opportunity to escape; but, overcome with feelings of despair at the horrid fate of his beloved wife and children, he voluntarily plunged into the flames, and died with them.* We leave this affecting incident (only one among a thousand others of a scarcely less marked and distressing nature, to be found in the annals of war) to the reflections of the serious and benevolent reader. Is it possible for any one to reflect upon this dreadful catastrophe, either in its relation to the parents and children who died in this unexpected and horrid manner, or in relation to the poor orphan children who survived, without feelings of the deepest compassion? Can the father and mother, as they behold around them their smiling offspring, dear to them as their own life, think of this dreadful scene without profound and overwhelming sensations of grief and horror? We take the liberty to introduce another affecting incident, tending to illustrate our subject. Among the distinguished men who fell victims in the war of the American revolution, was Colonel Isaac Hayne, of South Carolina, a man who, by his amiability of character and high sentiments of honor and uprightness, had secured the good will and affection of all who knew him. He had a wife and six small children, the eldest a boy thirteen years of age. His wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, fell a victim of disease an event hastened, not improbably, by the inconveniences and sufferings incident to a state of war, in which the whole family largely participated. Colonel Hayne himself was taken prisoner by the English forces, and in a short time was executed on the gallows, under circumstances calculated to excite the deepest commiseration. A great number of persons, *Godwin's History of the English Commonwealth, Book IV. chap. 19. 66 both Englishmen and Americans, interceded for his life; the ladies of Charleston signed a petition in his behalf; his motherless children were presented on their bended knees as humble suitors for their beloved father; but all in vain. During the imprisonment of the father, his eldest son was permitted to stay with him in the prison. Beholding his only surviving parent, for whom he felt the deepest affection, loaded with irons and condemned to die, he was overwhelmed with consternation and sorrow. The wretched father endeavored to console him, by reminding him that the unavailing grief of his son tended only to increase his own misery; that we came into this world merely to prepare for a better; that he was himself prepared to die, and could even rejoice that his troubles were so near an end. To-morrow," said he, "I set out for immortality; you will accompany me to the place of my execution; and, when I am dead, take my body and bury it by the side of your mother." The youth here fell on his father's neck, crying, "O my father, my father, I will die with you! I will die with you!" Colonel Hayne, as he was loaded with irons, was unable to return the embrace of his son, and merely said to him in reply, "Live, my son; live to honor God by a good life; live to serve your country; and live to take care of your brother and little sisters." The next morning, proceeds the narrative of these distressing events, Colonel Hayne was conducted to the place of execution. His son accompanied him. Soon as they came in sight of the gallows, the father strengthened himself, and said, "Now, my son, show yourself a man! That tree is the boundary of my life, and of all my life's sorrows. Beyond that the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Don't lay too much at heart our separation; it will be short. 'Twas but lately your dear mother died. To-day I die. And you, my son, though but young, must short ly follow us." "Yes, my father," replied the brokenhearted youth," I shall shortly follow you; for, indeed, I feel that I cannot live long." And his melancholy anticipation was fulfilled in a manner more dreadful than is implied in the mere extinction of life. On seeing his father in the hands of the executioner, and then struggling in the halter, he stood like one transfixed and motionless with horror. Till then, proceeds the narration, he had wept incessantly; but soon as he saw that sight, the fountain of his tears was stanched, and he never wept more. He died insane, and in his last moments often called on his father, in terms that brought tears from the hardest hearts.* We ask the favor of the reader's attention to one melancholy instance more. - Near the close of the last century, there was a family in France; their name and place of residence are not given by the narrator; but this the reader may be assured of, that the members of the family, as is the case generally, were tenderly attached to each other. Under the system of conscription, which has so long prevailed in France, two brothers of this family were required to leave their home, and enter the army. They had joined the army but a short time, when they were called into action. In the heat of the engagement, one of these young men was killed by a musket ball, as he stood by the side of his brother. "The survivor, petrified with horror, was struck motionless at the sight. Some days afterwards, he was sent, in a state of complete idiotism, to his father's house. His arrival produced a similar impression upon a third son of the same family. The news of the death of one of the brothers, and the derangement of the other, threw this third victim into a state of such consternation and stupor * Life of Marion, as quoted in Thatcher's Military Journal, p. 208. as might have defied the powers of ancient or modern poetry to give an adequate representation of it. My sympathetic feelings (says M. Pinel, who at that time had charge of the Bicetre Hospital, and has given the account) have been frequently arrested by the sad wreck of humanity presented in the appearance of these degraded beings; but it was a scene truly heartrending to see the wretched father come to weep over these miserable remains of his once enviable family." Such instances as have now been given, show us how exceedingly those are mistaken, who imagine that the horrors of war are chiefly limited to the person of the soldier, and the boundaries of the battlefield. Happy would it be if such were the case. We might indeed consider ourselves as having great occasion to rejoice, if it could be satisfactorily shown that none but the poor soldiers, with their mangled limbs and dying agonies, are doomed to suffer in consequence of wars. But the soldier, vicious and degraded as he too often is, has yet his friends and relatives, who have watched over him, and perhaps prayed over him, with the deepest affection and solicitude; some father, gray-headed and bowed down with years; some mother, in whose withered and decrepit form the passion of maternal love still glows with its inherent intensity; some sister, who, amid the distressing perplexities and contumelies of life, consoles herself with the recollection that there is one, whom, although less worthy than he ought to be, she can still call a brother. But the news comes suddenly from the field of battle that he has fallen, that his manly form has been torn and crushed by the instruments of death, and that they have a son and a brother no longer. Then, indeed, is it true that gray hairs are brought down with sorrow to the grave. But how much greater is their grief, when the victim of war, whose death they lament, was adorned not only with the graces of form, but with every quality that is kind and amiable, with every trait that is pure, virtuous, and ennobling! Many are the individuals, doomed to fall on the fields of battle, over whose accomplishments and virtues, rival nations, that could agree in nothing else, have united in shedding the tear of heart-felt sorrow. But what can be their grief, who have beheld the lustre of those accomplishments and virtues only in the dim distance, compared with the sorrow of those near friends and relatives, in whose arms they first budded into life, and on whose bosoms they have shone from infancy! Writers have from time to time given us the statistics of armies; it would, perhaps, be no difficult task for them to furnish the statistics of battle-fields, prison-ships, and military hospitals; but who is able, except that God without whom not even a sparrow falls, to give the statistics of the sighs and tears, the groans and the broken hearts, of wretched parents, of mourning brothers and sisters, of desolate widows and orphans! We close this article by giving an extract from Grahame's British Georgics. Poets have often done injury by clothing the pomp and the heroic achievements of war in the enchantments of verse, and thereby encouraging a military spirit; happy will it be, when their lyre, so full of delight, and so potent in its influence, shall be attuned to the celebration of the arts of benevolence and peace; and happier will it be than it now is, when, as in the present instance, they paint the sufferings and blighting influence, rather than the factitious charms and glories, of international strife. "Once I beheld a captive, whom the wars |