measures, had far outstripped him in the hellish work of inflicting evil:-God forbid that we should, by these remarks, be supposed to advo cate the part of guilt: the infamies of one man, or of one thousand men, can never extenute those of another. Every act ought to stand or fall on its own merits. Precedents may induce us to examine closely before we decide; but, further than this, precedents serve but to delude. No precedent can make that right which is radically wrong: we say again, therefore, that, whatever was the course pursued by Napoleon in Egypt, it was either proper or improper, cruel or just, without any reference to ancient or modern history*: of that there can be no doubt; but, when an individual of the acknowledged talent of the Editor of the New Times, plainly, and without any circumlocution, gravely sits himself down to assure us, and stakes his credit as a politician and a writer, on the declaration, that no deed of blood was ever done to the extent of that which he believes Napoleon to have committed, we think that the interest of truth and the cause of virtue cannot be more effectually promoted, than by an impartial examination into the correctness

* We are no friends to the doctrine of precedents, exclusive of right, though lawyers often tell us, that whatever has been once done may, lawfully, be done again.-The Letters of Junius, vol. 1, xxvii.

of the assertion. We have executed this duty to our best; with what success, we willingly leave to others the decision. For our parts, we lay no store on our own learning; but, if we do not grossly miscalculate the extent of our knowledge, we still think we are sufficiently well read, to know that the annals of society are, unhappily, on no relation so prolific as on that of infamy, and that the history of every country is but little else than the frightful catalogue of the crimes of men*.

It may, perhaps, be almost unnecessary to mention, that, in presenting our readers with the accounts of certain massacres, we have simply detailed those which were within the immediate scope of our memory; we nowise pretend to have pictured all the enormities that have been committed by emperors, kings, and conquerors. The reader would have little cause to thank us for such an enormous addition to our work. Those who wish moreover to extend on this subject their knowledge, can refer to the massacre of all the Carthaginians, in Sicily, 397 B. C.; of 2,000 Tyrians crucified, and 8,000 put to the sword, for not surrendering Tyre to Alexander, 331 B. C.; of the 100,000 inhabitants of Antioch, massacred by the Jews, for refusing to surrender their arms to Demetrius Nicanor, tyrant of Syria, 154; of the Teutones and Ambrones near Aix, by Marius, the Roman general, 200,000 being left dead on the spot, 102; of the Romans throughout Asia, women and children not excepted, by order of Mithridates, King of Pontus, 89; of a great number of Roman senators, by Cinna, Marius, and Sertorius :-several of the patricians despatched themselves, to avoid these horrrid butcheries, 86; of 300 Roman senators and persons of distinction, at Præneste,

by Octavius Cæsar, 41; of 37,000 of the inhabitants of Seleucia, by Cassius, A. D. 197; of Alexandria, of many thousand citizens, by order of Antoninus, 213; of 700,000 of the inhabitants of Gaul, by the Emperor Probus, 277; of eighty Christian fathers, by order of the Emperor Gratian, at Nicodemia, 370; of 30,000 citizens of Constantinople, by Belisarius, 532; of the Latins, at Constantinople, by Andronicus, 1184; of the French, throughout the whole Island of Sicily, without distinction of sex or age, 1282; of Paris, 1418; of the Swedish nobility, at a feast, by order of Christian II., 1520; of 70,000 Huguenots, by order of Charles IX., at the instigation of the queen-dowager, Catharine de Medicis, 1572; of the Christians in Croatia, by the Turks, when 65,000 were slain, 1592; of a great number of Protestants, at Thorn, 1724; of Batavia, where 12,000 Chinese were killed by the natives, 1740; of three hundred English nobles, by Hengist, A. D. 475; of 1,200 of the monks of Bangor, by Ethelfrid, King of Northumberland, 580; of the Danes in the southern counties of England, 1002, and the 23d Ethelred II.:-at London it was the most bloody, the churches being no sanctuary,amongst the rest of Gunilda, sister of Swein, King of Denmark, left as hostage for the performance of a treaty; of the Jews, at the coronation of Richard I., 1189; of the English, by the Dutch, at Amboyna, 1624; of the Protestants in Ireland, when 40,000 were killed, 1641.-Vide Historical Remembrancer (Memorable Events); David Steuart: pp. 231, 232.

CONCLUSION.

"The thread is spun;

The web is wove; the work is done."— Gray.

THERE is a time for every thing, and it strikes us that that time has now arrived for terminating our performance. The events of Napoleon's life are by far too numerous and too complicated, to admit, in the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, of a complete exposition; but we promised to notice the principal circumstances connected with the late Emperor, which are alluded to by the Editor of the New Times; and, in as far as this promise extends, we trust that we shall be considered to have held by our word. What Napoleon was, and what he was not, will partly, we flatter ourselves, appear from the facts which we have adduced, and from the arguments with which we have deemed fit to accompany them. Had not, therefore, the Editor, in the plenitude of his aversion, denied the captive of St. Helena two characteristics, by both of which

we consider he was distinguished, singularity and greatness, it was not our intention to have troubled our readers with one word further concerning him who once filled the world with his fame; but, since the Editor chose to terminate his strictures with the bold assertion, that Napoleon was not a great man, and with the still bolder declaration, that he was not even an extraordinary one, we must meet our antagonist on his own ground, and advance, in contradiction to his conclusions, that the Emperor of the French was as different from the generality of his species as he was superior to them in the qualities of the mind. That an individual born in an obscure Italian isle of indigent parents,-educated by charity,without friends,-bereft of patronage, should, from a mere sub-lieutenancy of a marching regiment, have raised himself to the imperial diadem, and to the mastership of a state which, for extent and power, could find no equal in the pages of modern history,-that such a one should not be considered an extraordinary being, does appear, to our limited comprehensions, inconceivable. We may be told that, without the revolution which France experienced, Napoleon would probably. never have been known. We may be told that, without the assistance he subsequently received from the many leaders of parties with which France, at the commencement of his career,