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one upon another, as some protection from the cold: nor did they stir, except to abuse those who trod upon them as they passed, or to rail at the horses, which kicked whenever a spark fell on their coats.'
The Result of the Campaign.
These may be considered as imperfect sketches, many of them hastily drawn, of Horrific Scenes, which distinguished a campaign, that ended in the return of a few miserable stragglers out of 400,000 warriors, who, we are told, had crossed the Niemen but a few months before; elated, it is probable, with the hopes of success, and buoyed up in the delusive expectation of soon returning, crowned with the spoils of the vanquished; for, we are informed that it was by the light of the flames of Moscow that the author penned the account of its conflagration:—and it appears, that he had to pursue his melancholy task of recording passing events, generally at night, beside a wretched fire, almost benumbed with cold, and surrounded with his dead and dying companions!
And can such scenes, to a repetition of which, the opening of a campaign so naturally leads, be contemplated with pleasure? Not surely by men possessing the smallest portion of the milk of human kindness. These can be beheld with complacency and delight only by demons, strangers at once to the softer feelings of humanity, and those exalted conceptions of
