advised him to signalize his ambition invasion. On the contrary, all France more effectually, even in Europe, by was in exultation at the sight of the seizing on a province which promised a vast armament gathered for the purmore easy and profitable victory than pose at Toulon; and neither among

the swamps and sands of the Dutch. her people nor her priesthood was ? He justly told the King that he could one warning voice raised against this

not pursue a Dutch war without ex- preparative for wholesale robbery and citing the jealousy of Europe. “It is slaughter. in Egypt,” said he, that the true blow In the beginning all seemed forcan be struck.” He then laboured tunate. The expedition sailed, escaped to show, that the possession would give the British fleet, reached Malta, of

him the road to India, and put her which it became possessed by corrup3 opulent trade into his hands; that it tion; and turning out the weak and r would thus engross the real sources perfidious knights, placed in it a

of the wealth of Holland -extin- French garrison, and then reached

guish the competitorship of Europe Alexandria in safety, made its spirit 2 --and, by making the Mediterranean known by putting 1200 of the garrison

a French lake, virtually place Louis to the sword, and in a few days was on the throne of Europe. Louis in possession of the country. was fortunately as self-willed as he But it is well worth remarking, that was sanguinary ; he preferred the perhaps no expedition ever more disnearer conquest ; brought on himself tinctly failed in all its principal obthe arms of England and Europe, was jects. Its seizure of Malta gave that hunted up to the gates of Versailles; great fortress finally into the hands of and ought to have been hanged on the English, by whom it had been those gates, with his whole ministry immediately besieged, and taken with round him, if justice had been done. its garrison. But the first retributive

A quarter of a century before the blow was the destruction of the whole French Revolution, Savary, one of French fleet at Aboukir. The next these scientific infidels who poisoned was the defeat of Bonaparte himself, the public mind and prepared that by Sir Sydney Smith and the Turks, Revolution, had gone to Egypt, and

at Acre. This was followed by the given a description of it in the na- successive defeats of the French by tional style,--a flourish of romance, in the British army, until not a man of which everything was dipped in colours that expedition remained in Egypt but of the rainbow, and the appetite of the as a prisoner. nation was again excited to seize on Yet the punishment did not end this African paradise.

there. France was to be scourged, On the conquest of Italy, in 1797, and the lash fell upon her with matchthe project of seizing Egypt was less severity. The Allies, encouraged adopted by the Directory. It offered by the absence of the last general and various temptations to that atrocious best army of France, poured fresh underhand policy, which regards every troops into Italy. The Russian Gothing but justice. To Napoleon, the vernment, relieved from all fears on command of a fleet and army, which the side of Turkey, by the irritawould keep him before the eyes of tion of the French attack on a Turkish France-to the Directory, the oppor- province, sent the celebrated Suwartunity of getting rid of a too popular row with a strong force to Italy. He general and unemployed army for the swept the French before him, and time—and to the nation, that phan- recovered the entire country in a tasm of national glory which is always single rapid but most bloody camable to delude France. We can find paign. It was computed that, in no counteracting opinion at the time- killed and prisoners, France lost one no honest remonstrance against the hundred thousand men in Italy before utter villany of plundering an ancient the end of the year. Thus the fruits ally, and the utter impolicy of show- of the single atrocity of invading ing that with France treaties were Egypt, and of slaughtering unfortu. waste paper; we cannot find even any nate Turks and Arabs without a cause, humane and natural protest against was the loss of two great armies-of the actual murder of the multitude of Italy—of the most important station men, Frenchmen as well as Turks of the Mediterranean for ever, and of and Arabs, who must perish in the all hopes of possessing Egypt, which

But they

they not improbably might have oh. were all seventy-fours. tained by purchase from the necessi. had what was more than equivalent ties of Turkey. Even the more mi- to all other superiority-Nelson in nute objects were failures. The Din command. Nelson, by throwing a rectory wholly failed in keeping Nan part of his force between the enemy poleon at a distance, for he contrived and the shore, accomplished the great to return, however disreputably. And maneuvre of bringing an overwhelm. even in his personal instance, nothing ing weight of fire on a part of the opbut the accidental circumstances of posing line. Five ships had thus the country could have saved him from passed inside the French line, while six ruin. His defeats in Syria had thrown ranged outside. After boldly sustaining a cloud on his military reputation, this storm of fire for six hours, the which would have enabled the Direc- enemy's ships began to strike ; and tory to bring him to a court-martial flames were soon after seen from the for desertion. But he was saved for Admiral's ship, the L'Orient. The a heavier fall. The loss of the Italian blaze rapidly covered this magnificant campaign, under Joubert and Mac- vessel, and threw a light on the condonald, alone protected him at the tending fleets, the surrounding sea, moment.

and the shore, on which French troops He was received by the people, in and Arabs had gathered to see the their emergency, as the sole hope of battle. At length she blew up, with the country. The battle of Marengo an explosion so tremendous as to shake turned the tide again, and that larger every ship, and cover them with blaz. course of infliction began, which he ing fragments. Nelson, though woundwas evidently reserved to put in mo. ed severely in the head, and carried tion against Europe. Yet what were below decks, on hearing that the even his greatest victories but so L'Orient was on fire, got up alone, many new shapes of suffering, in which and made his way to the quarterdeck, France herself shared with unbroken when, with that humanity which formpowers of the Continent, in which ed so conspicuous a part of his gallant hundreds of thousands of her people nature, he ordered his boats out to were sacrificed, only to bring an enemy save the enemy's officers and seamen twice to Paris, to lay the country at who were jumping overboard. the feet of Europe ; and even in the By daylight the victory was seen to instance of that wonder of genius and be complete. Of the thirteen French fortune himself, only to make him the sail of the line, two were burned and most memorable victim of humiliation nine taken ; of their four frigates, one that the world has ever seen the was burned and one sunk-two sail of blasted figure of a colossal ambition. the line and two frigates alone esca

The battle of Aboukir was one of ping, from the inability of the crippled the most singular and one of the most English ships to follow them. The inomentous, in naval annals. Nelson, British loss was 895 killed and wound. after having twice traversed the Medi- ed. Tho enemy's loss was dreadful: terranean in chase of the French, first 5225 killed ; 3105 wounded and prisaw them on the 1st of August, (1798,) soners, subsequently sent on shore, on drawn up in line, at the anchorage of their parole, not to serve until exchanAboukir

, with their broadsides to the ged." But Napoleon, who despised sea, and protected by guns on the such punctilios, instantly incorporated shore. He advanced straight to the into his army all who were able to mark the moment he saw them, at march, and made a regiment out of three in the afternoon. The number those remnants of the battle. of ships on both sides was equal-each The mighty warrior who gained thirteen sail of the line; but the this victory became instantly and French had a great advantage in guns justly the object of European admiraand men, their ships carrying 1196 tion. He was loaded with honours guns, and 11,230 men; while the by the Allied Courts ; England gave British had but 2012 guns, and 8068 him a pension of L.2000 a year, with

The enemy had a still more that title which he had so nobly conimportant advantage in the size of templated on his first sight of the their ships, having the L'Orient of enemy: “Before this time to-morrow 120 guns and the Franklin and Guil- I shall have gained a peerage, or laume Tell of 80 ; while the British Westminster Abbey."

Pitt's reply to the charge, that ed with plate and sacred ornaments, u England had been too. frugal of her infamously torn from the altars of the -honours on this great occasion, was island. And though the worship was te worthy of a Greek orator.

that of a corrupt belief, yet we must the • Admiral Nelson's fame will be remember that those treasures were

coeval with the British name. And devoted to religion, however imperore it will be remembered that he gained fectly known; and that they were to the greatest naval victory on record; carried away in the open scorn of it when no man will think of asking homage to God and justice to man. Der whether he had been created a baron, It is supposed that the whole of this a viscount, or an earl."

sacrilegious pillage went to the botThe fate of the L'Orient seemed to tom with this doomed vessel. In the

be characteristic of that retribution flames that consumed the L'Orient, in which so sternly pursued the enter- as in the handwriting on the banquettinge prise. On board of that vessel Na- wall of the Babylonian king, was me poleon had amassed the plunder from marked the final destiny of the pro1 the churches of Malta : she was load. faner.

a

ON THE ESSENES.

PART II.

us

We have sketched rapidly, in the fraud which interpolated the wellfirst part of our essay, some outline of known passage about our Saviour. a theory with regard to the Essenes, Let us read any author in those circonfining ourselves to such hints as cumstances of time, place, or immeare suggested by the accounts of this diate succession to the cardinal events sect in Josephus. And we presume of our own religion, and we shall find that most readers will go along with it a mere postulate of the heart, a

so far as to acknowledge some mere necessity of human feeling, that shock, some pause given to that blind we should think of him as a Christian; acquiescence in the Bible statement or, if not absolutely that, as every which had hitherto satisfied them. By way disposed to be a Christian, and the Bible statement we mean, of falling short of that perfect light only course, nothing which any inspired by such clouds as his hurried life or part of the Bible tells us-on the his personal conflicts might interpose. contrary, one capital reason for re- We do not blame, far from it-we jecting the old notions is, the total admire those who find it necessary silence of the Bible ; but we mean (even at the cost of a little self-delu. that little explanatory note on the sion) to place themselves in a state Essenes, which our Bible translators of charity with an author treating under James I. have thought fit to such subjects, and in whose company adopt, and in reality to adopt from they were to travel through some Josephus, with a reliance on his thousands of pages. We also find it authority which closer study would painful to read an author and to loathe have shown to be unwarranted. We him. We too would be glad to supdo not wonder that Josephus has been pose, as a possibility about Josephus, misappreciated by Christian readers. what many adopt as a certainty. But It is painful to read any author in a we know too much. Unfortunately, spirit of suspicion ; most of all, that we have read Josephus with too scruauthor to whom we must often look tinizing (and, what is more, with too as our only guide. Upon Josephus combining) an eye. We know him to we are compelled to rely for the most be an unprincipled man, and an ignoble affecting section of ancient history. man; one whose adhesion to ChristiMerely as a scene of human passion, anity would have done no honour to the main portion of his Wars tran- our faith—one who most assuredly was scends, in its theme, all other histories. not a Christian-one who was not But considered also as the agony of even in any tolerable sense a Jew a mother church, out of whose ashes one who was an enemy to our faith, arose, like a phenix, that filial faith a traitor to his own : as an enemy, “ which passeth all understanding," vicious and ignorant; as a traitor, the last conflict of Jerusalem and her steeped to the lips in superfluous glorious temple exacts from the devo- baseness. tional conscience as much interest as The vigilance with which we have would otherwise be yielded by our read Josephus, has (amongst many human sympathies. For the circum- other hints) suggested some with restances of this struggle we must look gard to the Essenes: and to these we to Josephus : him or none we must shall now make our own readers a accept for witness, And in such a party ; after stopping to .say, that case, how painful to suppose a hostile thus far, so far as we have gone alheart in every word of his deposition! ready, we count on their assent to our Who could bear to take the account theory, were it only from those conof a dear friend's last hours and fare- siderations : First, the exceeding imwell words from one who confessedly probability that a known philosophic hated him ?-one word melting us sect amongst the Jews, chiefly disto tears, and the next rousing us to tinguished from the other two by its the duty of jealousy and distrust! moral aspects, could have lurked unHence we do not wonder at the pious known to the Evangelists; Secondly,

2 G

NO. CCXCIV. VOL. XLVII,