tion into the south, the Russians had been making alarming progress in the north-east, where the feeble force opposed to them was well-nigh overwhelmed by their enormous superiority of numbers. Frederick led back the flower of his army from Olmutz, in Moravia, crossed all Silesia and Prussia, and encountered the sturdy barbarians at Zorndorf, defeating them with the loss of 17,000 men, an advantage which delivered the eastern provinces of the monarchy from this formidable invasion; dearly purchased, however, by the sacrifice of 10,000 of his own best soldiers. But, during the king's absence, Prince Henry of Prussia, whom he had left in command of 16,000 men, to keep Marshal Daun in check, was well-nigh overwhelmed by that able commander, who was again at the head of 50,000 combatants. Frederick flew back to his support, and, having joined his brother, took post at Hohenkirchen. The position was unfavourable: the army inferior to the enemy. "If Daun does not attack us here," said Marshal Keith, he deserves to be hanged." "I hope," answered Frederick, "he will be more afraid of us than the rope." The Austrian veteran, however, saw his advantage, and attacked the Prussians, during the night, with such skill, that he threw them into momentary confusion, took 150 pieces of cannon, and drove them from their ground, with the loss of 7000 men. Then it was that the courage and genius of the king shone forth with their full lustre. Though grievously wounded in the conflict, and after having seen his best generals fall around him, he rallied his troops at daybreak,-formed them in good order behind the village which had been surprised, and led them leisurely to a position a mile from the field of conflict, where he offered battle to the enemy, who did not venture to accept it. Having remained two days in this position to re-organize his troops, he decamped, raised the siege of Niesse, and succeeded in taking up his winter quarters at Breslau, in the very middle of the province he had wrested from the enemy.

The campaign of 1759 was still more perilous to Frederick; but, if possible, it displayed his extraordinary talents in still brighter colours. He be

gan by observing the Austrians, under Daun and the Prince of Lorraine, in Silesia, and reserved his strength to combat the Russians, who were advancing, 80,000 strong, through East Prussia. Frederick attacked them at Cunnersdorf, with 40,000 only, in an intrenched position, guarded by 200 pieces of cannon. The first onset of the Prussians was entirely successful: they forced the front line of the Russian intrenchment, and took 72 pieces of cannon. But the situation of the king was such, pressed on all sides by superior armies, that he could not stop short with ordinary success; and, in the attempt to gain a decisive victory, he had well-nigh lost all. The heroism of his troops was shattered against the strength of the second line of the Russians; a large body of Austrians came up to their support during the battle, and, after having exhausted all the resources of courage and genius, he was driven from the field with the loss of 20,000 men and all his artillery. The Russians lost 18,000 men in this terrible battle, the most bloody which had been fought for centuries in Europe, and were in no condition to follow up their victory. Other misfortunes, however, in appearance overwhelming, succeeded each other. General Schmellau capitulated in Dresden; and General Finch, with 17,000 men, was obliged to lay down his arms in the defiles of the Bohemian mountains. All seemed lost; but the king still persevered, and the victory of Minden enabled Prince Ferdinand to detach 12,000 men to his support. The Prussians nobly stood by their heroic sovereign in the hour of trial; new levies supplied the wide chasms in his ranks. Frederick's great skill averted all future disasters, and the campaign of 1759, the fourth of the war, concluded with the king still in possession of all his dominions in the midst of the enormous forces of his enemies.

The campaign of 1760 began in March by another disaster at Landshech, where ten thousand Prussians were cut to pieces, under one of his generals, and the important fortress of Glatz invested by the Austrians. Frederick advanced to relieve it; but soon remeasured his steps to attempt the siege of Dresden. Daun, in his turn,

followed him, and obliged the Prussian monarch to raise the siege; and he resumed his march into Silesia, closely followed by three armies, each more numerous than his own, under Laudon, Daun, and Lacey, without their being able to obtain the slightest advantage over him. Laudon, the most active of them, attempted to surprise him; but Frederick was aware of his design, and received the attacking columns in so masterly a manner, that they were totally defeated, with the loss of 12,000 men. Scarcely had he achieved this victory, when he had to make head against Lacey, withstand Daun, repel an enormous body of Russians, who were advancing through East Prussia, and deliver Berlin, which had been a second time occupied by his enemies. Driven to desperate measures by such an unparalleled succession of dangers, he extricated himself from them by the terrible battle and extraordinary victory of Torgan, on November 3, 1761, in which, after a dreadful struggle, he defeated Daun, though intrenched to the teeth, with the loss of 25,000 men -an advantage dearly purchased by the loss of 18,000 of his own brave soldiers. But this victory saved the Prussian monarchy: Daun, severely wounded in the battle, retired to Vienna; the army withdrew into Bohemia; two-thirds of Saxony was regained by the Prussians; the Russians and Swedes retired; Berlin was delivered from the enemy; and the fifth campaign terminated with the unconquerable monarch still in possession of nearly his whole dominions.

The military strength of Prussia was now all but exhausted by the unparalleled and heroic efforts she had made. Frederick has left us the following picture of the state of his kingdom and army at this disastrous period:-"Our condition at that period can only be likened to that of a man riddled with balls, weakened by the loss of blood, and ready to sink under the weight of his sufferings. noblesse was exhausted, the lower people ruined; numbers of villages burnt, many towns destroyed; an entire anarchy had overturned the whole order and police of govern

The

ment in a word, desolation was universal. The army was in no better situation. Seventeen pitched battles had mowed down the flower of the officers and soldiers; the regiments were broken down and composed in part of deserters and prisoners: order had disappeared and discipline relaxed to such a degree that the old infantry was little better than a body of newlyraised militia.”* Necessity, not less than prudence, in these circumstances, which to any other man would have seemed desperate, prescribed a cautious defensive policy; and it is doubtful whether in it his greatness did not appear more conspicuous than in the bolder parts of his former career. The campaign of 1761 passed in skilful marches and countermarches, without his numerous enemies being able to obtain a single advantage, where the king commanded in person. He was now, literally speaking, assailed on all sides: the immense masses of the Austrians and Russians were converging to one point; and Frederick, who could not muster 40,000 men under his banners, found himself assailed by 120,000 allies, whom six campaigns had brought to perfection in the military art. It seemed impossible he could escape: yet he did so, and compelled his enemies to retire without gaining the slightest advantage over him. Taking post in an intrenched camp at Bunzelwitz, fortified with the utmost skill, defended with the utmost vigilance, he succeeded in maintaining himself and providing his troops for two months within cannon-shot of the enormous masses of the Russians and Austrians, till want of provisions obliged them to separate. "It has just come to this," said Frederick, "who will starve first?" He made his enemies do so. Burning with shame, they were forced to retire to their respective territories, so that he was enabled to take up his winter quarters at Breslau in Silesia. But, during this astonishing struggle, disaster had accumulated in other quarters. His camp at Bunzelwitz had only been maintained by concentrating in it nearly the whole strength of the monarchy, and its more distant provinces suffered severely under the

drain. Schweidnitz, the capital of Silesia, was surprised by the Austrians, with its garrison of 4000 men. Prince Henry, after the loss of Dresden, had the utmost difficulty in maintaining himself in the part of Saxony which still remained to the Prussians: in Silesia they had lost all but Glogau, Breslau, and Neiss; and, to complete his misfortune, the dismissal of Lord Chatham from office in England, had led to the stoppage of the wonted subsidy of £750,000 a-year. The resolution of the king did not sink, but his judgment almost despaired of success under such a complication of disasters. Determined not to yield, he discovered a conspiracy at his head-quarters, to seize him, and deliver him to his enemies. Dreading such a calamity more than death, he carried with him, as formerly in similar circumstances, a sure poison, intended, in the last extremity, to terminate his days.

"Nevertheless," as he himself said, "affairs which seemed desperate, in reality were not so; and perseverance at length surmounted every peril." Fortune often, in real life as well as in romance, favours the brave. In the case of Frederick, however, it would be unjust to say he was favoured by Fortune. On the contrary, she long proved adverse to him; and he recovered her smiles only by heroically persevering till the ordinary chance of human affairs turned in his favour. He accomplished what in serious cases is the great aim of medicine; he made the patient survive the disease. In the winter of 1761, the Empress of Russia died, and was succeeded by Peter III. That prince had long conceived the most ardent admiration for Frederick, and he manifested it in the most decisive manner on his accession to the throne, by not only withdrawing from the alliance, but uniting his forces with those of Prussia against Austria. This great event speedily changed the face of affairs. The united Prussians and Russians under Frederick, 70,000 strong, retook Schweidnitz in the face of Daun, who had only 60,000 men; and, although the sudden death of the Czar Peter in a few months deprived him of the aid of his powerful neighbours, yet Russia took no farther part

in the contest. France, exhausted and defeated in every quarter of the globe by England, could render no aid to Austria, upon whom the whole weight of the contest fell. It was soon apparent that she was overmatched by the Prussian hero. Relieved from the load which had so long oppressed him, Frederick vigorously resumed the offensive. Silesia was wholly regained by the king in person: the battle of Freyberg gave his brother, Prince Henry, the ascendant in Saxony; and the cabinet of Vienna, seeing the contest hopeless, were glad to make peace at Hubertsbourg, on 15th February, 1763, on terms which left Silesia and his whole dominions to the King of Prussia.

He entered Berlin in triumph after six years' absence, in an open chariot, with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick seated by his side. No words can paint the enthusiasm of the spectators at the august spectacle, or the admiration with which they regarded the hero who had filled the world with his renown. It was no wonder they were proud of their sovereign. His like had never been seen in modern times. He had founded and saved a kingdom. He had conquered Europe in arms.

With six millions of subjects he had vanquished powers possessing ninety millions. He had created a new era in the art of war. His people were exhausted, pillaged, ruined; their numbers had declined a tenth during the contest. But what then? They had come victorious out of a struggle unparalleled in modern times: the halo of Leuthen and Rosbach, of Zorndorf and Torgau, played round their bayonets; they were inspired with the energy which so speedily repairs any disaster. Frederick wisely and magnanimously laid aside the sword when he resumed the pacific sceptre. His subsequent reign was almost entirely pacific; all the wounds of war were speedily healed under his sage and beneficent administration. Before his death, his subjects were double, and the national wealth triple what it had been at the commencement of his reign and Prussia now boasts of sixteen millions of inhabitants, and a population increasing faster in numbers and resources than any other state in Europe.

No laboured character, no studied eulogium, can paint Frederick, like this brief and simple narrative of his exploits. It places him at once at the head of modern generals,-if Hannibal be excepted, perhaps of ancient and modern. He was not uniformly successful: on the contrary, he sustained several dreadful defeats. But that arose from the enormous superiority of force by which he was assailed, and the desperate state of his affairs, which were generally so pressing, that a respite even in one quarter could be obtained only by a victory instantly gained, under whatever circumstances, in another. What appears rashness was often in him the height of wisdom. He could protract the struggle only by strong and vigorous strokes and the lustre of instant success, and they could not be dealt out without risking receiving as many. The fact of his maintaining the struggle against such desperate odds proves the general wisdom of his policy. No man ever made more skilful use of an interior line of communication, or flew with such rapidity from one threatened part of his dominions to another.

None ever,

by the force of skill in tactics and sagacity in strategy, gained such astonishing successes with forces so inferior. And if some generals have committed fewer faults, none were impelled by such desperate circumstances to a hazardous course, and none had ever so much magnanimity in confessing and explaining them for the benefit of future times.

The only general in modern times who can bear a comparison with Frederick, if the difficulties of his situation are considered, is Napoleon. It is a part only of his campaigns, however, which sustains the analogy. There is no resemblance between the mighty conqueror pouring down the valley of the Danube, at the head of 180,000 men, invading Russia with 500,000, or overrunning Spain with 300,000, and Frederick the Great with 30,000 or 40,000, turning every way against quadruple the number of Austrians, French, Swedes, and Russians. Yet a part, and the most brilliant part of Napoleon's career, bears a close resemblance to that of the Prussian hero. In Lombardy in 1796, in Saxony

in 1813, and in the plains of Champaigne in 1814, he was upon the whole inferior in force to his opponents, and owed the superiority which he generally enjoyed on the point of attack to the rapidity of his movements, and the skill with which, like Frederick, he availed himself of an interior line of communication. His immortal campaign in France in 1814, in particular, where he bore up with 70,000 men against 250,000 enemies, bears the

closest resemblance to those which Frederick sustained for six years against the forces of the Coalition. Rapidity of movement, skill in strategy, and the able use of an interior line of communication, were what enabled both to compensate a prodigious inferiority of force. Both were often to appearance rash, because the affairs of each were so desperate, that nothing could save them but an audacious policy. Both were indomitable in resolution, and preferred ruin and death to sitting down on a dishonoured throne. Both were from the outset of the struggle placed in circumstances apparently hopeless, and each succeeded in protracting it solely by his astonishing talent and resolution. The fate of the two was widely different: the one transmitted an honoured and aggrandized throne to his successors; the other, overthrown and discrowned, terminated his days on the rock of St. Helena. But success is not always the test of real merit: the verdict of ages is often different from the judgment of present times. Hannibal conquered, has left a greater name among men than Scipio victorious. In depth of thought, force of genius, variety of information, and splendour of success, Frederick will bear no comparison with Napoleon. But Frederick's deeds as a general were more extraordinary than those of the French emperor, because he bore up longer against greater odds. It is the highest praise of Napoleon to say, that he did in one campaign-his last and greatest what Frederick had done in six.

If the campaigns of Eugene and Frederick suggest a comparison with those of Napoleon, those of Marlborough challenge a parallel with those of the other great commander of our day-Wellington. Their political and

military situations were in many respects alike. Both combated at the head of the forces of an alliance, composed of dissimilar nations, actuated by separate interests, inflamed by different passions. Both had the utmost difficulty in soothing their jealousies and stifling their selfishness; and both found themselves often more seriously impeded by the allied cabinets in their rear, than by the enemy's forces in their front. Both were the generals of a nation, which, albeit covetous of military glory, and proud of warlike renown, is to the last degree impatient of previous preparation, and frets at the cost of wars, which its political position renders unavoidable, or its ambitious spirit had readily undertaken. Both were compelled to husband the blood of their soldiers, and spare the resources of their governments, from the consciousness that they had already been strained to the uttermost in the cause, and that any farther demands would render the war so unpopular as speedily to lead to its termination. The career of both occurred at a time when political passions were strongly roused in their country; when the war in which they were engaged was waged against the inclination, and, in appearance at least, against the interests of a large and powerful party at home, which sympathized from political feeling with their enemies, and were ready to decry every success and magnify every disaster of their own arms, from a secret feeling that their party elevation was identified rather with the successes of the enemy than with those of their own countrymen. The Tories were to Marlborough precisely what the Whigs were to Wellington. Both were opposed to the armies of the most powerful monarch, led by the most renowned generals of Europe, whose forces, preponderating over the adjoining states, had come to threaten the liberties of all Europe, and at length produced a general coalition to restrain the ambition from which so much detriment had already been experienced.

But while in these respects the two British heroes were placed very much in the same circumstances, in other particulars, not less material, their

situations were widely different. Marlborough had never any difficulties approaching those which beset Wellington to struggle with. By great exertions, both on his own part and that of the British and Dutch governments, his force was generally equal to that with which he had to contend. It was often exactly so. War at that period, in the Low Countries at least, consisted chiefly a single battle during a campaign, followed by the siege of two or three frontier fortresses. The number of strongholds with which the country bristled, rendered any farther or more extensive operations, in general, impossible. This state of matters at once rendered success more probable to a general of superior abilities, and made it more easy to repair disaster. No vehement passions had been roused, bringing whole nations into the field, and giving one state, where they had burnt the fiercest, a vast superiority in point of numbers over its more pacific or less excited neighbours. But in all these respects, the circumstances in which Wellington was placed, were not only not parallelthey were contrasted. From first to last, in the Peninsula, he was enormously outnumbered by the enemy. Until the campaign of 1813, when his force in the field was, for the first time, equal to that of the French, the superiority to which he was opposed was so prodigious, that the only surprising thing is, how he was not driven into the sea in the very first encounter.

While the French had never less than 200,000, sometimes as many as 260,000 effective troops at their disposal, after providing for all their garrisons and communications, the English general had never more than 30,000 effective British and 20,000 Portuguese around his standard. The French were directed by the Emperor, who, intent on the subjugation of the Peninsula, and wielding the inexhaustible powers of the conscription for the supply of his armies, cared not though he lost 100,000 men, so as he purchased success by their sacrifice in every campaign. Wellington was supported at home by a government, which, raising its soldiers by voluntary enrolment, could with