Republican Herald

WAR.—So much has been well said against war, that it has the air of plagiarism when any of its unavoidable evils are alluded to: Yet there is a short passage in Dr. Aikin's Life of Howard the Philanthropist, placing one of them in so striking a light, that it must excite the most painful reflections in a reader of common humanity. In one of his benevolent journeys, he writes from Moscow, that 'no less than 70,000 recruits for the army and navy have died in the Russian hospital during a single year.' He was an accurate man, incapable of saying anything but the truth, and therefore, this horrible fact cannot but heighten our detestation both of war and despotism. It has, however, been scarcely spoken of in Europe; while other hateful crimes, though affecting only individuals, have justly become the perpetual objects of pity and indignation.—For instance, the cruel murders of the Princess de Lamballe and Louis the Sixteenth. The truth is, that despotism is ever destroying its millions silently and unannounced; while sedition is generally tumultuous, and always dreaded and detested. So many are interested in painting exaggerated pictures of its mischiefs, that the world is kept in perpetual alarm, and even the writers themselves become unable to judge impartially between oppression and resistance, as an artist is said to have drawn the devil so hideous, that he lost his senses by looking at his own colors.—'Jupiter,' says Lucian, 'seldom has recourse to his thunder, but when he is in the wrong;' and at the close of a long military life, Monsieur Vendome owned that 'in the eternal disputes between the mules and muleteers, the mules were generally in the right.' All our praiseworthy toil and expense in building infirmaries and asylums, cannot save a hundredth part of the lives, nor alleviate a hundredth part of the afflictions brought upon the human race by one unnecessary war. Next to the calamity of losing a battle, is that of gaining a victory,' is reported to have been said by our great commander on the evening of the bloody day of Waterloo. [If the Duke of Wellington really said this, all true hearts will open to receive him as a brother, however they may differ with him in opinion, or think it their duty practically to oppose him.]—Leigh Hunt's Journal.