moved in direct pursuit, while another, composed of Dutch and Danes, turned towards his rear. It was now time to fly. The experiment on Westphalia was completed; and an escape into Sweden was the only course of safety. Schill has been blamed for lingering on this retreat. But a gentler estimate, and probably a truer one, would have attributed his tardiness to the natural reluctance of a brave man to leave the ground while there is a chance of disputing it. Every hour was full of change; a battle on the Danube might alter the whole fortunes of Germany within an hour, and Prussia would have been the first to raise the standard. But Schill suffered no advantage to be taken of his delay. His marches were regular, he fixed his head-quarters for ten or twelve days at Domitz, a small town on the Mecklinburgh side, which he fortified so far as to be secure from a surprize. He abandoned it only on the approach of the enemy, to whom he left nothing but his sick,-ad vanced to Stralsund, the strongest fortress in Pomerania, dismantled by the French, but still in their possession, and capable of defence against an ordinary hazard; stormed the gates; drove the French before his cavalry into the great square; and was in possession of the town after a brisk engagement of less than an hour. On the road to Stralsund I was shown the remains of a field fortification where a French detachment had attempted to stop the hussars. It was a rude work, a parapet of earth and a trench filled with water. The gates and guns had probably fallen into the hands of the peasantry. Schill, on proposing a capitulation to those men, had been fired on. He immediately charged at the head of his regiment, leaped the trench, and got into the fortification on horseback. All the French were killed or taken. Pomerania (in German, Pommern) is one vast flat, which probably was once at the bottom of the Baltic. It is fertile, and was, when I passed through it, covered with a carpet of springing corn. But on my approach to the sea the prospect on the side of the Island of Rugen became diversified. The sea between the island and the main land looked like a broad river, tranquil and glassy, with a low rich border of ve getation, leading the eye across to the woods and picturesque rocks that crown the shore of Rugen. The country was thinly peopled; but those were times of the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." The Swedish army, under the Crown Prince, going to fight his countrymen, were now moving down from Sweden. A strong corps had just landed at Stralsund, where the head-quarters were now esta blished. As I approached Stralsund from a bend of the shore, I at once saw the dome of the great church and heard the sound of a trumpet, as if to announce its appearance. Then, military sights and sounds followed in quick succession; a squadron of Swedish gun-boats were lying off the shore, with the yellow cross brightning in the sunset. Chalopes and rafts were passing with troops and stores. A line of huge pontoon waggons stood on the shore of Rugen like the bastions of a fortress; the flags of all nations in the harbour were displayed in honour of the presence of royalty; and on driving round to the glacis, I was dazzled by the glare of a whole host of musquets and sabres flashing in a lovely setting-sun, at the close of a review before the Duke of Brunswick, then on his way to the camp of the allies. But the military spirit of my reception was not yet complete. At the gate I found the Burgher guard' of the town returning from their evening parade; and was led to my hotel in the midst of a gallant dissonance of clashing cymbals, drums, trumpets, and restive horses caracoling and curvetting under the uneasy heroism of all the chief warriors of the corporation of Stralsund. Schill had found the principal works destroyed, but yet not to be gained without fighting, and it was not till after a sharp contest that he forced his way over the ramparts. On his march he had baffled the Dutch general, Gratien, whose express commission was to extirpate him in the field. Schill out-manœuvred the general, and was master of Stralsund a week before he saw the face of a pursuer. There can be no doubt that he might, in that interval, have made good his retreat into Sweden. But the reluc tance to leave Germany was strong upon him at all times. In addition to this, he was now master of a city; the sea was at his back; the state of Germany was hourly fluctuating; and his position still served as a rallying point, if the old genius of Prussia was at length to shake the ashes from her head. Such might have been among the motives for this apparent imprudence in a man who had hitherto taken his measures with equal conduct and intrepidity. In this period of inaction he appears to have lost his habitual temper, and, like Richard before Bosworth, to have given an ill omen by his melancholy. He was said to have indulged in drinking, and to exhibit altogether the aspect of a man expecting ruin. But in his dejection he omitted none of the usual arrangements for defence. He set the peasants at work upon the approaches to the town, collected ammunition, planted a battery to command the principal entrance, I believe, borrowing the guns from the merchant ships, and seems to have neglected nothing but the means of retreat. Stralsund is a city of much interest for its share in the "thirty years war;" and Wallenstein, the wonder of arms in his day, brought some disgrace on the standard of his imperial master, by his repulse before the walls. Its position renders it the key of Pomerania, on the side of Sweden, and the Crown Prince was now busy in repairing its fortifications to cover his retreat, if the campaign should turn in favour of Napoleon. It has a tolerable commerce, and some of its buildings exhibit the old ponderous magnificence of the time when German traders made head against princes. The principal streets are wide, and the square in the centre, which serves, as in all the German towns, for all imaginable public purposes,-a mart, a parade, and a place of justice,-has the picturesque look of English architecture in the days of Elizabeth. It was in this spot that Schill drew up his reserve on the morning of the attack. Among the accounts of the fight, to be received from persons who, during the day, were hiding in their cellars from the shots that still had left many a fracture on the front of the buildings, exactness was not to be expected. But the battle seems to have begun about mid-day, and to have continued with desperate determination till three or four in the afternoon. The Dutch division advanced to the great gate, and were repeatedly driven back. Gratien, however, was responsible to a master who never forgaye, and the assault was continued under the fire of Schill's only battery. The Danes were embarked in some gun-boats, and landed on the unprotected side of the town. It was said that their red uniforms deceived the Prussians, and that they were looked on as British troops coming to their assistance. This attack took Schill in flank, and his purpose, from this time, was obviously to sell his life as dearly as he could. His corps were gradually forced from the square, down a narrow street leading to the sea-gate, which I often trod with the sentiments not unnatural to the spot where a hero and a patriot fell. The struggle here was long and bloody, from the narrow front which the enemy were compelled to observe. The Prussians were finally pushed through the gate, and the engagement ceased without their surrender. Gratien's loss was supposed to exceed two thousand in killed and wounded. A striking instance of the gallantry of his opponents, whose force did not equal half the number. Of Schill nothing had been known for some time before the close of the battle. He had exposed himself with conspicuous bravery during the day, and had been twice wounded. About an hour after the square was taken, he was seen standing on the steps of a house in the narrow street, with the blood streaming down his face, and cheering the troops with his sabre waving. In the confusion of the next charge he disappeared. In the evening he was found under a heap of dead near the steps, with two musquet wounds on his body, and a sabre cut on his forehead. The remnant of his band of heroes, chiefly cavalry, had retreated to a neighbouring field, and were there found exhausted and unable to move farther. An adjutant of General Gratien, sent out to propose their sur render, was answered that they had determined not to receive quarter. Some messages followed between them and the general, but they refused to give up their swords while Schill lived. On their being told of his fall, they obtained leave to send two officers to see the body. The officers were brought to the hall where the corpse had been drawn from the slaughter: they recognised it at once, and at the sight burst into lamentations and tears. On their taking back this melancholy intelligence, the cavalry, then reduced to a small number, surrendered at discretion. The further history of these brave men is almost still more melancholy. A generous enemy, or even any man with a human heart would have honoured their devoted gallantry.-But Napoleon ordered them for execution. They were taken to Wesel, and the only favour which they could obtain, was that of dying by each other's hands. Some had made their escape on the way through Germany, but twenty-two, by one account, and twelve or fourteen by another, remained to glut the tyrant's appetite for murder. They were taken to a field on the glacis of Wesel, and there, standing in a line behind each other, each shot the comrade before him, the last shooting himself. Two sons of General Wedel, the Prussian, were among the victims. This was said to be the sole act of Napoleon; those young soldiers were subjects of Prussia, and amenable only to their own sovereign. It is next to impossible to avoid a feeling of indignation and abhorrence at the nature which could have thus rioted in gallant blood; and hoping that, sunk and punished as their enemy is at this hour, he may be destined to exhibit a still deeper example of justice to the world.* The following is the translation of a popular song, which I met in the original in Mecklenburg; SCHILL. Es zog aus Berlin ein muthiger Held. Who burst from Berlin with his lance in his hand? Six hundred they come, in pomp and in pride, Ere those chargers shall halt, or those bosoms be cold. Then, through wood and through mountain, their trumpet rang clear, And Prussia's old banner was waved to the sun, And the yager in green, and the blue musketeer, What summon'd this spirit of grandeur from gloom? Was he call'd from the camp, was he sent from the throne? Remember him Dodendorf: yet on thy plain Are the bones of the Frenchmen, that fell by his blade ;— By twilight, three thousand were still as its shade. Then, Domitz, thy ramparts in crimson were dyed, Then to Pommern he rush'd, like a bark on the tide, * We would not make any change willingly in any communication from so valued a correspondent as the author before us. But he is a classical man, and we would simply ask him whether "Parcere victis, debellare superbis," is not a precept as heroic as it is classical.ED. Fly slaves of Napoleon, for vengeance is come; All gallant and gay they came in at the gate, Oh Schill! Oh Schill! thou warrior of fame! That should burn upon mountain, and sweep over plain! His banner no more on thy ramparts shall wave; ΘΥ. ON THE WRITINGS OF MR. MATURIN, AND MORE WE consider ourselves in some degree culpable for having so long deferred some notice of a writer who has, in its various departments, occupied such a space in contemporary literature as Mr. Maturin. However, the rapid succession of his productions in some degree diminishes our reproach, by rendering the present period as suitable as any other, for the consideration of his pretensions. It is now, we believe, some years since he appeared before the public, under the uninviting appellation of Jasper Murphy, a name in itself almost an insurmountable impediment to fashionable in mortality. "Unbribed" too, it is to be feared, it "left Hibernia's land," for Montorio did but little, and the Wild Irish Boy and the Milesian still less. To this unpropitious baptism, however, their ill success is principally attributable; for undoubtedly, the same wild genius, which has flashed a splendour around the muse of Bertram, flits occasionally amid the ruined abbeys and spectral creations of Montorio. It is impossible to read this last romance without being struck with the powerful capabilities of its author. Full of incident, striking, though incrediblefruitful in imagination, perverted, is too sublime for penetration—even the veil that shadows them is too intensely bright for human vision to gaze upon and live. Mr. Maturin, perhaps, imagines that, because his hand is consecrated he may touch the ark; but he should remember, that its possession was a trust, and its home was the temple. There exists throughout his writings a continual dalliance with other subjects of the same class, though of less solemn import. The novel writer has world enough without encroaching on these confines. The passions, dispositions, adventures, and varieties of man--the pleasures and perplexities of life-the countless modifications of human character-the vices, virtues, incidents, and phenomena of earth, leave no excuse for any intrusion on the topics of eternity-in our most solemn hours we are not serious enough to estimate them but magnificent, it covers its extra vagance and its paradox with a robe of eloquence sufficient to adorn, if not to hide, its manifold infirmities. In the language of Mr. Maturin, indeed, many of his errors find a species of redemption-it is clearly the phrase of an informed mind, often elevated, but seldom inflated-copious, and at times, perhaps, even redundant, but totally divested of meagreness and vulgarity. It is at once classical and natural, teeming with allusions which "smell of the lamp," and with graces to be acquired only in good society-it is the diction of a man who has groped all day amid the dust of the learned, and shaken it off at night on the threshold of the drawing-room. His language, however, is almost the only symptom which he deigns to give of ever having either studied, or associated with, humanity. He glories in caverns-falls in love within our gayest, we should never, goblins becomes naturalized amid ruins, and revels in the grave. The Devil is a prodigious favourite with Mr. Maturin. He is a principal figure in all his performances; and his sable majesty must be uncompromising indeed, if he feels not compensated by the poem and the romance for the occasional and professional ill usage of the pulpit. It is, perhaps, not generally known, that, in the original outline of his popular tragedy, Bertram, who was, in the hands of Mr. Kean, the prince of misanthropes, was, in Mr. Maturin's conception, the "prince of darkness;" and, under the appellation of the Black Knight, plunged the whole dramatis personæ into the crater of Vesuvius! A noble poet, however, to whom the tragedy was entrusted, protested against any invasion of his monopoly; but old predilections are not easily eradicated, and the author is scarcely yet persuaded that the devil, to be consistent, must have damned his tragedy. To be serious, however, we consider this as one of the author's most objectionable propensities. There are some subjects too sacred, and some too accursed, for familiarity. The name before which the world bends, and the name at which the world shudders, are not the legitimate topics of romance. Their interest is too awful for contact-their mystery for a moment even, forget them; but they are too real for romance, and too sacred for pastime. There is no sectarian rigidness in these reremarks. We can enjoy, as much as any one, the ideal, but amusing, world of the novelist. "We also" have dreamed sweet dreams in the visionary bower, and wooed the "airy shape," and wrapt our senses in the substanceless elysium. And this we have done, and hope to do again, without any fear that we are incuring punishment, or accumulating guilt. But far are we from ridiculing the scruple which dissents from us-we respect even the idle prejudice, if it be honest, and should consider ourselves guilty of little less than a crime, did we make faith, however fastidious, the subject of reproach. We are far from sanctioning the blasphemous amalgamation of religion and romance; and though we bow with delight before the spell of the enchanter, his fanciful creations would lose all their potency, if the wand which awoke them was torn from a pulpit, and the hand which waved it was that of an apostle. There are many in the world who carry this feeling farther, and object altogether to the interference of clergymen in these pursuits. They think it profanes the sanctity of the character, and consider any approach to the gay regions of fancy, or of fashion, as |