by no means fair), before they are called to the bar; and they will be advised as to the lectures of the University and the courts of justice they should attend in each year." The same advice is to be given to students of medicine. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered, that the students attending the University of Edinburgh ought to undergo examinations on the daily lectures they hear there. He and his brother Professors, therefore, will examine the members of the Academical Institution on the lectures delivered in the University. To do this rationally, it will not be amiss for the Principal and Professors of the Academical Institution to become students in the University, which will have a very pleasing effect on their character as teachers, and probably brush up any of their knowledge that may have become a little rusty. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered, that too little attention is paid in this University to the Veterinary Art; and accordingly an accomplished horse-doctor from London, with a regular diploma in his pocket from the Veterinary College there, is to be brought down to the assistance of the gentleman who, from eight to nine o'clock on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, is to lecture on the study of Chemistry. Our friend the horse-doctor is described pithily as "an experienced man, who has attended the classes of Dr Gregory, Dr Murray, and Dr Barclay." This gentleman's lectures we shall ourselves attend. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered, that medical students should have a proper and classical knowledge of the Latin language." To secure this, a member of the University of Oxford is to read aloud to them, twice a-week, Dr Gregory's "Conspectus," and compare its doctrines, in English, with those of Celsus and Heberden. By this means it is obvious that Latin will become as familiar to them as their mothertongue, and that they will speak it with greater purity than those less fortunate scholars who may have been corrupted by the patavinity of Livy. There is also a happy boldness in rescuing from oblivion Dr Gregory's work, which, though worthy of the first Latin scholar in Britain, had, it would seem, been seldom seen lately in the windows of our medical bookshops. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered, that good fat feeding is a principal object in the English Universities, and likely to be congenial with the tastes, though perhaps hitherto foreign to the habits, of the students of his Academical Institution. Accordingly, " each student will have access at all times to the commonroom, in which he will order his meals at the hours most convenient to himself, and at his own expense, from the kitchen of the Institution." This is an improvement, too, on the English system. There, a fixed hour for dinner brings all the students of a college into the hall at once, so that no one can eat his dinner in peace. But here, a hungry disciple of the horse-doctor may steal into a corner, and devour his meal with all the solitary enjoyment of Solomon himself. A dinner in the common-room of the Academical Institution will be like a countrydance in the George-street Assembly Rooms. As one couple retires, another will succeed to the sport; and there will be a ceaseless succession of down the middle, hands across, cast off corners, and reel. No species of knowledge sits well on an empty stomach; and we have only to hope and trust that a manciple and a cook will be found, in every way qualified for the responsible situation in which they will find themselves placed. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered, that, for the present, no place is so well adapted for the manifold but consistent purposes, moral, intellectual, and physical, of his Academical Institution, as Freemasons' Hall. That hall, dedicated to St Cecilia, is consecrated to the fine arts; and Music, we find, is to be lectured on (and, we presume, some good songs given by Mr Scott and the other Professors) for one hour every day. This hour is from three to four, when we ourselves always intend to dine; for nothing goes down so well with beef and greens as music, either vocal or instrumental. In Freemasons' Hall, too, much noble eloquence has ere now been heard, from masters and from grand-masters; for sure we are, that "Graios dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui." There too were held the meetings of the Forum, that school of oratory, where Jemmy Thomson, the bard of Kinleith, first" rolled his moral thunders o'er the soul," and where we recollect to have heard the "wee sticket minister" make his first great appearances. Such is an imperfect outline of the plan of William Scott's Academical Institution, from which the most important effects may be anticipated on the national character of the Scottish people. Should we have fallen into any mistakes, we hope to have them corrected by Mr Scott himself, whom we should be happy to reckon among our correspondents. We have not heard where the range of buildings is to be erected. We would recommend that part of the Mound generally set apart for the exhibition of wild beasts. The situation, we have understood from Mr Polito, is exceedingly healthy, only two apes and one bear having ever suffered any serious sickness during their stay there-a sickness which was entirely occasioned by the remissness of the manciple. Should this site, however, seem too much exposed, a very sheltered one may be found under the North Bridge, in all respects convenient for the principal purposes of the Institution, and where the records may be deposited. We are proud to find that our opinion of this great national Institution is sanctioned by the highest authorities. Of these, the most decided is that of my Lord Erskine, contained in the following letter to the founder of the Institution. Our readers will not fail to admire the delicacy with which his Lordship compresses into a postscript the only information which Mr Scott was desirous of obtaining, and the narrow escape which the letter has run of being written entirely about the Ex-Lord Chancellor of England. "I agree with Mr John Clerk, who is a great authority wherever he is known, and he is well known here, that the comparison you propose between the laws of England and of my native country must be obviously useful to both; and I cannot doubt your qualifications to render it eminently so, from your education, ability, and knowledge, and your indefatigable attention to every thing you undertake. "The authenticity of the speeches you so partially allude to in your letter, you will soon be one of the few judges of yourself; as those who heard them are every day falling into the grave, where I myself, before it lected together, and their publication sugis long, must follow them. They were colgested, by my excellent friend Robert Fergusson, who is now receiving the just recompence of his talents in India, not through favour, but by the independent exertion of them. "It has given me great satisfaction to find that all the five volumes have been they are in the hands of most of the Prorepublished in the United States, and that fessors and Students of Law in the different States of that Union, which I pray God may be as immortal as Washington. My reason for this satisfaction is, because, without any merit of mine, the occasion of many of the speeches ought never to be forgotten in countries that are free, and whose inhabitants resolve to continue so. Believe me to be, Dear Scott, ERSKINES William Scott, Esquire. "P. S. I approve also of the whole of the Prospectus which I received with your letter." We have only to add, in the words of Mr Scott, that "the plan of this Institution will be considerably extended, if it shall be found useful, the intention being to follow out the noble scheme recommended by Milton in his Tractate on Education ;" and that the Prospectus, with letters from Dr Barclay, Mr John Clerk, and Sir Samuel Romilly, may be had of Mr Laing, opposite the College. We have not heard how the lectures are going off; but we can speak highly of the dinners, the expense of which, with a tolerable dose of whisky toddy, is restricted to half-a-crown. Some students have, we hear, been detected in drinking the whole sum; but expulsion being threatened, which would probably have the effect of preventi them from entering any other institution of the sort, it is confidently hoped that there will be no recurrence of such enormities. We went to the first dinner ourselves incog. having ventured only to lay aside the veil. Not a soul suspected us of being Editor; and there seemed to be a very general wish entertained at table, that we should accept of the Professorship of Hebrew-to which, however, we give up all claim, as we understand it is to be bestowed on the author of the Chaldee MS. shion with the French nation. We have been led repeatedly to expect some great and authentic communication from the pen of Bonaparte himself, upon the historical events with which his name is connected; but the va rious publications which have as yet appeared, must be considered as the estafettes, trumpets, and avant-couriers, who succeed each other in order to keep our attention fixed on a quarter from which it might be otherwise diverted, and to announce to us the important intelligence, Monseigneur vient. There is another mode of considering the successive communications REMARKS ON GENERAL GOURGAUD's which we receive from this island, in ACCOUNT OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.* DEAN SWIFT Somewhere tells us of a characteristical piece of national vanity played off by Marechal Villars, when about to hold a personal interview with Marlborough or Prince Eugene. The general of the allies at tended at the place and hour appointed, but not so the Frenchman. The arrival of this dignitary was preceded by that of two or three small bodies of cavaliers belonging to his suite, each of which arrived successively upon the spur, shouting as they came, Monseigneur vient, Monseigneur vient. And it was only after the expectations of the English had been alternately excited and disappointed by several parties of these noisy heralds, with considerable intervals of time betwixt the arrival of each, that their eyes were at length gratified by the appearance of the great man himself. Our late communications with the island of St Helena have shewn, that this political mode of keeping up expectation is not altogether out of fa the various shapes of remonstrances, manuscript memoirs, and so forth, which, though less respectful than we could desire, may serve also to shew the purpose of those preliminary effusions-these light skirmishers, sent forth to precede the authentic publication which we are to expect from the Ex-Emperor himself. At Astley's, or any other entertainment where tumbling and similar feats of dexterity are a part of the show, the trick to be exhibited is repeated by several of the inferior members of the troop in succession, and it is not until the talents of his subalterns have been duly displayed, that the Great Devil himself comes forth to delight the astonished spectators, by performing the very same feat with still higher grace, strength, and agility. To speak without a metaphor, Bonaparte and his numerous partizans have evidently had recourse to the va rious brochures and memoirs of a demi-official character, which have appeared from time to time, less with any hope of making a serious impression on the public mind, by the various misrepresentations which they contain, than with that of keeping the attention of Europe fixed on the present condition of her late powerful oppressor, in hopes that the spectacle of his present restraint may obliterate the recollection of his former tyranny. For our own part, we cannot feel that this end has been attained by any of the publications to which we have alluded. The most deplorable, certainly, was the account given by his ex-marmiton, of the buttery and cellar at Longwood,--the comfort of an Emperor's breakfast rendered precarious, and made to depend on his cook being able to shoot a wild pigeon 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. "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 lead ing traits in the details which Bona parte 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 unin-, telligible 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, |