The reviewer is not only a great critic, he is a great general also. He has discovered that there are no positions in the mountains of Portugal; nay, he will scarcely allow that there are mountains at all; and he insists that they offer no defence against an invader, but that the rivers do—that the Douro defends the _eastern_ frontier of Beira, and that the frontier of Portugal generally is very compact and strong for defence, and well suited for a weak army to fight superior numbers;—that the weak army cannot be turned and cut off from Lisbon, and the strong army must invade in mass and by one line. Now, first, it so happened, unluckily for this lucid military notion of Portugal, that in Massena’s invasion lord Wellington stopped to fight on the mountain of Busaco, and stopped Massena altogether at the mountains of Alhandra, Aruda, Sobral, and Torres Vedras—in other words at the lines, and that he did not once stop him or attempt to stop him by defending a river. That Massena, in his retreat, stopped lord Wellington on the mountain of Santarem, attempted to stop him on the mountains of Cazal Nova, Moita, and Guarda, but never attempted to stop him by defending a river, save at Sabugal, and then he was instantly beaten. Oh, certainly, ’tis a most noble general, and a very acute critic! Nevertheless, I must support my own opinions about the frontier of Portugal, the non-necessity of invading this country in one mass, and the unfordable nature of the Tagus, by the testimony of two generals as distinguished as honest Iago. _Extract of a letter from sir John Moore._ ‘I am not prepared at this moment to answer minutely your lordship’s question respecting the defence of Portugal; but I can say generally that the frontier of Portugal is not defensible against a superior force. It is an open frontier, all equally rugged, but all equally to be penetrated.’ _Extracts from lord Wellington’s Correspondence._ ‘In whatever season the enemy may enter Portugal, he will probably make his attack by _two distinct lines_, the one north the other south of the Tagus; and the system of defence must be founded upon this general basis. In the summer season, however, the _Tagus being fordable_, &c. &c., care must be taken that the enemy does not by his attack directed from the south of the Tagus and by the passage of that river, _cut off from Lisbon the British army engaged in operations to the north of the Tagus_.’ ‘The line of frontier to Portugal is so long in proportion to the extent and means of the country, and the Tagus and the mountains separate the parts of it so effectually from each other, and it is so open in many parts, that it would be _impossible for an army acting upon the defensive to carry on its operations upon the frontier without being cut off from the capital_.’