During a scamper after the Cossacks upon the following day, Isaac makes his escape, to reappear at the close of the retreat under very startling and horrible circumstances. At last Napoleon, who, ever since he crossed the Niemen, had expected battle, and who was furious at the retrograde tactics of the Russians, met at Smolensko the first serious resistance of his cautious and astute foe. Hitherto every thing had been of evil presage: nature seemed combined with man to check his progress, and discourage his ambition. His first arrival on the banks of the Niemen was marked by a fall from his horse; a terrible storm welcomed him upon the Russian territory; in crossing the first Russian river, the Wilna, a squadron of Polish horse, sent to find a ford, were swept away by the current. Bridges were cut, roads deserted, even the defiles protecting Wilna unguarded, but not an enemy was visible, save now and then a few wild Cossacks, stragglers from the Russian rear-guard. On the other hand, the French suffered from hunger and fatigue; provisions were scarce, the men discouraged; discipline grew lax, villages were plundered and burned; tales circulated in the ranks of the army, of young soldiers, new to privations, and disheartened by a long perspective of suffering, who turned aside upon the road and blew out their brains with their muskets. Already baggage-waggons and munition-carts, open and empty, strewed the plain, as in rear of a discomfited and retreating army; thousands of horses had died from feeding on green corn. All these misfortunes, before a blow had been struck, almost before a shot had been fired! Such disastrous inactivity was more destructive than the fiercest opposition; and no wonder Napoleon longed to meet one of those stubborn stands which he well knew the Russian troops would make, so soon as their leaders permitted them. The first of any importance was made at Smolensko. In the previous doubts and delays there is evidently fine scope for a historical romance-writer,--and Mr Rellstab busies himself with the events of the campaign, neglecting for a while the progress of his novel. We then obtain a peep into Russia, and are introduced to the castle of Count Dolgorow, Bianca's father. Preparations are making for the young Countess's marriage with Prince Ochalskoi, a marriage repugnant to her feelings, (for she still cherished a tender recollection of Ludwig,) but into which she is in a manner coerced by her parents. On her wedding day she receives a letter, left by her nurse in care of her confessor, not to be delivered to her till after marriage, by which she learns that she is not the Dolgorow's daughter; that her mother was a German lady, who died a few days after her birth, and that her adoption by the Count had, for motive, that an inheritance depended on his wife having children, which, after many years' marriage, were still denied him. Bianca, with whom a sense of filial duty had powerfully weighed when