degenerates rapidly, under certain circumstances, into grapesugar, which will not crystallize. A polarizing apparatus enables us to detect this change, of which neither taste, color, nor specific gravity, would give us warning.

The recondite relations between the mysterious agencies of nature, were never so finely illustrated as by one of Faraday's surprising developments. He experimented with magnetism upon light. The plane-polarized ray from a lamp was shut off by the analysing plate. In this position he subjected it to the force developed by a current through the coils of an electromagnet, when instantly the ray was partially transmitted through the analyzer and the lamp-flame became visible. He had magnetised the light! 'His magnet', says Prof. Tyndall, 'turned the plane of polarization through a certain angle, and thus enabled it to get through the analyser; so that "the magnetisation of light and the illumination of the magnetic lines of force" becomes, when expressed in the language of modern theory, the rotation of the plane of polarization.'

It is a favorite figure of speech with some writers and speakers, who have a weakness for bathos, to inform their readers or hearers what emotion is suitable to certain emergencies in their discourse. When we are told that the heart which has no tears to shed at the recital of this moving story, must be hard indeed,' we make it a point of honor not to weep. When we are assured that it is the best evidence of an indurated bosom and a seared conscience, not to be ready to go into flagrant indignation at the outrage,' we endeavor to be unusually calm; and when it is emphatically announced to us that no man with the least sense of beauty or sentiment of character could fail to love her,' we confess to such a revolt at the superb impudence which dares to guage our emotions by its own, that we enter at once upon a hearty hatred of her. Notwithstanding our feeling upon this subject, we venture to affirm that every mind must approach the study of the stupendous forces of nature revealed to us by the phenomena of light, with something of awe. For we tread consciously near the outer boundaries of the material and close upon the invisible threshold of the spiritual.

Knowing the velocity of sound, and that of light, we can readily calculate the increased clastic force with which it would be necessary to endow the air, in order to make the velocity of the former equal to that of the latter. This enables us, in the next place, to deduce the bursting power of the ether when so much of it is enclosed in a cube of an inch in the side, as is equal in quantity of matter to that existing in a cubic inch of air. It will be found to be more than twelve trillion pounds on each face of the cube. In dealing with the phenomena of light, 'we cannot escape', says Sir John Herschel, 'from the conception of enormous force in perpetual exertion at every point through all the immensity of space.' If we trace the vibrations of the ethereal molecules to their source, it is scarcely possible to suppose that the material particle, which gives rise by combustion or otherwise to these vibrations, does not itself undergo the same phases of undulation. Now, if the force necessary to drive this particle through its total excursion from its point of repose, within the brief period of (one-fourth of) an undulation, be calculated,― by assigning as the smallest length of such an excursion under which the retina may still be sensible to the vibration, only one quintillionth of an inch,—it is found to exceed the force of gravity more than thirty-five thousand millions to one! Thus, light, in the length of its waves and the rapidity of their transmission, in the excursions of the ethereal particles necessary to propagate it and in the force requisite to generate these excursions, in the minuteness of its penetration and the vastness of its dispersion,-stretches almost across the finite, and links the infinitely little with the infinitely great. Bacon complains that 'the manner in which Light and its causes are handled in Physics, is somewhat superstitious, as if it were a thing half-way between things divine and things natural;' and the manner probably remains to this day. But Bacon himself confesses that light 'hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things, to knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.'

ART. III.-1. History of the Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. From the French of M. Brialmont, Captain of the Staff of the Belgian Army; with Emendations and Additions by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A., Captain-General to the Forces and Prebendary of St. Paul's. În Four Volumes. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Brothers. 1860.

The work of General Brialmont has hardly received, from the press of this country, the degree of attention to which it is fairly entitled as the most authentic account of a man who occupied so large a space, for so long a time, in the eyes of Europe, as the Duke of Wellington. It was published at a time not at all favorable to a large American circulation. It was on the eve of the war, when the public mind was too deeply absorbed in contemplation of the approaching crisis, to be diverted into other channels of less immediate interest. Apart, moreover, from the fact that the exploits of Wellington had been performed in support of a cause which is peculiarly distasteful to Americans of all classes, and every shade of political opinion, the most striking portion of them had already, many years since, been narrated by a military writer of surpassing ability, whose fascinating pages find no rival in the work of de Brialmont. We allude, of course, to Colonel Napier, and his great history of the Peninsular War. Though doubtless possessed of great talents, and many of those high qualities which are always found associated with brilliant achievement, there seems to have been nothing in the character or conduct of Wellington calculated to excite the admiration or enthusiasm of a people supposed to be peculiarly attached to a republican form of government. He was the most haughty noble of an age in which haughtiness and nobility were far more closely allied than they are at present, and he seems to have had quite as great a contempt for the vulgar herd as Coriolanus, or any other Roman of them all. The earlier years of his military service had been devoted to the overthrow of ancient thrones, and the extinction of ancient dynasties, in India, where he had already become a highly useful

agent in extending the most tremendous system of conquest of which the world has afforded an example since the destruction of the Roman Empire, when he was recalled to assist in restoring effete dynasties, propping ancient thrones, reviving abuses grown hoary with age, and resisting a system of conquest, which although right enough in India, was thought not to be exactly the thing in Europe. There may appear to be some incongruity between the nature of his employment in India, and the nature of his employment in Europe. But there is one reconciling feature which stands out conspicuously in both. In each instance he acted in utter disregard of the wishes of the conquered people; in each he forced upon them a government they utterly abhorred. Few men can be found at this day, bold enough to maintain that the French people entertained a very great affection for the Bourbons, and since the events of 1857, the world has learned pretty well what to think of that deep attachment to the British Government which English writers used to tell us the Hindoos universally felt. These remarks are merely designed to explain the reason why, in our opinion, the work of Brialmont has received so little notice from the press, and not as the commencement of an extended commentary. Having noticed, in the author's account of the campaign of Waterloo, several incidents which place the conduct of Wellington on that occasion in a different light from any in which we had hitherto seen it, we use the title of his book merely as an introduction to our main subject, which is the campaign in question.

The Duke of Wellington is never spoken of, by English writers of any class, but in terms of the most extravagant eulogy. That he did great things is true, but we can conceive of nothing which a mere mortal could do, sufficiently great to justify the hyperboles of which he has constantly been the subject. Upon comparing the catalogue of his exploits with those of other generals, such as Turenne, Eugene, Marlborough, and the great Frederic, we fail to see the enormous superiority which we are told is so very apparent. Before the campaign of Waterloo, most assuredly, his achievements bore no comparison whatever to those of Napoleon. As compared with those of General Lee, they seem, including even Waterloo, absolutely insignificant.

General Lee, with a force not so large as the Anglo-Portuguese regular army which Wellington had under him when he encountered Massena in 1809-not half so large as his whole force if the Portuguese militia be taken into the account-in the space of twenty-eight days, in three battles, killed and wounded more men than Wellington ever killed and wounded during his whole career, from Assaye to Waterloo, both inclusive. In one of these battles Lee killed and wounded more men by 9000, than the French army lost, including prisoners, in the whole campaign of Waterloo, and the pursuit to the gates of Paris. In the same battle he killed and wounded more men than Wellington, Blucher, and Napoleon, all three together, lost in killed and wounded in the battle of Waterloo, by 5000 men. In the second of these battles he killed and wounded the same number that both the opposing armies lost in the battle of Waterloo; and in the third he killed and wounded more by 7000 than the French alone lost in the battle of Waterloo. In the three battles together, Lee killed and wounded more men, by at least 30,000, than the Allies and French lost in the whole campaign, including prisoners. The force with which Lee operated never amounted, at one time, to 50,000 men; the force with which Wellington and Blucher acted was, even according to English estimates, 190,000 strong. The force to which Lee was opposed was, from first to last, 240,000 strong; the force to which Wellington and Blucher were opposed was but 122,000 strong. When Massena invaded Portugal in 1810, Wellington had 30,000 British troops, and 25,000 Portuguese regulars, who, in the battle of Busaco, according to Wellington's own account, 'proved themselves worthy to fight side by side with the British veterans,' besides 40,000 admirable Portuguese militia. He had Lisbon for his base, with a British war fleet riding at anchor, and innumerable vessels of other descriptions plying between the port and England, and bringing the most abundant supplies of arms, provisions, and munitions of war. He had surrounded the port with the most tremendous system of fortifications known in modern times, and his task was to defend the strongest country in Europe. In Lee's case, his enemy had possession of the sea, and could and did land a powerful army to attack the very basis