"How could it be otherwise ?" said he. "Some of them "were called translations, and I spoke in the character of "a Frenchman and a soldier. But Napoleon was his own "antithesis (if I may say so). He was a glorious tyrant, "after all. Look at his public works; compare his face, even on his coins, with those of the other sovereigns of Europe. I blame the manner of his death: he shewed "that he possessed much of the Italian character in con 66 66 66 66 senting to live. There he lost himself in his dramatic "character, in my estimation. He was master of his own destiny; of that, at least, his enemies could not deprive "him. He should have gone off the stage like a hero: it was expected of him. 66 "Madame de Staël, as an historian, should have named "him in her 6 Allemagne;' she was wrong in suppress 66 ing his name, and he had a right to be offended. Not "that I mean to justify his persecutions. These, I can 66 66 66 not help thinking, must have arisen indirectly from some private enemy. But we shall see. "She was always aiming to be brilliant-to produce a sensation, no matter how, when, or where. She wanted "to make all her ideas, like figures in the modern French "school of painting, prominent and shewy,-standing out "of the canvass, each in a light of its own. She was vain; "but who had an excuse for vanity if she had not? I can 66 66 easily conceive her not wishing to change her name, or acknowledge that of Rocca. I liked Rocca; he was a gentleman and a clever man; no one said better things, or with a better grace. The remark about the Meillerie "road that I quoted in the Notes of Childe Harold,' 'La 66 66 66 route vaut mieux que les souvenirs,' was the observation of a thorough Frenchman." "The Here is a letter I have had to-day," said he. "writer is a stranger to me, and pleads great distress. He 66 says he has been an officer in the East India service, and "makes out a long list of grievances, against the Company 66 66 66 66 66 and a Mr. S. -. He charges the Government with send ing him home without a trial, and breaking him without a Court-martial; and complains that a travelling gen tleman, after having engaged him as an interpreter to accompany him to Persia, and put him to great expense "in preparations for the journey, has all at once changed his mind, and refused to remunerate him for his lost time, or pay him any of the annual stipend he had fixed 66 66 66 to give him. His name seems to be You have " been at Bombay,-do you know him? No," answered I; "but I know his story. He was thought to have been hardly used. As to the other part of his complaint, I know nothing." "He asks me for 501. I shall send it him by to-mor"row's post: there is no courier to-day." "Who would not wish to have been born two or three "centuries later?" said he, putting into my hand an Italian letter." Here is a savant of Bologna, who pretends "to have discovered the manner of directing balloons by 66 66 means of a rudder, and tells me that he is ready to ex plain the nature of his invention to our Government. "I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make "air instead of sea-voyages; and at length find our way "to the moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere." ”来 * 66 Steam-engines will convey him to the moon." Don Juan, Canto X. Stanza 2, "Calum ipsum petimus stultitiâ," said I. 66 There is not so much folly as you may suppose, " and a vast deal of poetry, in the idea," replied Lord Byron. "Where shall we set bounds to the power of 66 steam? Who shall say, 'Thus far shalt thou go, 66 and no farther?' We are at present in the infancy of science. "Do you imagine that, in former stages of this planet, wiser 66 creatures than ourselves did not exist? All our boasted "inventions are but the shadows of what has been,-the "dim images of the past-the dream of other states of "existence. Might not the fable of Prometheus, and 66 his stealing the fire, and of Briareus and his earth"born brothers, be but traditions of steam and its ma 66 66 chinery? Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it often has been and "will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their "foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, 66 as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming 66 mass ?-and then we shall have traditions of Titans "A mighty ingenious theory," said I laughing,—and was near adding, in the words of 'Julian and Maddalo': "The sense that he was greater than his kind 66 66 Talking of romances, he said: "The Monk' is perhaps one of the best in any lan guage, not excepting the German. It only wanted one thing, as I told Lewis, to have rendered it perfect. "He should have made the dæmon really in love with "Ambrosio this would have given it a human interest. "The Monk' was written when Lewis was only twenty, "and he seems to have exhausted all his genius on it. Perhaps at that age he was in earnest in his belief of magic wonders. That is the secret of Walter Scott's inspiration he retains and encourages all the superstitions of his youth. Lewis caught his passion for the "marvellous, and it amounted to a mania with him, in 66 66 66 Germany; but the groundwork of The Monk,' is neither original nor German: it is derived from the tale of 'Santon Barsisa.' The episode of 'The Bleeding Nun,' "which was turned into a melo-drama, is from the "German. |