their kind, and while they bear no resemblance
to those of Cowper, Burns, Byron, or Mackintosh, they are on that very
account a positive addition to the literature of epistolary
composition. Few biographies have been published within a century
calculated to make so deep an impression as this of Dr. Channing, and
few could have admitted the reader to so close a communion with the
subject, without sacrificing that delicacy in the treatment of
frailties due to the character of the departed.

_Napoleon and the Marshals of the Empire. Philadelphia:
Carey & Hart. 2 vols. 12mo._

The present work is to some extent an attempt "to head" Mr. Headley.
For our part, we profess to have as much patience as any of the
descendants of Job, but we must acknowledge that we have broken down
in every effort to master the merits of the quarrel between the
publishers of the present volumes and the Author of Napoleon and his
Marshals. Accordingly we can give no opinion on that matter. In
respect to the value of the volumes under consideration, as compared
with a similar work by Mr. Headley, there can be little hesitation of
judgment. It is idle to say, as some have said, that a work which has
run through fifteen editions, as Mr. Headley's has done, is a mere
humbug. On the contrary, it is a book evincing a mind as shrewd as it
is strong, aiming, it is true, rather at popularity than excellence,
but obtaining the former by possessing the sagacity to perceive that
accounts of battles, to be generally apprehended, must be addressed to
the eye and blood rather than to the understanding; and this power
of producing vivid pictures of events Mr. Headley has in large
measure. Hence the success of his book, in spite of its exaggerations
of statement, sentiment and language.

The present work evinces a merit of another kind. It is a keen,
accurate, well-written production, devoid of all tumult in its style
and all exaggeration in its matter, and giving close and consistent
expositions of the characters, and a clear narrative of the lives, of
Napoleon and his Marshals. It is evidently the work of a person who
understands military operations, and conveys a large amount of
knowledge which we have seen in no other single production on the
subject of the wars springing out of the French Revolution. The
portraits of fifteen of the marshals, in military costume, are very
well executed.

The portion of the work devoted to Napoleon, about one