the French under Marshal Macdonald with great slaughter, and capturing 18,000 prisoners, 103 cannon, 250 ammunition waggons, two eagles, besides many other trophies. The moral effect of this victory was even greater than its material consequences, and he hastened to improve it by marching boldly through Lusatia along the Elbe, and crossing that river at Wartburg he advanced on Mockern, where, on the 16th October, he engaged and defeated the enemy, capturing at the same time some thousands of prisoners, and fifty-four pieces of artillery. In the battle of Leipzig, two days after, he contributed mainly to the decisive victory, and was rewarded, amid the shouts of the Silesian army, by having conveyed to him in most flattering terms, through Prince William of Prussia, his appointment by the king as field-marshal. On the 1st of January, 1814, he crossed the Rhine with the Silesian army, and occupied Nancy in the French territory. Continuing his advance, he was attacked by Napoleon at Brienne with no result to either party; but at La Rothiere, on the 1st of February, he attacked and defeated the French, capturing 3000 prisoners and many pieces of artillery. In the engagements of Vauchamp and Croanne he was less successful; but in the battle of Laon, on the 9th of March, he overthrew the right wing of the French army under Marmont, and by isolating Napoleon who led the left and contemplated a union with the beaten division, he compelled him to retreat, and thus virtually terminated the war. The way being now open to Paris, he entered it on the 31st May, along with the other conquerors after the battle of Montmartre. After the taking of Paris he laid down his command, having, by his constancy and the almost unparalleled activity of his army, chiefly determined the great result. At Mery his resolution had saved the allied armies from a ruinous retreat, and the loss of the entire campaign; at Laon he had broken Napoleon's power physically and morally, and permitted the sovereigns to form the grand resolution to march upon Paris, by which the campaign was ended, and the fortune of Europe decided. After the peace of Paris, in company with the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia, he visited England, where he was enthusiastically received, his fearless courage and ardent love of freedom having made him long a favourite with the nation. On his return to his own country he retired amid the gratitude and honours which were heaped on him, to his estate, but was speedily summoned to the field by the return of Napoleon from Elba, and the renewal of the deadly struggle which it was believed had terminated. He assumed the command of the Prussian troops in Belgium, made arrangements with Colonel Hardinge, who had been dispatched to his head-quarters by the duke of Wellington to secure unity of action in the coming campaign; and on the approach of Napoleon formed, with the English commander-in-chief at Bry, a plan of mutual assistance in the event of their being attacked. In the battle of Ligny, which was fought on the 16th of June, he was defeated by his own rashness and the superior tactics of his enemy; but though the French cavalry, in pursuit of his troops, rode over him as he lay on the ground under his horse, which had been shot dead in the conflict, he rallied his division and appeared on the field of Waterloo, to determine, by his decisive charge, the fate of the day, and complete by a merciless pursuit the ruin of the foe. With the same rapidity as he had conquered, he followed up his victory, and obtained peace at Paris. His hatred to Napoleon, which partook of the fierceness of private revenge, displayed itself during the march to Paris, when he informed the duke of Wellington that as the congress of Vienna had declared Napoleon outlawed, it was his intention to have him shot whenever, he caught him; and only by the strong exhortations of the English commander could he be induced to abandon his purpose. Honours fell thick on the head of the successful veteran. He received the military orders of all the great powers of Europe, and the university of Oxford complimented him with the honorary degree of D.C.L. His own sovereign named him, in memory of the first of his victories, prince of Wohlstadt, with a suitable dotation, and created for his exclusive wearing a decoration, consisting of an iron cross surrounded with golden rays, accompanying the gift with the declaration that, "he knew very well that no golden rays could heighten the splendour of his services, but that it gave him pleasure to make his sense of them evident by a suitable mark of distinction." After remaining for some months in Paris, and assisting in consolidating the government of the restored Bourbons, his health began to give way from the effects of age and military service, and he retired to his chateau of Kriblowitz in Silesia. Towards the close of 1819 it became evident that his death was near. On the 5th of September the king of Prussia sent his aid-de-camp, Major-General Von Witzleben, to him with kindly inquiries. He returned thanks for his majesty's favours, recommended his wife to the royal kindness, and requested that he might be buried without ostentation in the open country, in a field between Kriblowitz and Kunst, on a spot which he described under three lime trees; and intimated that he had no reluctance to die, as he was now of no further use. On the following day he was visited by the king and Prince Charles, who soothed him by expressions of regard and admiration of his great public services. He died on the 12th September, aged seventy-seven, having been forty-five years in the army, and achieved the most brilliant of his victories after the seventieth year of his age. On receiving the news of his death, the king gave orders that the army should be put in mourning for eight days, while he sent Count Blucher of Wohlstadt, the veteran's grandson, with a letter of condolence to his widow. On the merits of Blucher as a commander, the most conflicting opinions have been expressed. That he possessed many of the qualities of an able general even his enemies have admitted. Fearless courage, inflexible determination, thorough confidence in his friends and army, and the gift of exciting among those whom he led unbounded trust in himself, a constitutional obtuseness to defeat, and an amazing celerity in recovering from it, and charging the enemy as if he were the victor instead of the vanquished, won for him the love of his own soldiers, who called him "Marshal Forwards," and even of the rude Cossacks who named him the "Little Suwarrow," and believed that he had been born on the banks of the Don. On the other hand, in the science of war he was admitted to be deficient; and Baron von Muffling, who, during the campaigns of 1813-14-15, acted as quarter-master-general to the division of the army which he commanded, while he records his many heroic qualities, declares that he "understood nothing whatever of the conduct of a war, so little, indeed, that when a plan was submitted to him for approval he could not form any clear idea of it, or judge whether it were good or bad. This circumstance made it necessary that some one should be placed by his side in whom he had confidence, and who possessed inclination and skill to employ it in the general weal." Such a person was General Greisenau, who, it is added, "really commanded the army in 1813-14, while Blucher merely acted as an example of the bravest in battle, and the most indefatigable in exertion." The epithet of "General of Hussars," applied to him in contempt by his great enemy. Napoleon, is nearer the truth than the exaggerated encomiums of those who estimated him by the importance of the events in which he was, from circumstances, so prominent an actor.—W. M. H.
BLUFF, Mathias Joseph, a celebrated German botanist of the present century. Along with Fingerhuth, Wallroth, Nees von Esenbeck, and Schauer, he has published works on the flora of Germany. He is distinguished especially as a cryptogamic botanist. The publication of his "Compendium Floræ Germanicæ" commenced at Nuremberg in 1821.—J. H. B.
BLUM, Joachim Christian, a poet of considerable reputation in the last century, was born at Rathenau in Brandenburg, on the 17th November, 1739. He received an excellent education at Brandenburg, Berlin, and Frankfort, and was the friend of Ramler and Baumgarten. Blum's health prevented his doing as much in literature as his abilities promised, and he settled quietly down in his native town, devoting himself principally to the study of languages. His lyrical poems, though now little read, were highly thought of, though it must be admitted their merit lies rather in grace, simplicity, and correctness of style, than in originality or vigour. He wrote a historical drama on the conquest of Rathenau by the elector, which was of course favourably received, and is now forgotten. He also left some moral essays. He died at Rathenau in 1790.—J. F. W.
* BLUM, Johann Reinhard, a German mineralogist, professor, and director of the mineralogical collection in the university of Heidelberg, born on the 28th October, 1802, at Hanau. His principal writings are—"A Text-book of Oryctognosy," published at Stuttgard in 1833 (2nd edit. 1847), and "Lithurgics, or Minerals and Rocks in their Technical Applications," published at Stuttgard in 1840. He is also the author of numerous memoirs in Leonhard and Bronn's Jahrbuch, and in Poggendorff's Annalen.—W. S. D.
