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shot. The French were in the end defeated, with the loss of eight thousand men and seventeen guns; but the fruits of victory were in a great measure lost to the English by the arrival of Marshals Soult, Ney, and Mortier, with the whole forces in the provinces of Galicia, Leon, and Asturias, in their rear, which forced them to retreat to the Portuguese frontier. But one lasting good effect resulted from this movement, that these provinces were liberated from the enemy, who never after regained their footing in them. The year 1810 witnessed the invasion of Portugal by a huge French army, eighty thousand strong, under Marshal Massena, which, after capturing the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, penetrated into the very heart of that country. Sir Arthur, who had now been created Viscount Wellington, had only thirty-five thousand men under his command, with which it was impossible to prevent the fall of those fortresses. But he took so strong a position on the ridge of Busaco that he repulsed, with great slaughter, an attack upon it by two corps of the French army, and when at length obliged to retire, from his flank being turned after the battle was over, he did so to the position of Torres Vedras, thirty miles in front of Lisbon, which, by the advantages of nature and the resources of art had been rendered impregnable. Six hundred guns were mounted on the redoubts, which were defended by sixty thousand armed men. After wasting five months in front of this formidable barrier, the French general was forced to retreat, which he did, closely followed by Wellington to the Spanish froutier. There Massena turned on his pursuer, and he reëntered Spain with a view to bring away the garrison of Almeida, which was now invested; but he was met and defeated at Fuentes d'Onore by Wellington, and forced to retire without effecting his object to Ciudad Rodrigo. The remainder of the year 1810 and the whole of 1811 passed over without any very important events, although a desperate battle took place in the latter year at Albuera, where Marshal Soult was defeated, with the loss of seven thousand men, by Marshal Beresford, in an attempt to raise the siege of Badajoz, which Wellington was besieging. He was compelled to desist from that enterprise after he had made great progress in the siege, by a general concentration of the whole French

forces in the center and south of Spain, who advanced against him to the number of sixty thousand men. But, though Wellington withdrew into Portugal on this occasion, it was only soon to return into Spain. In the depth of winter he secretly prepared a battering train, which he directed against Ciudad Rodrigo, when Marmont's army, charged with its defense, was dispersed in winter quarters, and after a siege of six days, took it by storm in January, 1812. No sooner was this done than he directed his forces against Badajoz, which he also carried by storm, after a dreadful assault, which cost the victors four thousand men. Directing then his footsteps to the north, he defeated Marmont, with the loss of twenty thousand men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, near Salamanca; and advancing to Madrid, he entered that capital in triumph, and compelled the evacuation of the whole of the south of Spain by the French troops. He then turned again to the north, and advanced to Burgos, the castle of which he attempted to carry, but in vain. He was obliged again to retire, by a general concentration of the whole French troops in Spain, one hundred thousand strong, against him, and regained the Portuguese frontier, after having sustained very heavy losses during his retreat. The next campaign, that of 1813, was a continual triumph. Early in May, Wellington, whose army had now been raised to seventy thousand men, of whom forty thousand were native Englishmen, moved forward, and driving every thing before him, came up with the French army of equal strength, which was concentrated from all parts of Spain in the Plain of Vittoria. The battle which ensued was decisive of the fate of the peninsula. The French, who were under King Joseph in person, were totally defeated, with the loss of one hundred and fifty-six pieces of cannon, four hundred and fifteen tumbrils, their whole baggage, and an amount of spoil never before won in modern times by an army. The accumulated plunder of five years in Spain was wrenched from them at one fell swoop. For several miles the soldiers literally marched on dollars and Napoleons which strewed the ground. The French regained their frontier with only one gun, and in the deepest dejection. St. Sebastian was immediately besieged, and taken, after two bloody assaults, Pampeluna blockaded, and a gallant army, thirty

five thousand strong, which Soult had action ensued at Quatre Bras, in which collected in the south of France to raise the French were at length repulsed with the blockade, defeated with the loss of the loss of five thousand men; and, on twelve thousand men. Wellington next the eighteenth, Wellington having coldefeated an attempt of the French again lected all his forces at the post of Waterto penetrate into France at St. Marcial, loo, gave battle to Napoleon in person, and following up his successes, crossed the who was at the head of eighty thousand Bidassoa, stormed the lines they had con- men. His force was only sixty-seven structed on the mountains, which were thousand, with one hundred and fifty-six deemed impregnable, and after repeated guns-whereas, the French had two hunactions, which were most obstinately con- dred and fifty; and of these troops only tested through the winter, drove them forty-three thousand were English, and entirely from the neighborhood of Ba- Hanoverians, and Brunswickers, who yonne, and completed the investment of could be relied on, the remainder being that fortress, while Soult retired, with Belgians, who ran away the moment the forty thousand men, towards Toulouse. action was seriously engaged. NotwithThither he was followed next spring by standing this great inequality, the British Wellington, who again defeated him at army maintained its ground with invinciOrthes, in a pitched battle, after which he ble firmness till seven o'clock, when the detached his left wing, under Lord Dal- arrival of fifty thousand Prussians, under housie, which occupied Bordeaux. The Blücher, on Napoleon's flank, enabled main army, under Wellington in person, Wellington to take the offensive. The followed Soult and brought him to action, result was the total defeat of the French in a fortified position of immense strength, army, with the loss of forty thousand men on the hights of Toulouse. The battle and one hundred and fifty-six guns. Natook place four days after peace had been poleon fled to Paris, which he soon after signed, but when it was unknown to the left, and surrendered to the English, and allies it graced the close of Wellington's Louis XVIII. having returned to his capipeninsular career by a glorious victory. tal, his dynasty, and with it peace, was Honors and emoluments of all kinds were restored. The allies having determined now showered upon the English general. to occupy the frontier fortresses, with an He received a field-marshal's baton from army of one hundred and fifty thousand George IV., in return for Marshal Jour- men during five years, the command of dan's, taken on the memorable field of the whole was bestowed on the Duke of Vittoria; he was made a duke at the Wellington; thus affording the clearest conclusion of the peace; received the proof that his was the master-mind which thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and had come to direct the European alliance. grants at different times to the amount Wellington resigned his command, and of five hundred thousand pounds to pur- with it his magnificent appointments in chase an estate and build a palace. He October, 1818, and returned to England, was chiefly at Paris during the year 1814, to the retirement of a comparatively conducting the negotiations for peace; but private station, terminating thus a career on the return of Napoleon from Elba in of unbroken military glory by the yet March, 1815, he was appointed to the purer lustre arising from relieving the command of the united army of British, difficulties and assuaging the sufferings of Hanoverians, and Belgians, seventy thou- his vanquished enemies. In 1819 he was sand strong, formed in the Netherlands, appointed commander-in-chief of the army, to resist the anticipated attack of the which situation he held during the whole French Emperor. The French Emperor anxious years which followed, and by his was not long in making the anticipated able and far-seeing arrangements, conirruption; and on the fifteenth June, tributed, in an essential manner, to bring 1815, he crossed the frontier, and drove the nation, without effusion of blood, in the Prussian outposts, with one hundred and thirty thousand men. Next day he attacked the Prussians, under Blücher, with eighty thousand, and dispatched Ney with thirty thousand against Wellington's army, which was only beginning to be concentrated. A desperate

VOL. XLIX-NO. 2

through the long years of distress which followed. His long and honored life, after having been prolonged beyond the usual period of human existence, at length drew to a close. He had, some years before his death, alarming symptoms in his head; so often the consequence of long-continued

19

sion, which went from the Horse Guards, by Apsley House, Piccadilly, and the Strand, to St. Paul's, and not a head was covered, and few eyes dry, when the procession appeared in the streets. Wellington was only once married. He left two sons, the eldest of whom succeeded to his titles and estates, the fruits of his transcendent abilities and great patriotic services.

intellectual effort; but by strict abstemi- a million of persons witnessed the procesousness and perfect regularity of life, he succeeded in subduing the dangerous symptoms, and he was enabled to continue and discharge his duties regularly at the Horse Guards till the time of his death, which took place on September 18, 1852, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. He was honored with a public funeral, and buried in St. Paul's, in the most magnificent manner, beside Nelson. The Queen and all the noblest in the land were there;

EDWARD

EVERETT

ON

WASHINGTON

IRVING.

THE Massachusetts Historical Society | two first-class historical works, which, alheld a special meeting on Thursday eve- though from their subjects they possess a ning, at the residence of Hon. David peculiar attraction for the people of the Sears, to pay a tribute of respect to the United States, are yet, in general interest, late Washington Irving. second to no contemporary works in that department of literature. I allude, of course, to the History of the Life and Voyages of Columbus and the Life of Washington.

After a formal announcement of the death of Mr. Irving, by Mr. Sears, Prof. Longfellow made a few remarks, alluding, in affecting terms, to his personal intercourse with the deceased, and concluded by offering a series of appropriate resolutions.

Hon. Edward Everett, in seconding the resolution, read the following memoir of Irving:

I cordially concur in the resolutions which Mr. Longfellow has submitted to the Society. They do no more than justice to the merits and character of Mr. Irving, as a man and as a writer, and it is to me, sir, a very pleasing circumstance that a tribute like this to the Nestor of the prose writers of America-so just and so happily expressed should be paid by the most distinguished of our American poets.

If the year 1769 is distinguished, above every other year of the last century, for the number of eminent men to which it gave birth, that of 1859 is thus far signalized in this century for the number of bright names which it has taken from us; and surely that of Washington Irving may be accounted with the brightest on the list.

It is eminently proper that we should take a respectful notice of his deccase. He has stood for many years on the roll of our honorary members, and he has enriched the literature of the country with

Although Mr. Irving's devotion to literature as a profession and a profession pursued with almost unequaled successwas caused by untoward events, which in ordinary cases would have proved the ruin of a life-a rare good fortune attended his literary career. Without having received a collegiate education, and destined first to the legal profession, which he abandoned as uncongenial, he had in very early life given promise of attaining a brilliant reputation as a writer. Some essays from his pen attracted notice before he reached his majority. A few years later, the numbers of the Salmagundi, to which he was a principal contributor, enjoyed a success throughout the United States far beyond any former similar work, and not surpassed, if equaled, by any thing which has since appeared.

This was followed by Knickerbocker's History of New-York, which at once placed Mr. Irving at the head of American humorists. In the class of compositions to which it belongs, I know of nothing happier than this work in our language. It has probably been read as widely and with as keen a relish as any thing from Mr Irving's pen. It would seem cynical to subject a work of this

kind to an austere commentary, at least while we are paying a tribute to the memory of its lamented author. But I may be permitted to observe that, while this kind of writing fits well with the joyous temperament of youth, in the first flush of successful authorship, and is managed by Mr. Irving with great delicacy and skill, it is, in my opinion, better adapted for a jeu d'esprit in a magazine than for a work of considerable compass. To travesty an entire history seems to me a mistaken effort of ingenuity, and not well applied to the countrymen of William of Orange, Grotius, the De Witts and Van Tromp.

This work first made Mr. Irving known in Europe. His friend Mr. Henry Brevoort, one of the associate wits of the Salmagundi, had sent a copy of it to Sir Walter Scott, himself chiefly known at that time as the most popular of the English poets of the day, though as such beginning to be outdone by the fresher brightness of Byron's inspiration. Scott, though necessarily ignorant of the piquant allusions to topics of contemporary interest, and wholly destitute of sympathy with the spirit of the work, entered fully into its humor as a literary effort, and spoke of it with discrimination and warmth. His letter to Mr. Henry Brevoort is now in the possession of his son, our esteemed corresponding associate, Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, to whose liberality we are indebted for the curious panoramic drawing of the military works in the environs of Boston, executed by a British officer in 1775, which I have had the pleasure, on behalf of Mr. Brevoort, of tendering to the Society this evening. Mr. Carson Brevoort has caused a lithographic fac simile of Sir Walter Scott's letter to be executed, and of this interesting relic he also offers a copy to the acceptance of the Society. The letter has been inserted in the very instructive article on Mr. Irving in Allibone's invaluable Dictionary of English and American Authors; but as it is short and may not be generally known to the Society, I will read it from the fac simile:

"MY DEAR SIR: I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose history of New-York. I am sensible that as a stranger to American parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed satire of the piece; but I must own that, looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I

have never read any thing so closely resembling
the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich
Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few
evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S., and
have been absolutely sore with laughing. I
two ladies who are our guests, and our sides
think, too, there are passages which indicate that
that the author possesses powers of a different
kind, and has some touches which remind me
much of Sterne. I beg you will have the kind-
ness to let me know when Mr. Irving takes his
pen in hand again, for assuredly I shall expect
a very great treat, which I may chance never to
hear of but through your kindness.
"Believe me, dear sir,

"Your obliged humble serv't,
"WALTER SCOTT.

"Abbotsford, 23d April 1813."

After Mr. Irving had been led to take up his residence abroad, and to adopt literature as a profession and a livelihood

a resource to which he was driven by the failure of the commercial house of his relatives, of which he was nominally a partner-he produced in rapid succession a series of works which stood the test of English criticism, and attained a popularity not surpassed-hardly equaled-by that of any of his European contemporaries. This fact, besides being attested by the critical journals of the day, may be safely inferred from the munificent prices paid by the great London bookseller, the elder Murray, for the copy-right of several of his productions. He wrote, among other subjects, of English manners, sports, and traditions national traits of character-certainly the most difficult topics for a foreigner to treat, and he wrote at a time when Scott was almost annually sending forth one of his marvelous novels; when the poetical reputation of Moore, Byron, Campbell, and Rogers was at the zenith; and the public appetite was consequently fed almost to satiety by these familiar domestic favorites. But notwithstanding these disadvantages and obstacles to success, he rose at once to a popularity of the most brilliant and enviable kind; and this, too, in a branch of literature which had not been cultivated with distinguished success in England since the time of Goldsmith, and with the exception of Goldsmith, not since the days of Addison and Steele.

Mr. Irving's manner is often compared with Addison's, though, closely examined, there is no great resemblance between them, except that they both write in a simple unaffected style, remote from the

tiresome stateliness of Johnson and Gibbon. It was one of the witty, but rather ill-natured sayings of Mr. Samuel Rogers, whose epigrams sometimes did as much injustice to his kind and generous nature as they did to the victims of his pleasantry, that Washington Irving was Addison and Water-a judgment which, if seriously dealt with, is altogether aside from the merits of the two writers, who have very little in common. Addison had received a finished classical education at the Charter House and at Oxford, was eminently a man of books, and had a decided taste for literary criticism. Mr. Irving, for a man of letters, was not a great reader, and if he possessed the critical faculty never exercised it. Addison quoted the Latin poets freely and wrote correct Latin verses himself. Mr. Irving made no pretensions to a familiar acquaintance with the classics, and probably never made a hexameter in his life. Addison wrote some smooth English poetry, which Mr. Irving I believe, never attempted; but with the exception of two or three exquisite hymns, (which will last as long as the English language does,) one brilliant simile of six lines in the Campaign, and one or two sententious but not very brilliant passages from Cato, not a line of Addison's poetry has been quoted for a hundred years. But Mr. Irving's peculiar vein of humor is not inferior in playful raciness to Addison's; his nicety of characterization is quite equal; his judgment upon all moral relations as sound and true; his human sympathies more comprehensive, tenderer, and chaster; and his poetical faculty, though never developed in verse, vastly above Addison's. One chord in the human heart, the pathetic, for whose sweet music Addison had no ear, Irving touched with the hand of a master. He learned that skill in the school of early disappointment.

In this respect the writer was in both cases reflected in the man. Addison, after a protracted suit, made an "ambitious match" with a termagant peeress; Irving, who would as soon have married Hecate as a woman like the Countess of Warwick, buried a blighted hope, never to be rekindled, in the grave of a youthful

sorrow.

As miscellaneous essayists, in which capacity only they can be compared, Irving exceeds Addison in versatility and range, quite as much as Addison exceeds

Irving in the far less important quality of classical tincture; while as a great national historian, our countryman reaped in a field which Addison never entered.

Mr. Irving's first great historical work, The Life and Voyages of Columbus, appeared at London and New-York in 1828. Being at Bordeaux in the winter of 1825-6, he received a letter from Mr. Alexander H. Everett, then Minister of the United States in Spain, informing him that a work was passing through the press, containing a collection of documents relative to the voyages of Columbus, among which were many of a highly important nature recently discovered in the public archives. This was the now well-known work of Navarette, the Secretary of the Royal Spanish Academy of History. Mr. Everett, in making this communication to Mr. Irving, suggested that the translation of Navarette's volumes into English, by some American scholar, would be very desirable. Mr. Irving concurred in this opinion, and, having previously intended to visit Madrid, shortly afterwards repaired to that capital, with a view to undertake the proposed translation.

Navarette's collection was published soon after Mr. Irving's arrival at Madrid, and finding it rich in original documents hitherto unknown, which threw additional light on the discovery of America, he conceived the happy idea (instead of a simple translation) of preparing from them and other materials liberally placed at his disposal, in the public and private libraries of Spain, (and especially_that__of Mr. Obadiah Rich, our Consul at Valencia, with whom Mr. Irving was domesticated at Madrid, and who possessed a collection of manuscripts and books of extreme value,) a new history of the greatest event of modern times, drawn up in the form of a life of Columbus. He addressed himself with zeal and assiduity to the execution of this happy conception, and in about two years the work, in four octavo volumes, was ready for the press. When it is considered that much of the material was to be drawn from ancient manuscripts and black-letter chronicles in a foreign tongue, it is a noble monument of the industry, as well as the literary talent, of its author.

That these newly-discovered materials for a life of Columbus, and a history of the great discovery, should have fallen directly into the hands of an American

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