tion that they should have his aid. At his approach, however, they removed their place of meeting to the country, but still in the environs of the town. In this place he remained, without any apparent reason, for three weeks, during which time the enemy were allowed to extend their influence throughout the country. He at length came to the resolution of departing, and of marching towards the provinces. On his route he succeeded in dispersing numerous parties of the royalist volunteers commanded by Cuevillas, Berasteguy, and the Curé Merino. In a few days he entered Breviesca, and shortly after retook Miranda del Ebro, Vittoria, and Bilbao, which had fallen into the hands of the Carlists. His previous conduct, however, had excited so much suspicion in the minds of the Government, that, in two days after his capture of the capital of Biscay, he was removed from the command, and Valdez, a restored Constitutionalist, named as his successor. Sarsfield, who still retained his appointment as viceroy, proceeded with Valdez to Pamplona, which they entered on the 10th of December, 1833. That city, which had been blockaded by the enemy during the whole of the month of November, was relieved at the approach of the Cristino troops, and the two generals took possession of it without striking a blow.

The faults committed by Sarsfield were serious, and of a nature to compromise the stability of the new Government. On his departure from Madrid, he should have commenced his movement on Ciudad Rodrigo on the 8th, but he did not arrive at Burgos until the 23d, of October, and this delay was regarded by the Carlist junta as an indication of his lukewarmness in the cause of the Queen Regent. From that moment he became the object on which intriguers of every kind fixed their regards. There were traitors found in his own personal staff, and amongst his most intimate acquaintance, and they incessantly repeated to him that if he stirred one step from Burgos, his entire army would abandon him at the very first movement; that Merino would enter the place, that his communications with Madrid would be cut off, and that he himself would be abandoned to the tender mercies of the insurgents. General Walsh, Count Armildez de Toledo, a gallant soldier, descended from an Irish family long settled in Spain, had been sent from. Madrid with a brigade of cavalry to act with Sarsfield. This officer was a most decided Constitutionalist, and the political sentiments of his troops were in unison with his own. It then became necessary for Sarsfield to do something decisive in order to remove the strong suspicions which were entertained of his fidelity, and he proposed a movement on Breviesca on the 29th of October. As he approached, the bands of Merino, as we have already observed, were dispersed; but, instead of advancing as he could, and ought to have done, he stopped short, and returned to Burgos, under the pretext that the passes of Paucorbo were occupied by the enemy. Armildez, who was no longer in the confidence of Sarsfield, continued to move on the left, as far as Herrera; but perceiving that he was no longer supported by his superior officer, he was obliged to return. From that moment he regarded his general as a traitor, and denounced him as such to the Government. Menaced with disgrace and dismissal, he seemed for a space to have repented of his vacillation, and affected to manifest some zeal in the cause, the sincerity of which could not, however, be tested, on account of the nomination of Valdez as his successor.

The treason of Sarsfield was, however, in the end, productive of benefit to the cause in which he was ostensibly engaged, as it became the means of arousing the country to the fact, that the safety of the state had been entrusted to incapable, or treacherous, men. The dismissal of Sarsfield from the command of the army was soon followed up by the celebrated manifesto

of General Llauder, addressed to the Queen, in which he criticised, with much bitterness, the system which had been pursued by the Government agents, and declared that there was no resource left but to consult the will of the nation, and assemble the Cortes. This bold and patriotic declaration was followed by the appointment of Martinez de la Rosa to the office of President of the Council; one of the first acts of whose administration was the promulgation of the Estatuto Real, which was, in the fulness of time, succeeded by the very liberal constitution by which Spain is at this day governed. The new Government soon comprehended the necessity of employing none as generals of the army, but men of the purest principles and character. The reputation of Sarsfield had been now sufficiently tainted; he was recalled from his command at Pamplona, and Valdez named viceroy of Navarre, as well as commander-in-chief of the army of the North, whilst the troops of that province were confided, under his orders, to the care of Walsh, Count Armildez de Toledo.

If there yet existed any doubts as to the treason of Sarsfield, his conduct to General Evans would have sufficiently removed them. It may be in the recollection of such of our readers as have taken an interest in the operations of the British Legion, that, in the month of March, 1837, a movement was made by the officer commanding that auxiliary force, on the left of our lines. It was intended to have been a combined movement of the three corps under Espartero, Sarsfield, and Evans, with the intention of expelling the Pretender from Guipuzcoa, and destroying the military establishments of the province. The force under Espartero was to have advanced from Bilbao on Durango, whilst that of Sarsfield was to have proceeded from Pamplona (he having been lately restored to the command of a division in the province) by Velate and Vera to Oyarzun, at which place a junction might be formed with Evans. This plan of campaign had been agreed on some months previously, but the want of resources was the constant excuse for not having followed it up. At length, however, all obstacles seemed to have been removed; and on the 10th of March, 1837, Evans, in accordance with the arrangements already fixed on, moved by his left in the direction of Oyarzun, in order to cover the operations from Pamplona on that place; and of this Sarsfield had been duly apprised on the 3d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th of the same month. Espartero successfully performed his part of the movement, and reached Durango almost without any resistance; whilst the Spanish and Legionary troops took, in a most gallant manner, the positions of the enemy in the direction indicated. Instead of hearing the thunder of Sarsfield's cannon in the rear of the Carlists, what was the astonishment of Evans on receiving despatches from his unworthy ally, announcing that he was about to operate on Lecunberré and Las dos Hermanas, which were on the right of our lines, and totally in a contrary direction from that which had been already agreed on as the scene of action. Even this unaccountable and extraordinary movement he did not make; for, having advanced a few leagues from Pamplona, he was compelled, as he himself states, to return from amongst the mountains, being impeded in his march by a heavy fall of snow. Had he, however, persevered in proceeding by Lecunberré, his force would have been annihilated, as the tremendous passes which abound in that district were then entirely occupied by the enemy. His hasty retreat to Pamplona was not even announced in proper time. The information should have reached Evans at least two days sooner (and there existed no reason why it should not), and in this case the disasters which followed on the 16th of March might have been spared.

Throughout the whole of this affair Sarsfield exhibited either the grossest stupidity, or the vilest treachery; and as he was by no means deficient in general ability, and particularly in military talent, we fear we must incline. to the latter accusation. At the very commencement of the struggle, his conduct was most mysterious and unaccountable. He had let slip many opportunities of annihilating large masses of the insurgents, and he afforded to them by his vacillation various occasions of strengthening themselves in positions which it was afterwards most difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge them from. Had he, when at the head of his force on the Portuguese frontier, boldly proclaimed Don Carlos as king, his name, though perhaps uttered with detestation by all liberal Spaniards, might have escaped that contempt which want of firmness and decision always excites - so true it is that the world is more inclined to look with indulgence on great crimes allied to courage, than to pardon the less manly vice of weakness of character. He who had been renowned in his own country as a skilful general, a high-minded man, and an accomplished and gallant officer, a renown won during the war of Independence, is now execrated as a traitor, who, whilst detesting the liberal cause in his heart, had not moral courage sufficient to side openly with that to which he was predisposed; and the soldier who had witnessed, and shared in, and survived, a hundred battles, fell by the hand of an obscure assassin in a brawl in the streets of that city, where, a few months before, he had reigned as a viceroy!

CARLOS ISIDOR SARSFIELD was descended lineally from the celebrated Sarsfield, Lord Lucan, who was so intimately connected with the history of James II. of England. The family had been settled in Spain for the last century and upwards, and was allied to some of the most ancient houses of Old Castile. The profession of arms was that followed by its different members, and their reputation for military talent and valour is as well established as that of the O'Donnells. The subject of the present sketch was married at an early age to a wealthy Murcian, who died before the breaking out of the civil war: she left him two sons, the elder of whom is a large proprietor in the South, and who never mixed himself up with politics; the younger is, we believe, a captain in the army.

In personal appearance, Sarsfield was a most interesting-looking man; and he combined, in a superior degree, the polished manners of the courtier with the frank and proud bearing of a successful soldier. His demeanour was polished, courteous, and dignified. His education was finished and comprehensive; he spoke and wrote most of the Continental languages; and though never in this country, his knowledge of our language was correct and classical, whilst in speaking and composition his style was almost wholly free from foreign idioms. He was a good scientific scholar; and his acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, but particularly with that of France and Spain, was intimate and profound. He was equally skilled in the lighter accomplishments; and his acquirements, both in music and design, would not have done dishonour to an artist.

Such was the man-accomplished, noble, gallant, courteous, personally brave and high-minded - who found an unhonoured and unpitied fate, because he knew not how to decide, and because he was deficient in one important quality, the possession of which would have brought him near to perfection; but wanting which, his talents, and accomplishments, and moral gifts became contemptible, his valour worse than useless, his declining years tainted and dishonoured, and the termination of his career bloody and ignominious!

I cannot know myself: - I cannot tell

If the vague impulses I know so well

Be true or false :- but this shall be my pride

Success and failure here stand side by side

Succeed, or fail, they shall not say I had not tried!

Berlin, Nov. 1838.

G. H. L.

HINTS ON DRAMATIC VERSIFICATION.

THE length of our recent remarks on Leigh Hunt's "Legend of Florence," prevented (among many other points we reluctantly passed over) our noticing the bold but well-timed hint, in the preface, of Shakspeare's inferiority in versification to Beaumont and Fletcher; and we therefore determined to inflict on our readers a separate essay on the subject.

Leigh Hunt is a known sinner in respect to traditional propriety of versification, and has been not a little abused for it; but in the face of all this abuse, we assert, with some of the deepest thinkers of the day, that in principle he is unquestionably right, and in practice also often, though not always; indeed, the chances of his being right, and his critics wrong, include all the odds, which a poet with a fine ear, a graceful soul, an intense study, and devotion to poetry in its inner life, as well as its beautiful form, must have against critics, rarely poets, and rarely men who know what poetry is. Indeed, it is, à priori, ridiculous to suppose a poet like him, the predominant feature in whose soul is grace, should wilfully select an ungraceful form for his poems!

But is there no standard? no law? no treatise to which to refer? Alas! no; and this is a remarkable feature. In an age like the present, when analysis is paramount, when the house, no matter whether palace or hovel, is judged by a specimen brick, when critics praise and condemn' poems on the strength of quotations, and a single passage of ridiculous applicability is sufficient to damn a poem or a play, when the distinction of a tragedy is in its having a death in it (and, by a parity of reasoning, the more deaths the deeper),-when, in short, the form is idolised, and the life unrecognised, and poetry truly realises Bacon's definition of it, and does raise "shows of things to the desires of the mind; "-in such an age, that no result has been obtained on this very matter of form, is indeed surprising. To prove the barrenness, we have but to point to the very subject of this essay, and to ask where, in the whole English language, is the treatise, or attempt at such, which sets forth the laws and critical canons of dramatic versification or, indeed of any versification beyond mere school exercises? English scholarship should blush - English criticism should blush-English literati should blush, that, in this nineteenth century, an individual, seeing the wants, and the likelihood of their remaining unsatisfied, should make such a charge.

On versification of the Ancients, much laborious puerility has been put forth from time to time, and more will continue in the same strain, amply demonstrating these two things; -1st, their own learning; 2d, its utter uselessness. In fact, on this, as in most matters, men may append the four and twenty letters of the alphabet to their names as signs of their learning;