power on the bearer. There are men, however, who attach much importance to the soft sounds of flattery and adulation, and think perhaps that nature has formed them of a different clay whenever they find their precious selves addressed in language reserved for them alone. Every child has his rattle, every man has his hobby-horse; and so long as neither one nor the other work mischief, we do not see why frail human nature should not be indulged in her follies. Even had not Napoleon had a legal claim to the name of emperor after his abdications, it was still the acme of ungraciousness in the Editor of the New Times to dispute their validity, when he who bore it had entered that dread boundary where no name but that of virtue can avail its owner. Let us 66 ' ren Half der honour to whom honour is due." the sprigs of our nobility are styled by honorary appellations, to which they have no more right by law than the author of this book would have, were he to adopt any of them for his gratification;-nevertheless, courtesy authorizes the custom. Scarcely a century passes without some potentate or other divesting himself of his worldly grandeur; yet whenever" the hero vanishes, and the man remains," no one refuses to the Scylla of his day the title which distinguished him during his power; and historians always speak of abdicated monarchs by the name and style of majesty. In the seventeenth century two sovereigns renounced their thrones, Christiana of Sweden, and Casimer of Poland. In the eighteenth century two more mighty rulers followed their example, Philip V. of Spain, and Victor Amadeus of Savoy: yet they were not any of them treated with less attention after they had ceased to reign*; and one of them, Christiana of Sweden, took upon herself to indulge even in certain (according to her ideas) sovereign rights, for which, had Louis XIV. of France done his duty, her majesty (by courtesy) would have lost her head.† The nineteenth century has, independent of Napoleon and Charles IV. of Spain, already been distinguished by the abdication of a sovereign, in the same house of Savoy, -Victor Emanuel, who died in January of the present year, and who, until the day of his death, was always addressed by the title of ma *Precés du Siècle de Louis XV.-M. de Voltaire. In the great gallery at Fontainebleau may still be seen the blood of the man whom Christiana of Sweden caused to be. assassinated. It was to prevent his disclosing some secrets of which he was in possession, that she deprived him of life. He had in fact begun to chatter, through jealousy of another person, who had gained the queen's favour. Christiana was very vindictive, and given up to all kinds of debauchery.-Secret Memoirs of Louis XIV. and of the Regency; Duchess d'Orleans: p. 450. T jesty, and spoken of as such in all public journals. So much for courtesy. This is our case ;-if the Editor thinks he has a better, we neither envy him his logic, his law, nor his feelings. * Vide Piedmontese Gazettes for December, 1823; also the French Moniteur for January, 1824. CHAP. XVII. SELFISHNESS OF NAPOLEON. "BUONAPARTE was the most selfish creature that ever lived; self was his god; he sacrificed the lives of millions with total unconcern; and as to the death of particular individuals attached to him, it passed by him like the idle wind. When the end of Murat was announced, he listened to the recital without any change of countenance.”—New Times, Sept., 1822. Is there a light in which the conduct of Napoleon can be made to appear hideous that the Editor of the New Times does not instantly avail himself of to beat down and overwhelm the character of him who so lately swayed the destinies of the world? Napoleon was selfish, he had no feeling, -he was insensible; and this is given to us as information, and matter too for condemnation. "The mountain in labour!" He who, from the first dawn to the close of his existence, was contending for empire and renown, was lost to the finer sympathies, and absorbed in self, thought and thought only of his own interest and advancement; assuredly, and we can only wonder how the Editor could imagine any other result from Napoleon's life possible. War is by no means an amiable drawing-room pastime, and that man who is most engaged in it, is most likely to become an egotist and a brute. In the utter disregard of one's neighbour,-in the pleasure taken even in the misery of one's friends, all armies are alike; and, before offering another word in extenuation of Napoleon, we will illustrate this opinion by a few particulars, descriptive of the natural tendency which pervades soldiers when collected in large bodies. Our first example shall be from ancient history, and we will afterwards proceed, not to occupy more than is necessary of the readers' time, to the annals of the days in which we live: At the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians (A. C. 413), under Nicias and Demosthenes, about 40,000 men had to retreat from before the city; this force was divided into two columns, the smaller division being led by Demosthenes, the larger one by Nicias, and it is of this last we shall speak. Driven by the victorious Sicilians to the border of the Assinaros River, the dejected Athenians had the difficult task presented to them of crossing a rapid stream in presence of an active enemy. "The depth and force of the waters triumphed over their single, and shook their implicated strength. Many were borne along by the |