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nay many things perhaps far dearer, with joyful heart, when the one good cause is concerned.'

And elsewhere in a private letter:

I not only assure thee, but I beg of thee to assure all men, if God should ever so withdraw the light of his grace from me, that I ceased to be a Catholic, I would a thousand times sooner join myself to Judaism, or to the Bramins on the Ganges: but to that shallowest, driest, most contradictory, inanest Inanity of Protestantism, never, never, never!'

Here, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly, of almost feminine vehemence; for it is to a Protestant and an old friend that he writes but the conclusion of his Preface shows him in a better light. Speaking of Second Parts, and regretting that so many of his works were unfinished, he adds:

But what specially comforts me is the prospect of our genera Second Part; where even in the first Scene this consolation, that there all our works will be known, may not indeed prove solacing for us all; but where, through the strength of Him, that alone completes all works, it will be granted to those whom He has saved, not only to know each other, but even to know Him, as by Him they are known!With my trust in Christ, whom I have not yet won, I regard, with the Teacher of the Gentiles, all things but dross that I may win Him; and to Him, cordially and lovingly do I, in life or at death, commit you all, my beloved Friends and my beloved Enemies!'

On the whole, we cannot think it doubtful that Werner's belief was real and heartfelt. But how then, our wondering readers may inquire, if his belief was real and not pretended, how then did he believe? He, who scoffs in infidel style at the truths of Protestantism, by what alchemy did he succeed in tempering into credibility the harder and bulkier dogmas of Popery? Of Popery too, the frauds and gross corruptions of which he has so fiercely exposed in his Martin Luther; and this, moreover, without cancelling, or even softening his vituperations, long after his conversion, in the very last edition of that drama? To this question, we are far from pretending to have any answer that altogether satisfies ourselves; much less that shall altogether satisfy others. Meanwhile, there are two considerations which throw light on the difficulty for us: these, as some step, or at least, attempt towards a solution of it, we shall not withhold. The first lies in Werner's individual character, and mode of life. Not only was he born a mystic, not only had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and all manner of cabalistic and other traditionary chimeras; he was also, and had long been, what is emphatically called dissolute; a word, which

has

has now lost somewhat of its original force; but which, as applied here, is still more just and significant in its etymological, than in its common acceptation. He was a man dissolute; that is, by a long course of vicious indulgences, enervated and loosened asunder. Everywhere in Werner's life and actions, we discern a mind relaxed from its proper tension; no longer capable of effort and toilsome resolute vigilance; but floating almost passively with the current of its impulses, in languid, imaginative, Asiatic reverie. That such a man should discriminate, with sharp, fearless logic, between beloved errors and unwelcome truths, was not to be expected. His belief is likely to have been persuasion rather than conviction, both as it related to Religion, and to other subjects. What, or how much a man in this way may bring himself to believe, with such force and distinctness as he honestly and usually calls belief, there is no predicting.

But another consideration, which we think should nowise be omitted, is the general state of religious opinion in Germany, especially among such minds as Werner was most apt to take for his examplars. To this complex and highly interesting subject, we can for the present do nothing more than allude. So much, however, we may say: It is a common theory among the Germans that every Creed, every Form of worship, is a form merely; the mortal and ever-changing body, in which the im mortal and unchanging spirit of Religion is, with more or less completeness, expressed to the material eye, and made manifest and influential among the doings of men. It is thus, for instance, that Johannes Müller, in his Universal History, professes to consider the Mosaic Law, the creed of Mahomet, nay Luther's Reformation; and, in short, all other systems of Faith; which he scruples not to designate, without special praise or censure, simply as Vorstellungsarten, modes of Representation.' We could report equally singular things of Schelling and others, belonging to the philosophic class; nay of Herder, a Protestant clergyman, and even bearing high authority in the Church. Now, it is clear, in a country where such opinions are openly and generally professed, a change of religious creed must be comparatively a slight matter. Conversions to Catholicism are accordingly by no means unknown among the Germans: Friedrich Schlegel, and the younger Count von Stolberg, men, as we should think, of vigorous intellect, and of character above suspicion, were colleagues, or rather precursors, of Werner in this adventure; and, indeed, formed part of his acquaintance at Vienna. It is but, they would say perhaps, as if a melodist, inspired with har

mony

mony of inward music, should choose this instrument in preference to that for giving voice to it: the inward inspiration is the grand concern; and to express it, the 'deep majestic solemn organ' of the Unchangeable Church may be better fitted than the scrannel pipe' of a withered, trivial, Arian Protestantism. That Werner, still more that Schlegel and Stolberg could, on the strength of such hypotheses, put off or put on their religious creed, like a new suit of apparel, we are far from asserting; they are men of earnest hearts, and seem to have a deep feeling of devotion: but it should be remembered that, what forms the groundwork of their religion, is professedly not Demonstration but Faith; and so pliant a theory could not but help to soften the transition from the former to the latter. That some such principle, in one shape or another, lurked in Werner's mind, we think we can perceive from several indications; among others, from the Prologue to his last tragedy, where mysteriously enough, under the emblem of a Phoenix, he seems to be shadowing forth the history of his own Faith; and represents himself even then as merely climbing the tree, where the pinions of his Phoenix last vanished;' but not hoping to regain that blissful vision, till his eyes shall have been opened by death.

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On the whole, we must not pretend to understand Werner, or expound him with scientific rigour: acting many times with only half consciousness, he was always, in some degree, an enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to us. Above all, there are mysteries and unsounded abysses in every human heart; and that is but a questionable philosophy which undertakes so readily to explain them. Religious belief especially, at least when it seems heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject for harsh or even irreverent investigation. He is a wise man that, having such a belief, knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in himself: and those, we imagine, who, have explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush with intolerant violence into that of

other men's.

'The good Werner,' says Jean Paul, 'fell, like our more vigorous Hoffmann, into the poetical fermenting-vat (Gährbottich) of our time, where all Literatures, Freedoms, Tastes, and Untastes are foaming through each other; and where all is to be found, excepting truth, diligence, and the polish of the file. Both would have come forth clearer had they studied in Lessing's day.' We cannot justify Werner: yet let him be

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Letter to Hitzig, in Jean Paul's Leben, by Doering.

condemned

condemned with pity! And well were it could each of us apply to himself those words, which Hitzig, in his friendly indignation, would thunder in the ears' of many a German gainsayer: Take thou the beam out of thine own eye; then shalt thou see clearly to take the mote out of thy brother's.

ART. V.-Histoire de la Guerre de la Péninsule sous Napoléon, précédée d'un Tableau Politique et Militaire des Puissances belligérantes. 4 tom. Paris. Baudouin, frères. 1827.

MAXIMILIEN Sebastien Foy was born of respectable

parents, in the little town of Ham in Picardy, February 3, 1775. He received the first elements of his education at the college of Oratory at Soissons, whence he was removed, in 1790, to the Military Academy de la Fère. Towards the end of 1791, having obtained the appointment of sub-lieutenant, he was transferred to the higher school of Chalons-sur-Marne ; and in the following year, he was attached to the third regiment of artillery, in the capacity of lieutenant.

The state of Europe was at this time exremely critical, the Duke of Brunswick's proclamation having thrown France into a ferment, and Dumouriez drawn up the plan of the campaign, which he soon afterwards conducted with so remarkable an intermixture of glory and infamy to himself. It was the fate of M. Foy to act under the orders of that officer. With him, he took part in the memorable battle of Jemappe, and with unshaken fidelity, he followed his general's fortunes till the latter began to treat with the Prince of Cobourg; but, as Foy was a republican, upon principle, he would not approve of the object of that treaty; and he therefore abandoned his patron, rather than betray the cause to which he devoted his life. Notwithstanding, however, M. Foy shortly after drew upon himself the hostility of the faction which at that period governed France. By order of the miscreant Lebon, he was cast into the dungeons of Arras; and, but for the counter-revolution of the 9th Thermidor, he would have fallen a victim to the reckless brutality of the sovereign populace. That memorable event preserved his life. He returned to the military service, was speedily promoted, and performed in the campaigns of 1795, 96, and 97, under Pichegru, Kleber, Jourdan, and Moreau. At the famous passage of the Rhine, and in the battle of Kambach, his services were of so much value, that he received on the field the rank of Chef-d'escadron; and, after passing the greater part of 1798 in

the

the encampment above Boulogne, he joined the troops destined, under Mesnard, for the campaign in Switzerland.

Foy was present in all the numerous engagements which took place within the Helvetian territory, but, strange to say, without attracting notice corresponding to his merits. Honours, however, fell rapidly upon him, while acting in the army of the Danube, for the successful passage of the Lummat is attributed mainly to his judicious manoeuvres; and he was rewarded for his services by the appointment of adjutant-general, in which capacity he was present at the actions of Enghen, Moertresh, and Beberach. But the peace of Amiens interrupted, for a season, the active career of Foy; while it saw him advanced to the permanent rank of Colonel, and invested with the command of the fifth regiment of horse-artillery. On the renewal of hostilities, Colonel Foy acted at Boulogne, and subsequently, in the campaigns of Germany and Austria. In 1806, when war was declared between Russia and the Sublime Porte, Buonaparte, then Emperor of the French, proposed to assist his ally Selim with a chosen band of cannoniers, at the head of which was Colonel Foy. This officer was thus enabled, for the first time, to come into contact with the English; for it was he who directed the defence of the forts in the Dardanelles against the attack of the combined British and Russian squadrons. Returned from Turkey, he accompanied Junot in his rapid march to Lisbon, and at the battle of Vimeiro commanded seven pieces of the division of the reserve, and is stated to have outdone himself in a vain attempt to penetrate the centre of the British line. He was severely wounded in the conflict, and in that condition was removed to France, on the evacuation of Portugal by the terms of the convention of Cintra. After Junot's return into Spain, Foy, except on one memorable occasion, when he made his way, by the directions of Massena, to and from Paris,-through the heart of a population every way hostile,-never quitted the Peninsula till, with the whole French army, he was driven across the Bidassoa. In the course of that long and arduous struggle, his merits cannot be too highly rated. As general of brigade, in 1810, he surprised, at the head of a handful of men, a corps of three thousand Spanish troops; utterly dispersed them, and barely failed to take prisoner Colonel Graham, now Lord Lynedoch, who escaped in the middle of the night, with the loss of papers, baggage, and horses. Attacked two days after by overwhelming numbers, he opposed a steady and successful resistance, and made good his retreat through the defiles of the Sierra de Caceres, though beset on all sides by upwards of six thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry. At the battle of Salamanca, again, where, as

general

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