"The Duke of Bassano."

Beside these noble examples of good government, many other advantages were bestowed on the French people by their emperor. Their "Code Napoleon," their "Legion of Honour," their "Central Schools," their new roads, bridges, and canals, will be lasting evidences of the gigantic powers of his mind, and of his sincere desire to serve his country, and render himself worthy of the exalted station to which he had been called by her gratitude for his pre-eminent military services. Had Napoleon bounded his ambition to the glory of ruling France upon free and liberal principles, it had been happy for himself, his relations, and his country; but to talk of his foreign despotism, and his carrying tyranny to where,

[[66]]in fact, he found tyranny,—tyranny the most rank and inveterate,—is to use the language of folly or of knavery, and to merit the contempt of every thinking mind.

But if it be even allowed that Napoleon was all that his enemies would make him, where did our ministers get the unheard-of privilege of setting themselves up as cosmopolite censors? By what right did the British government constitute itself a tribunal to judge and punish, in the last resort, delinquent monarchs? Could it by any reasoning have made out a claim to that office, was it just or decent to make a victim of one,—a man of unquestioned talent and greatness of soul,—and at the same moment to compliment and make alliances with all the worse tyrants, the maudlin hypocrites, and base violaters of their word? Or did these moral Quixotes and immaculate judges only profess to "do justice" upon one sinner "against the spirit of the age,"—and that one a fallen enemy?

The only plausible pretence for the treatment of the abdicated emperor was—that his surpassing genius, and his great hold on the military part of the French character, rendered him a necessary exception to the rule regarding prisoners of war, and made it indispensable to the safety and repose of the world, that he should be prevented from appearing again on the grand stage of European politics. This is confessedly on the dangerous plan of doing positive injustice for the sake of what the doers think safe and necessary. But we deny the necessity. We say the

[[67]]argument is built on utter ignorance of human nature, and a wilful blindness to all history and experience. Napoleon was grand in his views, because he admired and loved greatness for its own sake. He never sullied his conquests by partitioning and dividing the conquered. He could afford not to weaken his enemies by petty violations of national integrity. He encouraged every thing liberal and noble, which did not at the same time interfere with his personal authority. He cherished literature, art, and science; and they, in return, reflected true glory upon him. He never insulted and mocked mankind by pretending an eternal right in himself and his successors to trample them under his feet, because he was an emperor. He had always a respect for liberty, though he so often forgot it in his greater eagerness for power. He never laid claim to holiness, but acknowledged himself, in his proudest moments, sovereign, "by the constitutions of the empire." He was not vindictive; his long military rule was never sullied by any act which could be compared in infamy with the imprisonment of the unfortunate Trenck by that Prussian Frederick, whom the legitimate abusers of Napoleon call "the Great." The prominent fault of his career as a leader of a new and revolutionary period, was that, instead of looking forward, he looked backward, and became an imitator instead of an original. He evidently had the glories of former ages strongly in his view; and was to be a great conqueror, not because the times wanted him, but because there are medals and

[[68]]statues in the world, and dynasties were founded by Cæsar. In the height of his prosperity, he was a Charlemagne—another "Emperor of the West;" and, in his adversity, he forgot the Prince Regent of England so far as to talk to him of Themistocles[68:A]. And yet there was a romance even in this, which set him above all ordinary conquerors. He had the poetry, as well as the prose, of the military art about him. He would never have sunk into a mere lounger and man of pleasure, or stood behind any commonplace man with a gold stick in his hand.

As a soldier, his military career has never been surpassed in brilliancy. Quick, active, decisive, he never paused in the vigorous and persevering execution of the plans which his genius prompted him to undertake. He introduced a new, high, and successful mode of conquest, by striking immediately at the centre of armies and countries; and he was finally overthrown, both as general and sovereign, not because his individual antagonists were greater, but because the very physical remains of old English liberty were greater, and because public

[[69]]opinion was greater than all. He possessed, in an eminent degree, the great art of estimating and working upon the characters of his adversaries, and the still greater art of gaining the affections of his soldiers, who were always passionately fond of him, and who at this day adore his memory.

As a prince and a conqueror, his master-passion was a restless ambition, the impetuous tide of which bore him onward to his ends through many signal acts of injustice and violence. We shall not dwell upon them: there has been plenty of "envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness," to ring the changes on his worst deeds, and an abundance of those feelings, we find, survive the object that particularly roused them. Neither shall we indulge in uselessly regretting the good he failed to do, or in reproaching him with the want of moderation and wisdom. Our business is with the illustrious soldier as he was, not as he might have been without his defects: