindled cheek appear on high,
As tranquil twilight dwindles, half illum'd,
And, weftward tending, down the fleep of Heaven
The chariot of retreating day purfue,

Or full faced, meet him on yon eastern hill
Veil'd, if the fun be prefent, or with meek
Uncurtain'd aspect if his orb be funk.”
"The fond poet can with joy behold
The fleece of filver in which decent night
Scarce veils her fimiling orb, betraying oft
Thro' its difhevel'd border, tranfient glimpse
Of the pure ftudded azure, or sweet day
Of moonbeam unrestrain'd."

Favourite Village, B. I. Pr. 27, 28. "Reflections