were beaten easily, and never allowed themselves a chance. It required many campaigns, and a long experience of the constancy of England, before the nations of the Continent woke up to a conviction, that a vast combined effort, with overwhelming numbers, could alone break down the colossal power their own errors had assisted to amalgamate. Even after the resources of their great enemy were exhausted, they allowed him to terrify them by the shadow of his reputation, and had more than once almost submitted to his name. It proved so at Chatillon, in 1814, when the advance on Paris was suspended, and terms were offered, which, fortunately for the peace of Europe, were rejected, in the presumption of a momentary

success.

It has been computed that in the wars of Cæsar and Napoleon, six millions of their fellow-creatures were sacrificed to the Moloch of personal ambition. A fearful agglomerate of crime, and a tremendous responsibility. When we think of the misery entailed on the existing generations, reflection sickens at the name of glory, and pronounces such military renown a Satanic delusion. The laurelled diadem is too much clotted with gore to be an enviable ornament. The warrior who fights to preserve his country from invasion and to secure her independence, is compounded of more refined materials ("the precious porcelain of the human clay ") than the despot who seeks only to raise himself above his fellow man, and deals with human life as so many steps in the ladder of his own advancement.

But

so long as the constitution of the world is framed as it is at present, there will continue to be "wars, and rumours of wars," and the history of battles will be invested with an absorbing interest; whatever may be the influence of religion, the advance of civilisation, or the efficacy of peace congresses. Even unmilitary readers wish to understand, and have explained to them, the skil ful combinations by which great results are obtained, and to follow the track of the commanding genius, which, like the destroying angel in Addison's panegyric on Marlborough, at Blenheim :"Rides in the whilrwind, and directs the storm."

The insatiable temperament of Napoleon, and his belief that he was a man of destiny, led him to Moscow, from

Cæsar,

whence his fall may be dated. with equal desire of self-aggrandisement, had more collected prudence. Napoleon, when he entered on the Russian campaign, violated all his own military maxims. He left the Spanish war in full operation in his rear, and suffered both his flanks to be uncovered, by the defalcation of Sweden and the peace of Russia with the Turks. Cæsar, on the other hand, did not cross the Adriatic to settle affairs with Pompey, after he had driven him from Italy, until he first extinguished the revolt in Spain, and entirely dissipated all danger from that direction. Napoleon on every occasion found an apology for the actions of Cæsar, and was fond of instituting a comparison between himself and the illustrious Roman. Both having first risen into notice by victories over the enemies of the republic, ended the struggles for power between conflicting parties, by reducing all under their own absolute dominion. In the events of their lives, as in personal character, there were many points of resemblance, and others diametrically opposed. In the parallels of Plutarch, he places in relief the opposite qualities of his selected heroes, as minutely as those in which he traced coincidence. In the resources of war, in the application of new principles, the irresistible weight of attack, the power of concentrating a superior force on a given point, and in the rapidity of following up an advantage, the abili ties of Cæsar and Napoleon were equal and similar. As generals they stand in the same line, unless it may be conceded that the French Emperor was more original in his conceptions, and more grandly comprehensive in his plans of carrying them out. He built himself on Frederic the Great and other renowned warriors of recent history, whose examples, as they existed not for the instruction of Cæsar, the Roman was unable to apply in support of his own genius. Modern warfare, too, is a more complicated science than it was amongst the ancients, and the result of battles since the invention of artillery depends more on the skill of the general, and less on the individual prowess of the common soldier. Cæsar was more careful of his men, and as he generally fought with inferior numbers, the lives of his veterans were too valuable to be rashly imperilled. Napoleon had no thought of loss if the sacrifice attained his ob

In

ject. He even sometimes dispensed with hospitals, discontinued the luxury and impediment of tents, and was termed by Moreau, a conqueror at the rate of ten thousand men a day. The sarcasm was as just as it was bitter, and the system removed many obstacles by which a less impassable spirit (to use his own expression) would have been checked or foiled. "Il me faut des hommes impassables" was one of his constant admonitions in directing the affairs of Spain. By this he meant men that would carry out his views without scruple of conscience, or any interfering weakness in the guise of ordinary feeling. A laxity of discipline after conquest, and indulgence in indiscriminate plun der and spoliation, was thus introduced, which degraded the character of the soldier, and almost reduced him to the level of a bandit. Cæsar and Napoleon possessed equally the rare talent of attaching their troops by personal affection. Under their command, men looked to victory as certain, and followed them with a devoted love which amounted to fascination. legislative acquirements, it is difficult to assign a palm of superiority to either. In oratory and scientific knowledge, Cæsar stood above the modern at a great elevation. Napoleon uttered pithy sentences on the eve of battle, but his speeches were all artificial, theatrical, and got up for effect. What in the former was natural eloquence, in the latter was studied charlatanerie. Cæsar was, perhaps, on the whole, the most merciful and forgiving conqueror that ever lived. His natural generosity of mind, and clemency of temper, made him superior to personal enmity or private jealousies. He conquered to command, and pardoned without fear of consequences. Lord Bacon qualifies this generosity, and says "it was an affectation of popularity. For nothing," he observes, "is more popular than to forgive our enemies." Napoleon, although not habitually ferocious, suffered passion sometimes to supersede his reason, and gave way to ebullitions of temper to which Cæsar never yielded. The French Emperor considered it a weakness in the character of his favourite hero, that he suffered his enemies to retain the power to injure him. The

physician, Antommarchi, who reports the observation, admitted that when he looked on the person before him, he could not but acknowledge that he was unlikely to fall into such an error. Yet Cæsar sometimes became cruel, and almost treacherous. He put to death many eminent officers whom he had taken after the battle of Thapsus (perhaps he already repented the leniency of Pharsalia), and violating his recent peace with the Germans, massacred in one day three hundred thousand men. Napoleon's execution of the Duke d'Enghein was an act of unprovoked barbarity, a deliberate murder, which no sophistry can palliate, and from the odium and responsibility of which, no special pleading can deliver his memory. But on one point of comparison he stands high above the Roman. In the austere propriety, the stoical regularity of his early life. At thirty-one he had made himself absolute master of France, from a subaltern officer of artillery. Up to thirty-five, Cæsar was only known by his turbulence, his debaucheries, and his extravagant waste. Napoleon was ever methodical, careful, and calculating, in matters of finance. Cæsar lavished millions, without caring whence they proceeded or how they were bestowed. As an author, the palm must be awarded to the Roman. Napoleon's memoirs and maxims, dictated to his companions in exile at St. Helena, are not to be compared to Cæsar's commentaries, composed by his own hand, amidst the abstraction and turmoil of his campaigns, and comprising a perfect specimen of military annals. Cæsar was never defeated in a pitched battle, or foiled in the result of a campaign. The glory of Napoleon was qualified by several reverses, and the battles he lost were at least as remarkable, though not so numerous, as those he gained. Cæsar always acknowledged his errors, and laid them freely to the account of his own imprudence. Napoleon, by his own statement, was never in the wrong. In his successes, fortune had no share; in his defeats, he was destitute of blame. They either arose from the fury of the elements, the combination of impossible circumstances, the incapacity of his deputies, or the obstinate blundering of his op

ponents, who forced themselves into success by dint of sheer stupidity. Both Napoleon and Cæsar were subject to fits of epilepsy and constitutional disease. Cæsar was attacked at the conmencement of Thapsus, and only recovered when his troops were giving way, and just in time to secure the victory. Napoleon, at Borodino, was prostrated by illness; for the first time in his life he refused to follow up a dearly-won advantage, and lost the opportunity of converting the repulse of the Russians into a total rout. Cæsar rendered ample justice to the valour and skill of his enemies. Napoleon allowed little merit to any but himself and his own soldiers. The opposing generals he complimented by the title of " perruques," and their armies as "canaille." If the charge was just, he had the less merit in beating them. With all his brilliant genius, he possessed a little mind, while that of Cæsar was lofty and expanded. If the Roman equally despised his fellow-men in his heart, he treated them with external deference. The French Emperor used them as his implements, and openly avowed his contempt. Both were haughty, intolerant of an equal, conscious of their own superior powers, and confident in fortune. But Cæsar, though a proud, was not a vain man, wrapped up entirely in the contemplation of his own greatness; while Napoleon presented a living type of egotism. Neither had any claim to the virtue of humility, while both were unacquainted with the vice of avarice. The mind of Cæsar was open and ingenuous. That of Napoleon so warped and moulded by habitual dissimulation, that deceit superseded nature, and he became at last regardless and insensible of the value of truth. In their private lives, Napoleon was less reproachable than Cæsar. Both were amiable in their domestic relations, liberal to their friends, and attached to their relations and servants. There was more in the composition of Cæsar to love than in that of Napoleon. The Roman was more constitutionally affable, warmer in heart, and more considerate in feeling; less habitually selfish, and less variable in temper. Napoleon was cold and reserved, even more so in youth than in maturity, and little disposed to yield.

himself up to any predominant sentiment-ambition always excepted in both, of which they were bigoted worshippers after a different form of faith. But Cæsar, for many years, indulged in gross sensuality, to which Napoleon never surrendered himself. Napoleon had his occasional intrigues, but they interfered not with his policy, were either unknown or disregarded by his wives, were never ostentatiously obtruded, and sank into nothing when compared with the public shameless. ness and licentious expenses of the Bourbon kings. Cæsar to the end of his life, was dissolute in this particular, and influenced by female ascen dancy. Even after Pharsalia, he forgot his glory, squandered away valuable time, engaged in the dangerous Alexandrian war, and jeopardized his power for the smiles of Cleopatra, and a share in her liberally-bestowed favours.

In religious conviction, Cæsar and Napoleon appear to have been nearly on a par. Both were confirmed unbelievers, approaching to atheists. Cæsar discredited the gods of his own country, but he substituted, in their place, no distinct comprehension of one supreme intelligence, no conviction of the immortality of the soul, as did Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, and Tacitus. His attendance on the ceremonial worship was nothing more than an outward submission to es

tablished prejudices. On the night previous to his murder, when supping with Marcus Lepidus, a question arose as to what kind of death was preferable. Cæsar answered, before all, a "sudden one ;" in this he referred to the shortening of physical pain, and not to any belief in a future state, or that time was desirable to prepare for the important change. Again, when in Gaul, he had, by his astronomical proficiency, calculated an eclipse, and told the people he would obscure their deity, the sun, by stretching forth his hand at an appointed hour; he turned religious superstition into a stroke of policy, and thus converted the spectators from the barbarous sacrifices of the Druids to the milder form of Greek and Roman paganism. So it was with Napoleon at different epochs of his caIn the commencement of the Revolution, he chimed in with the po

reer.

pular creed, that everything was governed by chance. In Egypt he avowed himself a convert to the doctrines of Islam; but when he became ruler of France, he restored the old faith and formula, not from conviction, but expediency, well knowing there never was a state government without a religion, and that a pliable priesthood would always prove a potent auxiliary. "The people," said he, "must have an established form of faith. I will negotiate with the Pope. They will say that I have turned Papist, that I am a renegade, like Henri Quatre ; but I am no such thing. I was a Mahomedan in Egypt; I will be a Catholic here, for the good of the people. I do not believe in forms of religion, but in the existence of a God." Again, when dying in great physical suffering at St. Helena, he said to the Abbé Vignali, who was present to assist him with the offices of the Church"I am neither a philosopher nor a physician. I believe in God, and am of the religion of my father. It is not every body who can be an atheist. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of the Catholic Church, and receive the assistance which it administers." It is evident he had never, until the last moment, thought seriously on the subject. If he placed one foot timidly on the threshold of the temple, he never entered boldly to investigate the interior, and unveil the sacred truths therein contained. Cæsar, in ordinary conversation, was always dignified and impressive, laconic in style and refined in thought. Napoleon sometimes could speak like a demigod, but at others he was abusive and contradictory, and degenerated into a very commonplace gossip. He said of himself, "Je suis grand bavard"-I am an incorrigible babbler who cannot keep a secret.Napoleon filled France with monuments, sculptures, paintings, roads, bridges, churches, architectural and agricultural improvements, and left her a code of laws of inestimable value. Cæsar had no interval from his

wars, and no time was granted to him to cultivate the arts of peace. He lived not to experience the fickleness of fortune, or to be hurled from his lofty elevation. He perished in his "pride of place," in the full enjoyment of his power, in the midst of vast schemes for the future-some wise and salutary, but the greater part ambitious and despotic. Napoleon, on the contrary, was displaced from the height he had won, condemned to drain the uttermost dregs of adversity, and to linger out life in six years of hopeless and degrading exile. He still further embittered his own fate by querulous complaints and undignified impatience, by resentment of petty neglects, and by unworthy notice of trivial and even unintentional offences. We recognise the beauty, but cannot apply the justice of the poet's lines, who says

"Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide,
With that un taught, innate philosophy,
Which be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.

When the whole host of hatred stood hard by

To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled

With a sedate and all-enduring eye:

When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him pil'd."‡

In the conduct of Napoleon at St. Helena, under most trying and painful circumstances, we endeavour in vain to trace the proud submission to inevitable fate, the systematic command of temper, and the superiority to subordinate evils which the often-quoted passage implies. In a combined summary of the qualities of Cæsar and Napoleon, we may apply the opening passage of the parallel appended to Plutarch's "Lives of Alexander and Cæsar:"-" These two warriors stand so high above all others in reputation, that it is difficult to compare them, and still more difficult to determine which of them deserves the preference. With some very marked features of resemblance, they are still more sensibly distinguished by the differences in their characters, the motives of their enterprises, their modes of warfare, their enemies, their exploits, their po

VOL. XLI.NO. CCXLII.

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litical conduct, and the deaths which closed their tumultuary lives."*

As connected with the last scene in the lives of these two most remarkable men, there are yet point swhich should not be forgotten. Of the twenty-three conspirators against Cæsar, none died natural deaths. All perished by violent means; and several committed suicide with the very weapons they had used to slay the Dictator. Is this intended to supply a commentary on the deed, or is it to be received as an accidental retribution? A comet appeared, which tempted the ignorant into a belief, that the fiery visitant came as a messenger of evil. So on the day preceding Napoleon's dissolution (as in the case of Cromwell), a furious tempest of wind and rain arose, which devastated the land, tore up the trees, and seemed to indicate that the elements were cognizant of the departure of a mighty spirit for final judgment. It may appear to

some readers that we have dealt harshly with the memory of Napoleon -that we estimate him too much as an individual, subject to ordinary rules, rather than as a monarch, exposed to, and combating with, very extraordinary temptations. To balance arguments, we wind up with the passage which closes his life, by the author of "Waverley." We are called upon to observe," says the great Magician of the North, that Napoleon Buonaparte was a man tried in the two extremities of the most exalted power, and the most ineffable calamity; and if he occasionally appeared presumptuous, when supported by the armed force of half a world, or unreasonably querulous, when imprisoned within the narrow limits of Saint Helena-it is scarcely within the capacity of those whose steps have never led them beyond the middle paths of life, to estimate either the strength of the temptations to which he yielded, or the frame of mind he opposed to those he I was able to resist." None will deny to Sir Walter Scott the power of just reflection, and vigour of thought and reasoning, however they may be disposed to question his value as an historical authority. The "Life of Napoleon" has been damaged by the pungent sarcasm of General Gorgaud,

who called it, "Sir Walter's last new novel;" by his own admission, that he preferred popular report to official records; and by the easy credulity with which he listened to the fabrications of La Coste, as to the campaign of Waterloo. But let it be remembered, that his narrative is far more agreeable and interesting, and contains considerably fewer mistakes, than the subsequent works of various writers who have loudly impeached his accuracy, and endeavoured to throw discredit on his details.

was,

The condensed epitome of Cæsar's character, as drawn by Lord Bacon, may, in many respects, be applied to Napoleon. If we allow him to share it equally, we give him the benefit of the doubt, and lean to the side of mercy, as the judge expounds the law in all criminal cases. "Cæsar," says the philosophic ex-Chancellor, " without dispute, a man of a great and noble soul, though rather bent upon procuring his own private advantage than good to the public, for he referred all things to himself, and was the truest centre of his own actions. Whence flowed his great and continued felicity and success;-for neither his country nor religion-neither good offices, relations, nor friends - could check or moderate his designs. It is true, he endeavoured after fame and reputation, as he judged they might be of service to his views; but certainly, in his heart, he rather aimed at power than dignity, and courted reputation and honours only as they were instruments of power and grandeur; so that he was led, not by any laudable course of discipline, but by a kind of natural impulse to the sovereignty, which he rather affected to seize than appeared to deserve."

Few questions have been more discussed, more strenuously argued, or more defended and opposed, than the two following:

1. Was the death of Cæsar necessary, or justifiable?

2. Was the imprisonment of Napoleon, at Saint Helena, morally correct, and called for by the circumstances of the case?

The first question may be more readily disposed of than the second. What may appear right to heathen