tain Tower that there was good water to be found on › both of them.

We spoke of the difficulties which occurred at Genoa, and others of the Italian ports, in consequence of the alarm which had been excited by the plague at Malta; and as there was a vessel now in the port just arrived from thence, 1 said his communications would be greatly interrupted unless he could furnish me with some written document to authenticate the healthy state of this island. He immediately acquiesced in this proposal, and directed General Drouot to prepare the requisite certificate of health. The conversation then turned on the Barbary states; he expressed great anxiety respecting them, lest some attempt should be made upon him by the Tunisian or Algerine corsairs, in the present weak state of the island. He said that he looked for his safety entirely to the protection of the British cruisers, and hoped that the Undaunted would not be withdrawn from Elba.

We sat some time after dinner, though little wine was drank, and scarcely any by Napoleon himself; ice and coffee were then served, and soon after he rose from table, and we all followed him into the "Audience Chamber," (as I found the next apartment was designated.) Here a circle was formed, and he renewed the conversation a short time, saying something to each person, as though he was once more holding his levee in the Palace of the Thuilleries.

I took the occasion of some inquiries about our ship, to inform him of my intention to quit Elba, on my return to Genoa, the next evening or the following morning, and requested that I might be allowed to bear any of his commissions for the Continent. In return he invited us all to breakfast with him tomorrow morning, saying we must not leave him till we had seen his dominions. Of course we were delighted with the opportunity of hearing more of his conversation. He proposes to employ to-morrow in riding with us through the island, and finishing the days amusement by dining at Porto Longono, on the

opposite side of the Island. About nine o'clock he took leave of us, and withdrew to his own apartment, leaving us highly gratified by his gracious behaviour, so unlike the impressions with which we had approached him. It may well be supposed that all the time he was present, my observation was fixed on every thing he said, and did, and looked, with the deepest attention. It was quite evident to me that this unusual courtesy was assumed as necessary policy at this time, when he considers our naval force as his principal security against the Barbary corsairs, and that generally he must feel it to be his interest to ingratiate himself with those about him, whom he must regard as so many spies on his conduct. The effort of keeping up this sort of conversation with us, however, was not always successful. He relapsed now and then into fits of thoughtfulness, during which he lost that singular command of feature which I had heretofore heard described. In such moments of forgetfulness, his countenance showed that his mind was busily engaged elsewhere, in matters of far deeper interest.

He avoided with great dexterity all allusion to those wonderful changes which have so lately occurred in France, referring only to such transactions as were unavoidably mentioned to obtain the information he required. It may be supposed that his guests. were equally anxious to observe a similar forbearance, and this produced some embarrassment in maintaining the conversation, and in framing replies to his numerous questions.

Considering the tremendous plunge which he has. just made from an Imperial Throne, surrounded with all the pride and splendour of military sovereignty, to the paltry mansion of the Mayor of Porto Ferrajothat he has suddenly exchanged a crowd of abject ministers, and a guard of marshals and generals, for the company of half a dozen foreigners in an obscure island; when all these violent contrasts are put together, and contemplated in their full extent, his present self-possession surely affords a powerful proof

of the versatility of his mind, and the firmness of his resolution in bearing up against a reverse of fortune so sudden and so complete. Nothing but a latent though sanguine hope of restoration can account for this extraordinary equanimity.

To a man of his temper and disposition, I can scarcely conceive any exertion more irksome, than this of playing the agreeable to persons like ourselves, whom in his heart he must regard with profound contempt and dislike; and I apprehend that a British officer, of all others, is the object of his implacable

aversion.

E. H. L.

HIS CHARACTER.

THE death of Napoleon Buonaparte is an event that belongs as much to the moralist as the politician. He has long since ceased to influence, except in a very remote degree, the destinies of the world. For six years he has been politically dead. He outlived even the admiration of his adherents. He continued to exist, not to excite alarm and wonder, or even pity and respect. He lived to manifest the most signal example of the retributive justice of Heaven; to add the most impressive illustration to the records which ambitious men have furnished of" the vanity of human wishes."

To trace the wild and irregular grandeur of his career to mark the splendour of his rise or the gloom of his declension-would be to record those extraordinary events which have rendered the last thirty years the most important period in the history of the world. The memory of these occurrences comes upon us as the remembrance of a fearful vision. It is scarcely of the earth. It is like the dim legend of a fabulous generation. We might almost doubt of the important part which this man has acted on the great stage of the world, because the last act of his "strange, eventful history," has been one of oblivion and obscurity; because he has lain down, like the com

monest amongst us, pining with despondency and wasting with disease, to die in silence and solitude, with not a recollection of his glory about him. But his career has been one which can never be forgotten, either in its power or in its guilt. He will be the great mark of the age. For this is the man that carried revolutionary France in triumph through Europe this is he that raised himself to the Consular chair-this is he that sat down on the throne of the ancient Kings of France, and put the iron crown of Italy upon his brow-this is he that Kings and Emperors bowed before, and that held Queens captive, and gave Princesses in dower-this is he that conquered at Jena and Austerlitz-this is he that seized upon the crown of Spain-this is he that defied the frosts, as well as the hardy soldiers of the north, and fell before their united fury-this is he that the power of England drove out of Spain-this is he that abdicated the throne to which the Revolution had raised him-this is he that leapt a second time into the seat of his usurpation, and whose power crumbled into dust on the day of Waterloo.

The character of Buonaparte was in itself remarkable, but it is probable that under ordinary circumstances, and in a tranquil state of society, he would have acquired only a secondary distinction. He naturally possessed talents of a superior order, but they were not the talents of a man who would have made himself great in any situation. He was ready in expedients, acute, and penetrating. He understood the human heart, and knew how to assail mankind through their passions, their vanities, or their prejudices; above all, he was intensely selfish, and when possessed of power, that selfishness stood him in the place of solid principles and consistent modes of action, by setting up his own will as his infallible guide, and determining him to act up to its dictates, however warned by the common obligations of humanity or justice, by the fear of God, or, what is more important to a selfish mind, by an apprehension for his own security. But Buonaparte was not a great

man, in the proper acceptation of greatness. He possessed no heart and no imagination;-he was ignorant in some of the commonest branches of human knowledge; he wanted eloquence to sway individuals and bodies of men to his purposes; he was cunning and calculating, but his prudence did not grasp any wide extent of action; he was almost ridiculously tenacious of his personal safety; he was as imbecile in adversity, as he was tyrannous in prosperity.

Buonaparte was a man that could not have succeeded except in a revolutionary period, amongst a people led away by pretence and arrogance, and in a state of society where there was no great strength of moral perception. Had he appeared in England, he would probably have died a captain of artillery. His morose habits-his reserve-his contempt of the decencies of life, would have been an infallible bar to his advancement. Amongst a moral people the post of honour is not to be taken by storm. But Buonaparte rose in France by the very force of those qualities which, under ordinary circumstances, would have kept him down. In the revolutionary war he soon acquired opportunities of distinguishing himself, and he soon contrived to render services to the republic which any other than one sacrificing everything to ambition would willingly have avoided. He obtained the command of the army of Italy; his own character, and the character of the Revolution, led him on to success. The secret of his triumphs is now easily understood. He fought against commanders conducting the great game of warfare upon a regular and formal system of tactics, at the least expense, at the least possible waste of human life, and with a prudence which, if it did not ensure victory, did not render retreat hopeless. Buonaparte always set his fortune " upon a cast." He won everything by risking everything; he would assign thousands and tens of thousands of his own men to certain destruction, to ensure the safety of the remainder; where other generals paid for the subsistence of their forces, Buonaparte plundered. Such a system was new, and