lted nation a danger which the most exquisite military
combinations cannot remove, which the most perfectly served artillery
cannot sweep away, before which all the bayonets, and gunpowder, and
lines of fortification in the world are useless--and compared with which
the science of the commander is pedantry, and strategy but a word. They
will discover that something more than mechanical power, however
great--something more than the skill of the practised officer, or the
instinct of well-trained soldiers, are requisite for success--where
every plain is a Marathon, and every valley a Thermopylae.

Would to God that the same reproach urged against the Spanish
nation--that they defended their native soil irregularly--that they
fought like freemen rather than like soldiers--that they transgressed
the rules of war by defending one side of a street while the artillery
of the enemy, with its thousand mouths, was pouring death upon them from
the other--that they struggled too long, that they surrendered too late,
that they died too readily, could have been applied to Poland--one
fearful instance of success would have been wanting to encourage the
designs of despotism!

Some of the rights of war are next considered--that of sacking a town
taken by assault, and of blockading a town defended, not by the
inhabitants, but by a military garrison--are next examined;--in both
these cases the penalty falls upon the innocent. The Homeric description
of a town taken by assault, is still applicable to modern warfare:--

[Greek: andras men kteinoysi, polin de te pyr amathynei
tekna de t' alloi agoysi, bathyzonoys te gynaikas.]

The unhappy fate of Genoa is thus beautifully related--

"Some of you, I doubt not, remember Genoa; you have seen that
queenly city with its streets of palaces, rising tier above
tier from the water, girdling with the long lines of its bright
white houses the vast sweep of its harbour, the mouth of which
is marked by a huge natural mole of rock, crowned by its
magnificent lighthouse tower. You remember how its white houses
rose out of a mass of fig and olive and orange trees, the glory
of its old patrician luxury. You may have observed the
mountains, behind the town, spotted at intervals by small
circular low towers; one of which is distinctly conspicuous
where the ridge of the hills rises to its summit, and hides
from view all the count