in any degree to the illustration of so great a character, and to shed the light of historic truth on the actions of one of the most illustrious men whom the world has ever produced, the author's labours will not have been incurred in vain." They have not; and we doubt not that these volumes will add greatly to the well-earned reputation of the historian of the French Revolution. We repeat that the knowledge gained by Mr Alison, in preparing that work, has given him peculiar qualifications for writing the present. We had marked a great number of instances in which the events in Marlborough's campaigns, and those events which led to them and followed them, are most plenteously and instructively compared and contrasted with those of the great compaigns of Wellington and Napoleon. The resemblance is sometimes startling; but the length to which this article has run compels us to rest satisfied with referring the reader to the present work. The last chapter consists of five deeply-interesting portraits,--Marlborough, Eugene, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington--the five great generals of modern times. The distinctive features of each are given with fidelity and force. It is, however, in the full flow of his military narrative that the peculiar excellence of Mr Alison is to be found. His battles[54] are always dashed off boldly and brilliantly, as far as effect is concerned, and at the same time with the most exact attention to details. [52] ALISON, i. 211, note. [53] _Lectures_, i. 143. [54] A very happy idea is embodied in a work recently published, and which has quickly reached a second edition--Mr Creasy's _Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to Waterloo_. The idea was suggested by a remark of Mr Hallam, placed on the title-page by way of motto, "These few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." Mr Alison frequently puts such cases, in both _The Life of Marlborough_ and his _History of Europe_. Mr Creasy, as a distinguished scholar and a professor of history, has acquitted himself very ably. His fifteen battles are well selected, as radiating centres of enduring influence upon human affairs in their greatest crises--as so many nuclei of historical knowledge. We are not disposed to be critical with an author who has afforded us such great gratification-- "Ubi plura nitent--uni ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum carit natura!"