And after murder'd, need is not I tell. What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is Within that mew, which for my fake the name They wept and one, my little Anfelm cried; O'th' fudden, and cried, Father, we should grieve For For me, my Father! There he died, and e'en Call'd on them who were dead. Then fafting got There is a particular terfeness in Mr. Cary's ftyle, which is well adapted to the tafk he has fuccefsfully undertaken; we have also to remark the ufage of fome words of less common occurrence, which, nevertheless, do not appear like affectation, but are generally good words of old English growth, and happily introduced *. We fhall be anxious to renew our acquaintance with this author, whofe ta lents we exceedingly refpect, and again hope to fee exercised. When the arduous work of tranflating Dante fhall be finished, we fhall hope to fee them exerted on fome original work. ART. VII. Napoleon, and the French People under his Empire. By the Author of Bonaparte, and the French People under his Confulate." From the German. 8vo. 421 PP. 8s. 6d. Tipper and Richards. 1806. THE preface to this, work ftates, that in the original, it is pretended to have been tranflated from the English, but that the pretence is contradicted by every page of it. The author even manifefts an ignorance of the English flyle of thought, unusual in the well informed German literati. We are told that the prefent work was written by the author of a book, bearing a fimilar title, and having the fame defign, of which a tranflation was published laft year, by the editors of this volume, under the title of "Bonaparte, and the French People under his Confulate." The prefent volume certainly is to be confidered as a continuation of the former, at the fame time that it affects to be a criticifm upon it, and avoids thofe references to it, which would make the one dependent upon the other. It is not very pleafant, in beginning to read a book, of which the greateft recommendation would be a fcrupulous adherence to truth, to find fo many fictions to be explained, The words brachs, in the latter quotation, is an exception. It means hounds, but is too obfolete to be understood by readers in general; and ought to be braches, as being plural. P p.4 where where none appear to have been neceffary. Whether the German work was published at Petersburgh, or at any other place, the author was not obliged to affirm any thing untrue refpecting it. He might have concealed any circumstances which he judged it imprudent to difclofe, but in allerting that which was manifeftly falfe with refpect to himself, he juftifies those who may entertain fome doubts of his allega tions in regard to others. The tranflator has convinced himself, that in prefenting this book, with its copious appendices, to the English reader, he is rendering a fervice to his country. It profeffes to be, and, he fays, "It is what it profeffes, a portrait of Bonaparte. It collects the scattered tokens and marks of guilt, which he has stamped upon every act of his public life; it unites and embodies them, and prefents to our view a full length figure, which we ought, in fpite of its uglinefs, intenfely to contemplate, till the thought of him occupy the bufy day, and the image of him, haunt our midnight dreams. The paffions fhould unite with the under. ftanding, in producing the minds of men against Bonaparte "The ftrong antipathy of good to bad." P. vi. The effect to be obtained by exciting this antipathy, is declared to be "The directing our attention towards that guardian power which has often refcued ftates from most imminent danger; which, though but lately banished from almost every part of the conti nent of Europe, except France, we may ftill flatter ourfelves will at length rife on the ruins of the public hope, the felicity, and the peace of the world, and oppose an effectual barrier to the ravages of France. This power is PUBLIC SPIRIT." P. ix. In fupport of this appeal to public fpirit, the tranflator quotes a paffage from the defence of Peltier, by Mr. (now) Sir James) Mackintosh; this fpirit, he obferves, faved France in the firft years of the revolution, and from its r novation in all thofe countries which are yet unconquered, can Europe alone be refcued from the bondage prepared for it." "It is found," the tranflator obferves, "that where a government repreffes by tyranny and intolerance, the courage and energies of its fubjects, the degradation and debility of the nation will re-act upon the government, which will evince itself as fervile and impotent against a foreign power mightier than itself, as its fubjects are flavish and abject towards their mafters." P. xv. On this fyftem he forms a fcale of degradation for the powers of Europe, reprefenting Spain as the loweft, the Italian States next above it, and feveral States of Germany rifing in fuceffion; but the reafons and facts affigned in fupport of this thefis, are by no means fatisfactory. Spain, which is reprefented as the loweft of the powers in question, has preferved, though by unworthy means, her monarchy unaltered, and more of her European and foreign poffeffions than any other continental power, except Ruffia, which, either in war or in peace, has come in contact with revolutionary France; while Holland, where, during the old go. vernment, "the courage and energies of the people" never were "repreffed by tyranny and intolerance," is degraded more than Spain itself, by "a quiefcent and fervile fubjection to France," and has feen her ancient conftitution, for which her fages meditated, and her patriots bled, fuperfeded, in order to place an ufurped fceptre in the hands of a younger branch of the Bonaparte family. If the tranflator really wifhes to excite in the public breast a spirit of laudable indignation against the fubverter of governments and oppreffor of nations, he fhould be cautious how he advances propofitions fo open to refutation. He who fufpects deceit is rarely warmed to enthufiafm. In the concluding part of his preface, the tranflator has fhown how little neceffity there was for him to have recourfe to vifionary systems for the purpose of exciting a just deteftation of Bonaparte, by detailing, with proper comments, the proceedings inftituted in Auguft, 1806, against the unfortunate Palm, and others. In this trial, as he justly obferves, there is a "monftrous union of a profligate difregard to the fundamental laws of nations, with a fqueamish and dainty adherence to the nice provifions of a criminal code, jealous of the liberty of the fubject."-The judicial murder of this miferable bookfeller is indeed, as the tranfla tor terms it, an inftance of iniquity and abfurdity, equalled by none of the memorials of tyranny extant. It is, befides, a convincing proof, that he who directed it, whatever bravery he may have fhown in the field, and whatever renown he may have acquired by his military conduct, is yet deficient in that undisturbed greatnefs of foul, that loftinefs of mind, which diftinguifhes the firft rank of human nature, and renders it impoffible for those of inferior ftamp to counterfeit their illuftrious fuperiority. A fuccefsful freebooter might by accident conquer a kingdom, and he would defcend, like Bonaparte, to acts of private vengeance, and judicial or lefs formal affaffination; a hero, even if he were an ufurper, would difcard from his practice every thing which could taint his character with the reproach of meannefs, and difdain to ftrangle his opponents in dungeons, or to to declare war against writers and fellers of a pamphlet. In this inftance, it is no exaggeration to fay that Bonaparte made war on Palm, for when this book feller was feized by the French troops, the government under which he dwelt was intirely at peace; and he did, in fact, declare war against the other offenders, by publishing an order, obliging the fol diers of France to put them to death wherever they might meet them. That fuch a man as Bonaparte deferves, to be exposed to univerfal hatred, by every effort which the few free preffes yet remaining in Europe can make, is a propofition which no one who has the leaft regard for general juftice, or the welfare of mankind, will deny. That the work now under confideration, is eminently calculated to produce that effect, few perhaps will allow. The crimes of Bonaparte are com mitted with fuch a daring fpirit, and his meafures have been crowned, with fuch prodigious, fuccefs, that a recital of his iniquities, connected as they are with his wonderful elevation, feems, in general, rather the tribute due to his fplendid fortune, than the expofure of his enormous wickedness. The work which could fuccefsfully, affail the character of the tyrant of Europe, fhould unite with the fidelity of hiftory, the ftrength and spirit of fatire. In defcanting on the conduct of a man whofe achievements are evidently great, while, in many particulars, his foul is radically mean, the greatest art fhould be combined with the moft tremendous force; and mankind might be led, without violence to their reafon, to feel wonder, fear, horror, deteftation, and, contempt, in confidering an individual alternately enterprizing, cruel, impious, hypocritical, and mean. In fuch a work there fhould be nothing of common-place, in ftyle or in thought; the author fhould feel himself, and be able to make others. confider him the advocate of human nature, calling down the judgment of his own age and of pofterity, on a man to whom fortune has been prodigal, but virtue niggardly; who, with opportunities to how himself truly great, and to render himself the bleffing and admiration of mankind has difplayed a littlenefs and felfifhnefs, difgraceful to his acquired power; the oppreffor of thofe who have trufted, their lives and fortunes, to his rule; the lawless affailant of foreign nations, who have confided in his honour,, the fcourge and peft of the whole civilized world, with ambition to grasp at fceptres and empires, and carry the flames of war into regions unexplored; and yet with a fpleen fo irritable, and optics for minute, as to difcern and refent affronts and injuries, from perfons the most obfcure and infignificant. The |