Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), March 15, 1845, vol. 1, no. 11, p. ??

[page 174, column 1, continued:]

Military Maxims of Napoleon. Translated from the French by J. Akerly. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1845.

Mr. Akerly's name is new to us, but we think that it cannot be new in literature, for he writes with the elegance and precision of a practised author. His translation reads like an original composition, and we should never dream of its being rendered from another language than that in which it is written. As a specimen of elegant book-making, we have rarely seen this little volume surpassed by any issue from the American press. The maxims themselves are not subjects for criticism, but we should he glad to know the author's motives in publishing them. He has dedicated his volume to the officers of the regular army of the United States, who, we trust, will never have occasion to use it as a text book.

We cannot allow this opportunity to escape us of rebuking the aristocratic and exclusive spirit, more peculiar to our own country than any other in the world, which is manifested in the dedication of this book, of making a distinction between the officers and the rank and file of the army. In England, and France, and Russia, we always hear the Army or the Navy spoken of as a body — here, it is always the officers of our Army or of our Navy. At public dinners, in Con. gressional speeches, in newspaper paragraphs, the universal phraseology is, “the gallant officers of our army,” &c. If we should ever again be involved in war, all this nonsense will, of necessity, be abolished; for it is idle to expect that the citizens of the republic will serve in either department of the public defence, to be treated as mere automata, and be excluded from all the honors and emoluments which their valor might win. God grant that the experiment may never be tried; but it requires no spirit of prophecy to foresee, that under the present system of conferring offices, disgrace and defeat would be the result of every engagement with an enemy.