believe that he lived in incest with his own sister:-the murder of D'Enghien, the massacre of prisoners, and poisoning of the sick at Jaffa, with respect to which he sought to brave public opinion, much more than to plead excuses before it, are sufficient, and strongly enough attested, to blast his moral character in public acts.

In private life, we think him to have been amiable. Passion of any kind he had none all his scoldings and talking big to his Marshals and lacqueys, were, by his own confession, put on. An hundred times in Las Cases, we hear him confess that all his bursts of passion were pretended, and calculated for a purpose. No doubt those towards Sir Hudson Lowe were as real, and with as much calculation called forth. Passion, indeed!-What business had he ever to be in one?-the luckiest dog in Christendom, and out of it-that ran the most glorious career that ever modern ran, and was set down with nothing to trouble him, in good dry lodgings for the rest of his days, to write his Memoirs, and pinch the lugs of Counts and Marshals. Besides, physically, how could he be passionate a fellow without an ounce of bile in his composition, so snugly larded upon the ribs, that he never once felt his heart beat, as he confessed to Las Cases, nor ever experienced pain either in head or stomach? No-he had not even the excuse of hasty temper for one of his crimes, to save his morality, nor yet the same excuse for one of his blunders, to save his character for talent.

The most, indeed the only interest ing parts of these volumes, are those dictated by Napoleon himself, giving an account of the battles of Ariole, Rivoli, and that period of his Italian campaigns; as also the anecdotes and remarks on the leading characters of the revolution and consulate. The character of Sieyes is finely developed; and mostly all his Marshals are portrayed in lively traits; his hatred of Moreau and Bernadotte is undisguised; he cannot allow them even talent. Nothing surprises one so much in Napoleon, as the total want of liberality towards his enemies. We look for something above envy and petty passions in a being whom his own genius certainly had placed on such an unparalleled eminence. Even of his own generals, those who had acquired fame as tacticians, he never would allow their

merit-Massena, his fils cheri de la victoire, he speaks slightingly of in these volumes-Soult, he says, would make merely a good ordonnateur, a proper minister at war-Moreau and Bernadotte we have already mentioned. But with respect to his enemies, to those who foiled and conquered him, nothing can equal his spite and malice. His pleading against the Duke of Wellington for winning the battle of Waterloo, is very serious, and most ridiculous; and his exposure of the faults of the English general, shews only with what odds of fortune against Wellington he yet contrived to beat the Emperor. The first gravamen of Napoleon is, that the Duke was surprised in his intrenchments-the more wonderful and praiseworthy, then, the talent that could change a surprise into a victory. But whose fault was it, that Wellington was surprised? Buonaparte can answer, that it was that of the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, “who, if he had sent an aid-de-camp direct to Brussels, he would have arrived there, with news of Napoleon's approach, at six in the evening, whereas it was not till eleven that his approach was known to Wellington." "His next complaint against the Duke is, the arrangement of forces, and the want of artillery or cavalry among the English at Quatre Bras. To this we may oppose Napoleon's own words:-"Ney received orders on the 16th to advance with the 43,000 men which he commanded, forming the left wing of the army, before Quatre Bras, and there take up his position, &c. The Prince of Orange, with only 9000 men, preserved this important position against Ney till three in the afternoon." This, from Buonaparte's own mouth, shews that the Duke knew his men, and what they could effect; 9000 of them, headed by the young Prince of Orange, against 43,000, led by the veteran Ney. The next accusation of Napoleon against the Duke of Wellington commences thus :-" The English general gave us battle at Waterloo on the 18th. This act was contrary to the interests of his nation," &c. &c. We believe that this article of impeachment needs no very elaborate answer. But what ought the English general to have done, in the opinion of the Emperor Napoleon ?-Hear it, good Momus, if thou knowest the French dialect, for we should be ashamed to put such stuff into English.

"On demandera que devait donc faire

le general Anglais après la bataille de Ligny, et le combat de Quatre Bras? La posterité n'aura pas deux opinions: il devait traverser, dans la nuit du 17 au 18, la forêt de Soignes, sur la chaussée de Charleroi ; l'armée Prussienne la devait également traverser sur la chausée de Wavres ; les deux armées se reunir a la pointe du jour, sur Bruxelles; laisser des arrière gardes pour défendre la forêt; gagner quelques jours pour donner le temps aux Prussiens, dispersés par la bataille de Ligny, de rejoindre leur armée, se renforcer de quatorze régimens Anglais, qui étaient en garnison dans les places fortes de la Belgique, on venaient de debarquer á Osténde, de retour d'Amerique, et laisser manœuvrer l'Empereur des Français comme il aurait voulu."

The plain English of which is, that the Duke of Wellington was, in duty and propriety, bound to run away through Brussels on the night of the 17th, and "leave the Emperor of the French to manoeuvre as he pleased." We think this is quite sample enough of his pleading and liberality.

Esteeming Napoleon, as we do, one of the first characters of modern times, one is indignant at meeting these pages of spite, ignorance, and absurdity, as coming from his pen, or even as slipping from him in intemperate moments. The only refuge for the great man's character is, in doubting the veracity of M.de Las Cases; and there are proofs scattered through the volumes to shew that that egregious blockhead has palmed no small portion of his own precious compositions on us for the genuine produce of the imperial head. One thing, at any rate, is pretty evident, that all those profound disquisitions on geography and topography, put by Las Cases into the mouth of Napoleon, came from the same source as Mon Atlas Historique-some Turner's Geography of an affair, by which, it seems, the noble Count de Las Cases made his fortune. How can any one for a moment suppose that Napoleon, in St Helena, would seriously sit down to dictate to any one a geographical account of such a well-known country as Italy?-what Las Cases calls" un très-bien morceau de geographie politique:" and that this beautiful morceau should be nothing more than what is to be found in every child's "Geography, made Easy for the use of Schools. —e. g.

"Italy is one of the finest parts of the globe. It is a peninsula, surrounded on the

east, south, and west, by the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. On the side of the Continent, it is bounded by the chains of the Alps," &c. &c.

Pretty information this of the Emperor Napoleon's, for us to be paying our half-guinea a volume for. But the fact is, Napoleon never wrote or dictated one line of such nonsense. And, in proof, just read the following sentence:

"De l'autre côté, le Saint-Gothard est plus haut que le Simplon ; le Simplon plus haut que le Saint Bernard; le Saint Bernard plus haut que le Mont-Cenis; le Mont Cenis que le Col de Tende."-Las Cases. Journal, Tom. 3. Sixieme Partie.

Why, the blockhead! we did not think there was a man in Europe, who did not know, that the St Bernard, instead of being, as here represented, lower than the Simplon, was nearly double its height. Napoleon, who had crossed both, and had run his road over the Simplon as the lowest and most feasible of the two, could never have uttered such ignorance. And the Count de Las Cases to write this!-a counsellor of state! one that went on missions to Illyria! a geographer-go to! and the immortal author of the never-to-be-enough-lauded, but never-once-heard-of Atlas Historique!— "If you find as much brains in his head as would clog the foot of a flea, we'll eat the rest of the anatomy."

There is another sentence of Bonaparte's pleadings, which we will quote, and leave to our readers to judge, whe ther it was written before or after the death of the unfortunate Lord Londonderry, and the accession to the ministry of Mr Canning, which will decide whether it be Napoleon's, as asserted, or Las Cases's.

"Le ministre Castlereagh passera, et celui qui lui succédera, heritier de tant de fautes, deviendra grand, s'il veut seulement ne pas les continuer. Tout son genie peut se borner uniquement à laisser faire, à obéir Castlereagh, il n'a qu'à se mettre à la tête aux vents qui soufflent; au rebours de des idées libérales, au lieu de se liguer avec le pouvoir absolu, et il recueillera les bénédictions universelles, et tous lest torts de l'Angleterre seront oubliés."

But the most notable humbug of all, is the pretence of the Ex-Emperor and his suite to literary taste. They talk of reading Homer to amuse themselves of evenings; to be sure, they read the "Charlemagne" of Lucien Bonaparte with it, comparing the two epic

writers-which is like them, and argues something of truth. But what Homer, we marvel much, did these gentlemen read? Not the Greek, we may be sworn; a language, of which the most learned of their nation are in general ignorant. French translation there is none at all tolerable, at least none calculated to call forth the encomiums of these gentlemen-they patronize Homer, as some one said Lord Bolingbroke patronized Providence. Perhaps they read him in the version of Cesarotti, in whose Ossian Napoleon had been once so wrapt; but Cesarotti's Homer is as bad as his Ossian is good; he translated the former to depreciate him, so that, even in this best of accessible Homers, they could have but a poor taste of the great original. Mind Las Cases, however-he never once mentions a translation-he would have us suppose that he and the Emperor amused themselves in the evenings reading Greek. What a quiz!. We verily believe, even the translation, prose for verse, was brought forward but to look learned in a paragraph of Las Cases' Journal, and to astonish the old grognards with the deep learning they little suspected in their old general. His studies on board the frigate which conveyed him clandestine ly from Egypt, were more characteris

tic.

"He spent the greater part of the day," says Ganthaume, "shut up in his chamber, reading one time the Bible, at another the Alcoran." The Emperor's dictatorial criticisms on Corneille, Racine, and the poets of his own country, are in the true commonplace style of the French, and worthy of that most common-place of our critics, whom the French admire so much, Dr Blair. Of his general taste, too, there are samples in this work. Hear him, after declaring that his soul was oriental, that he loved the desert, and gloried that his name signified the Lion of the Desert-listen to this hero of the oriental soul describing the impression made upon him by those grandest objects in the range of antiquity and man's creation:

"At dinner, the Emperor said many curious things respecting Egypt. He found, he said, that all which he had seen in Egypt, especially those so celebrated and so vaunted ruins, could never stand in comparison with Paris and the Thuilleries, or give an idea of them." Journal, Tome 3. Šixieme Partie. P. 235.

So much for his taste.

A vast deal of noise has been made respecting the mal-treatment of Napoleon. The Quarterly has given its opinion on the subject; now it is ours, that a great deal of needless annoyance was heaped upon Napoleon. The order from the Home Department to take away his sword, was ungenerous; and it would, no doubt, have been put into strict execution had Sir Hudson Lowe then been in command. 'Twas doubly wrong to place the Emperor first in the hands of so amiable and deferent a gentleman as the Admiral, and then transfer him into the hands of Sir Hudson: it was the change, the continual changes and increase of petty vexations, that embittered his existence. If the utmost severity had been adopted at first, and adhered to, it would have been something. No affair could have been worse managed, with due deference to Lord Bathurst; the instructions were mean and uncertain, changing by every dispatch-all those employed were unfit, from the fine, blunt seaman, first employed, to the sensitive, nervous, irresolute, and ill-looking gentleman last in command. Every military man in the island murmured at the treatment of Napoleon; and the Quarterly Review knows well they did. As to O'Meara, the unprincipled blockhead is not worth attending to-read but his letter to Lord Keith, refusing to serve as surgeon to Napoleon, unless as a British officer, under British control, and to be considered in nowise belonging to Napoleon; and then read his answer to Napoleon, on being asked whose servant he thought himself. The man who could publish such a book must have deemed the people of England strangely inapprehensive of truth and falsehood. But put O'Meara out of the question; the undenied facts are enough

it was beneath the dignity of the British nation to tell Napoleon she limited him to a bottle of wine per day, thus denying him in exile even the solace of intoxication. His extravagant wearing of one shirt a-day was also a Joseph Hume, than by a general offisubject more worthy to be handled by must say, that Sir Hudson's late step cer of his Majesty's forces. And we of transmitting to Las Cases extracts from O'Meara's letters, in which he happened to speak ill of Las Cases, for the mere and mean end of creating a

ed Portugal 72,000 strong. It attacked the enemy in position on the heights of Busaco. The two armies were of equal force, but the position of Busaco was very strong. The attack failed, and the next morning the army turned those lines by proceeding on Coimbra. The enemy then effected his retreat on Lisbon, burning and laying waste the country. The French general pursued him closely, left no corps of observation to restrain the division of 15,000 militia at Oporto, abandoned his rear, and Coimbra, his place of depot, where he left 5000 sick and wounded. Before he had arrived at Lisbon, the Portuguese division had already occupied Coimbra, and cut him off from all means of retreat. He ought to have left a corps of 6000 men to occupy Coimbra, and keep the Portuguese division in awe.

"It is true, that he would in that case have arrived at Lisbon with only 60,000 men, but that number was sufficient, if it was the English General's intention to embark; if, on the contrary, he intended to maintain himself in Portugal, as there was every reason to believe, the French ought not to have passed Coimbra, but to have taken up a good position before that city, even at several marches distance, fortified themselves there, subjected Oporto by means of a detachment, organized their rear and their communications with Almeida, and waited till Badajoz was taken, and the army of Andalusia arrived on the Tagus. When arrived at the foot of the intrenchments of Lisbon, the French general failed in resolution; yet he was aware of the existence of those lines, since the enemy had been labouring on them for three months. The prevalent opinion is, that if he had attacked them on the day of his arrival, he would have carried them, but two days after it was no longer possible. The Anglo-Portuguese army was there reinforced by a great number of battalions of militia; so that, without gaining any advantage, the French general lost 5000 sick and wounded, and his communications with his rear. When before Lisbon, he discovered that he had not sufficient ammunition, he had made no calculation previously to his operation."

Napoleon here labours to shift the defeat on the shoulders of his old rival, the Enfant gaté de la Victoire. That an old soldier like Massena should have forgotten to calculate his cartridges, is absurd; the true miscalculation was on the bravery of the British, and the ability of their general. Some of his desultory and scat

tered thoughts are highly characteristic of the man.

"After the re-embarkation of the English army (at Corunna), the King of Spain (Joseph) remained inactive. He ought to have marched on Cadiz, Valencia, and Lisbon. Political means would then have done the rest. No one can deny, that if the court of Austria, instead of declaring war, had allowed Napoleon to remain four months longer in Spain, all would have been over. The presence of a general is indispensable. He is the head, the whole of an army. It was not the Roman army that subdued Gaul-it was Cæsar himself; nor was it the Carthaginian army that made the Republic tremble, but Hannibal himself; nor was it the Macedonian army which reached the Indus, but Alexander. It was not the French army which carried the war to the Weser and the Inn, but Turenne; nor was it the Prussian army which, for seven years, defended Prussia against the three greatest powers of Europe-it was Frederick the Great."

The motive of the Russian war was undoubtedly Napoleon's ambition of being a universal conqueror, urged on by his personal hatred of England. The conquest of Russia was contemplated as completing the European barrier against English commerce and continental alliance. The alleged mo inconsistent with the true. tives, however, are curious, and not

"It was considered that the French empire, which Napoleon had created by so many victories, would infallibly be dismembered at his death; and the sceptre of Europe would pass into the hands of a Czar, unless Napoleon drove back the Russians beyond the Borysthenes, and raised up the throne of Poland, the natural barrier of the empire. In 1812, Austria, Prussia, Germany, Swisserland, and Italy, marched under the French eagles was it not natural that Napoleon should think the moment was arrived for consolidating the immense edifice which he had raised; but on the summit of which Russia would lean with the whole weight of her power, as long as she should be able to send her armies at pleasure on the Oder? Alexander was young and vigorous, like his empire. It was to be presumed that he would survive Napo

leon. Such was the whole secret of the war."

The invasion of Russia, as it was the last, was the mightiest effort of the