cook being able to shoot a wild pigeon -the limited allowance of wine-and the plague of rats, unmatched, save in the interlude of Whittington and his Cat, where a brother Emperor of Monomotopa joins with his vizier and courtiers in the melancholy chorus, "We nor breakfast, dine, nor sup; Ratties come and eat all up. Chinka chinka ching, &c." We do not wish to insult fallen greatness, even when the fall is deserved; but if men will forge idle and unworthy tales of hardships which do not exist, they must submit to the ridicule which attends detected falsehoods of a character so pitiful. The Manuscrit de Sainte Helene was of a grander character. The cook, faithful to his mystery, talked of culinary affairs chiefly; but the author of the Manuscript dealt in high matters, and professed, as in the person of the Ex-Emperor himself, to explain the guiding principles upon which he had acted in the plenitude of his power. The character of his cloudy, ambiguous, and oracular eloquence, was so well imitated in this singular prolusion, that it is said the late Madame de Staël exclaimed, after perusing it, that either there were two Napoleons, or the book was composed by that very Napoleon Bonaparte, with whose style and turn of thinking she had long been familiar. And yet the slightest attention to facts, and to the date of these facts, served to satisfy every one, that the Manuscript was either an entire forgery, or one of those experiments upon public credulity which it was judged convenient to make, in order to ascertain what degree of imposition the European public was like to endure. As there is good reason to believe that the Manuscript actually came from Saint Helena, it is probable that the latter was the object in view. If so, the deception was too gross; for what faith could be placed in a narrative imputed to Napoleon, which placed the battle of Jena after those of Preussich-Eylau and Friedland? Thus misplacing, in point of time, Bonaparte's two most important campaigns. The present Teutamen (for we still regard these publications as experimental) bears a graver and more authentic character than the former. The name of a well-known individual, General Gourgaud-the same whose oft-repeated eulogium upon his own sabre and his own feats of war wore out the patience even of Mr Wardenis in some sort a guarantee against the very gross impositions of the Manuscrit de Sainte Helene. Such, accordingly, are not attempted; and the work, as we have heard, has been recognised by a distinguished officer now in this country, formerly in the service of Napoleon, as furnishing, so far as the details relating to the French army are concerned, a very accurate account of what it professes to treat of. The preface declares, that the book is composed in consequence of communications from Bonaparte personally; and on our own part, we must acknowledge our conviction, that the whole of this pamphlet has undergone his revisal, and received his imprimatur. We do not found this opinion on the style, which is clear and distinct, and in no respect resembles the inflated and ambiguous diction in which the Ex-Emperor delighted, and which Madame de Staël thought she recognised in the Manuscrit de Sainte Helene. If we are to believe that any part of these pages proceeded directly from the once imperial pen, we must suppose exile and misfortune have had the effect which Horace ascribes to them in similar cases. 66 Telephus et Peleus, quum pauper et exul uterque, Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.”* Of contorted imitations of Tacitus, we find nothing in these memoranda, and as little of the Ossianic bombast. The resemblance of the "Relation" to a bulletin of Bonaparte, consists not in the style, but in the substance. The report of the piece is not attended with the usual noise or smoke-the gunpowder is of a different manufacturebut the bullet is of the same metal and calibre. There were several leading traits in the details which Bonaparte published, whether of victory or defeat, and they may be all distinctly traced in the present publication. It will, in the first place, be observed, that the Ex-emperor dealt much in what may be called the Chiaro-oscuro of narration. Such truths as he thought fit to communicate, no one could tell with more distinct accuracy. Nay, he often dwelt with fastidious minuteness upon a favourite topic, as * When Peleus, Telephus, as exiles roam, Each leaves high style and ten-tail'd words at home. if to compensate for the gaps and imperfections in other parts of his narration, on which he felt it less agreeable, or deemed it less politic, to be explicit, or even intelligible. This mode of writing can be traced in all his bulletins, but has been so admirably exposed by Sir Robert Wilson, in his account of the Russian campaign, as to make it unnecessary for us to enlarge upon it. It was a system of strong lights and deep shadows, in which particular incidents were brilliantly illustrated, and exaggerated, while other points, equally essential to completing the narration, were passed over in total silence, or touched in language so ambiguous and so brief, as to be totally unintelligible. It is said by Hume, that Cromwell's speeches, if collected, would make the most nonsensical book ever written; and it may be added, that Bonaparte's bulletins would make the most unintelligible history-not surely but what Cromwell could have spoken sense, and did so when it suited his purpose, as Bonaparte could describe clearly, truly, and concisely, upon similar occasions. But to bewilder, or, in the French phrase, to mistify the attentive world, was so often the object of both these remarkable men, that it seems to have become a habit, or perhaps an amusement, even when it was not a point of state policy. It was a natural consequence of the mode of writing, perhaps of thinking, which he had adopted, that Bonaparte carefully excluded from his official reports any thing resembling that generous praise which the valour of an adversary, whether vanquished or victorious, so frequently extorts from the liberality of a manly enemy. He was so far from experiencing this liberal and heroic movement, that through the whole of his campaigns, you can distinguish which of the opposite Generals gave him most trouble by the slights, reproaches, and insults thrown upon him in the French official accounts, which were always either drawn up or carefully corrected by the Emperor himself. In the campaign of 1814, for example, when Bonaparte found his plans thwarted by the activity and pertinacity of Blucher, passages of his bulletins were so regularly dedicated to depreciate the military talents of the Prussian veteran, that we, in England, began to discover when (to use a vulgar phrase) the shoe pinched, and were prepared to expect good news by our own despatches, from the peevish humour evinced in those of the enemy. In this particular, General Gourgaud is true to the model of his commander, and from one end of the book to the other, never gives you to understand that the French army, during the campaign of 1815, had to engage with an enemy of common valour, far less that Napoleon encountered, during that memorable period, a general of ordinary talents. This feature, in Bonaparte's character, corresponded with the petty, vindictive, and splenetic temper which he manifested towards individuals, whom, for shame, if not generosity, he ought to have favoured; and both, as they have lowered him in the estimation of the present generation, will, notwithstanding his high achievements, prevent his hereafter taking rank among the great of past ages. He will long be distinguished as one of the few individuals who have done great actions without thinking, feeling, or acting with dignity or magnanimity. It is in conformity with this petty mode of feeling and writing, that each word is studiously eradicated from General Gourgaud's narrative, tending to imply, even by inference, that either military talent, skill, valour, or virtue, were exerted, unless on the side of the French. We have looked carefully for some slight intimation-not of acknowledged merit, that were too much to expect-but of something like acquiescence in the ordinary received opinions concerning the talents of Wellington, and the character of his army-and we have looked in vain. We did not expect that either General Gourgaud or General Bonaparte would have spoken of their enemy with the proud and high-spirited candour of the barbarian, who, in the height of his revengeful fury, forgets not that to do less than justice to his conqueror was to degrade himself Great let me call him-for he conquered me But there is a pitch of feeling, or rather of tact, far short of the generosity of Zanga, which might have taught either of these persons, that he who shuns to acknowledge merit, generally and universally known, and still more, he who endea vours by all modes, however indirect, to degrade and undervalue the character of those whose actions have spoken for themselves, imitates but the spleen of the idiot who spits against the wind, and the disgusting marks of whose malice are returned on his own visage. Such must be the feeling of every reader, when he reads the petty insinuations by which Gourgaud or his master attempts to undermine the fame of Wellington. Several of these we shall notice in the subsequent part of this review; but it would be difficult for us to keep a moment's silence upon the wonderful discovery that it was to the errors, not to the skill, of Welling ton, that Napoleon owed his defeat. "According to the generally received rules of war," we are informed, "that the choice of the field of battle at Waterloo, in front of a forest, and of a great town, after Blucher had been de feated, was a circumstance which might have had the most fatal results for the English army and the whole coalition." He ought, it seems, to have fallen back, and effected a junction with Blucher a day's march to the rear of Waterloo (where, by the way, there is not the semblance of a position), and he would thus have concentrated his forces with those of Prussia. Even then, it seems the opinion of General Gourgaud, that the British and Prussian Generals should have avoided an action until the Russians and Austrians were upon the Meuse. That Wellington thought, and found himself competent, to destroy Bonaparte's army instead of running away from it, was, it seems, "a blundering into success," according to the phrase applied to the present ministry; and if he triumphed over Napoleon, it was only as Yorick triumphed over Eugenius-like a fool. The Duke, it seems, won the game, precisely because he did not know how to play it; and Bonaparte lost it as a great fencer may be foiled by the raw-boned clown who beats down his guard by brute force. Comfortable reflections these for an Ex-Imperial General to add zest to his segar or cup of coffee-and much good may they do those who can swallow them. Much is, of course, said of the extreme bravery of the French soldiers -not a word of the steadiness of those by whom it was opposed, foiled, and rendered nugatory. On this point we cannot help sus- pecting there have been elisions in the manuscript, and that the vindictive Italian may have struck out branches of some sentences which the better taste of the vain-glorious but polite Frenchman had inserted. Here, for example, is a passage which seems truncated and mutilated. General Gourgaud, in estimating the comparative strength of the army under Bonaparte, and that under Wellington, says, that the former was inferior in number (a point we shall examine hereafter), but superior in the quality of troops, Les solduts Belges et Alle mands ne valaient pas les soldats Français. It would, we conceive, have been natural to complete the parallel with some phrase equivalent to "whatever might be thought of the British." But on this point the General does not hazard an opinion, unless by the following sweeping conclusion deduced from the incidents of the campaign. P. 106-" Never have the French troops more perfectly shown their superiority over all the troops in Europe, than during this short campaign, where they have been so constantly outnumbered." Over ALL the troops of Europe!! But be it so; if their pretended superiority be always demonstrated in the same manner, we cheerfully make them welcome to every Te Deum which they may chant upon similar occasions. It is necessary in military narratives, as well as elsewhere, that causes should be assigned for events; and as it was the rule of Bonaparte neither to allow talent in the generals by whom he was defeated, or valour in their troops, or the possibility of error in his own plans, the occasion of his misfortune was to be imputed to some other cause. It was his custom to divide this inevitable load of censure between his generals and the blind goddess Fortune; and his bulletins afford many instances in which both are overloaded by the proportion allotted to them. In the campaign of 1814, indisputably that in which Bonaparte displayed greatest talent as a general, he was often obliged to assign to his, marechals the discharge of points of duty for which he could only appropriate very disproportioned forces; being under the constant necessity of keeping under his own immediate command the most effective 2 F part of his army, for the execution of the masterly military manoeuvres by which he so long retarded his fall. It was a necessary consequence, that the generals to whom the subordinate departments of the campaign were assigned, were often baffled or overpowered by the superior forces to which they were opposed. On such unwilling failures the ruthless bulletin had no mercy; nor did the remembrance of past services, or the pressure of circumstances, or the inadequacy of the means committed to them, alleviate the censure of the Emperor. It was this circumstance which greatly alienated the affections of his principal generals, who thought they perceived in it an attempt to save his own reputation at the expense of theirs, and to assume the principal merit of success, while he loaded them with all the disgrace attaching itself to failure. This propensity to throw blame upon the subordinate agents of Bonaparte's will, and executors of his orders, pervades every page of Gourgaud's Relation, of which the following instances will satisfy the reader. piric. At first it works wonders which are attested in every newspaper; when it has been some time in use, unfavourable cases occur; and when five or six people have died of the prescription, the patients, as Dr Last himself was obliged to complain, become timorous and unwilling to take the doses. Moscow, and Leipsic, and Montmartre-Busaco, Salamanca, Vittoria, and many other dispiriting recollections, sate heavy on the souls of the generals who had witnessed those fatal scenes; and while the recollection seems neither to have deprived them of the skill or inclination to discharge their duty, it probably made them anxious, in so dangerous a game, to abide by his instructions, on whose account they played it, and to whom the great stake belonged. Nor must it escape us, that the French generals were well aware at what risk they were to display the brilliant audacity and enterprise which these reflections appear to have demanded from them, and how heavy a responsibility was imposed upon them in case of their zeal leading It is remarked, p. 57, that although them too far beyond the strict letter of the French soldiery shewed, in the their orders. And we will hereafter campaign of 1815, the same confidence see, that Ney, who is chiefly censured and bravery which they had so often as having lost the energy of his early displayed during their most brilliant days, is afterwards blamed still more actions, several of the generals, even severely for having of his own motion Ney himself, were no longer the same occasioned the loss of the battle of men. They had no longer that ener-Waterloo, by precipitating an attack of gy and brilliant audacity which they cavalry. had so often displayed upon other occasions, and which had so much share in achieving great victories. They were become timid and circumspect in their operations, and their personal bravery was the only kind of courage which remained to them. They seemed contending who should commit himself the least." We have little doubt that this may have been the case-that the ignorant soldiery, confiding on the stars, the fortunes, and the name of the Emperor, were animated to their usual pitch of enthusiasm; while the generals, who measured with a more experienced eye the comparative strength and skill by which Bonaparte was now opposed, should have executed his orders with less confidence of a favourable result than in his former enterprises. The tactics of Bonaparte resembled, in some degree, the perilous nostrum of some dashing em Besides this sweeping charge, that the French Generals under Bonaparte did not in this campaign do their utmost to enforce and carry through his plans, distinct errors are imputed to one or two of them by name. Upon the 15th July, Vandamme, it is said, arrived at Charleroi four hours later than he ought to have done, which is described as un funeste contretemps.”– Again, upon the juncture of the corps of Vandamme with that of Grouchy at Gilly, it is stated, that these generals, deceived by false intelligence, remained stationary, instead of attacking a small part of the Prussian army under Zeithen, which they had mistaken for Blucher's main body. And Grouchy is elsewhere censured (with more apparent reason), for not moving to his left, and placing himself in communication with Bonaparte, instead of remaining with his division at Wavre during the whole of the 18th. This is a subject which we afterwards propose to enter upon more specifically. These, and other charges against Vandamme and Grouchy, are made with moderation, and under qualifying circumstances of excuse and of commendation. Upon two individuals, the unmitigated censure of Gourgaud, and as we suppose, of Bonaparte, descends in full stream. These are, Joachim Murat and Michael Ney. By a singular coincidence they are both no more- -the safer subjects, therefore, to be converted into convenient scapegoats. The dead can neither vindicate themselves, nor retort upon others; and the blame which, if imputed to them, Grouchy or Vandamme might have flung back in the face of their censor, may be securely piled on the bloody graves of Ney and of Murat. Of Murat, it is said in a note, p. 20, that the bad politics of that unhappy prince had the chief share in the first and second overthrow of Napoleon. "If, in 1814, he had not abandoned the cause of France for that of Austria, France would not have been invaded. And if, in 1815, he had not declared war against Austria, France would not probably have a second time undergone foreign subjugation. The Emperor of Austria, seeing his son-in-law again seated upon the throne of France, seemed disposed to enter into a treaty with him, when, upon the attack of Murat, which, he imagined, was the result of a plan concerted with Napoleon, he broke off the negotiation, observing, "How is it possible that I can treat with Napoleon, while he is causing me to be attacked in Italy by Murat." Unfortunate Murat, whose opposition or cooperation was equally fatal to thy brother-in-law ! Since thy namesake, Murat the Unlucky, there was never, it seems, a more devoted victim to misfortune. Yet if a voice could have been heard to reply from the low and nameless tomb on the shores of Calabria, it might have pleaded, that if the Neapolitan forces could have executed a diversion formidable enough to have prevented the invasion of France in 1814, there seems no reason why they should have been less formidable in 1815-it might have told the subject of that continued, though concealed correspondence betwixt Elba and Naples, which preceded the landing of Bonaparte, and the expedition of Mu rat.-It might have mentioned where, and in whose presence, the busts of these two illustrious adventurers were crowned with laurel, as hopeful associates in the same joint adventure. It might-But our present concern is with military events, and not with politics,-with Ney, rather than with Murat. It is the unfortunate Ney to whom the fatal errors of the action at Quatre Bras are ascribed, with the necessary inference, that had he conducted himself as he ought to have done, that battle must have been won, and the defeat of Waterloo prevented. The general censure of this unfortunate soldier, once termed by Bonaparte the bravest of the brave, occurs in more than one passage of the relation. "It seemed that the recollection of his (Ney's) conduct in 1814, and afterwards in March 1815, had occasioned a total confusion of mind, (bouleversement moral) which affected all his actions. Besides, the Marechal, in actual combat the bravest of the brave, frequently was deceived in the operations of the campaign."-p. 41, Note. In another passage, the same imputation is again cast on the memory of this unhappy man. "Marechal Ney, perhaps in consequence of his moral situation, had fallen into an aberration of mind, from which he only recovered in the midst of the fire, when natural and constitutional bravery surmounted those feelings, and restored him the use of his faculties. One of the faults with which the Emperor reproaches himself, is the having employed that Marechal, or at least having given him so important a command."-p. 95. We will hardly be suspected of paying much respect to the memory of Ney: But Suum cuique is our Roman justice. While he lived, he was undeniably the bravest soldier and generally accounted the best general of the French service for the petite guerre, in which cavalry and light infantry are employed. In his death he paid the debt of his treason; and nothing can be now more disgusting than the hypocritical malignity which assigns to him an alienation of mind, and gravely imputes it to remorse occasioned by those very crimes in which Bonaparte and his minions had involved him. It is true that Ney was accessible to the |