309 ST 005 DR 2059 QUALITY CONTROL MARK TANFORD LIBRARY AMERICAN ECLECTIC AND MUSEUM OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. JANUARY, 1843. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE has attracted universal attention. It comprises a most eventful period in the current of human affairs, and passes in review before us the most prominent actors in the momentous scenes then displayed on the theatre of life. It is most ludicrously erroneous, however, in its statements in respect to the government and religion of the United States, and indicates a want of information on these subjects truly surprising; or else a wilful misrepresentation, which we can scarcely attribute even to so virulent a hater of republicanism. The subsequent article, however, is not a 'running review of the author's volumes, abounding in extracts of tedious length, but is devoted principally to a bold exposure of Mr. Alison's Toryism, and an able defence of the democracy of England and of democracy in general. But by democracy is meant, not the rule of the masses in popular as semblies, but that of any government, in which the numerical majority has the influential, controlling power. effects on those more immediately subjected to the From the Edinburgh Review. History of Europe, from the Commencement THERE is much in Mr. Alison's History He believes in the improvability, but not in the perfectibility of human nature; and notwithstanding the tumultuous passions that tossed themselves, like angry waves, on the sea of the French Revolution, he thinks the ultimate results of it will be beneficial to the world. Our own opinion is not dissimilar. That revolution may be looked upon as the eruption of a moral volcano, disastrous, of course, in its direct A complete history, by an English author, of all the great events which took place in Europe from 1789 to 1815, has long been a desideratum; and whatever may be the imperfections of Mr. Alison's work, we cannot say that it does not supply the vacancy. Its defects, or what we deem such, are matter partly of taste, and partly of politi cal opinion. Some readers may consider for the histories of the Peninsular war by them as beauties-many will overlook Napier, Foy, and others, without feeling them; and even the most fastidious must satisfied of the care and judgment which acknowledge that they are not such as ma- Mr. Alison has shown in constantly selectterially to interfere with the great plan of the work. Its merits are minuteness and honesty qualities which may well excuse a fairly style, gross political prejudices, and a fondness for exaggerated and frothy déclamation. We cannot better illustrate the fulness and authenticity of Mr. Alison's history, than by quoting his own statement of the admirable plan on which he has selected and applied his authorities. His invariable rule, we are informed by his Preface, has been 'to give, on every occasion, the authorities by volume and page from which the statement in the text was taken. ing, where authorities differ, the most probable and most authoritative statements. We have already hinted our opinion, that Mr. Alison's general style is not attractive. It is not, however, at least in the narrative part of his work, either feeble or displeasing. Its principal defect is the cumbrous and unwieldy construction of its sentences, which frequently cause them to appear slovenly and obscure, and sometimes render their precise meaning doubtful. We quote, almost at random, a single passage by way of specimen :-'Mortier, following the orders which he had received to keep nearly abreast of, though a little behind the Not only are the authorities for every par- columns on the right bank, and intent only agraph invariably given, but in many in- upon inflicting loss upon the Russian troops stances also those for every sentence have which he knew had passed the river, and been accumulated in the margin. . . conceived to be flying across his line of Care has been taken to quote a preponder- march from the Danube towards Moravia, ance of authority, in every instance where was eagerly emerging from the defiles of it was possible, from writers on the oppo- Diernstein, beneath the Danube, and the site side to that which an English historian rocky hills beneath the towers of the casmay be supposed to adopt ; and the reader tle where Richard Cœur de Lion was once will find almost every fact in the internal immured, when he came upon the Russian history of the Revolution, supported by two rearguard, under Milaradowitch, posted in Republican and one Royalist authority; front of Stein, on heights commanding the and every event in the military narrative only road by which he could advance, and drawn from at least two writers on the part supported by a powerful artillery.'-(v. of the French, and one on that of their op- 444.) We have purposely selected a senponents.' We feel convinced that Mr. Ali- tence obscure merely by its length and inson has acted up to the spirit of this candid volution, and not disfigured by any tangible and judicious system throughout his whole solecism; and we believe we speak within work. We cannot, of course, pretend to compass when we say, that it would be difhave verified his statements by constant ficult to select half a dozen consecutive reference to the writers from whom he has pages, from any part of Mr. Alison's work, drawn his information. The events which in which one or more passages of at least he records are of such recent occurrence, equally faulty construction might not be and such deep interest, that the enormous found. But there are not wanting offences mass of details published respecting them of a still less excusable nature. Whenever may well defy the curiosity of an ordi- the historian warms with his subject, he is nary reader. But we are bound to remark, constantly hurried into the most singular that whenever we have been led to com- verbal blunders-some puzzling, some lupare the conflicting accounts of any impor- dicrous-but all of a kind which a careful tant event in Mr. Alison's history, we have reperusal could scarcely have failed to disalmost invariably found that his narrative cover. We quote three or four instances, steers judiciously between them, and com- not for the sake of ridiculing a few slight bines the most probable and consistent par- oversights in a long and laborious work, ticulars contained in each. We apply this but in order to draw Mr. Alison's attention remark more especially to his narration of to a defect which, comparatively trivial as the intestine commotions of the French it is, might give great and unjust advantage Revolution, and of the military conflicts of to critics less disposed than we are to treat the Empire-particularly those which occurred in Spain. No one, we think, can read the various accounts of the troubles which led to the Reign of Terror, as collected in the able work of Professor Smyth, him kindly. Thus he speaks of the vast and varied inhabitants' of the French empire-a phrase which can scarcely be actually misunderstood, but which sounds ludicrously inapplicable, considering that the |