lution, and more recently the Niais, or Simpleton, which, although inferior to the two first-mentioned productions, is an ingenious and amusing book.

We may note two writers of very different style and opinions, and not quite in unison with the general strain of the age-Pigault le Brun and Madame de Genlis; the former distinguished for his inexhaustible wit, conveyed, however, in a strain not very remarkable by its elevation or morality; and the latter, especially, for her ease and volubility; having reached, it is said, her hundred and twenty-fifth volume-an enormous fecundity, almost unexampled-though we find, indeed, persons who have been subject to this incontinence of words, in all ages; and Horace tells us of one of his times, whose writings taking fire, the author, unable to escape, perished in the conflagration. "One does not go down to posterity," says Voltaire, "with baggage so heavy;" a remark not indeed ratified by the example of its author, but which those who have less wit than the philosopher of Ferney may prudently observe. Of all the writings of Madame de Genlis, we are not sure that more than half a dozen of volumes are fitted out for this expedition. Her style is, indeed, always easy, and sometimes elegant; but her descriptions are perpetually overladen with sweets that pall upon the appetite; and in matters of this nature, it is better to die of hunger than of a surfeit. The volumes of Adèle et Théodore, and especially of Mademoiselle de Clermont, may be read with pleasure, and a few others; the rest may serve to warm the bath of Caliph Omar. Her late work, entitled Memoirs of the Eighteenth Century, is a compilation of ridiculous vanity, and some say of calumnious reports; which is the more strange, as the author, at the time of its composition, had assumed the sober vesture of piety.

The Princess of Salm, in her work entitled, Vingt quatre ans d'une Femme Sensible, has displayed a rich and brilliant fancy. She has described the passion of jealousy, not in its fury, but in its effects upon a melancholy and sensitive mind. M. Nodier, a man of fine literary attainments, has published lately a novel of original character called Jean Sboger; and several of the novels of Mr. Keratry, and of Victor Ducange, have excited a lively interest. The author of the Rodeur Français, M. Rougemont, has gained considerable credit by his novel of the Missionary; and the philologer Charles Pougens, who, in his Trésor des Origines de la Langue Française, had traced the French etymology to fifty-three languages, and consulted more than four thousand volumes, has recently produced several novels of the most lively and agreeable character. His Quatre Ages, Abel, and Joko, abound in striking and original beauties. This venerable old man, blind for forty years, has not only displayed a - patience equal to that of Tobit, but has contributed, all this time,

to the delight of his compatriots, by his exquisite sentiment and brilliant imagination. Praying Apollo and Minerva to preserve him many years more for the same purpose, we will now close these memoranda; adding only the expression of our regret, that the attempt to crowd within our narrow limits so great a variety of names, has compelled us to omit some that were worthy of notice, and to give but a feeble and imperfect abstract of a subject, which, considering our enlarged intercourse with Frenchmen, and the fashionable cultivation of their language in our country, is every day acquiring additional interest and utility.

ART. XII.-Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; with a Preliminary View of the French Revolution. By THE AUTHOR OF WA

VERLEY.

PERCEIVING that the biography proper of Napoleon, by the author of Waverley,-no longer the Unknown, but the self-avowed-has been extended to six volumes, and believing that we cannot do justice to the work in a single artiole, we have concluded to pass in review, at present, the two only-the third and fourth of the whole set-in which the mighty conqueror is traced from his birth to his decisive triumph on the field of Marengo. After having disposed of these, we may hope to be able to bring into a moderate compass, the exposition we purpose to give hereafter of the contents of the remaining four, which seem to be quite as worthy of special attention as the others. Our readers, we think, can have no objection to form a separate acquaintance with the facts and passages, which we shall immediately proceed to offer to their curiosity. They will show the lights in which Sir Walter Scott has viewed the renowned subject of his work, and the spirit and manner in which he has exhibited him, until he reached the epoch above mentioned.

According to our author then,-whom we shall follow as regularly as is practicable in such an abstract-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was born at Ajaccio, in the Island of Corsica, on the 15th of August, 1769. The name may be written indifferently Buonaparte, or without the u; it being without that letter in his baptismal register, though the father, Charles, used it in his signature. The Bonapartes were a family of some distinction in the middle ages, and became objects of persecution in the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines; which latter circumstance drove one of them to Corsica, where he established himself, and where his successors were always enrolled among the noble natives of the island. The maiden name of Napoleon's mother, was Lætitia Ramolini, a very beautiful woman in her youth.

His father, Charles, died at the age of about forty years, of an ulcer in the stomach; the same disease to which his son is affirmed to have fallen a victim. In his early boyhood, the latter received no other education than the simple and hardy one usual in the mountainous island of his birth. The family enjoyed the protection of Count de Marbeuf, the French governor of Corsica, who, pleased with the young Napoleon, obtained for him the situation of a cadet in the Royal Military School at Brienne, in France. "The malignity of contemporary historians," says our author, "has ascribed a motive of gallantry towards Madame Bonaparte as the foundation of this kindness; but Count Marbeuf had arrived at a period of life, when such connexions are not to be presumed; nor did the scandal receive any currency from the natives of Ajaccio."

At the military school, the protégé displayed uncommon ardour and aptitude for the abstract sciences, and made a progress in them, to which the strongest testimony was borne in the official reports of the institution. His habits were those of a recluse and severe student; but in the languages, modern and ancient, he was not at all conspicuous for his proficiency. Our author asserts, that he never acquired the art of writing or spelling French.

In 1783, being then only fourteen years of age, he was selected by the inspector of the twelve military schools, to be sent to Paris for the completion of his education. While at Paris, he attracted the same notice as at Brienne, by the earnestness and success of his application to the mathematics. In his seventeenth year, he received his first commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery, and was almost immediately afterwards promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in the same corps. Vivacity and energy particularly marked his manners at this period. About the same time, he entered an essay of his own for the prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on Raynal's question "What are the truths and sentiments which should be inculcated on mankind for their happiness?" Sir Walter Scott, having mentioned that the prize was adjudged to the young soldier, adds, that when Talleyrand, many years afterwards, got the essay out of the records of the Academy, Bonaparte destroyed it, after he had read a few pages. Sir Walter supposes that no other copy existed; but this is a mistake; for we have the composition before us, as it was published last year at Paris by General Gourgaud, from a transcript in the handwriting of Napoleon. It does not appear to us to deserve the curiosity which our author expresses concerning the character of its contents. Rhapsody is its distinguishing trait; we find no other merit in it, than the admiration with which it glows for liberty and the character and designs of the Corsican patriot, Paoli.

Napoleon caught the revolutionary spirit in 1791; and, in 1793, having embraced with the utmost zeal the cause of the National Convention, he performed his first military exploit in its service:-this was, an attempt to surprise his native town, Ajaccio, then occupied by the very Paoli above mentioned, or his adherents, who contended for independence. The enterprise proved abortive. Paoli gained so much strength, that he was able to drive from the island the whole Bonaparte family, as partisans of the French. Napoleon never again visited Corsica, for which, our author thinks, he cared nothing subsequently.

The siege of Toulon by the forces of the Jacobin party, was the first occasion on which Napoleon so distinguished himself as to be brought under the eyes of the French government, and attract some attention from the world. The commendatory notes of him, which the inspectors of the Military School had preserved, and the favour of his Corsican countryman, Salicetti, a member of the Convention, contributed to raise him suddenly to the rank of a brigadier-general of artillery, with the command of that force during the siege. The final success of the besiegers was ascribed, in good part, to his extraordinary skill and intrepidity: Dugommier, who commanded in chief, "placed his name on the list of those whom he recommended for promotion, with the emphatic addition, that if neglected, he would be sure to force his own way;" and he was accordingly appointed to hold the rank of chief of battalion in the army of Italy. Sir Walter relates, in his account of the siege, the following incident:

"One of the dangers which he incurred was of a singular character. An artilleryman being shot at the gun which he was serving, while Napoleon was visiting a battery, he took up the dead man's rammer, and, to give encouragement to the soldiers, charged the gun repeatedly with his own hands. In consequence of using this implement, he caught an infectious cutaneous complaint, which, being injudiciously treated and thrown inward, was of great prejudice to his health, until after his Italian campaigns, when he was completely cured by Dr. Corvisart; after which, for the first time, he showed that tendency to embonpoint, which marked the latter part of his life."

Before he joined the army of Italy, Napoleon was employed by the Convention in surveying and fortifying the sea-coast of the Mediterranean. This task being accomplished, he proceeded (1794) to the head-quarters of the army, then lying at Nice, hemmed in by the Sardinians and Austrians. He had, here, influence enough to recommend a plan of his own,-which perfectly succeeded in the execution,-for driving them out of their advantageous position, and forcing them to retreat. The events of his life, immediately subsequent, will be best told in the language of our author:

"In the remainder of the year 1794, there was little service of consequence in the army of Italy, and the 9th and 10th Thermidor (27th and 28th July) of that year, brought the downfall of Robespierre, and threatened unfavourable consequences to Buonaparte, who had been the friend of the tyrant's brother, and

was understood to have participated in the tone of exaggerated patriotism affected by his party. He endeavoured to shelter himself under his ignorance of the real tendency of the proceedings of those who had fallen; an apology which resolves itself into the ordinary excuse, that he found his late friends had not been the persons he took them for. According to this line of defence, he made all haste to disclaim accession to the political schemes of which they were accused. I am somewhat affected,' he wrote to a correspondent, at the fate of the younger Robespierre; but had he been my brother, I would have poniarded him with my own hand, had I been aware that he was forming schemes of tyranny.'

Buonaparte's disclaimers do not seem to have been very favourably received. He, among others, was superseded in his command, and for a time detained under arrest. This was removed by means of the influence which his countryman, Salicetti, still retained among the Thermidoriens, and Buonaparte appears to have visited Marseilles, though in a condition to give or receive little consolation from his family.

In May, 1795, he came to Paris to solicit employment in his profession. He found himself unfriended and indigent in the city of which he was at no distant period to be the ruler. Some individuals, however, assisted him, and among others the celebrated performer Talma, who had known him while at the Military School, and even then entertained high expectations of the part in life which was to be played by le petit Buonaparte.'

On the other hand, as a favourer of the Jacobins, his solicitations for employment were resolutely opposed by a person of considerable influence. Aubry, an old officer of artillery, president of the military committee, placed himself in strong opposition to his pretensions.

Meantime, his situation became daily more unpleasant. He solicited Barras and Freron, who, as Thermidoriens, had preserved their credit, for occupation in almost any line of his profession, and even negotiated for permission to go into the Turkish service, to train the Mussulmans to the use of artillery. A fanciful imagination may pursue him to the rank of Pacha, or higher: for, go where he would, he could not have remained in mediocrity. His own ideas had a similar tendency. How strange,' he said, it would be, if a little Corsican officer of artillery were to become King of Jerusalem!' He was offered a command in La Vendée, which he declined to accept, and was finally named to command a brigade of artillery in Holland."

When the Convention itself fell into disrepute, and looked for protection chiefly to the five thousand regular troops who were assembled in and about Paris, the star of our soldier unexpectedly emerged. General Ménou, who had been chosen to head their cause against the armed "sections" of Paris, evinced a degree of irresolution that rendered his removal necessary. The committee by whom the government was administered, anxiously sought a substitute. It was then, observes Sir Walter, that a few words from Barras, addressed to Carnot and Tallien, determined the fate of Europe for nearly twenty years. "I have the man," he said, "whom you want; a little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon ceremony." Barras had become acquainted with the genius and temper of Napoleon, at the siege of Toulon. The latter accepted the command of the Conventional forces, made the most skilful dispositions for defence, and beat back and dispersed, on the 4th of October, 1794, the National Guards, acting as assailants, to the number of more than thirty thousand. Several hundred men were killed and wounded in the affair. VOL. I.-No. 2.

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