instructor:  for from Longinus we learn only that sublimity means
height--or elevation.  (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta
uoe.)  This name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently
to the noble prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of
Plato about the human body, as full of conceits as an ode of
Cowley.  Having no fixed standard, Longinus is right only by
accident.  He is rather a fancier than a critic.

Lord Uxbridge ride against each other; the Duke is victorious,
and is rewarded with twelve opera-girls.  On the last day of the
festivities, a splendid dance takes place, at which all the
heroes attend.

BOOK X.

Mars, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse
Napoleon, who, conducted by Night and Silence, unexpectedly
attacks the Prussians.	The slaughter is immense.  Napoleon kills
many whose histories and families are happily particularised.  He
slays Herman, the craniologist, who dwelt by the linden-shadowed
Elbe, and measured with his eye the skulls of all who walked
through the streets of Berlin.	Alas! his own skull is now cleft
by the Corsican sword.	Four pupils of the University of Jena
advance together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows he
destroys them all.  Blucher rushes to arrest the devastation;
Napoleon strikes him to the ground, and is on the point of
killing him, but Gneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other
heroes of the Prussian army, gather round him, and bear the
venerable chief to a distance from the field.  The slaughter is
continued till night.  In the meantime Neptune has despatched
Fame to bear the intelligence to the Duke, who is dancing at
Brussels.  The whole army is put in motion.  The Duke of
Brunswick's horse speaks to admonish him of his danger, but in
vain.

BOOK VI.

Picton, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage
Ney at Quatre Bras.  Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips
him, sending his belt to Napoleon.  The English fall back on
Waterloo.  Jupiter calls a council of the gods, and commands that
none shall interfere on either side.  Mars and Neptune make very
eloquent speeches.  The battle of Waterloo commences.  Napoleon
kills Picton and Delancy.  Ney engages Ponsonby and kills him.
The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult.  Lord Uxbridge flies to
check the carnage.  He is severely wounded by Napoleon, and only
saved by the assistance of Lord Hill.  In the meantime the Duke
makes a tremendous carnage among the French.  He encounters
General Duhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life.  He
kills Toubert, who kept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and
Maronet, who loved to spend whole nights in drinking champagne.
Clerval, who had been hooted from the stage, and had then become
a captain in the Imperial Guard, wished that he had still
continued to face the more harmless enmity of the Parisian pit.
But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had instructed
in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general of the
French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured
him not to give death to one whose office it was to give life.
The Duke raised him, and bade him live.

But we must hasten to the close.  Napoleon rushes to encounter
Wellington.  Both armies stand in mute amaze.  The heroes fire
their pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington,
formed by the hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds
the Emperor in the thigh.  He flies, and takes refuge among his
troops.  The flight becomes promiscuous.  The arrival of the
Prussians, from a motive of patriotism, the poet completely
passes over.

BOOK XII.

Things are now hastening to the catastrophe.  Napoleon flies to
London, and, seating himself on the hearth of the Regent,
embraces the household gods and conjures him, by the venerable
age of George III., and by the opening perfections of the
Princess Charlotte, to spare him.  The Prince is inclined to do
so; when, looking on his breast, he sees there the belt of the
Duke of Brunswick.  He instantly draws his sword, and is about to
stab the destroyer of his kinsman.  Piety and hospitality,
however, restrain his hand.  He takes a middle course, and
condemns Napoleon to be exposed on a desert island.  The King of
France re-enters Paris; and the poem concludes.

...


ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE.

(November 1824.)

This is a book which enjoys a great and increasing popularity:
but, while it has attracted a considerable share of the public
attention, it has been little noticed by the critics.  Mr Mitford
has almost succeeded in mounting, unperceived by those whose
office it is to watch such aspirants, to a high place among
historians.  He has taken a seat on the dais without being
challenged by a single seneschal.  To oppose the progress of his
fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise.  Had he been reviewed
with candid severity, when he had published only his first
