The thing is yet well known to every Englishman; [The military details
of it seem to be very ill known (witness Colonel Beatson's otherwise
rather careful Pamphlet, THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, written quite lately,
which we are soon to cite farther); and they would well deserve
describing in the SEYFARTH-BEYLAGEN, or even in the TEMPELHOF
way,--could an English Officer, on the spot as this Colonel was, be
found to do it!--Details are in Beatson (quite another "Beatson"),
_Naval and Military History,_ ii. 300-308; in _Gentleman's Magazine_
for 1759, the Despatches and particulars: see also Walpole, _George the
Second,_ iii. 217-222.] and how Wolfe himself died in it, his beautiful
death.

Truly a bit of right soldierhood, this Wolfe. Manages his small
resources in a consummate manner; invents, contrives, attempts and
re-attempts, irrepressible by difficulty or discouragement, How could a
Friedrich himself have managed this Quebec in a more artistic way? The
small Battle itself, 5,000 to a side, and such odds of Savagery and
Canadians, reminds you of one of Friedrich's: wise arrangements; exact
foresight, preparation corresponding; caution with audacity; inflexible
discipline, silent till its time come, and then blazing out as we see.
The prettiest soldiering I have heard of among the English for several
generations. Amherst, Commander-in-chief, is diligently noosing, and
tying up, the French military settlements, Niagara, Ticonderoga; Canada
all round: but this is the heart or windpipe of it; keep this firm, and,
in the circumstances, Canada is yours.

Colonel Reatson, in his recent Pamphlet, THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM,--which,
especially on the military side, is distressingly ignorant and shallow,
though NOT intentionally incorrect anywhere,--gives Extracts from a
Letter of Montcalm's ("Quebec, 24th August, 1759"), which is highly
worth reading, had we room. It predicts to a hair's-breadth, not only
the way "M. Wolfe, if he understands his trade, will take to beat and
ruin me if we meet in fight;" but also,--with a sagacity singular to
look at, in the years 1775-1777, and perhaps still more in the years
1860-1863,--what will be the consequences to those unruly English,
Colonial and other. "If he beat me here, France has lost America
utterly," thinks Montcalm: "Yes;--and one's only consolation is, In ten
years farther, America will be in revolt against England!" Montcalm's
style of writing is not exemplary; but his power of fai