of a cruel disposition, he allowed nothing to stand between him and the accomplishment of his designs. To gain a battle he would sacrifice thousands of his fellow-men; to make himself master of Europe he literally waded through blood. A careful analysis of his character would exceed the limits of the present work. We would merely hint that Napoleon must be judged in the three principal and different parts which he played upon the stage,—the fortunate soldier, the powerful sovereign, and the disconsolate exile. In dark and stormy times he struggled into eminence; and, had he contented himself with quelling the factions that desolated his country, and in zealously seeking to reconstruct the shattered edifice of power, he would have been one of the greatest benefactors of his race. Ambition lured him to his ruin. The purple of France could not satisfy his aspiring soul: he must wear the iron crown of Italy; he must humble England, and bring Russia to his feet. The career of conquest upon which he em barked soon came to an end. His power was not built up upon sound and holy principles; its foundations were on the sand; and when the tempest burst upon it, its frailty became at once apparent. His own subjects grew tired of war which seemed interminable. The conquest of one country led only to the attack upon another, and thus France was at last everywhere assailed, without one firm and trustworthy ally. In his sudden fall and his dreary exile we behold the retribution awarded by "even-handed justice." Accustomed to command and intoxicated with success, he could not calmly endure adversity. And this suffering in some degree awakens the sympathy of posterity, and pleads, as it were, in extenuation of his numerous faults. In the melancholy captive of St. Helena we forget the arrogant despot, the violator of treaties, the murderer of D'Enghein, the shedder of seas of blood. We are constrained to acknowledge that even in this world the hand of Providence had dealt out bitter chastisement upon him. And this reminds us that Napoleon, without any real religious principles, always expressed a firm conviction in the existence of God. Very frequently indeed we find him giving utterance to this belief; indignantly demanding on one occasion how else the earth could have been created; and de NAPOLEON'S CHARACTER. 367 claring in almost his dying words," Thank God, I am at peace with all the world." But how can we reconcile his practice with these professions? His whole life appeared to be one continued denial of the divine government of the universe. With this confession upon his lips, he acted as though there was no authority above his own. In this lies one of the chief lessons of history: its teaching of the general inconsistency of men. In prince and in peasant— in the lowly as well as in the great-the same temperament prevails. The errors, the vices, the failings of others, are good angels speaking to our souls, when they remind us of our own imperfections. Napoleon ranks amongst the great conquerors of mankind. He carved out a sceptre by the sword, but he could not keep that which his right arm had won. His great military genius was overshadowed by his ambition; and his merits as a statesman are tarnished by a fatal insincerity. His fall was sudden, as his elevation had been almost unprecedented in its rapidity. So has it ever been with these mighty conquerors. Alexander died from over-indulgence in the zenith of his glory, Cæsar fell the victim of a conspiracy, and Napoleon, like an eagle encaged, fretted out the last six years of his life in captivity at St. Helena. Power is something that man cannot grasp with security. He who thirsts after it, and succeeds in obtaining it, eventually becomes its victim. Thus we behold Napoleon, once the dictator of Europe and the lord of kings, terminating his career as the lonely prisoner. Freedom, the birthright of all, the sacred treasure of which Bonaparte had despoiled millions of his fellow-men, became the desire of his life. The luxury he had denied to others was at length removed from his reach, and he did not possess the consolations either of philosophy or religion, to alleviate the affliction of his desolate and altered condition. He quaffed the cup in all its bitterness. The career of Napoleon Bonaparte was indeed an extraordinary one. In its strange vicissitudes it savours more of fiction than of reality. He emerged from poverty and obscurity to wield all but universal power, and died an unhappy exile. At the zenith of his fame he attracted the attention of mankind, and the world seemed scarcely large enough to satisfy his ambition. Had that ambition been restrained to prudence he might have worn the crown until his death. With his own hands he destroyed the fabric which he had raised by his indomitable energy and his unrivalled skill. Ambition has made many successful generals, but it never produced a powerful and illustrous monarch, whose rule was firm without being tyrannical, and the chief glories of whose sway were to be found in the happiness, advancement, and prosperity of his subjects. MACFARLANE'S LIFE OF WELLINGTON, ALLEN'S LIFE OF NELSON, MACFARLANE'S LIFE OF MARLBOROUGH. THE STORY OF CERVANTES. By AMELIA B. EDWARDS. OSLER'S LIFE OF EXMOUTH. ALLEN'S LIFE OF ADMIRAL DUNDONALD. RICHELIEU. By WILLIAM ROBSON. HEROES OF THE WORKSHOP. EXTRAORDINARY MEN. By W. RUSSELL. WASHINGTON IRVING'S LIFE OF MAHOMET. THE RED ROSE AND THE WHITE. VASCO DA GAMA. WELLINGTON'S VICTORIES. 跟 粥 14 粥 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS' Arbell. ROUTLEDGE'S HALF-CROWN JUVENILES. Fcap. and post 8vo, gilt. Eda Morton and her Cousins, by The Lucky Penny, and other Tales, by Minna Raymond. Illustrated by B. 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