Capua when closely
besieged by the Roman forces, bears, as Arnold has observed, the most
remarkable resemblance to the similar march of Napoleon from Silesia to
relieve Dresden, when beset by the Allied armies under the command of
Schwartzenberg in 1813. Nor did the admirable skill of the consul
Nero--who took advantage of his interior line of communication, and
brought a decisive superiority of force from the frontiers of Apulia to
bear on the army which Hamilcar had led across the Pyrenees and the
Alps, to aid his brother in the south of Italy, and thus decide the war
in Italy--bear a less striking analogy to Napoleon's cross marches from
Rivoli to the neighbourhood of Mantua in 1796, to the able movement of
the Archduke Charles on the Bavarian plains to the banks of the Maine,
which proved the salvation of Germany in 1796, or to the gallant
irruption of Napoleon, first into the midst of Blucher's scattered
columns on the plains of Champagne, and then against the heads of
Schwartzenberg's weighty columns at the bridge of Montereau in 1814,
during his immortal campaign in France.

Eight years have now elapsed since we had the gratification of
reviewing, on its publication, the first volume of Arnold's Rome; and we
then foretold the celebrity which that admirable writer was qualified to
attain.[31] The publication since that period of two additional volumes
has amply verified that prediction; and augmented the bitterness of the
regret which, in common with all his countrymen, we felt at his untimely
death. It is clear that he was qualified beyond any modern writer who
has yet undertaken the glorious task, to write a history of the Rise and
Progress of the Roman Republic. What a work would eight volumes such as
that before us on Hannibal have formed, in conjunction with Gibbon's
immortal Decline and Fall! His ardent love of truth, his warm aspiration
after the happiness of the human race, his profound and yet liberal
religious feeling, as much gave him the spirit requisite for such an
undertaking, as his extensive scholarship, his graphic power, his
geographical eye, and brilliant talents for description, fitted him for
carrying it into execution. It is one of the most melancholy events of
our times, which has reft one of the brightest jewels from the literary
crown of England, that such a man should have been cut off at the zenith
of his power, and the opening of his fame. Arnold was a liberal writer;
but what then? We