or flour, to keep, store, or make them a subject of speculation.'

Military genius was never allowed fair play at any epoch of his career. The most promising generals, the possible competitors for fame, were treated like Massena and Moreau,―

'And all the budding honours on thy crest

I'll crop to make a garland for my head.'

Bonaparte's invariable practice was to concentrate all his best troops in the army which he commanded in person, and to send his generals on expeditions for which their resources were notoriously inadequate. If a movement or manœuvre ordered by him failed, he as invariably denied the order, or asserted that it was not executed in the proper spirit or as he intended it. Thus the disaster at Kulm was imputed to Vandamme, and the collapse at Waterloo to Ney and Grouchy. Knowing literally nothing of naval matters, foolishly imagining that the tactics for fleets and armies were the same, he compelled Villeneuve to put to sea and encounter certain destruction at Trafalgar. When the admiral-a man of proved skill and courage-pointed out the inevitable results of leaving Cadiz, his pitiless master writes, Villeneuve is a wretch who should be ignominiously dismissed. Without combination, without courage, without public spirit, he would sacrifice. everything, provided he could save his skin. Let my squadron set sail: let nothing stop it! it is that my squadron does not remain at Cadiz.'

my will

It left Cadiz accordingly, and within fifteen days it was no more. His first exclamation on hearing the event was: 'I cannot be everywhere!' another astounding instance of fatuity. The entire responsibility was flung upon the unhappy admiral-who had gallantly done his dutyin terms that drove him to suicide. The morning after the receipt of a despatch from the Minister of Marine, he was found lifeless, with six stabs from a knife in the

region of the heart. The fragment of a letter to his wife ends thus: What happiness that I have no child to receive my horrible inheritance, and be loaded with the weight of my name! Ah, I was not born for such a lot: I have not sought it: I have been dragged into it in my own despite. Adieu, adieu. . . .'

Such things make the blood boil, and they abound in the annals of this crowned scoundrel (scélérat couronné) as M. Lanfrey, hurried away by just indignation, designates him. How many broken hearts, how many desolated homes, how many blighted careers, how many ruined reputations, have gone to make this man the world's wonder! What torrents of blood and tears have been shed to float his name on the floodtide of immortality,

'Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.'

But that one virtue was military genius, and because it brought military grandeur to the French, they were, and are, proud of him, nay, proud of the laurelled and gilded chains he riveted on them, though the laurels have faded, and the gilding is rubbed off.

An English traveller, stopping at a French hotel before the Revolution, came upon a Frenchman mercilessly horsewhipping his valet in the corridor, and after rescuing the man, told him that he ought to take legal proceedings for the assault. He drew himself up and replied: "I would have you know, sir, that my master is too great a man for that. He could have a lettre-de-cachet for the asking.' Confound the fellow!' exclaimed the traveller; he was proud of having a master who could treat him like a dog.' Had not the collective nation something of the same feeling? Were they not proud of a master who could treat them like dogs, who could make them crouch at his feet when he was not hounding them on to their prey? Do they not occasionally cast a longing lingering look

behind at the dearly-bought grandeur that has passed away? There are signs that he who runs may read. Their recently revived call for free institutions is owing far less to the love of liberty than to the loss of military prestige. Personal government, rudely shaken by the Mexican expedition, received its death-blow at Sadowa, which threw Magenta and Solferino into the shade. France is kept awake by thinking of the trophies of Prussia, and cannot rest under the thought that she is no longer indisputably the first military nation in the world. If the Continent is to be again turned into one huge battlefield, it will be to satisfy this fantastic point of honour.1

By way of striking a congenial chord, the founder of the Second Empire, whose head is never turned like his uncle's, wrote thus :

'Palace of the Tuileries, April 12, 1869. 'MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,-On the 15th of August next a hundred years will have elapsed since the Emperor Napoleon was born. During that long period many ruins have been accumulated, but the grand figure of Napoleon has remained, upstanding. It is that which still guides and protects usit is that which, out of nothing, has made me what I am.

'To celebrate the centenary date of the birth of the man who called France the great nation, because he had developed in her those manly virtues which found empires, is for me a sacred duty, in which the entire country will desire to join. . .

'My desire is that from the 15th of August next every soldier of the Republic and of the First Empire should receive an annual pension of 250 francs. . .

To awaken grand historical recollections, is to encourage faith in the future; and to do honour to the memory of great men is to recognise one of the most striking manifestations of the Divine will.'

1 Four months after this was written, France declared war against Germany, for no intelligible cause except that her military or national honour was fancied to be at stake.

To what does the grand figure point? In what sense does it guide and protect? What are the manly virtues that found empires on empires on cannon-balls and bayonets? How is it a pious duty to do honour to such manifestations of the Divine will?—

'If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline ? '

If we recognise the hand of Providence in these scourges of our race, are we also bound to praise, honour, and worship them? To do so would be to imitate the barbarians who select for their fondest adoration the fetish or idol they think most capable of working evil. This tendency of the human mind

to form for itself malevolent and maleficent deities to be propitiated by blood and pain, has led an eminent writer and thinker to contend that natural religion has done more harm than good, has proved, in fact, little better than a curse. Whatever may be objected to his argument, we deem it quite conclusive against that popular faith, or superstition, which erects a temple to imperialism and places the grand figure' of Napoleon on the shrine.1

1 Napoleon the Third has done his best to perpetuate this superstition, which is far from dying out. In his last will, after recommending his son, the Prince Imperial, to 'penetrate himself' with the writings of the prisoner of St. Helena, he says: 'You must reflect that, from the Heavens on high, those whom you have loved look down on you and protect you. It is the soul of my Great Uncle that has always inspired and sustained me. It will be the same with my son, for he will be always worthy of his name.' To apply a familiar distinction—if they are now looking at all, they are more likely to be looking up than down, although the confident expectation of the adoring nephew seemed to be that he should be seated in Heaven alongside of the Great Uncle, like The Son on the right hand of The Father.

VICISSITUDES OF FAMILIES: ENGLISH, SCOTCH,

IRISH, AND CONTINENTAL NOBILITY.

(FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1860.)

Vicissitudes of Families and other Essays. By Sir BERNARD BURKE, Ulster King of Arms, author of "The Peerage.' Third edition. London, 1859.

ALTHOUGH the primary moral inculcated by this book may be familiar enough, the incidental trains of thought and inquiry suggested by it are by no means equally trite, and we incline to rank them amongst the most curious and important it is well possible to pursue. When we read of the rise and fall of illustrious houses, of the elevation and extinction of historic names, of the different sources and varying fortunes of nobility, we are insensibly led on to speculate on the political, social, and moral uses of the institution, on the nature and tendency of blood and race, on the genuine meaning and philosophy of what is called Birth, and on the comparative force of the distinction in the leading communities that have more or less adopted it. Is its influence increasing or on the wane? Is it a blessing or a curse to humanity? Should it be encouraged in old countries or discredited in new? Is it essential to constitutional monarchy ? Is it incompatible with republican freedom? What have inherited honours and ancient lineage done for civilisation, for science and learning, for politeness and the fine arts? Or, admitting what can hardly be denied, that privileged classes have been eminently useful in certain stages of progress, has their vocation, like that of the monastic