in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilised world. Go, then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success, not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms.

While you have everything to fear from the success of the enemy, you have every means of preventing that success, so that it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your exertions. The extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having performed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead, while posterity, to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them), will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine that the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots, of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this con

test, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready "to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever," that they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole Ruler of the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, "gird on thy sword, thou Most Mighty!" go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in addition to their hereditary valour, that confidence of success which springs from thy presence! Pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes! Inspire them with thine own; and, while led by thine hand, and fighting under thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illuminationchariots of fire, and horses of fire! "Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark ; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them."

CHAS. PHILLIPS ON THE CHARACTER NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

OF

(39)

HE IS FALLEN! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, independent, and decisive—a will, despotic in its dic

tates an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character-the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell.

Flung into life, in the midst of a Revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest he acknowledged no criterion but successhe worshipped no God but ambition, and with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Cross the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic: and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the fabric of his despotism.

:

A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars! Through this pantomime of his policy, Fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took the colour of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory-his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny-ruin itself only elevated him to empire.

But if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendant; decision flashed upon his councils; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the character of his mind—if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount-space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity! The whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplaces in his contemplation; kings were his people-nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chess-board!

Amid all these changes he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field or the drawing-room-with the mob or the levee-wearing the Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown-banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg-dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic—he was still the same military despot! Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling of the army; and whether in the camp or the cabinet, he never forsook a friend or forgot a favour. Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned

him, till affection was useless, and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favourite. They knew well that if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, he subsidized everybody; to the people he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious veteran glittered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affectation of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he affected the patronage of letters-the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy-the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning!-the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his Academic prize to the philosopher of England.

Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character. A Royalist-a Republican and an Emperor-a Mahometan-a Catholic and a patron of the Synagogue-a Subaltern and a Sovereign-a Traitor and a Tyrant-a Christian and an Infidel— he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original-the same mysterious, incomprehensible self-the man without a model, and without a shadow. His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no man can tell how or why he was awakened from the reverie. Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first Emperor of the French.

That he has done much evil there is little doubt; that he has been the origin of much good, there is just as little. Through his means, intentional or not,