The Sun. — 1835-01-31 (London, England)

LITERATURE.  ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE, DURING  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Vols. 111. and IV. Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1835.  We noticed at considerable length the two first volumes of this work, which brought down the history of the French Revolution to the period of the death of Robespierre, and .the conclusion of the reign of terror; two more volumes are now published, embracing the period of the Directory and the Consulate, from the rise of Napoleon, to his assumption of the Imperial Crown of Charlemagne. To these new volumes we may accord the same praise that we bestowed on the former ones, namely, that they are, with here and there an exception, penned in a spirit of uniform impartiality. Mr. Alison has too lofty a notion of the qualifications that should characterize a historian, to degrade- them by exhibiting any intemperate party bias. The portions of his history which we least approve, are those relating to the conspiracy of Georges, Pichegru, and Moreau. The author has taken evident pains with this part, and made a desperate effort to show his impartiality ; but without success ; for no one can read it without perceiving, at a glance, that the drift of his remarks is to convert the suicide of Pichegru into a murder, and fix the responsibility on Napoleon. Now we should think that the remarks of the Emperor himself, to say nothing of .those of Montholon, and a host of other testimony, would be quite conclusive on this point. When the former says, " What had I to gain by the murder of Pichegru ?" we allow at • once the cogency of the reasoning, more especially when he adds, in a spirit that will come home to all ambitious minds, `" A man of my character does not ace without sufficient motives." Yet Mr. Alison labours hard to show that the death of Piehegru was necessary to the imperial elevation of Napoleon ; forgetting, apparently, that Pichegru, mixed up as he was with the worn-out Royalist party, could not possibly have thwarted the First Consul in any of his ambitious schemes. His day was past. lr a IYAS known throughout France to" have lent himself to the intrigues of the English Government, and that one fact . must for over have neutralized his powers of mischief. Had Napoleon been bent on crushing any one, Moreau, influential as he confessedly was, would have been his Victim : for he was not P. man to be balked' in his career by . any temporizing notions of policy, But to turn to another subject. In his estimate of Catherine the Second, Mr. Alison, is any thing but impartial. His attempt to make her out a great sovereign, in the same sense that our own Elizabeth was great, is a rank failure. Pass over, as he may, in a few brief sentences, her flagrant improprieties as a woman—considering them, perhaps, beyond the province of ail', historian—he has no right to pass over the fact, that site ryas nnt9rms, in the sense only that a Buccaneer is notorious, and that her scheme of government was one founded on the most flagrant robberies and avoliati9ns, True, she increased the dimensions of her empire, but she did not increase the welfare of her subjects. At best she was only half civilized. The savage predominated in all she said 'or did! OliP' was a compound of Messalina and Semiramis—libidinous as the one—reckless and ambitious as the other, It was she who ordered 7'e Daions for the unparalleled massacre at Ismail—she who depopulated whole towns and villages to swell her triumphal journey with Potemkin, when she went to meet her discarded lover Stanislaus. Of all these points Mr. Alison makes not time slightest mention, fie FqmpTpilep gply that Catherine Was a successful Queen, Yet this queell aseencle4 the throne by the murder of her husband I If these are sovereigns worthy of historic praise, who among them de-. servp; condemnation ? These are the chief defects which, on a 1444 y inspection, we have met with in. Mr. Alison's history. Io all AttleF Fe§wt§ 119 does every justice tO subject, and speaks of the Code Napoleon, just as we 01014 tian expected from an historian of his research and inteiligetieJ,