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passages. But, on the whole, and without the explanations of the preface, we should say, there is not so much effort exhibited in the book as was due to the greatness of the subject, nor so much talent as might have been expected from the author.

Regarded as an individual contribution, it is certainly respectable. It is by no means complete, nor have we to depend, in future, on any individual contribution, for a complete view of this subject. Now that Eastern Asia is attracting so much attention among our countrymen, and is thrown open to a kindred sentiment and enterprise in Great Britain, we may look for a succession of publications on both sides of the Atlantic.

The two nations are pledged to the great work which no other can accomplish, of civilizing and Christianizing the East. The work demands an accomplished and powerful instrumentality, in every step of its progress. For this, we look to British and American intelligence and piety, under Him, "without whom agents cannot be qualified, nor agency successful."

The Life of the Emperor Napoleon. With an Appendix, containing an examination of Sir W. Scott's "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte ;" and a notice of the principal errors of other writers, respecting his character and conduct. By H. Lee. Complete in four vols. Vol. I. New York: 1835.

WE cannot say, that as Americans, we derive much pleasure from the contemplation of this work. There is something we do not relish in the spectacle of a citizen of these United States, the proper foe of despotism by his very birth, proclaiming himself with a loud voice the champion of one who was the absolute personification of arbitrary power, and entering the lists, with the object of making an impetuous onset upon the most formidable antagonist of the despot. True it is, this antagonist is not the friend of republics; but it is the cause, not the foe, which imparts a character to the contest. The aristocrat who essays to destroy the pernicious illusions with which unhallowed sway is encircled by the glare of military glory, performs a labour far more republican in essence than that of the democrat who endeavours to strengthen and perpetuate the imposture. The tory baronet advances much stronger claims in this instance to the gratitude of every advocate of the rights of man, than the American whig. We are aware, indeed, that a sort of ill-defined idea exists, that from the fact of Napoleon's not having been what is technically styled a legitimate monarch, but, to use a favourite phrase, a child of the revolution, sprung from the people, his cause is in some degree identified with that of republicanism. So far, however, from this being the case, the very circum. stance indicated must render his tyranny doubly obnoxious. There may be some excuse for the offspring of a royal line, reared and pampered in the belief that "he is the state," if his conduct be impelled by such conviction; but none can be adduced for the man who has learnt to sympathize with his fellow creatures as his equals, and tramples them under foot when elevated above them by fortune, forgetful or heedless of the lesson, and hearkening only to the dictates of inordinate self. ishness. Such a man is a traitor as well as a tyrant. As a child of the revolution, Napoleon was guilty of political parricide as well as of the worst species of usurpation, for he it was who strangled that parent, by subverting all the beneficial ef. fects which he himself, in an especial manner, might have enabled it to produce. That injustice has been done him by Sir Walter Scott, is an impression with which, prevalent as it is, we cannot bring ourselves to coincide. Rarely has a work been more sinned against than sinning, than the production of the great novelist;

one cause of which, we apprehend, was the very circumstance of the author's being the great novelist. "Scott's last romance" was so taking a phrase! It furnished so smart a piece of ready made wit, that the temptation to use it was irresistible; and we all know how strong an impression a current mot always makes upon the general mind. We grant that the extravagant anticipations which were naturally awakened in reference to the life of the greatest warrior by the greatest writer of the era, were by no means completely answered, and that occasionally national partialities and political prejudices are strongly exhibited; but whilst, in a literary point of view, it is undeniably a work such as few other pens of the period were capable of inditing, it is also, on the whole, we do not hesitate to affirm, one which renders ample justice to the character of its subject. For our own part, we must confess, we closed the volumes with the suspicion that Sir Walter had sometimes allowed a desire of being impartial to get the better of his judgment, and had exercised a degree of leniency, as well as indulged in a strain of encomium, not always to be justified. Every thing, of course, depends upon the idea which the reader entertains of the emperor. If his enthusiastic admiration of his genius blinds him to its concomitants, he will doubtless be prompted to anger by the picture which is offered to his eyes; but if his vision be sufficiently strong to resist the dazzling influence of the warrior's exploits, to penetrate through the glitter and the prepotence of his intellect to the darkness and the feebleness of his morale-if he beholds in the light which he casts, not the genial radiance of the sun diffusing cheerfulness and vitality over the face of nature, but the lurid glare of a comet shooting madly athwart the firmament, and bearing pestilence and ruin in its train-if he contemplates in his career not the course of a majestic stream, on whose banks the laughing flowers “drink life and fragrance as it flows," and whose very inundations are a source of fertility and fruitfulness, but the rush of a fearful torrent sweeping away every thing that it encounters with remorseless violence-if, in a word, he perceives not an illusion but a reality, he will regard the deep shadows of the portrait as an evidence of the limner's fidelity and truth, instead of deeming them the offspring of a teeming imagination, and propensity for fiction.

Be this, however, as it may even supposing that Sir Walter's volumes are replete with the errors imputed to them, is it so unusual a thing to mistake, are men so rarely liable to err, that he must be accused of wilful perversion and falsehood? Why should his motives be impugned any more than those of the writer who chaunts an invariable pæan to the immaculate glories of the man of destiny? Is not such an individual entitled to form and express an opinion upon any subject, however repugnant to the sentiments of others, without rendering himself obnoxious to the foulest charge? Of all persons, indeed, who have communicated their thoughts to the world, Sir Walter Scott is one of the last whose objects should be vilified. Misled he might be by the fervour of his fancy-deceived he might be by the influence of prepossessions-but that he ever would knowingly have prostituted his pen to the propagation of calumny and lies, is an idea which we could not allow even to enter our mind. It requires a melancholy conviction of the frailty of human nature, to believe that a man whose whole life was spent in sustaining and emblazoning the cause of virtue, whose other productions all bespeak the utmost kindness of heart and elevation of soul, who has done more to delight and refine his fellow beings than almost any "light of the world" that has ever been granted to it by a beneficent Providence, could have been capable, by any possibility, of such miserable baseness. It would be far better for the interests of humanity, that some even unmerited blots should be suffered to remain upon an escutcheon already stained to a repulsive degree, than that a spot should be thrown upon one attractive

to the eye and inspiring to the mind by its unsullied purity and brightness. The name of Napoleon is not more glorious than that of Scott, notwithstanding the assertion of Mr. Lee-an assertion, by the way, which smacks more of the major than the author. Which of the two "demi-gods of fame" would men be most willing to erase from the records of existence? by the oblivion of whose works would they most lose? which has produced the greatest happiness and benefit, the victory of Austerlitz or the story of Waverley? who has reflected the greatest glory upon his species, the scourge and the destroyer, or the blessing and the creator. The one swept from the face of the earth myriads of fellow creatures, entitled as much as himself to the breath of life, formed by the same hand and endowed with the same attributes-the other peopled it with beings who seem to be in constant communion with us of the most intimate and beneficial kind, warning us from evil, enticing us to good, friends and instructors illumining our thoughts, vivifying our feelings, and exalting our sentiments-the one spread desolation and death, the other exhilaration and good-the one combined with a towering mind a petty soul, the other presented a rare example of a beautiful intellectual and moral pre-eminence. No man can leave a glorious name, though master of the world, who is passion's slave: "Puissant dominateur de la terre et de l'onde

Il dispose à son gré du monde,

Et ne peut disposer de soi"

and such inability to command himself must prevent every right-thinking and rightfeeling person from desiring to wear him in his heart of hearts. The monument erected by Napoleon is one of human woe, drenched with the tears of the widow and the orphan, which "smells to heaven;" but frail as it is offensive, every day undermines it and threatens its fall-whilst that of Scott, constructed with materials equally beautiful and durable, the admiration and gratitude of the world, is cemented and strengthened by the passage of years, and can only at last perish when sound sentiment and judgment shall be destroyed. If we could suppose (and why may we not?) that the spirits of the departed are conscious of the effects of the actions which they performed in this inferior state of existence, what difference must there be between the feelings of such beings as those about whom we speak! Contemplating the almost universal and absolute dominion of the proudest character which the productions of his mind exert, hearkening to the enthusiastic strains of grateful panegyric which are ever rising, like incense, from all quarters of the civilized world, perceiving that the knowledge and the appreciation of his works will extend with the advance of information and refinement, to the confines of the earth, and that his name will continue to be an object of praise and benediction to millions and millions yet unborn, until the globe itself which they will inhabit shall be dissolved -conscious of all this, with what rapture must not the spirit of Scott be forever filled! How sad the contrast presented by the spectacle which offers itself to the spirit of the conqueror! No "grateful memory of the good," the richest reward of noble deeds, no blessings save such as can impart no satisfaction to one from whose eyes the delusions of mortality have been removed, are wafted towards him-he beholds the efforts of mankind engaged in effacing the effects of his exploitsthe throne to which he had waded through slaughter, overturned, "no son of his succeeding" the nation whose near prospect of freedom he had blasted, straining again to accomplish its holy purpose-the fields which he had ensanguined with his victories, resuming their verdant hue, and once more putting forth their fruit-the countries which he had prostrated before his footstool, again erect, and repairing the evils he had inflicted-all his great works, in fine, destroyed or daily disappearing, until naught but the recollection of them will survive, which, itself, will soon serve

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no other object than that of pointing a moral, or adorning a tale! No, Major Lee, the name of Napoleon is not more glorious than that of Scott, unless the abuse of genius be more glorious than its use.

"Genius and Art, ambition's boasted wings,

Our boast but ill deserve. A feeble aid!
Dedalian enginery! If these alone

Assist our flight, fame's flight is glory's fall.
Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high,
Our height is but the gibbet of our name.
A celebrated wretch when I behold;
When I behold a genius bright and base,
Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims;
Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,
With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust.
Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight,
At once compassion soft, and envy rise-
But wherefore envy? Talents, angel-bright,
If wanting worth, are shining instruments
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults
Illustrious, and give infamy renown."

The remarks in which we have indulged, are by no means irrelevant: for the object of the volume before us seems to be quite as much the vilification of Scott, as the biography of Napoleon. It comprises five hundred and eighty-five pages, of which more than a half are accorded to an appendix, devoted mainly to the former pnrpose. Making allowance, indeed, for the difference in the type, the history embraces, perhaps, not so much as a third of the matter, though the whole is but a rivulet of text running through a broad meadow of margin. No inaccuracy of Sir Walter, however trivial, escapes the clutches of the author, or is ascribed to aught save the most malignant or paltry desire of misrepresentation, until the reader becomes as wearied with the minuteness and insignificance of the details, as displeased with the uncompromising tone of the censure. But if Major Lee has proved his ability in depreciating, he has also furnished conclusive evidence that he possesses at least equal faculties in the way of panegyric. The book is a perfect apotheosis of its subject-a resolute glorification from beginning to end, not only of the warrior, but the man. Scarce a virtue under heaven can be named, military, civil, or private, which is not vehemently attributed to the impeccable hero. Whilst his deeds are emblazoned as superhuman, the motives of them are paraded as worthily in unison, by their exalted, etherial character. No idea of self ever entered into his calculations -no! it was "intense patriotism which animated his whole life; which warmed his boyish indignation; directed his youthful studies; inspired his greatest actions; and sanctified the dignity of his last request"-which being doubtless the case, the less intense patriotism there is in the world, the better. All the blood, too, which his intense patriotism constrained him to shed, appears to have rendered him an object of much deeper commiseration than the persons from whose veins it gushed-" instinct with heroic fire, his soul shuddered at scenes of cruelty and murder." Unfortunate Napoleon! Sympathizing Major Lee! As an evidence of his abhorrence of murder, and freedom from all other frailties, the following anecdote may be cited from our author's text:

"But his time was not altogether engrossed by the toils of war or the rude grandeur of mountain prospects. Scenes less inclement and softer contests occasionally engaged him. Among the members of the convention in attendance on the army

of Italy, was M. Thurreau-a gentleman whose personal insignificance in the deputation, was redeemed by the wit and beauty of his wife. This lady was not insensible to the merit, nor unkind to the devotion of the young general of artillery, who proud of his success, ventured to manifest his adoration, by ordering for her amusement, as they walked out on the great theatre of the Alps, an attack of the advance posts stationed below them.

"The French party was victorious, but they lost some of their number, and as the affair could lead to no result, it was in every sense of the term a wanton sacrifice of brave men's lives. In his youth, his infatuation, and the compunction with which he remembered and confessed this criminal folly, indulgent readers may find some excuse for it. The incident is worthy of being recorded, because the faults of such a man are sacred to history, and because the intimacy out of which it sprung was the means probably of saving his life."

How the lover must have "shuddered" at being obliged to give this manifestation of his intense patriotism for the amusement of his mistress! "Criminal folly" in a hero, it is worthy of remark, means, according to our author's dictionary, adultery and wholesale slaughter in a common man. We live to learn. This was not the first time, by the way, that Napoleon was caught in the toils of the blind god, though the previous instance was not quite so much in keeping with his usual purity. Whilst in garrison at Valence in Dauphiny, he had been smitten with the charms of a Mademoiselle Colombier, and having engaged her affections, the two "met one morning by day break in an orchard, where their passionate indulgence consisted in eating cherries together!" The loves of Francesca da Rimini and her swain, fade into ïnsignificance before the attachment of this tender couple. Had they lived prior to the time of Dante, Mademoiselle Colombier would doubtless chiefly have claimed the poet's compassion and attention to her melancholy tale of guilt, as he passed through the città dolente, and been immortalized in his verse instead of the unfortunate Italian! Two lovers indulging their affection by a repast upon cherries! Horrible!

Besides his patriotism, aversion to blood, and chastity, "had Bonaparte cultivated rhetoric, he would have rivaled the greatest masters of eloquence." His veracity also, maugre the proverbial phrase―tu ments comme un bulletin de l'empereur—is as pertinaciously vindicated as his other virtues. To uphold it, our author has the cruelty, to use the mildest term, even to enter into an elaborate argument, more remarkable for coarseness than strength, in support of the aspersion cast upon the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, that she was frightened from the arms of a paramour by the attack of the Paris mob upon the palace of Versailles, because the charge had been propagated by Napoleon. Now this monotonous strain of panegyric is not history, and if it be continued throughout the remaining volumes, as we fear is more than probable, the desideratum, in the words of Mr. Lee, of "an impartial and accurate biography of the Emperor Napoleon," will not be supplied by his production. It might be excusable in an oraison funêbre, where it is understood to be a sort of duty to pour whole vials of sweetest perfume upon the memory of the deceased without any commixture of acid; but such a proceeding in a work aspiring to historical sobriety and dignity, immediately awakens suspicion, and injures the effect of even the merited encomium it may contain.

The merely narrative portions of Mr. Lee's volume are by far the best. He fully sustains in them the reputation he has earned of being one of the most spirited and vigorous writers of the day. His military acquirements impart a satisfactory clearness to his relations of battles and campaigns, whilst the con amore spirit with which he tells them, arouses a corresponding sentiment in the bosom of the reader. He here exchanges, moreover, the measured march of his style in other parts, for a quick step, if we may so speak, more in harmony with the rapid movements par

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