Passing over Schlegel, Gellert, and other literary lions of Leipzig, we must bear in mind that it was from this mart of learning that the great Klopstock, like a huge gymnatus electricus, caused Europe to vibrate by the birth of his Messiah. “It roused all Germany from Leipzig to its circumference; and Bodmer, from the valleys of Switzerland, hailed its author as the morning-star of a new æra.” RETROSPECTIVE VIEW FROM THE TOWER OF THE OBSERVATORY. He must be a stoic, or something more, who can stand on this time-worn tower, without recalling to mind those stupendous events which occurred a quarter of a century ago, around the base of the building. No event, ancient or modern, can at all compare with the battles around Leipzig, in Oct. 1814: whether we look to the magnitude of the armies—the discipline, valour, and enthusiasm of the men—the talents and skill of the commanders—or the momentous object for which they fought. Six crowned heads—three Emperors and three Kings—were present at these terrific conflicts, and witnessed the carnage and havoc among FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND soldiers engaged for several days and nights in mortal combat!! This was not the undisciplined rabble, or the effeminate retinue of an Oriental despot, crossing the Hellespont in pride and ignorance; but veterans from every country between the mountains of Norway and the mouths of the Danube—between the Atlantic on the West and Siberia in the East. These battles were not for mere victory, or to decide some political quarrel between two or more states. No. It was for the very existence of sceptres—for the independence or subjugation of every empire and kingdom in Continental Europe. The struggle was between the oppressor and the oppressed—between Napoleon the aggressor, and the allied Sovereigns, as defenders of their crowns, hearths, and altars. The one army had the disgrace of a hundred defeats to obliterate and avenge—the other the laurels of a hundred victories to preserve and sustain. The French fought for the glory of their country, or rather of their Emperor, and the conquest of Europe—the Allies, for the liberation of their soil from thraldom, and the repulsion, if not the deposition, of a tyrant invader. Such a prodigious accumulation and concentration of martial hosts,—excited, agitated, and impelled by the fiercer passions of our nature—by ambition, hatred, and revenge—portended the approach of some great crisis in the affairs of the world. The feeling on both sides was, evidently, “aut Cæsar aut nullus.” The grand crisis was indeed at hand. The benignant STAR of Peace and Justice was about to rise, in splendour, from the East;—while the malignant METEOR OF WAR, that had scattered, for twenty years, plague, pestilence and famine over a groaning world, was about to descend from its bad eminence, and be extinguished for ever in the Atlantic surge.