The native American., 1838-03-31
From Black,cood's Magasine.]
ALISON'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION.

REVOLUTION.
All memoirs of the French Revolution have, to
us, an inexpressible interest. The rapidity,
force, and vastness of its machinery, fill the mind
with sense of power unexampled in the tardy
and simple contrivances of earlier overthrow.
Evil as it was, it had daring grasp, remorse-
less violence, and an untameabe fury, that trans
port us at once out of the ancient courses of hui
man guilt, and bring the mind within view of
shapes and thoughts that seem the denizens of a
darker world. If the imagination OF some great
master Of the pencil or the pen were to be tasked
to bring the spirits that s'miniser to human mis-
chief before the eye, and if that master were
Raphael, or Shakespeare himself, we scarcely know
where he could find more living resemblance of
the demon than in the Robespierres and Dantons,
the Barreres and the Napoeons; in the chill
countenances and fiery hearts, the calm and cal
: culating malgnity and the rabid thirst of blood
the naughty contempt of human agonies, and the
goddess and defying arrogance with which they
went forth on their way to delusive and unsub-
stantial power, tramping on altars and thrones.
The high appreciation with which the public
have received the preceding volumes Of Mr.. Ali
sons History of the French Revolution, relieves
us at once from all appearance Of partiaty, and
from all necessity for panegyric. No work could
have made such progress in national opinion
without substantial qualities. Its yigor of re-
search and its manliness principle, its accurate
knowledge and its animation of style, have been
the grounds of its remarkable public favor, as
they are the guarantees for its permanent popu-
larity. The present volume, the sixth Of the Sc
ries, advances in interest. The importance of
its transactions may be estimated from the fact,
that the two years which this volume compre-
hends, actually formed the pivot on which all the
mighty events since their dates have turned; that
they exhibited at once the midnight and the dawn
of European liberty, the most boundless triumph
of the universal oppressor, and the commence
ment of assured deliverance; the laying Of the
heaviest fetter on the neck Of mankind, and the
striking of that first great blow by which the civil
lized world was to be redeemed. The battles of
Austerltz in 1905, and of Jena in 1906, had de-
stroyed the resistance of central Europe. The
military reputation of Austria had been broken
on the field, but more condign calamity had
fallen on Prussia. Her military existence had
been extnguished In the history of national
overthrow, there never had been until that day so
disastrous, desperate, and crushing result of a
single battle. 1t was yet to have but one rival,
that illustrious encounter in which the author of
the ruin of Prussia was to be buried in the ruins
Of his tyrannical and nfdel empire by the genius
of Wellington and the hand of England. Prus-
sia was DESTROYED in all the attributes that form
civilized power. Her brilliant army was scatter
ed in day like mist before whirlwind. All
her great fortresscs fell at summons, all her prov
inces were overrun, all her revenues con6scated,
all her laws abolished; d;-yesterday she was an in
dependent kingdom, to-day she was vassal pro-
vince; yesterday she was great European pow
er, taking on herself the restoration of Europe,
and anticipating the triumphant struggle Of its
he. mrs
and slave, with her armor hewn from her, her
strength dsmembered, and her hopes in the grave
Of her gallant soldery; yesterday she was Prus-
sia, to-day she was France.
1t is difficult to account for the distinction of
the calamities in Austria and Prussia, without
looking to some higher source than the fortunes
Of war. Among the many merits of Mr.. Alison's
History, we regard it as the most original and the
most important, that he writes with the feelings
of "a Christian. No historian has ever been more
free from the mawkishness of sentiment or the
sancmony of phrase, which have been un-
fortunately affected by writer's calling themselves
Christian, taking learned yet unlabored view of
the mere human motives. He investigates with
pious, yet manly dignity, the sources Of events in
those loftier councils from which all things come,
to which the Christian alone can look, and to
which the Christian alone can pay the reverence
due. Those feelings predominant throughout the
entire of these volumes. The French Revolu-
ton itself was but great development of Provi-
dental design, and no historian could do justice to
it except the man who acknowledged a Proyi-
dence the supreme arbiter Of human things.
Going at least to the full extent of Mr. Alisons
impressions those subjects, we cannot look
back upon the French trumphs in Austria, Prus-
sa, and Russia, but in the sense Of unconscious
agencies of vast plan Of retributive justice and
we think that we can discover even in the more
minute features of the vengeance, something pro-
portonate to the peculiar offences of the suffer
ers. In the history of the Continent, no act OF
kingly treachery, fraud, and blood, had ever ri
vailed the partition Of Poland. 1t combined at
once the characters of all that we hate and de-
spise; it had the meanness of political swindlng,
the fury of national rapine, and the atrocity Of
military massacre. The great offender was Prus-
sia---Austria and Russia were only the accom-
plices. The perfdy, subtlety, and merclless ap-
petite for possession which characterised the con
duct of Frederic H., made him the tcmpter, and
would have been not unworthy of the original
tempter of mankind. The consprator Kingdoms
entered with fatal readiness into the temptation