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to the number of buttons there ought to be in front of a jacket, how many behind, and the manner in which the skirts ought to be cut. Not a tailor in the army knew better than King Frederick, how many measures of cloth it took to make a jacket. In fact,” continued he, laughing, “I was nobody in comparison with them. They continually tormented me with questions about matters belonging to tailors, of which I was entirely ignorant, though, in order not to affront them, I answered just as gravely as if the fate of an army depended upon the cut of a jacket. When I went to see the King of Prussia, instead of a library, I found he had a large room, like an arsenal, furnished with shelves and pegs, in which were placed fifty or sixty jackets of various modes. Every day he changed his fashion, and put on a different one. He was a tall, dry looking fellow, and woull give a good idea of Don Quixote. He attached more importance to the cut of a dragoon or a hussar uniform, than was necessary for the salvation of a kingdom. At Jena, his army performed the finest and most showy maneuvres possible, but I soon put a stop to their coglionerie, and taught them, that to fight, and to execute dazzling manæuvres and wear splendid uniforms, were very different affairs. If," added he, “the French army had been commanded by a tailor, the King of Prussia would certainly have gained the day, from his superior knowledge in that art; but as victories depend more upon the skill of the general commanding the troops, than upon that of the tailor who makes their jackets, he consequently failed.” (Vol. ii. p. 48, 49.)

It is a curious fact, and one mortifying enough to human greatness, that Napoleon declared, that the happiest days he ever passed were when he was but a private man, "living in a lodging near Paris.” Being asked by Mr. O'Meara, what was his happiest point of time after his accession to the throne, he instantly replied, “ the march from

“ Cannes to Paris.” This, our readers will doubtless recollect, was after the expedition from Elba. He declares, that he had no idea of departing from Elba at first; and that, on the contrary, he would have contentedly remained there, had it not been for the numberless violations of the treaty of Fontainbleau by the allies; amongst the most prominent of which he enamerates the following. He says, it was stipulated that all the members of his family should be permitted to follow him, and that this was violated by the almost instant seizure of his wife and child; that they were to have had the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, of which they were deprived; that prince Eugene was to have had a principality in Italy, which was never given; that his mother and brothers were to receive pensions, which were withheld ; that his own private property, and the savings which he had made on the civil list, were to be preserved to him, but that on the contrary they were seized; that the private property of his family was to be held sacred, but it was confiscated; that the donations assigned to the army, on the Mont Napoleon, were to be preserved, but they were suppressed; that 100,000 francs, which were to be paid as pensions, to persons pointed out by him, were never paid; and last, that assassins were sent to Elba to inurder him.

It must by no means be understood, that Napoleon uttered sweeping and indiscriminate censures upon those Englishmen who were opposed to him; even in acknowledging a repulse at Acre from Sir Sid. ney Smith, he speaks of him in terms of commendation, and says, “he liked his character."-Of Lord Cornwallis his sentiments are quite enthusiastic. Of Sir John Moore he said, that he was “a brave soldier, an excellent officer, and a man of talent, and that the few mistakes he made were probably inseparable from the difficulties by which he was surrounded.”—Mr. Fox, he said, was so great and so good a man, that every member of his family seemed to have taken å tinge from his

tues.-Speaking of Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm he said—“his

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men.

countenance bespeaks his heart, and I am sure he is a good man; I never yet beheld a man of whom I so immediately formed a good opinion as of that fine, soldier-like old man—there is the face of an Englishman—a countenance, pleasing, open, intelligent, frank, sincere.”—Of Sir George Cockburn also, who appears to have done his duty strictly, but like a gentleman, he spoke in terms of commendation. On the subjects both of his elevation and his fall, he is extremely minute and interesting. Our readers may recollect two reports, which in this country certainly gained considerable currency; one, that Napoleon owed much of his rise to Barras; and the other, that he at one time in his early life offered his services to England. Both of these he declares to be “romans,” and says, he did not know Barras till long after the siege of Toulon, where he was chiefly indebted to Gasparin, the deputy for Orange, who protected him against the ignorantacci, sent down by the Convention; he goes on to say, that Paoli always anticipated his elevation, and when he was a boy used frequently to pat him on the head and say, You are one of Plutarch's

On the subject of his fall, in answer to a question from Mr. O'Meara, whether he did not consider Baron Stein as mainly instrumental to it? he said immediately—“Nom-none but myself ever did me any harm; I was, I may say, the only enemy to myself; my own projects—that expedition to Moscow, and the accidents which happened there, were the causes of my fall. I may, however, say, that those who made no opposition to me, who readily agreed with me, entered into all my views, and submitted with facility, were my greatest enemies; because, by the facility of conquest they afforded, they encouraged me to go too far.” How happy would it be for the world if kings reflected upon this in time! In his exile, Napoleon seems to have solaced himself much with the idea that Marie Louise was still strongly attached to him, and he was repeatedly recurring to the mention of the King of Rome.

“I ventured, said Mr. O'Meara, upon another occasion, to express my surprise to Napoleon, that the Empress Marie Louise had not made some exertion in his behalf. 'I believe,' replied the Emperor, that Marie Louise is just as much a state prisoner as I am myself, except that more attention is paid to decorum in the restraints imposed upon her. I have always had occasion to praise the conduct of my good Louise, and I believe that it is totally out of her power to assist me; moreover, she is young and timorous. It was, perhaps, a misfortune to me, that I had not married a sister of the Emperor Alexander, as proposed to me by Alexander himself, at Erfurth. But there were inconveniences in that union, arising from her religion. I did not like to allow a Russian priest to be the confessor of my wife, as I considered that he would have been a spy in the Thuilleries for Alexander. It has been said, that my union with Marie Louise was made a stipulation in the treaty of peace with Austria, which is not true. I should have spurned the idea. It was first proposed by the Emperor Francis himself, and by Metternich to Narbonne.'

In presenting to the public these anticipations of a very interesting work, we have not felt ourselves called upon to exercise the office of a critic. Our object has been to give a general idea of the nature of the work, without engaging ourselves in political discussion.

FROM THE LONDON LITERARY GAZETTE.

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The Remains of Henry Kirke White, with an Account of his Life

By Robert Southey. Vol. iii. 8v0.-pp. 185. London, 1822.Longman & Co.

Though something in the way of More last Words of Richard Baxter, we doubt not but that this small volume will partake of the popularity of its precursors, and be widely read by the evangelical classes, to whose appetite it is addressed. Nor has the sympathy which hung like a dim halo round the dying head of this amiable youth, yet lost so much of its interest as to admit of aught of his being issued from the press without exciting a feeling more general in its behalf. The well written preface to the present publication will augment that feeling, and help these relics forward in the public estimation. In our own opinion the contents are hardly of sufficient weight for a separate volume; but we willingly in such a case surrender our critical judgment to the tastes of a multitude of readers with whom the productions of Kirke White are held in reverence, not merely as effusions of genius, but as emanations of an apostolic spirit, sublimed from earth to Heaven with a martyr's glory. The first'third of the volume before us consists of letters, which display the writer in the light of a very virtuous young man; but they are too immature to require comment as literary performances. The next division is of early poems, and in some of these the amatory and warm occupy the places afterwards held by the religious and enthusiastic. We cite two as examples:

SONGS.

Sweet Jessy! I would fain caress

That lovely cheek divine;
Sweet Jessy, I'd give worlds to press

That rising breast to mine.
Sweet Jessy, I with passion burn

Thy soft blue eyes to see;
Sweet Jessy, I would die to turn

Those melting eyes on me!
Yet Jessy, lovely as ***

Thy form and face appear,
I'd perish ere I would consent

To buy them with a tear.

Oh, that I were the fragrant flower that kissas

My Arabella's breast that heaves on high;
Pleased should I be to taste the transient blisses,

And on the melting throne to faint, and die.
Oh, that I were the robe that loosely covers

Her taper limbs, and Grecian form divine;
Or the untwisted zones, like meeting lovers,

That clasp her waist in many an aëry twine.
Oh, that my soul might take its lasting station

In her waved hair, her perfumed breath to sip:
Or catch, by chance, her blue eyes fascination!

Or meet, by stealth, her soft vermilion lip.
But chain'd to this dull being, I must ever

Lament the doom by which I'm hither placed;
Must pant for moments I must meet with never,

And dream of beauties I must never taste.

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The poems of a later date, which fill the next class, are curiously contrasted with these in matter; though it would not perhaps be difficult to trace a very intimate relationship between the glow of earthly loves and the fervour of divine hymns, which may be but different modifications of the same spirit. Be this as it may, we shall enable our readers by a quotation or two, to compare or contrast the thema for themselves:

In every clime, from Lapland to Japan,
This truth 's confest,-That man's worst foe is man.
The rav'ning tribes, that crowd the sultry zone,
Prey on all kinds and colours, but their own.
Lion with lion herds, and pard with pard,
Instinct's first law, their covenant and guard.
But man alone, the lord of ev'ry clime,
Whose post is godlike, and whose pow'rs sublime,
Man, at whose birth the Almighty hand stood still,
Pleas'd with the last great effort of his will;
Man, man alone, no tenant of the wood,
Preys on his kind, and laps his brother's blood;
His fellow leads where hidden pit-falls lie,
And drinks with ecstasy his dying sigh.

Poorlittle one! most bitterly did pain,
And life's worst ills, assail thine early age;
And, quickly tir'd with this rough pilgrimage,
Thy wearied spirit did its heaven regain.
Moaning, and sickly, on the lap of life
Thou laidst thine aching head, and thou didst sigh
A little whilė, ere to its kindred sky
Thy soul return'd, to taste no more of strife!
Thy lot was happy, little sojourner!
Thou had'st no mother to direct thy ways;
And fortune frown'd most darkly on thy days,
Short as they were. Now, far from the low stir
Of this dim spot, in heaven thou dost repose,
And look’st, and smil'st on this world's transient woes.

To December.
Dark visaged visiter, who comest here

Clad in thy mournful tunic, to repeat

(While glooms, and chilling rains enwrap thy feet)
The solemn requiem of the dying year,
Not undelightful to my listening ear

Sound thy dull show'rs, as, o'er my woodland seat,

Dismal, and drear, the leafless trees they beat :
Not undelightful, in their wild career,
Is the wild

music of thy howling blasts,
Sweeping the grove's long aisle, while sullen Time
Thy stormy mantle o'er his shoulder casts,

And, rock'd upon his throne, with chant sublime,
Joins the full-pealing dirge, and Winter weaves
Her dark sepulchral wreath of faded leaves.

An ode to Liberty is too direct an imitation to merit notice; and we are not inclined, by any thing which it offers, to discuss the fourth and last division of the book, which is devoted to prose compositions. These are essays on religious topics, most of them unfinished; and a fair estimate may be formed of the whole by one selection. Vol. I. No. 1.-Museum.

K

ON HUMAN LIFE.

We may with justice term this life a state of expectation. Thougla all human happiness be at best comparative only, it is made to consist more in anticipation than in actual enjoyment. The things we looked forward to with longing, become insipid in possession. Every new acquisition serves only to open new prospects, until the life of man languishes to its close, and the still unsatisfied eye turns to a state of future existence, and rests at length on objects exempt from human vicissitude. Sad as this representation may seem, it is yet the fairer side of the picture of our mortal affairs. There is something pleasing in the contemplation of successful exertion, however unsatisfactory its object, when attained; but even this source of pleasure is denied to a considerable portion of mankind, the numerous children of disappointment and misfortune, who only form schemes of happiness to see them frustrated, and build hopes but to lament over their untimely destruction.

The sanguine principle implanted in our bosoms by the wise Author of our being, is the joint source of our sweetest pleasures, and our most cruel woes. Disappointment treads swiftly on the heels of hope. We form projects, and see them blasted. Again from the ashes of the former arises

some new pursuit, which is again destroyed, and again renewed, in a perpetual series of annihilation, and reproduction, until the mind, like the long-used bow, loses its elasticity, and the eyes are at length opened when their late acquired clearness can no longer avail.

If the position be true, that our happiness consists rather in anticipation than in enjoyment, it is also true, that, with regard to earthly bliss, the man of obtuse faculties and sluggish disposition has infinite ly the advantage of the man of talents and exalted understanding. The one founds his plans in mediocrity and moderation; he follows his aim tardily, but with certainty. His probation is fortunately for him extended, and it is free alike from the anxiety of uncertainty, and the apprehension of danger. But the other grasps at worlds. He would wield the thunders of Jehovah, and direct the fate of the Universe; he aims at improbabilities, and he expends all his strength on a stroke; his expectations grow with his failures, until at length the bubble is dispelled, and he looks on the past as the uneasy tracings of a feverish dream.

Here, then, are the tables turned upon wisdom. The very philosopher, who surveys, as from an eminence, the deluded crowds who are pursuing the rainbow of promise beneath him, falls into the

very folly he affects to pity, and while he shakes his head at the vagaries of his poor fellow sojourners, turns to contemplate with flattering delight some visionary fabric of his own, ten thousand times more unsubstantial, as it is infinitely more refined.

FROM THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

WITS OUT OF PLACE. This branch of my theory is purely speculative, for it must be confessed, that I never found any wits out of place thoroughly consoled ; yet it seems to me, that in their circumstances, as in many others,