There is a gain, then, of thirty years without difficulty.

Those things about which we are most anxious, are very often a mere nothing; as, for instance, the concealment of our narrow circumstances. This evil of poverty is a mere nothing, that imagination has inagnified to a mountain. Another turn of thought would induce us to tell it without difficulty.

We see scarcely any thing, just or unjust, that does not change its quality with its climate. Three degrees of latitude upset all the principles of jurisprudence; a meridian determines what is truth, or a few years of settled authority. Fundamental laws may vary. Right has its epochs. Droll justice indeed, that a river or a mountain limits! Truth on one side of the Pyrenees is error on the other.

Why would you kill me? Why? do you not live across the water? My friend, if you lived on this side, I should be an assassin; it would be unjust to kill you in this way; but since you live on the other, I am brave, and the act is just.

When it is made a question, whether we should make war, and kill so many men, and doom so many Span

iards to die, it is one man only whe decides, and he an interested party. It ought to be a third and an indifferent person.

"This is my dog," say the children; "that sunny seat is mine." There is the beginning and the exemplification of the usurpation of the whole earth.

I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences; but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects, disgusted me with them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to him, and that in diving into them, I wandered further from my real object than those who knew them not, and I forgave them for not having attended to these things. I expected then, however, that I should find some companions in the study of man, since it was so specifically a duty. I was in error. There are fewer students of man, than of geometry.

When all things move similarly, nothing moves apparently-as on board a ship. When all things glide similarly to disorder, nothing seems to be going wrong. He who stops, considers the rapid recession of others, an immoveable point.

alternative of making but half a speech. In the present case, however, we yield to our propensity to say something, few as our words must be, concerning the two most conspicuous men in their respective departments, which this age, or perhaps, this world has producedSir Walter Scott as an author, and Bonaparte as a conqueror and a prince.

It is an ancient and classic remark, that great deeds should be recorded in a worthy manner; and when this is done, it is difficult to

decide which is likely to produce the greatest effect on the world, the deed or the record; and to which we should award the highest meed of praise. It is plain that none but a first-rate man can achieve a series of first-rate exploits; and none other can worthily spread them on the graphic page, blended as they should be with their causes, consequences, and lessons of moral wisdom.

It was, therefore, a bold adventure for Scott, or any other man already possessed of fame to lose, to embark in the project of writing the life of Napoleon: and when he announced his purpose to the world, all eyes were fixed on the event with a proportion of that high and doubtful expectancy which must have filled the bosoms of the Parisian crowd at the Thuilleries on hearing from the lips of Bonaparte, as he mounted his carriage for the campaign of Waterloo, this first developement of the prime object of his attack-" I go to measure my self with Wellington." He went: and his deeds were deeds of valour. But his bright glory was tarnished. And pretty much the same result we are sorrowfully compelled to witness in Scott's measuring his pen with the sword of his hero. Though great, he appears inadequate to the task. Perhaps, too, his apology may be similar-want of time and resources for the undertaking. But why did he not take time? Why did he attempt in a few months the labor of a life? We can see no cause for it, except in his pecuniary embarrassments, or more probably his vanity to resemble his hero in doing all at a dash. The consequence is, that he has given us a work, replete indeed with marks of gigantic power, but still defective; fatally defective, we suspect, as reregards the high mark of a standard and permanent historical mon

His English is bad. In point of grammatical accuracy, he is perhaps more defective than any other respectable author. It would seem as if he had written bad grammar for the low personages in his novels till he had lost the power of discrimination. His phraseology

is also frequently vulgar and colloquial, and is replete with what have so often been called Americanisms. These last, whether good English or not, should no longer be regarded as peculiar to this country. That gracefulness, purity, and dignity of style, so conspicuous in Robertson,are sadly wanting. It is a toilsome book to read aloud, notwithstanding its colloquial structure of phraseology. We are astonished that such a thorough bred poet should be so devoid of music in his prose. We must say, however, that in a much higher sense of the term, he has not exhausted all his poetry in writing verses, or even novels. There is a very rich vein of it pervading the whole of his present work; and we believe indeed, if any thing is to bear it up on the deluge of time, and waft it on to future ages, it is the buoyancy and spirit of his countless and original similies-and that too on topics,-war and the French revolution,--for the illustration of which, the universe seemed already ransacked and despoiled of analogies.

But it has deeper faults than those of style. The arrangement is often bad-the deficiency of dates is appalling-the reasoning, though generally pretty good, is frequently sophistical and sometimes shallow-personal and characteristic anecdotes, the life, and zest, and value, of appropriate biography, are provokingly withheld,

and above all, there is the greatest reason to suspect very material and extensive oinission and misstatement of facts. This the French critics already claim; and it will

be wonderful, should it not prove to be the case, considering the precipitancy with which this great work has been huddled together. Allowing Sir Walter all that mortal genius and memory can accomplish, and justly appreciating the extraordinary facilities for information to which his rank, and fame, and favor with the British cabinet, gave him access; yet how was it possible for him in so short a time to make a sufficiently accurate discrimination and digest, as well as collection, of the voluminous facts? It is a great mistake to imagine that a gifted mind can throw off volumes of accurate history with the same rapidity as poems and novels; and though Scott would not extemporize his facts in grave history, yet we can easily conceive the extreme impatience of a man, accustomed to such prodigious despatch in bookmaking, when tied down to the drudgery of minutely comparing voluminous and contradictory statements, and carefully eliciting the exact truth; and we should think it no strange thing for such a man to yield to the temptation of making an off-hand statement of matters, after a pretty rapid perusal of documents. In fact we must say that we do not place very implicit confidence in any constructive history, though compiled with great care. A higher authority than we can claim, has termed it "proverbially false;" and we recollect our mingled conviction and regret when a highly respectable officer of our own revolution lately expressed in our hearing, his "astonishment that men should attempt to describe scenes" in which he was a witness and an actor, "when they knew so little about them." If such inaccuracy is to be found here in the historians of our own country, we may suspect it elsewhere; and it should be a warning at once to those who write and those who

read. The great outline of facts may easily be gained and correctly exhibited. But the accurate detail of events, and the just assignment of their causes, must be the result, not only of great acumen, but of great patience and candor of research.*

We have one further objection to the work before us. It seems hardly to have been written by a Christian hand. There is indeed neither atheism nor infidelity in it; nor yet any apparently set purpose to derogate from purity of doctrine or morals.

But neither, on the other hand, is there any such regard to God, his providence, or religion in any shape, as we could wish. We should think the author about as indifferent on this great subject as he would represent Bonaparte himself to be. The general cast of the language is heathenish. It is fate and chance' that rule the world, and not

*We wish here to be indulged for a moment in remarking on the evils daily increasing in this country, by the publication of hasty compilations and com

pends of history. Some of these indeed are good; and particularly we think highly of the accuracy and judgment evinced by Worcester in his recent epitome. But most of these works bear marks of extreme hast eand abound in false object to the fashion, now so current, of and imperfect statements. We utterly sending forth historical works on important matters, which are the result of only such spare time as may be found in a few months amid the pressure of regular business. If a man believes himself called in duty to produce such a work, let him remember that he is called to produce a good one-and not an imposition on the public; and let him take the requisite time and pains. It is of more consequenc to the community than years of his more private vocation. If censureship on the press had been directed and limited to the article of good execution, it would have had a far different bearing on the general good. Many of these small higher motive than money, especially works are obviously prompted by no

such as are not vouched for, as every history ought to be, by the author's name.

an omniscient and holy God. This will not do in so dignified and influential a department as history; and we trust the age is not far distant, when any work on history, however good in other respects, will be thrown aside for this single, but great delinquency; or rather, we believe the time is near, when pious men of the first talents will see it to be an object worthy the labor of a life to qualify themselves, and then to write a truly Christian book in some department of literature, to supersede the works of the scoffing and the indifferent. Not that we would have every work on history or philosophy cast in the mould of a sermon; but we would have it tell on the face of it, that it was written by a good man, and breathe, in the whole spirit of it, an influence fitted to make men better.

Extracts as specimens, or in justification of our general remarks, we deem needless at this time, as that portion of our readers not already possessed of the volumes, have doubtless met with sufficient ly extensive extracts elsewhere; and we have no space to quote and comment on detached portions. We barely add, as regards the execution of the work, that some sixty or eighty pages at the beginning bear marks of incomparably more care than the general mass, and exhibit a richer infusion of poetic imagery.

In turning from the author to the subject of his work, we will limit ourselves to the brief expression of a few thoughts out of the many which have thronged upon us in the course of the perusal.

The mental power of Bonaparte has afforded a theme of much discussion in past years, and much diversity of opinion-some ranking him as the greatest of men, while others attributed his elevation and successes only to a daring spirit and the concurrence of extraordinary circumstances. At present, how

ever, the number is very small who hesitate to consider him as possessed of great talents, both as a soldier and a statesman. Scott uniformly speaks with the greatest respect of his powers, while in more serious respects, he evinces no partiality for his person. On this point, we must say, that while millions of other men may have possessed equal native powers, we know of no one who has exhibited equivalent proof of them Neither could he have given this proof, had he been prematurely cut off or cast down, or had he not been placed in very trying and extraordinary circumstances. This opinion of his greatness does not result from the glare of his exploits. It has been gradually gaining upon us as we have become more intimately acquainted with his mind. His greatness is evinced, not only in the field, but in the cabinet; and not only on the day of battle, but in those very original plans and preparations which ensured his victories. It is evinced in his almost intuitive knowledge of men, and his personal powers of persuading, and moulding, and impelling them, to the accomplishment of his purposes and, in our view, it is evinced most decisively in his familiar conversations, as reported by O'Meara, Las Casas, and others. These men did for Napoleon what Boswell did for Johnson. It is then fair to place Johnson, that mental autocrat of his age, by the side of the emperor in the attitude and stature of mind thus exhibited. Do this, and notwithstanding the advantage of Johnson's education and literary pursuits, you see him standing as a pigmy beneath the knees of a giant. Bonaparte's sense, great and various as it was, we still find to be all common sense-a well balanced mind, saving the article of ambition-nothing flighty and vi sionary, like most men of genius; and nothing flat and drivelling. Scott has spoken of Bonaparte's