Page images
PDF
EPUB

hundreds of the captives.

After paying a visit to Egypt, he returned to Rome, which he entered in triumph, and was associated by his father in the government of the empire. His conduct thus far, if we may believe the accounts of Suetonius, had been marked by the most shameless excesses. He had chosen his associates among the most abandoned of the youthful courtiers, and indulged in the gratification of every impure desire and unnatural vice. From one so little accustomed to restrain his passions, the Roman people anticipated nothing but the misrule of a second Caligula or Nero; but, on ascending the throne, (79,) Titus disappointed these gloomy prognostications, and, relinquishing his vicious habits and debauched companions, became the father of his people, the guardian of virtue, and the patron of liberty. His reformation appeared to be sincere and perfect: the unworthy and dissolute youth assumed the character of the enlightened and munificent sovereign of a vast empire. All informers were banished from his court, and even severely punished; a reform took place in judicial proceedings; and the public edifices were repaired, and new ones erected for the convenience of the people. The memorable exclamation of Titus, “Perdidi diem," (I have lost a day,) which he is said to have uttered one day when no opportunity had occurred for doing any service or granting a favour to any one of his subjects, has been considered as strikingly characteristic of his sentiments and behaviour, which procured for him the title of Amor et deliciæ generis humani, (the delight of mankind.) Two senators having engaged in a conspiracy against his life, he not only pardoned them, but also admitted them to his friendship. During his reign, there was a conflagration at Rome, which lasted three days; the towns of Campania were desolated by an eruption of Vesuvius; and the empire was visited by a destroying pestilence. In this season of public calamity, the emperor's benevolence and philanthropy were most conspicuously displayed. He comforted the afflicted, relieved the sufferers by his bounty, and exerted all his care for the restoration of public prosperity. The Romans did not long enjoy the benefits of his wise and virtuous administration. He was seized with a violent fever, and, retiring to a country house which had belonged to his father, he there expired, lamenting with his latest breath the severity of his fate, which removed him from the world before he had perfected his plans for the benefit of his grateful subjects, whose sorrow for his loss was heightened by their apprehensions arising from the gloomy and unpromising character of his brother Domitian, who was even suspected of having hastened the catastrophe which was to contribute to his own elevation to imperial power. Titus died, A. D. 81, in the forty-first year of his age, after reigning two years.

WILLIAM DAMPIER.

ILLIAM DAMPIER was born in 1652, of a Somersetshire family. He went early to sea, served in the war against the Dutch, and afterwards became overseer of a plantation in Jamaica. He thence went to the Bay of Campeachy with other logwood cutters, and remained there several years. He kept a journal of his adventures and observations on that coast, which was afterwards published; "Voyages to the Bay of Campeachy," London, 1729, with a "Treatise on Winds and Tides." Dampier, besides being a bold seaman, had also studied navigation as a science. In 1679, he joined a party of buccaneers, with whom he crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and having embarked in canoes and other small craft on the Pacific ocean, they captured several Spanish vessels, in which they cruised along the coast of Spanish America, waging a war of extermination both by sea and land against the subjects of Spain. In 1684, Dampier sailed again from Virginia with nother expedition, which doubled Cape Horn, and cruised along the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, making depredations upon the Spaniards. From the coast of Mexico they steered for the East Indies, touched at New Holland, and after several adventures in the Indian Seas, Dampier went on shore at Bencoolen, from whence he found his way back to England, in 1691, when he published his "Voyage round the World," a most interesting account, and which attracted considerable attention. His abilities becoming known, he was appointed commander of a sloop of war in the king's service, and was sent on a voyage of discovery to the South Seas.

[graphic]

66

Dampier explored the west and north-west coasts of New Holland, surveyed Shark's Bay, and gave his name to a small archipelago east of North-west Cape. He also explored the coasts of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Ireland, and gave his name to the straits which separate the two former; on his homeward voyage he was wrecked on the Isle of Ascension. He at last returned to England in 1701, when he published the account of this voyage. In 1707, he published a Vindication of his Voyage to the South Seas in the ship St. George," with which he had sailed from Virginia in his former marauding expedition. Dampier went to sea again till 1711, but the particulars of the latter part of his life are little known. He ranks among the most enterprising navigators of England. He was acquainted with botany, and was possessed of considerable information and general knowledge. His style of narrative is vivid, and bears the marks of truth. His voyages were published together in three volumes, 8vo, London, 1697-1709.

[graphic]

MARSHAL AUGEREAU.

[graphic]

IERRE FRANCOIS CHARLES AUGEREAU, Duke of Castiglione and Marshal of France, was born of humble parents, (his father was said to be a fruiterer,) in Paris, on the 11th of November, 1757. He first enlisted in the French carabineers, and from thence entered the Neapolitan service. He obtained his discharge in 1787, but continued to reside at Naples, where he gave lessons as a fencing-master. When the French were exiled from Italy, in 1792, Augereau volunteered into the revolutionary armies of his country, and joined that which was intended to repel the Spaniards. As all the officers had emigrated, Augereau rose rapidly, and became in a short time adjutantgeneral. It may be observed, that Dugoumier, appointed to command the army of the Pyrenees, proceeded from the capital to his head-quarters on foot, so that the want of birth or wealth was no obstacle to Augereau. During 1794, he distinguished himself by the capture of an important foundery, and by extricating a division which, under another officer, had fallen into a dangerous position. Augereau received two wounds on this occasion. Soon after, the army was divided, and Augereau was put in command of one division. He was then removed to a more important scene of warfare in Italy, and became one of the chief instruments in executing the first bold manœuvres of Bonaparte. It was under Augereau that the French carried the passes of Millesimo, in the spring of 1796; at Dego he again rendered eminent service; and again, Augereau's brigade, with himself at its head, rushed upon the bridge of Lodi, and finally car

ried it in the teeth of the enemy's batteries. He was foremost in the advance into the Venetian territories; and being despatched to repel the hostilities of the Papal troops, he took Bologna. At Lugo, unfortunately, he was driven by the desperate resistance of the inhabitants to those excesses that rendered the name of Frenchmen execrable in Italy. He gave up the village to plunder and massacre.

The field of battle was Augereau's proper sphere; away from it, he descended into the rank of common men; and yet it was not merely as a subordinate general, or as an executor of his commands, that he rendered good service to Bonaparte. Ardent as this young commander was, he felt that the French had advanced too far, and that it was prudent for the present to retire before the fresh army under Wurmser, which Austria was pouring into Italy. Augereau combated the idea of retreat with all his energy; he represented the spirit of the army as invincible, and he at last decided Bonaparte to attack, instead of retiring. The consequence was the battle and victory of Castiglione, of the glory of which Augereau reaped the greater part. It also procured him the title which he afterwards enjoyed as grandee of the French empire.

The most brilliant action of this campaign, so rich in feats of heroism and generalship, was the battle of Arcole, which took place in the middle of November. The object was to pass a bridge, defended not only by batteries of cannon, as that of Lodi had been, but also by overhanging walls and houses, from which the enemy sent a shower of fatal musketry. The French had been several times repulsed, when Augereau, seizing a standard, bore it upon the bridge, followed by a column, which nevertheless was unable to advance against the grape-shot and musketry. He was unable to effect the passage over the bridge, but still he was rewarded by a decree of the Directory, granting to him, in commemoration of his bravery, the standard that he had borne on the occasion.

In the following year, 1797, the attention and interest of the French army were withdrawn from the foreign enemy, and fixed upon the parties which disputed for supremacy at home. The Directory was menaced by the royalists, as well as in a great measure by the friends of constitutional government, who now began to rally to the cause of royalty in despair of realizing their ideas under a republic. But this party, among its other imprudent acts, committed the great mistake of making the armies hostile to it. Bonaparte was accused for his conduct towards Venice, and was treated as an accomplice of the Directory. The general replied by offering his services to the Directory, and by sending addresses from his soldiery in favour of republicanism. In the camp of the army of Italy, Augereau was so loud in his execrations of royalty, and so extreme in his revolutionary ideas, that Bonaparte, at once to get rid of him, and to provide the Directory with a useful agent, sent him to Paris. Here he continued his

« PreviousContinue »