forced retreat furnished him with abundance of materials.

It was on the 25th of August that he reached, and not without difficulty, the Prussian camp that was pitched at the bottom of a gentle hill; by this was a canal or ditch, intended to carry off the superfluous moisture from the fields, which was now made a receptacle for all the filth of the camp, and in consequence it be came choked up, so that when the rains fell the water overflowed and scattered the noxious matter among the tents. All, however, were high with hope, and full of wrath against the French revolutionists, though the pride and insolence of the emigrant nobles soon alienated all hearts from them; still there was a general love for the cause; and even when the peasant shut his door against the Knight of St. Louis, he wished to see the monarch on the throne of his ancestors.

The camp now broke up, and the army advanced under the name of the French king, but though as friends to France they raised no contributions, they borrowed at a prodigious rate, seizing cattle, or what ever they might want, and recompensing the owners with notes made payable by Louis. In this way they maintained themselves comfortably, and, the roads. becoming more prac ticable as they went on, they soon sate down before Verdun, and summoned the city to surrender. This of course the sturdy republicans refused to do, and the siege of the place was then commenced in good earnest. There appears, however, to be more amusement connected with these bloody businesses than could possibly be divined by men of civil habits; and, on one occasion, Goethe found an opportunity of studying the theory of the prismatic colours much to his satisfaction. Amongst other warlike stores, the German soldiers had brought with them complete sets of fishing tackle, meaning no doubt to make themselves quite at home in France, and were now seated about a pond amusing themselves with angling. Curiosity led our author to join them, when his attention was attracted from these soldier-fishermen to a piece of earthen-ware that lay at the bottom of the clear water,

JAN. 1823.

and sent forth the most beautiful prismatic colours: the opposite edge gave the blue and violet, the edge nearest to him gave the red and yellow, and, as he moved round the pond, the phenomenon of course followed him, while the colours, in reference to himself, appeared invariably the same. He then varied the experiment by flinging a second piece of earthen-ware into the water, and observed that the same thing took place when it was a little below the surface, increased as it sank deeper, and when it reached the bottom there was the appearance of a small pale flame.

From this philosophical farce he was called to a more tragic spectacle, the bombardment of the city; and, seated at a convenient distance, he had all the pleasure, without any of the perils, of the amusement. By means of his telescope he could distinctly see all that was passing within Verdun, could distinguish the descent of the shells, and their consequent mischief; but the noise of the guns soon drove him from his post, and he retired behind the walls of a vineyard to talk philosophy with one of his princely friends. The next day Verdun surrendered, contrary to the will of the commandant, Beaurepaire, who was compelled to this measure by the importunity of the citizens, and, after having given his consent, he blew out his brains in the Senate-house. On taking possession of the city, the soldiers found every preparation for a long defence, and Goethe found an admirable proof of the dispositions of a favouring Providence in a ball having struck the lintels of a delfware shop, and passed on without any farther injury. Delf must have borne a high price at that time in Germany.

While the Prussians were occupied with the siege, Dumouriez, who had succeeded Lafayette in the command of the French, had taken possession of the important pass between Verdun and St. Menehould, and thus compelled the Allies to follow the course of the Aire, instead of marching straight towards Paris. Heavy rains too began to fall, the road became more and more difficult, and by the time they reached Malancour, they had got an ample foretaste of the miseries that were to follow, having

F

by the way inflicted an equal portion on the invaded country. From this place they continued their march, till at last they got themselves fairly hemmed in by Dumouriez. Daily skirmishes took place, though the parties never came to a decisive engagement; and in one of these actions the author was led by curiosity to mingle more closely in the battle, from a desire to know the precise sensations of what he calls the cannon-fever, but the story should be told in his own words.

Alone, and collected, I rode up the heights, to the left, whence I could clearly overlook the happy position of the French; they stood amphitheatrically in the greatest calm and security. Kellerman, however, on the left wing, was to be first reached.

I was now absolutely within the circle of the bullets; the sound is singular enough, as if it were compounded of the humming of a top, the seething of water, and the whistling of a bird. They were, however, less dangerous from the dampness of the ground; wherever one fell there it remained sticking, so that my foolish adventure was at least free from the danger of the balls rebounding.

Under these circumstances, I could clearly perceive that something unusual was going on within me. On paying a more close attention to it, I soon found that the feeling could only be explained by comparison. It seemed as if I were in a very hot place, and thoroughly penetrated with the same heat, so that I felt as one with the element in which I breathed; the eyes lost none of their power or clearness, but yet it was as if the world had acquired a certain brown-red hue, which made the condition, as well as the objects, still more apprehensive. I could perceive no hurry of the blood, but all seemed rather to be swallowed up in that glow; hence it is apparent in what sense this state may be called a fever. It is besides worthy of remark, that this dreadful anxiousness is conveyed to us through the ears only; for the thunder of the cannon, and the howling, whistling, and crashing of the balls through the air, are the real cause of these sensations. When I rode back and was in full security, I found that glow at once extinguished, and not the least of the feverish sensation remained.

After a hot day the troops returned to their old position, and things remained as they were before the battle, to the great surprise, as well as horror, of the Prussians, who had expected to kill the French army before

supper. The former unlimited confidence in the Duke of Brunswick was changed to disaffection and curses; and as the starving soldiers sat in melancholy parties about their watch-fires, the rain fell down in torrents, and deprived them even of this consolation. They were indeed in a desperate situation. The French were too strongly posted to be attacked with the least chance of success, and, hopeless of any other aid, the Duke at last commenced a retreat, which he was fortunate enough to effect, though not without the usual difficulties and losses; yet, even in the midst of these perils, his mind was occupied by trifles that never would have been noticed by a great commander under any circumstances; the place abounded with a fine chalk, and orders were issued from head-quarters, that every soldier should provide himself with as much as he could carry of this useful article, for the benefit of his clothes; though at the very time his troops were mouldering away with hunger. It was not so that Moore retreated.

It would be useless to follow Goethe through the tedious story of this march, and we therefore overleap a long space of time, and come at once to the May of 1793, when he was summoned from his quiet office of director of the theatre at Weimar, to be present at the siege of Mentz, which it was the object of the Prussians to wrest again from its French made for this purpose, but it does conquerors. Great preparations were not seem that the French were quiet spectators of them; they first endeavoured to dislodge their enemy from the village of Bretzenheim, and subsequently made a night-attack on Marienborn, both of them posts of importance; but to the latter affair they were chiefly led by a desire of seizing General Kalkreuth and Prince Louis. In this desperate attempt they were favoured by a lucky circumstance, which allowed them to press forward into the heart of the village before their presence was at all expected: on the day preceding the night of their attack, some peasants had been employed in cutting down the harvest before the city, and when they returned, after the accomplishment of their labour, the