THE MAN again, of whom more has already been written, we believe, than of any other human being, and of whom more remains to be, that is, will be, written, we imagine, than has yet appeared. It is not wonderful. Whatever opinion admirers or defamers may form of his moral character, his career, from the beginning to the close, was the most extraordinary, the most unexpected, the most thoroughly startling, whether considered in its parts or as a whole, that has ever passed before the eyes of the world.

Alexander's career was undoubtedly magnificent. It was a great enterprise, conducted with constant splendor and success, not only to the overthrow of ancient empires supported by immense wealth and powerful armies, but into distant countries, "barbaric born," of which only vague reports had come to the ears of civilized nations. From the valley of the Nile to Babylon, Persia and the Indus, his course was one series of memorable triumphs; and to have always conquered is sufficient to give any military chieftain an undying name. Besides his great conquests, moreover, he gave evidences of a mind at once regal and statesmanlike; his views of government were capacious, his plans for the building of cities and the establishment of empire and commerce far-reaching and noble. Had he lived, it is probable that not one half of his reputation would have rested on his achievements in arms.

Hannibal was the second great leader of antiquity, and was unquestionably a genius of the highest order. His native genius, indeed, was probably far superior to that of Alexander. The conqueror of Persia conducted his expeditions mainly against half-barbarous nations; the indomitable Carthaginian was to wage war with a civilized people, and the most experienced military power in the world. Alexander, again, invaded large and open countries, from which, if repulsed, it would have been easy to draw his armies aside into neighboring ter

ritories possessing small means of resistance; but Hannibal led his swarthy legions to the summits of the Alps and hurled them down into the bosom of a narrow and crowded peninsula, where every second man was a warrior, and from which there was no drawing back except with victory. This achievement of scaling so vast a chain of mountains with an armed host was superior to all others of the kind, including Napoleon's boasted passage, insomuch as it was the first, the original, leaving the rest to be in a measure but imitations. This terrible descent into Italy, with the victories and the reverses which followed-equally mighty but equally honorable to his military fame, if we except his strange negligence in not marching direct upon Rome after the battle of Cannæ-all consummated by a close of life magnanimous as unfortunate, conspire to make his career among the most remarkable on record.

Julius Cæsar, as a character, was superior to both the former. There was no one point in his life quite so imposing or startling, as those which make up the thrilling history of Alexander and Hannibal; but there was an accomplished greatness about him which neither of them possessed. He was of a race prolific in masterly talent, of an age adorned with the highest attainments of the intellect. The resources of arms they had learned in centuries of warfare; the august beauties of law were native with themselves; the splendors of arts and letters they had lavishly adopted. They had subdued the various provinces of Italy, destroyed Carthage, conquered Greece, overrun all the states and kingdoms in the East, which Alexander overran before them, and were now invading the vast nations among the forests of Gaul and Germany. Of that race, and in such an age, Cæsar was undoubtedly the greatest production. The proof of his greatness lay with him, as with all who are great, in his ability to do whatever he planned or aspired to. There is, in fact,

no other evidence that a man is great. For it is a very false idea that genius is always greatness. The latter, in its broadest comprehension, must include the former under some shape, but this does not of necessity fulfill the latter. It argues necessarily the possession of some extraordinary quality or qualities; but these may exist in erratic minds, and their possessors often accomplish memorable things rather as matters of chance than as difficult efforts, marked out at a distance, yet broadly conceived, and overtaken and executed with the fullness of sustained purpose. To have many large qualities, loftily balanced and those not only of mind but of character-to estimate himself never by what he has done, but by what he can do; to regard the objects in view, however vast, as no greater than many others, and as a part only of what is to be accomplished; to recognize them as already effected because resolved upon, remaining unelated in the time of triumph because it was expected-in a word, to be always master of himself to the measure of achievement, yet never show achievement to be the measure of his capacity this, in a man, and this alone, is the highest greatness.

It was to this order of men Cæsar belonged. This is not saying that he was able to do anything which could be done by any other man-for it is a part of the greatness of which we have spoken, that it sees clearly what does, and what does not, lie in its capacity to accomplish. Whatever Cæsar undertook to do, Cæsar did; and he showed ability to triumph on many fields which he scarcely entered. He was not unwise enough (like Cicero) to attempt the heights of poetry-for which he probably had no faculty; but he displayed evidences of consummate power in such various spheres, that some have thought him to have been only a man of general talent rather than of genius, when in fact it was the rare exhibition of genius covering many fields at once. That he was a finished writer of prose, is amply testified by his " Commentaries," where the native directness and simplicity of style, joined with a masterly ease and strength, have made them a model for all subsequent compositions of the kind. It is not difficult, indeed, to conclude from them, that he would have been a master in any species of writing to which he might have turned his attention. In history, we imagine, he would have been especially em

inent, possessing much of Tacitus' brevity and terseness, with much of Livy's breadth of brush and vividness of coloring, while in a clear understanding of matters of gov ernment, so necessary to the perfection of history, he would have been superior to both. Whether he might have placed his name with Cicero's in philosophy, we cannot judge, though he had unquestionably far more sense and judgment—no small requisites for such works; and it is conceded by all who have studied him and his times, that in oratory he would have equaled if not excelled the great Roman declaimer, had he pressed into that field with the skill and the vigor which he carried into his campaigns and battle-fields, and ambitious schemes of power. But, as with Napoleon, war and empire had more attractions for his strong energies, and it is there we see the chief exhibitions of the man. Beyond question he was among the five or six first military characters of all nations. He planned his campaigns with a far-reaching foresight, and conducted them with infinitely more science than any general before him had exhibited. He fought seven times as many pitched battles as any leader of antiquity, and more than any modern commander except Napoleon; his eagles were never vanquished; and the range of his conquests nearly doubled the extent of the Roman Empire. In civil matters, among the responsibilities and perils of government, there is evidence enough that he showed equal capacities. He was born both to conquer and to rule; and had he been suffered to bear the full weight of empire and a crown, it would have rested as easily and naturally upon him as his iron helmet. And then comes in the fitting manner of his death to make him "a mark for history!" Julius Cæsar was among the greatest men whom Rome and the world have ever produced.

In modern times the most striking career was that of Cromwell. Rising from low origin, in as stormy a period as ever upturned the elements of a strong-minded people from the bottom, his iron will, his energy, his stern military capacities, his amazing sense and sagacity in all civil affairs and extraordinary gift at piercing the characters and the motives of men, enabled him to ascend rapidly to the command of the army, lead his nasal psalmsinging Roundheads to constant victory, overturn the throne, behead a King, seize the reins of revolution into his hands of steel, assume fearlessly the im

claimed a National Government. Paris journals, enlisted for the purpose, excited the two provinces with expositions of out rages on their constitutions by the Princes and feudal magnates. At Cracow, in the first assaults on the Austrians, nearly four hundred corpses remained in the streets. The priests rushed into the conflict, holding up their crosses to incite the insurgents. Two divisions of the patriots took the direction of the Carpathian Mountains. They hoped to be able to operate in Hunary and Bohemia; and a third division, the most considerable, entered Russia to work up Podoliea and Volhynia, and unite themselves to the old allies of Poland, the Cossacks of the Ukraine. Professor Rober treck ons the Poles and the Malo-Russians, their sympathizers, at twenty-five millions of the most warlike race of Europe. All the forces of Russia, Austria and Prussia would not have sufficed to conquer the league which the Pan-Sclavonic committees had organized. Unluckily, by untimely fervor of spirit, the restoration of the ancient kingdom of Poland was first announced, instead of the arranged Sclavonic confederacy. Hence the tardiness of the Bohemians, Hungarians, and Malo-Russians. The grand conspiracy, he adds, subsists, perseveres, and will triumph in the end, let present results be ever so gloomy. Austria, he thinks, is enfeebled and discredited by the occurrences of the few last weeks. He counts on the mountains and the marshes to be occupied by invincible and indefatigable rebels, and on the democratic instinct of the Sclavonic race. For the present, certainly, the insurrection has been thoroughly suppressed. Cracow has been occupied by the Austrian and Russian troops, and the most severe injunctions have been placed upon the inhabitants. They are to be disarmed: every person found with arms in his possession after a certain day is to be tried by court-martial: and all the rebel chiefs are to be surrendered. A large number of the insurgents have been seized and imprisoned. Several of the leaders had been executed and the severest punishments were to be inflicted upon the rest. Well, indeed, may Poland be styled unhappy!

There is nothing in the politics of other foreign nations worthy of special notice. Spain has undergone another revolution, but this has long ceased to be a novelty. Each, however, leaves the government more despotic than before, and now nearly the last vestiges of freedom have been obliterated by the suspension of the Constitution, the prorogation of the Cortes and the abolition of the liberty of the press the journals having been prohibited by a decree from assailing not only the Queen, the royal family and the Constitution, but foreign sovereigns and their families and

all the functionaries and official acts of the government. In Italy there are symptoms of disaffection, but as yet they amount to nothing. In Mexico, Paredes still holds the seat of supreme power, though its possession is threatened by rumored revoIutions. It is said to be the design of Santa Ana to return from Havana, where, since his banishment, he has resided, and to place himself at the head of another movement. Circumstances lend probability to the imputed design. The relations of Mexico and the United States remain in statu quo. The armies of each are upon the frontier, divided only by the Rio Grande: but we apprehend no collision, as the U. S. com. manding officer has received the most explicit and imperative instructions to avoid giving the slightest cause of offence, and to confine his action entirely to defensive precautions. The Mexican government is evidently seeking delay in the final adjustment of its difficulties with this country, in order to await the issue of our pending controversy with England. The result of the latter, we have no doubt, will definitively decide that of the former dispute. Mexico would be very glad to enter upon a war with this country, if she could do so with the slightest prospect of success. Any contest upon which she might enter single handed, she knows would be not only disgraceful but ruinous in its issue. As an ally of England, she would gladly, because she could safely, contend with the United States. When, however, peace shall have been reinstated between the two countries, we shall have no difficulty in obtaining a final and satisfactory adjustment of all our points of difference with Mexico. That most desirable event may not be immediately at hand, but we are confident its consummation is not very remote, and is scarcely contingent. In South America, affairs remain as heretofore. The intervention of the French and English in the affairs of La Plata is still active and warlike, though Sir Robert Peel has recently made a feeble and utterly hopeless attempt to show that the existing status is not that of war. He was answered, pointedly and conclusively, by Sir R. Inglis with some very pertinent references to passages in English history.

In Literary matters there is not much intelligence of marked interest. The Life and Correspondence of HUME have appeared, and form apparently the most considerable publication of the month. The work is elaborately reviewed in the literary journals, and has led not indeed to renewed controversy concerning his principles of philosophy aed politics, but to serviceable rehearsals of the fundamental falsehoods on which they rested. He seems to have been extremely sensitive to the obloquy to which his irreligious sentiments exposed him,

character, a quick philosophy to discern the causes that produced great results, and a power of description on occasions of "pith and moment," in scenes of swift and thrilling action, that we do not remember to have seen surpassed by any writer. He possesses the still greater requisite of thoroughly knowing his subject. He feels what Napoleon was, and what the men were whom he gathered around him. He feels, too, what was the nature of that period in which the great Corsican rose, conquered and reigned. He knows that if no ordinary times could produce such a man, no ordinary man was needed to rule such times; that if the struggles of freedom often end in despotism, it may be the very magnitude of the social evils under which those struggles commenced that made a second despotism necessary. He is aware, in brief, that while all historians should know that no important events are without their adequate causes-usually inevitable if not lying in reason-individual or national prejudice, in the old world especially, has falsified one-half of the history ever written, by refusing to see any connection between them, looking at mighty events in times of revolution entirely by themselves, as some monstrous birth a kind of moral mushrooms, born, no one knows how, of night and unwholesome dews. One might better be a fatalist than such a historian. Mr. Headley is an American, and writes with what ought to be the true American spirit, sympathizing always with the masses, yet recognizing what so many republican writers zealously overlook, that intellect and attainments must bear the rule. And we cannot forbear remarking here, that American writers have a great mission to perform. It is to read the history of the old nations with other eyes than those which have hitherto read it for us and the world. Our vision, made keen by a new experience, gazing through a new light, informed by new modes of thought and feeling, cannot fail of seeing things in the past ages very differently from the way in which they have usually been seen. We know of no field on which writers of this country could gain so striking a reputation, as by re-writing the annals of Europe, more especially those of Feudal England. Rightly written, they would be a new revelation to the European mind.

It is at least necessary that we should not take the word only of English histo

rians respecting the character and conduct of their enemies. Yet this, to our disgrace, is what we have usually done. Speaking the same language, we naturally see for the most part, and earliest in life, their representations of Continental affairs, so that nearly all our fixed impressions of European history are derived from the most prejudiced sources. It is quite time that a different state of things should exist, and this is one of the chief causes of our gratification at the appearance of the present volume. There was danger, indeed, that the author, in meeting the thoroughly prejudiced statements of the English, should too exclusively adopt the extremes of French partiality. But we do not think he can be accused of this. All Mr. Headley's writings that we have seen, show him to be an impassioned man, but eminently disposed to justicethough it may be said, and with truth, that an impassioned writer will with difficulty always be entirely just. We can, however, the more safely confide in his account of Napoleon, because, as he himself frankly states, he had formed and published a very different opinion of the man; but on making wider and deeper researches, he was compelled to change it in very many important points. What is yet more conclusive, the reader will find that in all the most "critical instances," the disputed passages of Napoleon's life, he has fortified his defence only by the admissions of the English themselves. A most remarkable instance relates to the breaking of the treaty of Amiens. We will quote a few passages upon this point, as it is made one of the principal grounds of assailing Bonaparte for "unbounded ambition," disdainfulness of the peace of mankind. For, as Mr. Headley remarks, "the first great barrier in the way of rendering him justice is the conviction, everywhere entertained, that he alone, or chiefly, is chargeable with those desolating wars that covered the Continent with slain armies." The first question is, how did those wars begin? How came Napoleon first to be involved in those tremendous struggles?

The original cause of hostility to France-deadly and enduring-was, as Mr. Headley states, the alarming rise of her republic in the midst of Feudal Europe.

"It is impossible for one who has not traveled amid the monarchies of Europe, and witnessed their nervous fear of republican principles, and their fixed determi

rope be her Past-and it is not so, save in the qualified sense-the Poetry of America is, at any rate, her Future."

The notice is cordial and beautiful, and closes by recognizing Longfellow as one of the Avatars of America's coming bright

ness.

The English press has issued a large variety of works of secondary importance, which yet may be worthy of mention. The Novitiate,' is the title of a plain history of a Year spent among the Jesuits, in their school at Stonyhurst, by Andrew Steinmetz, which has the merit (rare in works of its kind) of fairness and apparent truth. The Bushrange of Van Dieman's Land,' is the title of a novel by Charles Rowcroft, which has more interest as a tale than merit as a novel. A Life of Herodotus,' is the title given to a dissertation on all the passages in the ancient writers relating to the Father of History, by Prof. Dahlmann, of Bonn. It is said to be a work likely to do essential service to the study of Herodotus. A collection of letters on National Education in France, by Arthur Davitt, Professor of Modern Literature, in the University of Paris, has been published, and is said to be valuable and instructive.

The ignorance which often prevails even among intelligent men, of everything which is foreign to them, has been repeatedly illustrated by the blunders made by Englishmen, in speaking or writing of American affairs. It receives another and still more forcible illustration by some passages from the contributions of the celebrated Jules Janin, to the Journal des Debats. In one of them he speaks of “cet ami de Lord Byron, Robert Southey, un des beaux esprits de l'Angleterre moderne dant le bucher s'est élevé sur les bords de l'Adriatique," &c. The well-known relations which subsisted during the lives of both, between Southey and Byron, and the blundering manner in which the former is mistaken for Shelly, render this passage excessively amusing.

The month has witnessed the deaths of quite a number of Europeans of more or less literary distinction. Mr. Hugh Murray, of Edinburgh, author of a large number of very valuable geographical and scientific works, died at London, and the bar and tribune of France have sustained a severe loss in the death of M. Phillippe Du pin, one of the most distinguished of her advocates and orators. Abbé Bétia, Conservator-in-chief of the Library of St. Mark, at Venice, and author of several useful bibliographic works, is also deceased; and Holland has lost one of her most learned jurisconsults in the person of Dr. Samuel Boas, some of whose works on law have attained in his own country a very high reputation. Letters from Upsal announce the serious illness of Professor Geijer, the au

thor of what is unquestionably the best history of Sweden ever written. The celebrated navigator, Otto Von Kotzebue, son of the well-known dramatic author, died recently at Revel. The death of Liston, the famous comedian, is also announced.

The magnitude and importance of the British Museum may be inferred from some statistics, which we gather from its recent returns to Parliament. Its expenses for the year have been £34,975. The number of visitors has been 567,719. The number of readers is 71,494, and 359,457 volumes have been used during the year.

Letters have been received from Capt. Becroft and Dr. King, giving the results of the attempt which they were commissioned to make to open a commercial traffic with the natives of Central Africa. The expedition had returned from the Niger to Fernando Po about the first of November, having remained on that river for nearly four months. They found the aspect of things in the interior materially changed for the worse, in consequence of deaths and war among the chiefs. Rabbah, which, in 1840, was the largest and most flourishing town on the river, was deserted and in ruins. The commercial success of the mission had thus been less than was anticipated, though under the circumstances, the results are judged to have been encouraging. The fact that such a mission was sent out by the English government, and the spirit in which its labors have been prosecuted, show the wide and far reaching sagacity with which the concerns of that vast empire are guided and controlled. A French brig of war has also been commissioned on a hydrographical survey of the south-eastern coast of Africa as far as Cape Guardafui, and the southern coast of Arabia to the Persian Gulf.

The Paris papers speak of a language invented by M. Sudre (whose Telephonic discoveries were exhibited in London some eight years ago), to be spoken by the voice of Cannon; on which he has been experimenting successfully before the Duke de Nemours, at Vincennes-and which, it is said, might be of great use for the transmission of orders in war-time. Letters from Berlin, received by the London journals, mention that the Baron de Hackewitz, who has an establishment there, at which galvanoplastic processes are conducted on a large scale, has found the means of manufacturing guns and mortars of any calible, by that proceeding; and that a commission appointed by the Minister at War, with the Baron Alexandre de Humboldt at its head, to examine the invention, has made such a report as has induced the Government to purchase the secret,-which the author has valued at 36,000 thalers.

In our Miscellany of the last month, we noticed the magnetic phenomenon alleged