positive. Nay, its mediocrity is easy to infer from passages in Baron von Rahden's own book. Without affirming it to have been at the lowest ebb, it was certainly not such as could find approval with one who, for five years, had ranged the Peninsula at the head of the finest troops in Europe. As to who won the battle of Waterloo, the discussion of that question is long since at an end. The Baron claims a handsome share of the glory for his countrymen, and insists, that if they were rather late for the fight, they at least made themselves very useful in pursuit of the beaten foe. "If their discipline had been so very bad," he says, they could hardly, on the second day after a defeat, have come up to the rescue of their allied brethren." The arrival of the Prussians was certainly opportune; but, had they not come up, there cannot be a doubt that Wellington, if he had done no more, would have held his own, and maintained the field all night: for he commanded men who, according to his great opponent's own admission, "knew not when they were beaten." "Old General Blucher was a sworn foe of all unnecessary wordiness and commendation. What do you extol?' he once said, to put an end to the eulogiams lavished on him for a gloriously won victory. It is my boldness, Gneisenau's judgment, and the mercy of the Great God.' Let us add, and the stubborn courage and perseverance of a faithful people and a brave army. Without these thoroughly national qualities of our troops, such great results would never have followed the closing act of the mighty struggle of 1813, 1814, and 1815. General Gneisenau's unparalleled pursuit of the French after the battle of La Belle Alliance, could never have taken place, had not our troops displayed vigour and powers of endurance wonderful to reflect upon. The instant and rapid chase commanded by Gneisenau was only to cease when the last breath and strength of man and horse were exhausted. Thus was it that, by daybreak on the 19th June, he and his Prussians found themselves at Frasne, nearly six leagues from the field of battle, which they had left at halfpast ten at night. Only a few squadrons had kept up with him; all the infantry remained behind; but the French army that had fought so gallantly at Waterloo and La Belle Alliance, was totally destroyed." The battle won, a courier was instantly despatched to the King of Prussia. The person chosen to convey the glorious intelligence was Colonel von Thile, now a general, commanding the Rhine district. From that officer's narrative of his journey, the Baron gives some interesting extracts. "In the course of the fight," Von Thile loquitur, “I had lost sight of my servant, and of my second horse, a capital gray. The brown charger I rode was wounded and tired, and it was at a slow pace that I started, to endeavour to reach Brussels that night. A Wurtemberg courier had also been sent off, the only one, besides myself, who carried the good news to Germany. Whilst my weary steed threatened each moment to sink under my weight, the Wurtemberger galloped by, and with him went my hopes of being the first to announce the victory to the king. Suddenly I perceived my gray trotting briskly towards me. I wasted little time in scolding my servant; I thought only of overtaking the Wurtemberger. "At Brussels I learned from the postmaster that my fortunate rival had left ten minutes before me, in a light carriage with a pair of swift horses. I followed: close upon his heels every where, but unable to catch him up. At last, on the evening of the third day, I came in sight of him; his axle-tree was broken; his carriage lay useless on the road. I might have dashed past in triumph; but I refrained, and offered to take him with me, on condition that I should be the first to proclaim the victory. He joyfully accepted the proposal; and I was rewarded for my good nature, for he was of great service to me." Von Thile expected to find the king at Frankfort-on-the-Main; but he had not yet arrived, and the colonel continued his hurried journey, by Heidelberg and Fulda, to Naumberg. "Five days and nights unceasing fatigue and exertion had exhausted my strength, but nevertheless I pushed forward, and on the following morning reached Naumberg on the Saal. In the suburb, on this side the river, I fell in with Prussian troops, returning, covered with dust and in very indifferent humour, from a review passed by the king. At last then I was at my journey's end. They asked me what news I brought: all expected some fresh misfortune, for only an hour previously intelligence of the defeat at Ligny had arrived, and upon parade the king had been ungracious and out of temper. I took good care not to breathe a word of my precious secret, and hurried on. In the further suburb I met the king's carriage. We stopped; I jumped out. "Your majesty! a great, a glorious victory! Napoleon annihilated; a hundred and fifty guns captured! And I handed him a paper containing a few lines in Prince Blucher's handwriting. The king devoured them with his eyes, and cast a grateful tearful glance to Heaven. "" TWO HUNDRED CANNON, according to this,' was his first exclamation, in tones of heartfelt delight and satisfaction. "I followed his majesty into the town. The newly instituted assembly of Saxon States was convoked, and the king made a speech announcing the victory. And truly I never heard such speaking before or since. I was ordered to go on to Berlin with my good news. This was in fact unnecessary, for a courier had already been despatched, but the king knew that my family, from which I had been two years separated, was at Berlin, and he wished to procure me the pleasure of seeing it. For that noble and excellent monarch was also the kindest and best of men." Soon after Waterloo, Baron von Rahden appears to have left the service; for he informs us, that between 1816 and 1830 he made long residences in Russia, Holland, and England. Perhaps he found garrison life an unendurable change from the stir and activity of campaigns, and travelled to seek excitement. Be that as it may, fifteen years' repose did not extinguish his martial ardour. The echoes awakened by the tramp of a French army marching upon Antwerp, were, to the veteran of Leipzig, like trumpet-sound to trained charger, and he hurried to exchange another shot with his old enemies. Having once more brought hand and hilt acquainted, he grieved to sever them, and when the brief struggle in Belgium terminated, he looked about for a fresh field of action. Spain was the only place where bullets were just then flying, and thither the Baron betook himself, to defend the cause of legitimacy under Cabrera's blood-stained banner. Concerning his travels, and his later campaigns, he promises his readers a second and a third volume; and the favourable reception the first has met with in Germany, will doubtless encourage him to redeem his pledge. LAPPENBERG'S ANGLO-SAXONS. THE HEPTARCHY. WE are willing to acknowledge, without blindly exaggerating, our obligations to the men of learning of Germany, in several branches of art and science. We owe them something in criticism, something in philosophy, and a great deal in philology. But in no department have they deserved better of the commonwealth of letters, than in the important province of antiquarian history, where their erudition, their research, their patience, their impartiality, are invaluable. Whatever subject they select is made their own, and is so thoroughly studied in all its circumstantial details and collateral bearings, that new and original views of the truth are sure to be unfolded, as the fixed gaze of an unwearied eye will at last elicit light and order out of apparent darkness and confusion. and freedom from prejudice, as well as a range of illustration from extraneous sources, which a native could scarcely be expected to command. It must now, we think, be granted, that the best history of Saxon England-the most complete, the most judicious, the most unbiassed, and the most profound, is the work of a foreigner. It must, at the same time, be said that Lappenberg's history could not have exhibited this high degree of excellence, without the ample assistance afforded by the labours of our countrymen who had gone before him, and of which their successor has freely taken the use and frankly acknowledged the value. The history and character of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, have employed the pen of the most illustrious among our native writers. One of The writer, whose chief work is our greatest poets, and one of our now before us, cannot and would not, greatest masters of prose, - Milton we know, prefer a claim to the fore- and Burke-have felt the attraction most place among those who have and importance of the subject, at the thus distinguished themselves. That same time that they have given evihonour is conceded by all to the name dence to its obscurity and difficulty. of Niebuhr, a master mind who stands In later times men of less genius, but unrivalled in his own domain, and of more acquaintance with the times whose discoveries, promulgated with and topics involved in the inquiry, no advantage of style or manner, and have added greatly to our knowledge in opposition to prejudices long and of those important events and institudeeply cherished, have wrought a re- tions in which the germs of our prevolution in the study of ancient sent government and national disposihistory to which there is scarcely a tion are to be found. But Saxon parallel. But among those who are England can only be thoroughly next in rank, Dr. Lappenberg is en- understood by means of aids and titled to a high position. His present appliances, which have been seldom work is one of the very best of a series possessed in any eminent degree by of European histories of great merit the general run of our antiquarian and utility. He has given fresh writers. A thorough familiarity with interest to a theme that seemed worn the Anglo-Saxon language and litera out and exhausted. He has brought ature is obviously the first requisite: forward new facts, and evolved new yet this attainment was scarcely to conclusions that had eluded the obser- be met with till within a few years vation and sagacity of able and in- back, and even now, we fear that it dustrious predecessors. He has treated is confined to a narrow circle, and that the history of a country, not his own, the able men who have made progress with as much care and correctness, in this arduous path, lament that they and with as true a feeling of national have so slender and so scattered a character and destinies as if he had train of followers. If we can suppose been a native; while he has brought inquirers studying Roman history, to his task a calmness of judgment, without being able to conjugate a Latin verb, or to gather more than a dim suspicion of a Latin author's meaning, we shall have a case nearly analogous to the condition and achievements of our Saxon scholars in the last, and even in part of the present century. Another qualification for the successful cultivation of this field of study, is an intimate acquaintance with the analogous customs and traditions of kindred countries, an accomplishment which few Englishmen could till lately pretend to possess, but without which, a great deal of what occurs in our own early history must seem senseless and unintelligible. The key to many apparent mysteries in English antiquities, is often to be found in something which has been more clearly developed elsewhere, and which may even yet survive in a Danish song or saga, or a German proverb or superstition. In these respects, our kinsmen across the water have undoubtedly the advantage of us; and to most of them the subject of English history cannot be alien in interest or barren of attraction. It is impossible for an enlightened native or neighbour of continental Saxony, to tread the southern shore of the North Sea, and think of the handful of his countrymen who, fourteen centuries ago, embarked for Britain from that very strand, without feeling the great results involved in that simple incident, and owning the sacred sympathies which unite him with men of English blood. He may well remember with wonder that the few exiles or emigrants who thus went forth on an obscure and uncertain enterprise carried in their bark the destinies of a mighty moral empire, which was one day to fill the world with the glory of the Saxon name, and to revive the valour and virtue of Greece and Rome, with a new admixture of Teutonic honour and Christian purity. He may well kindle with pride to admire the eminence to which that adventurous colony has attained from such small beginnings, and to consider how much the old Germanic virtues of truth and honesty, and home-bred kindliness, have conduced to that marvellous result; while perhaps the less pleasing thought may at times overshadow his mind, that his country, great as she is, has in some things been outstripped by her descendant, and that the best excellencies and institutions of ancient Germany may have been less faithfully preserved and less nobly matured in their native soil than in the favoured island to which some shoots of them were then transplanted. If some such feelings prompted or encouraged the writer of these volumes to engage in his work, Dr. Lappenberg had other facilities to aid him in the task. He had been sent to Scotland in early life, and had studied at our metropolitan university, where he is still kindly remembered by some who will be among the first to peruse those pages. His residence in this ancient city of the Angles, and his visits to the most interesting portions of the island, must have formed a familiarity and sympathy with our language, manners, and institutions which would afford additional inducements and qualifications to undertake a history of England. He has distinguished himself by other valuable compositions of a historical and antiquarian character, and particularly by some connected with the medieval jurisprudence and history of his native city of Hamburgh. But his reputation will probably be most widely diffused, and most permanently preserved, by the admirable work which is the subject of our present remarks. The labours of Mr. Thorpe, so well known as one of the very few accomplished Saxonists of whom we can boast, has now, after much discouragement, placed the Anglo-Saxon portion of Lappenberg's history within the reach of English readers, and has given it a new value by his own additions and illustrations. The translation ought to be found in the library of every one among us who professes to study the history or to patronize the literature of his country. The invasion or occupation of England by German tribes is involved in an obscurity, which does not disappear before a rigorous examination of its traditional details. On the contrary, the more we consider it the less certainly we can pronounce as to the truth. That on the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, a full and continuous stream of Germanic population found its way into Britain, and that ere long the invading race gained the ascendant, and planted firmly in the soil their laws, their language, and their institutions, are facts established by a cloud of witnesses, and by that real evidence which lawyers consider superior to testimony. But how, or at what exact date this process commenced, under whose leadership or auspices it was carried on, and with what rapidity, or through what precise channels the tide flowed, are matters of more difficulty, on which, from the want of anthentic materials, it is idle to dogmatise, however unpleasant it may be to remain in doubt. There is no want of ancient narratives of these supposed events; but though ancient as to us, they are neither so near the time to which they refer, nor so clear and consistent with probability, and with each other, as to command implicit deference. Dr. Lappenberg, leaning perhaps too readily to the German theory of mythes, sees little in the history and achievements of Hengist and Horsa which can be considered authentic. Mr. Thorpe, on the other hand, is less sceptical, and while directing our notice to the fact that the northern tribes occasionally submitted to the command of double leaders, he has adduced in evidence the ancient poetical celebrity of Hengist as a Jutish hero. The episode from Beowulf, which he has inserted and ably translated in a note, is interesting and important in this view. But, after all, we confess that our mind remains in a state of suspense. We think the proof sufficient neither to justify a belief in the existence of the two chiefs, nor to authorise us in consigning them to non-entity; and we hold it an important duty in historical criticism to proportion our conclusions precisely to the premises from which they are deduced. Where there is good evidence, we should believe; where the evidence is incoherent or impossible, we should disbelieve. But there are conditions of a historical question where we can legitimately arrive at no opinion either way, and where we must be content to leave the fact in uncertainty, by a verdict of not proven. VOL. LXI. NO. CCCLXXV. -a There is no historian, we think, who mentions Hengist or Horsa, until at an interval of two or three hundred years after their supposed era; and what sort of interval had thus clapsed? A period of pagan obscurity, passed by the invaders in incessant conflicts, for a home and habitation, or for existence itself,period of which not a relic even of poetical tradition has survived, and in which the means of recording events, or of calculating time, were wholly different from our modern apparatus, and are too little known to let us judge of their sufficiency. The celebrity of Hengist in the old Saxon epics, but in which he is never, we think, connected with the invasion of England, appears to be a double-edged weapon, and may even account for his name being taken as a convenient stock to bear a graft of later romance. If we add to all this the tendency of the age to fiction and exaggeration, the marks of a fabulous character, so forcibly pointed out by Lappenberg in the recurrence of certain fixed numbers or periods of years, chiefly on an octonary system, as distinguished by conspicuous events, the divine genealogies attributed to the heroes, and the resemblance in incident to similar traditions in other ages or scenes, we shall easily see the unsteady footing on which the question stands, and be obliged to own, that, if our belief must be renounced in Romulus and Remus, we can scarcely go to the stake för Hengist and Horsa. It is remarkable, that while the Roman brothers are said to bear one and the same name in different forms, the appellations of the Anglo-Saxon leaders are also so far identical, as each signifying the warlike animal which is said to have been emblazoned on the Saxon banner. It should be satisfactory to our West-British brethren, that Lappenberg sees no reason to distrust the existence of the illustrious Arthur, but he admits too readily the questionable discovery of his grave. "The contemporary who records the victory at Bath gained by his countrymen in the first year of his life, and who bears witness of its consequences after a lapse of forty-four years, Gildas, surnamed the Wise, considers it superfluous to mention F |