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part of the continent? But, independently of the proofs, drawn from these prodigious results of the naturally elevated character of their author, he has given others in abundance still more direct and decisive. Was it a vulgar spirit that projected and completed the noblest code of laws that the world has yet seen, as much superior to the undigested mass of the Justinian collection, as the universe is to the chaos out of which it was formed? Was it a vulgar spirit, that brought together with so perfect a taste the finest specimens of the arts from all other countries, and opened them to the world with such princely magnificence in the unrivalled gallery of the Louvre ? Finally, was it a vulgar spirit that could find time amid the various and numberless occupations of the most active life that man ever led, to take an interest in almost every department of knowledge, and to obtain a sufficient acquaintance with all, to be able to converse upon them with satisfaction and credit?

Bonaparte was certainly little in some points, as in the importance which he attached towards the close of his reign to the childish foppery of court etiquette. But almost every character is, to a certain extent, a union of inconsistencies; and the prevailing vices of this personage were of the exactly opposite description. Ambition of the wildest and most extravagant stamp was the ruling passion of his mind. Had this disposition been controlled, in its practical operation, by the influence of moral feelings or principles, it might have produced the happiest results for its possessor and the world. But morality, whether founded in principle or feeling, seems to have been a thing of which he had no notion whatever. We find no traces in his history of benevolent sentiments in any of their various forms; and he trampled under foot the endearing relations of blood and birth, with the same savage indifference which he showed for the just rights of individuals, with whom he was unconnected. His mother was not allowed to sit in his reception room; and his brothers were persecuted by him with such relentless severity, that some of them fled from his presence, and the rest were ready to expire under its terrors. Lucien, whose influence contributed so much to give him his power, found it expedient to retire into voluntary exile. To serve his political purposes he divorced and broke the heart of an amiable and affectionate wife, who had been his companion and benefactress in his humbler fortunes;

and he imposed on his brothers, sacrifices of the same kind, to serve not their views, but his own. Jerome must be divorced, and Louis must marry to gratify his ambition or something worse. The light in which he viewed his confidential agents and officers has been seen, in his conversation above cited with the emperor Alexander. In this total deficiency of natural affection in all its forms, he differs disadvantageously from the two most distinguished conquerors of antiquity; and approaches more nearly to the great Frederic, whose heart was also of the consistency of one of his own cannon balls. The only intellectual vice of Bonaparte was extravagance; and it was this that caused his ruin. With all his contempt for the rights and feelings of others he might have maintained himself to the last, and transmitted his sceptre to a long line of descendants, had he known how to temper the wildness of his ambition, with even a moderate infusion of good sense and discretion. This defect in his understanding, had been observed by those who were acquainted with him, before he had betrayed its existence to the public, by the incredible follies that marked the close of his reign. General Moreau, as we are told by Madame de Stael, observed at his residence on the Delaware, upon hearing of the failure of some attempt at conspiracy in France, the French have not the art of managing this sort of business; but there is one conspirator to whose machinations he must ultimately fall a victim,-I mean himself.'

If Madame de Stael has shown a want of cool judgment in attempting to underrate the talents of Napoleon, she is also not always correct in estimating the moral character of his particular actions; but dwells perhaps with an emphasis not wholly just on actions either of doubtful authenticity or disputed morality. This remark, however, must not be made without exception, for in regard to some separate acts of an atrocious character, which have been attributed to Bonaparte with greater or less degrees of probability, she observes with propriety, that as the correctness of these statements is after all doubtful, to insist much upon them, while it shows a strong sentiment of hostility, has a tendency rather favorable than otherwise to the general reputation of Napoleon, because it seems to argue that the acts, which can be laid to his charge with certainty, are not heinous enough for his condemnation. In reality, however, the undisputed crimes of this personage

are sufficiently enormous to relieve the bitterest of his foes, did they know how to unite even a moderate share of discretion with their animosity, from the necessity of inventing new ones or insisting upon such as are doubtful. The first and greatest of the number was the employment of the influence he had acquired by his military successes to destroy the liberty of his country. The fortune of France, at least for a length of time, was in his hands. It was in his power to establish her political institutions upon solid foundations, or to build up his own false greatness upon the ruins of every other interest. He chose the latter course, and preferred the part of Cromwell to that of Washington. His second crime, scarcely inferior in magnitude to the first, was the abuse of this ill-gotten greatness to the destruction of the independence and welfare of every foreign nation within his reach. These are

the acts for which his memory will be execrated by the friends of liberty, as long as liberty shall have a friend; and while European courtiers are wasting their sorrows upon the untimely grave of a single unfortunate prince, the wise and good of all countries and ages, with whom a prince is no more than any other man, will only lament his fate in common with that of millions, more unfortunate and more innocent, whose lives and happiness were sacrificed by an individual to the vain phantom of military glory.

One of the great singularities in the every way singular fortunes of this personage, was the lingering constancy with. which the affection of the people still hung about him to the last, notwithstanding his early and shameless defection from the cause of freedom, and his subsequent intolerable abuse of power. The friends of liberty throughout the world, especially the less enlightened among them, and those whose opinions are rather the result of impulse than reflection, regarded him, even in the days of his worst excesses, with the sort of distressing interest, which a lover feels for a fair and faithless mistress, who has forfeited his esteem, without having wholly lost her hold upon his affections. A sentiment of this kind was observable in the language of some of the most respectable members of the British parliament; and traces of it might even be perceived in the views of the most decidedly republican portion of our republican community. It was a remarkable thing to see the character and cause of a military despot treated with a sort of indulgence, by so large a part

of a nation, which lives and moves and has its being in the atmosphere of liberty and equality. But here, as elsewhere, men could not wholly separate in their imagination the past from the present; they could not forget at once that Bonaparte, in his earliest and best and happiest days, had been the asserter of the good cause against the Holy Alliance of his time; and that he had trampled upon many a diadem before he stooped to pick up one of them, and disgrace his manly brow with its childish finery. Even after he had assumed the disguise of an emperor, they could not help feeling that he was originally one of themselves; and when they saw him pouring out his fury upon other established governments, from whose abuses they had formerly suffered, they did not realise, in a moment, that his own was infinitely more tyrannical than any that preceded it. The very enormity of his treason against the cause of liberty prevented the people from viewing it, at first, in its true light. It seemed impossible in the nature of things, that the noblest of her champions should have sunk at once, from the loftiest heights of glory to the lowest depth of moral degradation. They could not help flattering themselves, although against the evidence of their senses, that there was some deception in this apparent apostacy, that the general good required that the cause of the people should be entrusted, for a time, to an arbitrary dictator, and that, after beating down all opposition and rooting out every where the last vestiges of ancient abuses, this mighty champion would resign his truncheon of office, return to the ranks from which he had emerged, and pay his vows again at the altar of freedom. Such, or similar to these, were the willing delusions of many true patriots in various countries. They were not wholly dissipated at the time of the fall of Bonaparte; and the compassion naturally inspired by so strange a reverse of fortune, contributed to sustain and even heighten this singular sort of interest: so that it continued to attend him even in his last lonely retreat. Liberty, remembering the ardent zeal and brilliant exploits of her youthful hero, did not disdain to cheer the dark hours of the wretched and fallen apostate from her cause, with a few lingering gleams of affection. Lord Holland, and some other enthusiastic partisans of popular principles, raised their voices in favor of Bonaparte in the British parliament, when every body else had deserted him except his own family and the faithful companions of his

exile and the care and kindness of these generous souls contributed something to the comfort of his latter years. If a heart like his were susceptible of remorse and shame, such treatment would have been far more cutting to him than the persecution of his avowed enemies.

We have been led into these observations in part by the occasional interest now attached to the name and character of Bonaparte, in consequence of his death; an event, the very indifference of which, in a political point of view, makes it more remarkable, than it would have been under any other circumstances. We trust that we have not offended the spirit of Madame de Stael in devoting a few pages to the memory of her great antagonist, since she expresses a hope, in the commencement of her memoirs, that in speaking of herself she shall often be able to withdraw the reader's attention from her own affairs. However unfortunate for her peace may have been her connexion with the history of Bonaparte, we are not sure that it is not one of the circumstances which will contribute most powerfully to maintain her hold upon the attention of posterity. She has indeed expressed this opinion

herself, in a letter which she wrote to him upon the occasion of his first order of exile. She observes, 'You are giving me a sad celebrity-I shall occupy one of the pages in your history.'

ART. IX.-Uebersicht aller bekannten Sprachen und ihrer Dialekte.-A Survey of all the known Languages and their Dialects. By Frederick Adelung, Counsellor of State, &c. &c. &c. 8vo. pp. xiv-186. St Petersburg. 1820.

THIS work has already been briefly noticed in a journal printed in another part of the United States; but the importance of the subject, as well as the value of the work itself, would render it inexcusable in us to omit giving some account of its contents, for the information of readers in this quarter of our country. We are the more induced to do this, as we have not yet seen any notice of the work in those English journals, which have the most general circulation among us. The subject of our article will, therefore, have the attraction

*The Rev. Mr Schaeffer's German Correspondent, Nos vii and viii.

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