pression of accord than in assigning the highest attributes of genius to the late Emperor of the French; and if a predominant quality could, in the estimate of his faculties, be named, it doubtless was his military superiority. 66 Equis, iniquisque persuasum erat, tantum bello virum neminem usquam eâ tempestate esse," is the language of Livy (lib. v. 45) in respect to Camillus, and not less applicable to Napoleon. Yet a recent author, and he too a soldier, rebukes the world for entertaining so erroneous an opinion, and reduces to the humblest standard the mightiest spirit of modern times, "la volonté la plus énergique des temps modernes," as emphatically distinguished by Madame de Stael. In his Life of Wallenstein, page 273, Lieut.-Colonel Mitchel thus writes :"A ruthless conscription placed hundreds of thousands of brave and intelligent men at Napoleon's command, and the victories which he purchased with their blood dazzled the world, who, in their ready admiration of imperial sway, willingly mistook the meanness of his character, and the insignificance of his talents." Again, at page 340, he adds,-"And if posterity will judge of Napoleon by the histories yet written of him and his time, they will believe this weak and vain toy of fortune to have been a man of the highest genius." Without appealing to the unanimous suffrage of Europe, in reproof of this solitary and exceptional depreciation of Napoleon's capacity, the gallant writer's own countryman should have taught him better. Sir Walter Scott's epigraph from Lucan ranks his hero on a parallel with Cæsar; nor does his portraiture by Colonel Napier, or Mr. Alison, place him in a lower scale; and these gentlemen are, I apprehend, quite as competent judges of intellectual pre-eminence, in all its appliances, as Colonel Mitchel. I am, at the same time, fully aware, that the exploits of great captains, however they may fill the trumpet of Fame, or influence the fate of nations, are not generally classed in the first line of genius. Euripides said of old (Fragm. in Palamede) : Στρατηλάται δ ̓ ἂν μυρίοι γενοίμεθα. Σοφός δ ̓ ἂν εἶς τίς, ἢ δύ, ἐν μακρῷ χρόνῳ,” and Barnes, in his commentary on the sententious poet's observation, refers to the corroborative sentiments of Montaigne (liv. ii. ch. 36), and Sir W. Temple (essay iii). The former gives to Homer the foremost rank among men; and the latter remarks, "After all that has been said of conquerors or conquests, this must be confessed to hold but the second rank in the pretensions to heroic virtue." Dr. Channing, in his Essays, Châteaubriand in his Memoirs, and many other writers, hold similar language, and pointedly note how few there are who, to military talents of the highest order, joined any other eminence of mind; but, in history, we should look in vain, with the single exception of Cæsar, for that mighty grasp which could seize and apply, in expansive comprehension, or minute detail, every branch of administration and every element of human rule. A volume has just appeared at Paris-" Opinions, Jugemens, &c. sur Napoleon," very impartially collected by M. Damas Hinard, which, after recapitulating his marvellous information on all the departments of state, adds, "Les vieux jurisconsultes, dans les discussions sur le Code Civil (the most perfect of existing codes, as acknowledged by Lord Brougham), ne furent pas peu surpris, lorsqu'ils virent le grand politique, et l'heureux guerrier, donner son avis motivé . . . sur le bail à rente et les formes des actes ;" and this derives ample confirmation from the publications of Thibeaudeau, and Pelet de la Lozère, on the deliberations of the Council of State. An application to detail, so likely to narrow an inferior mind, accumulated for his the materials of thought and action, as the microscope, in unfolding to our view the minutest particles of the objects submitted to its power, enlarges our general comprehension of Nature.— "Connaître en gros équivaut presque à ne rien connaître," is the observation of a great naturalist, M. Geoffroi de Saint-Hilaire, the successor of Cuvier as Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, in his work, "Sur la Lactation des Cétacées." It is, in fact, the inductive principle of Bacon which forbids generalisation, or hypothesis, except on ascertained particulars. Cæsar, too, could descend to subordi nate studies, even to the disquisitions of grammar; for Suetonius (cap. 56) tells us, that he wrote two books, "De Analogiâ," composed on his passage over the Alps, "in transitu Alpium, quum . . . . ad exercitum rediret;" and if the Roman Emperor wielded, as Quintilian says, with equal power, the sword and the pen, some of Napoleon's dictations may sustain a comparison with the most brilliant of modern compositions. Colonel Mitchel has, I understand, announced a Life of Napoleon, of his own composition, as a vehicle, of course, for his adverse opinions, and which, we may predict, will meet the fate of Mr. Carlyle's strange production on a kindred topic. But before the gallant biographer exhibits himself, lance in rest, against the world, I would warn him of his danger in the words of his favourite Wallenstein: "Du wilst die Macht, Public opinion, in its widest range, though it may enjoy paramount sway, and act as the "regina del mundo," is not, I am quite aware, an unerring test of truth; but there are granted facts and conventional sentiments, which no individual may impugn or disregard without some danger to his own credit. He that would now undertake to prove that Homer or Virgil were no poets, would, as observed by Lord Chesterfield, come too late with his discovery; and neither Cromwell, nor the Great Frederick, are believed to have been cowards, though Denzel Hollis (Memoirs, 1699, 8vo.) arraigns the former of lack of courage at Marston-Moor, and Voltaire represents the Prussian Monarch as running away at the battle of Mölwitz, the first in which he was engaged. But, while the imperative obligation of truth urges me to assert the vast capabilities of Bonaparte, no one can be more painfully sensible, not only of their fatal influence on the liberties of his country, and the repose of Europe, but of their degrading union, in various points, with acts and feelings of littleness, which so well justified the epithet of Jupiter-Scapin, applied to him by the Abbé de Pradt, or that of Micromegas, derived from Voltaire. His own habitual saying-" Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas,"t was exemplified alike in his destiny and his conduct; and no Frenchman of the present hour will venture to deny the severity of his rule, however the " velvet glove may have softened the pressure of the iron hand." Few expressions of sovereigns are oftener repeated in rebuke of despotism than This gentleman's work, "The French Revolution, a History, in Three Volumes," will, I think, be best described in the language of Lord Chesterfield allusive to Harte's History of the Great Gustavus, published in 1759:-" Harte's history does not take at all... it is full of good matter, but the style is execrable :-where the devil he picked it up, I cannot conceive; for it is a bad style of a new and singular kind: it is full of Latinisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, and all -isms but Anglicisms; in some places pompous, in others vulgar and low." (Letters to his Son, 16th April, 1759.) Mr. Carlyle has obtained high and just credit for other compositions, but history is not his province. It was thus likewise that, as Lord Brougham remarks, Bentham adopted a harsh style, involved periods, and new combination of words. + Borrowed from him, who could so well afford to lend from his rich store of good sayings-the late M. de Talleyrand-though few were more happy in energetic and pithy expression, or who, like Pericles—τὸ κέντρον ἐγκατέλιπε τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις, than Napoleon.-(Relative to this verse of the Greek poet, Eupolis, in reference to the great Athenian, see Plinii Epist. lib. 1. Epist. 10.) To Talleyrand himself has been applied the not very seemly comparison, which he is stated to have made of the (physically) loathsome Louis XVIII. at his last moments, to the unsavory vapour of an expiring light, or, in his own language—“ Il s'en va comme un bout de chandelle qui pue en s'éteignant." The comparison might have aptly embraced other sovereigns of that day, and certainly was not inapposite to the celebrated diplomatist, whom I have beheld, as he varied his mask, officiating, as Bishop, the 14th July 1790-a deputy to the National Assembly-an Emigrant in London-a Minister at Paris-and, finally, Ambassador at our Court. GENT. MAG. VOL. X. 3 Q |