This picture was conceived by Delaroche last year, on the spot where the scene is laid, and painted very soon after. He was at Nice for his health, and had for his guide up the St. Bernard, the son of the man leading the mule, who told him many things about Napoleon, and how he looked. As regards colour, it is the best of Dela-roche's pictures we have seen; it is a curious study to mark how little, and how much, the young, thin, spiritual face differs from that of last year's picture.
There is something to our minds, not unseasonable in directing our thoughts to such a spectacle of mere human greatness, at this (Christmas) sacred time. So much mischief, crime, and misery, and yet so much power, intelligence, progress, and a certain dreadful usefulness in the career of such a man. What a contrast to His life, who entered our world 1850 years ago, and whose birth was heralded by the angel song, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men;" whose religion and example, and continual living influence, has kept this strange world of ours from being tenfold more wicked and miserable than it is. We would conclude with the words of the poet of In Memoriam—
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow,
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
"Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler forms of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.