proceeds to say "a smooth sunny lawn which yet had a single word about that very original extended in front of the house, lured these matter, young Napoleon's snow feat; but let children, so unconscious of the high destiny us be consoled, if we have not that yet, we which awaited them, to their infantile sports. shall have it by and by. It is so much in the They chased the butterfly; they played in Abbottish style to give us a touch of bathos the little pools of water with their naked about the man before, and not after, we have feet; in childish gambols, they rode upon heard all that we have to hear about the boy! the back of the faithful dog, as happy as if Originality before all things; if we cannot do their brows were never to ache beneath the without Bourienne's, and Scott's, and a score burden of a crown." or two of other people's facts, at the very least we may bid defiance to their logical sequence of narrative-so here goes for a touch of the sublime which our author might, if he pleased, have learned from his immaculate hero to be but "a step from the ridiculous."

"How mysterious the designs of that inscrutable providence which, in the island of Corsica, under the sunny skies of the Mediterranean, was thus"-(yard dog and puddles, of course, included in that same thus!)— "rearing a Napoleon; and, far away, beneath the burning sun of the tropics, under the shade of the cocoa groves and orange trees of the West Indies, was moulding the person and ennobling the affections of the beautiful and lovely Josephine."

en

Can the powers of bombast married to bathos go beyond this? How strange that children, being marvellously like young ducks in their fancy for little streams, anglicé puddles, should "bathe their little naked feet!" Having, in truth, nothing either very new or very important to say in the way of fact, our eloquent author feels himself bound to say something in the way of commentary, and surely, oh surely, a very pretty say he makes of it. All that can possibly be known about Napoleon's not too-toward boyhood, we already knew from a score or so of other sources --but Mr. Abbott undertook to write a new life of Napoleon, and bathos and bombast must do their work upon the really insignificant actions of the boy, to prepare the way Let us pause, let us admire! Just look at for grandiloquent complaints that the man, that, "moulding the person" and that, the usurper, the slayer of the Duc d'En- nobling the affections" of the lovely and ghien, the butcher of the Mamelukes, the un- beautiful Josephine! We believe it was gentlemanly roturier in the imperial audience sturdy old William Cobbett, who so often told chamber, the ruthless conqueror on the battle- plain British truths to sallow and envious field, was not allowed by that perfidious Al-Yankeedom; we believe it was sturdy old bion to do as he pleased with what was not William Cobbett who, speaking of caligrahis own! Page after page we have of this phy, said-Whatever is worth doing at all, terribly young writing, of this piling up of is worth doing well. Doctors may differ as word on word, and phrase on phrase, with to whether it really is worth while to write either no meaning at all, or meaning at which nonsensical euphemisms at all; but certainly the most indulgent of logicians must smile, our author writes them admirably; never half in pity, half in contempt. But let us be since the decease of late lamented Rosa Mathankful; all honor to Mr. Abbott, we at tilda of the London Morning Post, has superlength have a new life of Napoleon Bonaparte! fine phraseology so admirably said--nothing Let us then be duly thankful-and read on. that mortal man can find meaning in! Lovely True to his systematic want of system, our and beautiful; moulding the person; ennosleep-provoking narrator of a twice one hun-bling the affections! Ah! this grand histodred times told tale passes, hop-skip-and-jump rian will surely be the death of us! fashion, from Napoleon, with brothers, and sisters and the great yard dog enjoying them. selves, duck fashion in the laving of little naked feet in little streams more or less muddy, and treats us to an oratorical burst, inimitable save|lative)-Josephine. in pages Abbottish-and about what? Napo

But we have not yet done with the moulded person and ennobled affections of the lovely and beautiful (what would our dear friends in New York do without the conjunction copu

"It was by a guidance which neither of

leon's union with Josephine! We have not these children sought that they were con

ducted from their widely separated and ob- them! The dressy, giddy, fighty Creole Jo

scure homes to the metropolis of France."

Let us be duly thankful for that information, any how! It is so very new, very, for people born in distant parts of the world to meet in the same city, and to marry; such a marvel and mystery can only astonish us in the case of a Napoleon and a Josephine. Thomas Smith and Betty Brown never yet met and married unless born next door to each other! Was printed page, even the page Harperian ever so wasted until the Abbott-worse luck for us all!—felt it his duty to give us this novelty of novelties, his new, his petter ash new Life of Napoleon! In truth, in sad, in very sad truth, but that we have discerned his purpose, and choose to defeat it, we neither could nor would bestow one line more upon such mere and miserable book-making. But we have a high and a stern duty to do, and we shall do it. We must show that if the author has but an indifferent literary taste; that if, knowing how to construct a tolerable sentence as to words, he yet has nei ther logical precision nor logical sequence at his command, still less has he that high and clear political morality without which a writer is pitiably unfit to discuss the life of such a man as Napoleon, or the conduct towards him of that Britain at which this poorest of all poor performances is so evidently meant to aim a heavy blow, "a heavy blow," indeed, and "great discouragement Just fancy a Republican, a man who evidently detests the limited monarchy of Great Britain, just fancy such a man speaking as follows of the usurper and blood-stained, of that Napoleon who rarely either wrote or spoke but to bully or to deceive. Thus speaks the erudite and original Abbott:

sephine, musing deeply and addicting herself to solitary studies! Her partner at the past ball or her dress for the next coming ball, might perhaps cause her "deep" and, (her shameful extravagance being considered,) we should think no very pleasant, "musings"— Such were her "solitary studies," oh Abbott of wordy Gotham--and you know it! But the wretchedly childish talk about Napoleon and his very much overpraised first wife is a merely venial offence, in our estimation, when compared with the servile adulation of their blood cemented throne. What this writer's fellow republicans may think of his worse than slavish enthusiasm in favour of the splendor or a throne to which the usurper waded through literally a sea of blood we know not, but we will beg to remind him that if in power and in true splendor, "Roman, Persian, and Egyptian, (the oldest power last mentioned, of course, for it is the consecrated Abbottish fashion to scorn such paltry matters as logical clearness and chronological accuracy!) had no throne that could compare with that which Napoleon usurped, there was a throne which had power enough to send him,helpless as the humblest criminal, to brood in exile and restraint over the crimes and the follies by which his usurped throne had been only too long disgraced. We leave "Roman, and Persian, and Egyptian" to answer for themselves; we must assure the erudite and Britain-hating writers ard readers of Gotham, that the British throne, at all events, shone with a splendor and wielded a power to which even the lauded Napoleon, so beloved by consistent and liberty-loving Republicans, aided by the nations that robber-like he invaded and tyrant-like trampled, vainly attempted resistance. How Napoleon obtained his throne, we shall have occasion briefly to discuss, at proper time and in proper place; we merely point out here that Mr. Abbott, the Republican, has great reverence and much laud for that throne. At the very commencement of his anti-British labours, and even before he has written down a tithe of his borrowed Let us take breath; such a burst as that is pages upon the juvenile years of his hero, he not to be equalled, out of Abbott's own page. is thus eloquent in praise of that hero's The solitary studies and deepest musings of wrongfully acquired and bloodstained throne. Josephine! There are some jokes which are Judge then of his eagerness to heap fulsome not to be laughed at;-and this is one of praise upon that throne, and, by inference,

"There" (the Metropolis of France) "by their united energies, which had been fostered in solitary studies and deepest musings, they won for themselves the proudest throne upon which the sun has ever risen; a throne which in power and splendor eclipsed all that had been told of Roman or Persian, or Egyptian greatness."

censure upon the grand, the truthful, the from his very babyhood with the traditional righteous power that struck down that Impe- and blood-thirsty Vendetta. Had Mr. Abrial throne, and sent its tyrannical occupant bott told us only about the imaginary butchto meditate on,but,infidel and ruthless, prayer-eries, or only about the absence of cruel and less and conscienceless, as he was, not to re- malignant passion we might have been able pent of his manifold crimes alike against God's to believe his statement; but he must exlaws, and man's rights, interests, liberty, and cuse us for declining even on his high authohappiness. rity to say that white is black, and black white. Of two opposite statements we may believe one-but we find it impossible, such is our British stolidity, to believe them both. The story of the cannon and the imaginary and murderous discharges of grape shot we believe to be quite true; and we think that the murderous play of the boy only foreshadowed the murderous realities of the man. We presume that it is by way of strengthening our belief in the freedom of the boy Napoleon from the cruelty and callousness to human suffering which so terribly characterized the man Napoleon, our author relates an anecdote to which, presently, we shall have occasion to allude. Let us, in the mean time observe that Mr. Abbott occupies much time in relating trivial anecdotes of Napoleon's infancy while in Corsica. In the first place those anecdotes are familiar to every school boy even where true-in the next place most of them are of doubtful authenticity at best, and are utterly out of place in this new life of Napoleon even if they were true. The world, if it wanted a new life of Napoleon at all, would look for something both new and true about the man; old, and, at best, doubtful, trivialities about the boy previous to his tenth year, when he left his dame's school in Corsica for the military school of Brienne, are, we must tell even the profound sages of the New York press, somewhat out of date in this year of grace 1853.

Unskilful Biographers nearly always blunder in their description of the childhood of their hero; they cut the man up into small pieces, and fancy that they are showing us the child. The truth is that the childhood of the most sanguinary hero is pretty much the same in its details as that of the smallest possible historian. We all munch cakes and fruit, (when procurable) and tantalize our elders in pretty much the same fashion. Juvenile star gazing and precocious melancholy exist in Napoleonic histories, Byronic Biographies, and fiftieth rate novels-but no where else. The mistake thus commonly made is, however, one into which mere compilers, troubling themselves but little about philosophy very naturally fall; and we need not wonder that Mr. Abbott falls into headlong, seeing that of philosophy he is perfectly innocent. With a strange inconsistency he tells us that "there were no tendencies to cruelty in his nature, and no malignant passion could long hold him in subjection," and then, in genuine Abbotian style illustrates and enforces that statement by adding that the boy's favourite play thing was a cannon weighing thirty pounds, and that "in imaginary battles he saw whole squadrons mown down by the discharge of his formidable piece of artillery;" and again "he delighted in fancy to sweep away the embattled host with his discharges of grape shot, to see the routed foe flying over the plain, and to witness the dying and the From Corsica, Napoleon, on the recommendead covering the ground." We have never dation of the Count Maubeuf was sent to the been accused of cruelty, but should such an ac- military school at Brienne; even the best aucusation be brought against us we implore Mr. thors have said fully enough, if not with a triAbbott not to defend us. Such defence as a fle to spare, about Napoleon's career at this his would convict any man; yea, even though school; of course Mr. Abbott, not being one his mature years were passed as peacefully as of the best authors, gives us not only the Napoleon's were passed murderously. The decies repetita of all his Napoleonic predecestruth is that only too many circumstances go sors, but some of his own superfine writing to show that Napoleon was cruel by nature, into the bargain. A boy leaving his mother and that malignant passion could, and did for the first time, with the prospect of hard hold him in subjection, in a subjection ex-fare, hard study, and some hard fighting, usutreme, even for an Italian, a Corsican, familiar ally does, we believe, anticipate black Mon

days with very considerable disgust. We an impression upon his mind which never was have had the trial, and we remember that effaced."

when we found ourselves suddenly thrown Ah! Yet malignant passions could obtain among the seven hundred and fifty young no permanent power over his mind! Yea! pickles of our first, and last, school, we thought and our candid author, who would make a the arrangement which threw us there a de- demigod of a surly malignant boy of ten years cidedly objectionable one. But we did noth-old, goes on to say that Napoleon, "in an hour ing more sublime than sharing our cake with of bitterness," when probably some oldster a "fellow" to whom we took a liking at first had boxed his ears for his petulance not unsight (he is now a Lieutenant Colonel in In- mingled with malignity, said: "I hate those dia,) and exchanging black eyes with another French, and I will do them all the mischief in whom we did not like. But no one has thought my power!" fit to chronicle our sublime feelings. Thank Heaven, no one is ever likely to do so; for, as we said at the outset of this article, we have a hard and hearty hatred for everything in the shape of humbug. Our erudite, though somewhat stilted and wearisome friend Abbott very evidently does not agree with us; Napoleon even at ten years old, and with an anticipative horror of long tasks and short commons could be nothing less than sublime!Just hear this cloquent and new,petter ash new, Historian.

"Forty years afterwards Napoleon remark ed that he never could forget the pangs which he then felt when parting from his mother.Stoic as he was,"- -a stoic of ten years old! -“his stoicism forsook him, and he wept -like any other child!"

Come, come, at length we get at something true, if at nothing remarkably new; Napoleon at ten years old was, just like any other child! --An actual child, born of woman! We fancied that it must have been so, but we trust that we are not ungrateful to Mr. Abbott, for thus confirming us in our own opinion. But let us proceed with our author's sublime account of the sublime child of ten years old.

Mr. Abbott seems to overlook one rare merit of his hero; the malignant promise above recorded he most signally fulfilled; witness two millions and a half, at least, of lives sacrificed to his sclfish and insolent ambition; witness the solitary lanthorn lighting up the tyrant's myrmidons in the castle ditch of Vincennes, and witness too, the blood-stained snows of Russia!

"In consequence of this state of feeling," continues our author, "he secluded himself almost entirely from his fellow-students, and buried himself in the midst of his maps and his books."

For left-handed praise commend us to our new biographer of Napoleon. Of what state of feeling was seclusion from his fellow-students the consequence? Obviously if, which we sometimes doubt, Mr. Abbott means anything by his fine phrases, obviously, of his malignant hate to "the French," because they were better provided than he with pocket money, spent it cheerfully, and thought him both "morose and moody," as Mr. Abbott himself confesses.

It is strange enough that while our new biographer heaps declamatory laudation upon his boy hero, he rarely borrows from better "The ardent and studious boy was soon es-authors a single anecdote which does not tell, tablished in school. His companions regarded and tell strongly, too, against that hero. him as a foreigner, as he spoke the Italian Every one has read of young Napoleon's snow language, and the French was to him almost fortification at Brienne. Being rather worse an unknown tongue. He found that his as- provided with fact than with "words, words, sociates were composed mostly of the sons of words, see you," Mr. Abbott gives us this very the proud and wealthy nobility of France.-novel anecdote at full length. Our readers, Their pockets were filled with money, and of course, remember that malignity, according hey indulged in the most extravagant expen- to Mr. Abbott, and cruelty, formed no part of diture. The haughtiness with which these worthless sons of imperions but debauched and enervated sires affected to look down upon the solitary and unfriended alien produced

Napoleon's natural temper. Our logical biographer thus supports his statement. "The winter of 1784 was one of unusual severity. Large quantities of snow fell, which so com

pletely blocked up the walks that the students systematic misreasoning into his history of of Brienne could find but little amusement the maturer years of his hero. Now this we without doors. Napoleon proposed that, to must once and for all tell him that we will by beguile the weary hours, they should erect an no means permit him to do, without frank and extensive fortification of snow, with entrench- open opposition. Whether Napoleon was a ments, and bastions, parapets, ravelines, and surly, morose boy, always moody and unsohorn works. He had studied the science of cial, and sometimes malignant in thought and fortification with the utmost diligence, and cruel in act, we should not have spent so much under his superintendence the works were time in discussing, but that Mr. Abbott's conceived and executed according to the strict. strange misreasoning and bold assumption on est rules of art. The power of his mind now this point convince us that his purpose is simidisplayed itself; no one thought of question-larly to eulogise and apologise for the man Naing the authority of Napoleon. He planned poleon. This, we repeat, we cannot and will not and directed, while a hundred busy hands, permit. If Napoleon, general, consul, emperor, with unquestioning alacrity, obeyed his will. was a good man as well as what we all confess The works rapidly rose, and in such perfection him to have been, a great genius, though a of science as to attract crowds of the inhabi- vastly overrated one, then Britain was the tants of Brienne for their inspection. Napoleon worst of persecutors-as it seems to us that divided the school into two armies, one being Mr. Abbott wishes inferentially, at least, to entrusted with the defence of the works, while show. There are, no doubt, only too many the other composed the host of the besiegers. Americans who would cheer Mr. Abbott to He took upon himself the command of both the echo for blackening the British character, bodies, now heading the besiegers in the des- and perhaps Mr. Abbott is not without full perate assault, and now animating the besieged knowledge that his historical achievements to an equally vigorous defence. For several will be very palatable to the French and weeks this mimic warfare continued, during their self-constituted ruler of the present day. which time many severe wounds were received But we do not feel inclined to pay much on both sides. In the heat of the battle, when respect to the national prejudices of either the bullets of snow were flying thick and fast, Americans or Frenchmen. Admitting Napoone of the subordinate officers venturing to leon to have been a man of great genius, we disobey the commands of his general, Napo- think, on the one hand, that that genius was leon felled him to the earth, inflicting a wound greatly overrated, and that, on the other hand, which left a scar for life." from first to last, it was always selfishly, and often vilely exerted. To facts we, equally with any writer, French or American, have access. Will those facts be again and again repeated as hitherto Mr. Abbott has repeated them? We shall merely hint, firstly, that we could do without his repetition, and secondly, that proper acknowledgment of his obligations to his authorities would not by any means degrade or dishonor even so eminent a person as a New York author. On the other hand, will the facts be accompanied, as heretofore, by unquestionably new, but as unquestionably unsound, comments? In that case we will without ruth and without stint, oppose, expose, and denounce, those comments, to the laughter of all sound reasoners, and to the sterner censure of all just men. Thus far, merely dealing with Mr. Abbott's rather absurd than actually mischievous history of Napoleon's boyhood, we have not felt either

And it is of this savage Corsican boy that Mr. Abbott, almost in the very page in which he retails without acknowledgement to any one, this twenty times told tale, would have us believe that cruelty and malignity were not a part of his nature. Mr. Abbott makes, as we have remarked, no acknowledgment to any one for the twenty times told tales with which he so thickly studs his unnecessary Life of Napoleon. We greatly prefer, however, even the old anecdotes that he borrows to the very new light in which he would have us see them. He protests that his hero was not cruel; and he shows him to have been from his veriest childhood, cruel both actively and passively, malignant both in thought and in act.

All this would, no doubt, be of small consequence to any one but Mr. Abbott, only that he very obviously intends to carry the same