Cessnock. This young person he formally solicited in marriage through the medium of several laboured and entirely passionless letters, which one can only suppose Burns to have written, by dint of determinedly wrenching himself down to the dead level of the model-letters he had previously studied. Ellison Begbie refused the offer of the poet's hand; for what precise reason does not appear, but it was done, another dreadfully elaborate epistle acknowledges, "in the politest language of refusal --still it was peremptory-you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me, what without you I never can obtain,—you wish me all kind of happiness." Who could suppose now, that this freezing, spasmodic tenderness was the composition of a brain in which "Green grow the rushes, O" was already sparkling into song? Burns by this time had become a freemason, and "a keen one," it is addedan institution which would necessarily interest him greatly by its unsectarian, philanthropic character; and his matrimonial penchant still continuing, he bethought himself of turning flax-dresser, in partnership with another person, at the seaport town or village of Irvine, as affording a better chance of bettering his condition in the world than poorly-requited farm-labour. The flax-dressing scheme, however, turned out ill-Burns' partner was something very like a rascal, though the details are not given-and the poet suffered besides whilst at Irvine from nervous depression-very severely so indeed, if some expressions in a letter to his father, dated "Irvine, December 27th, 1781," are to be taken seriously: "I am quite transported that ere long, very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains and uneasiness and disquietudes of this weary life, for I assure you I am heartily tired of it, and if I do not very much deceive myself, I would contentedly and gladly resign it." It is consolatory to be able to read this gloomy letter by the light of the burning flax-dressing establishment, which caught fire just four clear days after the epistle was penned (January the 1st), during a roystering carouse, of which the poet was of course the life and soul. In truth, Robert Burns was one of the most variable as well as impressionable of human beings-sun-light and shadow, mirth and melancholy, smiles and tears, passed over and obscured or brightened the clear mirror of his soul with ceaseless rapidity-nay, Mr. Robert Chambers, the latest and by far the most successful of his editors, clearly shows, by an ingeniouslywoven chain of circumstances, that the "Ode to Mary in Heaven," and the bacchanalian song of the "Whistle," were composed within a short period of each other. On the 13th of February, 1784, the worthy, sorely-tried, brave William Burns died, "just saved," writes his son, "from the horrors of a jail by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped in and carried him away to where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Robert was in the death-chamber, with his sister (afterwards Mrs. Begg), when his father expired. The dying man strove to speak some words of consolation to his bitterly-weeping daughter, mingled with warnings against sin, which come with such force from one-especially if a parent-about to depart for ever. Presently, he added, that there was one of his children whose future conduct he was apprehensive of. This sentence was repeated, and the second time Robert, who was standing at some distance from the bedside, heard it, and exclaimed in a broken voice, "Oh, father, is it me you mean?" "Yes," was the reply, and the heart-stricken son turned away towards the window, sobbing convulsively in an agony of self-upbraiding grief. William Burns, we may be permitted to say, with all reverence for a pure-minded, high-principled, long-suffering man, was scarcely fitted to pass judgment upon the failings or frailties of his greatly-gifted son. What those were in number and degree he might indeed compute with sufficient accuracy, but he could not estimate the force of the fervid impulses which in hundreds of instances had, in all probability, been successfully resisted. The manhood of the poet's life is chiefly written in his glorious songs, of which, up to this period, there had appeared a few light sparkling gushes only. But his early years had been passed amidst the peasantlife of Scotland, which it was his mission to depict in all its varied lights and shadows-its hardships, consolations, sufferings, joys-its sternly devotional spirit, so apt to be abused by zealot-seeming hypocrites, its stubborn, enthusiastic patriotism, its self-sacrificing hardihood of endurance in any cause believed to be that of Right and Justice. With every phase of Scottish country life and manners the youth of Burns being thus thoroughly familiar, he was enabled to fuse and mould them by the fire of his genius into immortal forms of truth and beauty. And he has had his reward in the highest, only guerdon which a true poet claims or values one which he doubtingly hoped for when the spirit of poesy first stirred within him,- "Even then a wish (I mind its power) A wish that to my latest hour Will strongly heave my breast; That I for poor, auld Scotland's sake A pious aspiration abundantly fulfilled, for not only in his more immediately native country, but in England, which, as regards Burns, may be called Southern Scotland, he has sung and will continue to sing the songs of the entire people, at merry meetings, at lovers' trysts, at bridal feasts, at the partings and re-assemblage of friends; and there is one trumpetlyric of his, needless to be named, which, though not printed in the army or navy lists, or set forth in any ordnance return, is nevertheless a greater and more effective national defence than many thousands of regimented men; and would prove on the day, should it ever come, that Scotland or Scotland's queen were seriously menaced by foreign aggression, a wall of living fire around the land defended, consecrated, glorified by the poet's genius. THE youth of Napoleon Bonaparte must ever be an interesting study, alike to the politician and philosopher, as offering the only means of obtaining some knowledge, slight or imperfect as it may be, of the true character of that diversely estimated soldier and statesman, ere success and power had moulded, hardened, strengthened, and depraved it. Recent events in a neighbouring country have attached a new interest to such an investigation, by demonstrating, as they apparently do, that there was more of vital grandeur in Napoleon's life than the vast majority of Englishmen accredit him with, inasmuch as it seems hardly credible that a highly-civilized nation should eagerly prostrate themselves, in what certainly looks like abject humiliation, before the newly-gilt and varnished image of a mere conqueror of a selfish, reckless, remorseless player for fame and fortune, with human lives for dice. It appears incredible, especially when it is seen that those enthusiastic worshippers of the memory of Napoleon cast into the altar-flames kindled in his honour, alike their own most precious possessions and the sacred inheritance of their children, the priceless immunities of personal freedom, liberty of speech, of pen, of thought as far as possible, the frank confidence of friendship, the sanctities of family intercourse and unreserve! Or is, perchance, that hypothesis the true one according to which the apparent greatness-true greatness is meant-of Napoleon Bonaparte exists only when viewed through the magnifying mirage created by the breath of a people whose adoration of their hero is simply a mode of offering incense to their own vanity? A hard question, that time alone can fully answer, but which a brief glance at his early years may throw some light upon. The Bonaparte family is of Italian origin, and indisputably noble. The name was only erased from the "Golden Book" of Treviso when, in consequence of their connection with the Ghibelline party, they were driven from Tuscany, and took refuge in Corsica, where they were immediately enrolled in the ranks of the island nobility. Charles Bonaparte, the father of the French Emperor, received a legal education at Pisa, and he is reported of as a handsome, intelligent, patriotic gentleman, and warmly attached friend and comrade of General Paoli, whose heroic defence of Corsica against the troops of France, to which the island had been basely sold by the Genoese, was not the less glorious for having failed before the overwhelming odds by which he was opposed. Charles Bonaparte married Letitia Ramoline, the half-sister, on the mother's side, of Cardinal Fesch. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman, gracefully feminine in manners and appearance, and possessed, moreover, of so brave and energetic a spirit that she was constantly by her husband's side, on horseback, whenever danger in which he might be involved had to be confronted. Madame Bonaparte was the mother of five sons and three daughters, and was still in the prime of life when her husband died, at Montpelier, France, on the 24th of February, 1785, of the painful disease, schirrus in the stomach, which terminated the life of his celebrated son. That son thus wrote in after years of his father's death—with what sincerity of feeling we shall presently be able to judge:- "I was quietly pursuing my studies when my father was struggling against the violence of a painful malady. He died, and I had not the consolation to close his eyes. That sad duty was reserved for Joseph, who acquitted himself of it with all the duty of an affectionate son." Napoleon Bonaparte was in his sixteenth year when his father died, he having been born on the 15th of August, 1769, at the family residence in Ajaccio, which forms one side of a court leading out of the Rue Chalet. The active and healthy temperament of Madame Bonaparte may be judged of by the fact that on the morning of Napoleon's birth she walked to the cathedral of Ajaccio to hear mass-the 15th of August being the day set apart for celebrating the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, one of the highest festivals of the Roman Catholic Church-and immediately after her hurried return home was delivered of the future emperor on a couch, over which a piece of tapestry was hastily thrown, representing--but this is an imperial fable-the heroes of the Iliad. A man-child at all events, and one of vigorous promise, was born, and but a few years had glided past when dull eyes might have discerned, by the young Napoleon's magnificently-developed forehead, penetrative glance, inflexible, saturnine will and temperament, a concentration of latent powers that, if life and opportunity gave leave, would make themselves felt in whatever sphere of action their possessor was destined to play his part in the world. Very early, too, the boy's native bent of mind openly displayed itself. "In my infancy," remarks Napoleon himself, "I was noisy and quarrelsome, and feared nobody. I beat one, scratched another, and made myself formidable to all." As time swept on, this inherent passion for dominancy through the influence of fear this worship of force, of which he was destined to become one of the most colossal impersonations the world has ever seen developed itself in various ways, the most obviously-significant indication being, perhaps, that his favourite plaything was a brass cannon weighing thirty French pounds, still preserved in Ajaccio, as a striking and emblematical memento of the youth and early studies of the great Napoleon. Corsica had been officially annexed to France in the June previous to Napoleon's birth, and hence it is said he was born a Frenchman ;—just as much so as a Portuguese, born at Lisbon a day after the French Emperor's proclamation that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign, and that Portugal was thenceforth annexed to king Joseph's dominions, was a Spaniard-no more; and this, too, was Napoleon's own opinion, as is shown by the following extracts from a letter addressed to General Paoli, from "Auxomme en Bourgogne," before there appeared a chance that the young artillery officer's legal character of Frenchman might assist him in moulding the revolutionary lava into crowns and sceptres for himself and family :- "General, I was born when our country was perishing;-30,000 Frenchmen vomited on our coasts, drowning the throne of liberty in streams of blood, such was the odious spectacle which first presented itself to my sight. The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed, the tears of despair, were the companions of my infancy. I at one time indulged a hope that I should be able to go to London, to express to you the sentiments you have given birth to in my bosom, and to converse together on the misfortunes of our country; but the distance is an obstacle-the day will perhaps arrive when I shall be able to overcome it." The flame of indignant patriotism throbbed fiercely, there can be no doubt, in the veins of the boy Napoleon. There is still shown in Corsica, about a mile from Ajaccio, on the road to the Sanguinière, the dilapidated remains of the stone entrance of a villa that belonged to Cardinal Fesch, and was used as a summer residence by Madame Bonaparte and family, in the grounds of which was an isolated granite rock, with a cave-like opening, shrouded by wild olive, cactus, and almond trees, which acquired the name of Napoleon's Grotto from the sombre lad's habit of shutting himself up therein, with his cannon, to muse over the conquest and subjugation of his country, so frequently and vividly dilated upon in his hearing by his mother, who had herself, as previously intimated, taken part in the sanguinary struggle to maintain its independence. Love of country, in its true and lofty sense, was, in fact, only extinguished in Napoleon's breast by the all-mastering force of personal ambition. His father, M. Charles Bonaparte, had intended to share Paoli's exile; but was persuaded to adopt the more prudent course of remaining where he was, by the advice of his uncle, Lucien Bonaparte, an Archdeacon of the Cathedral of Ajaccio-a politic compliance which was not long afterwards rewarded by Louis XVI., upon the recommendation of Count Marbœuf, the French Governor of Corsica, by the appointment of M. Charles Bonaparte to the office of Assessor to the supreme tribunal of Ajaccio. This sacrifice of duty to interest was subsequently referred to by Napoleon in indignant terms. "Paoli," he passionately exclaimed upon one occasion, at Brienne, in reply to a depreciatory remark upon the Corsican patriot, "Paoli was |