Apophthegms of Napoleon.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

Perhaps I owe an apology for occupying an evening which might be devoted to a lecture of much more practical utility and sound instruction, with a topic which is one merely of literary recreation; which does not aspire to point a moral or establish a principle, and claims no merit beyond that which it may be entitled to, as a collection, and patient putting together of, the striking, aphoristic or bold fragments, that fell or flashed in colloquy, council-board, or battle-field, from the greatest genius that ever lived.

I am not aware that any attempt has been made to gather together the Apophthegms of the First Napoleon, or you should not have been troubled with my poor effort this evening. Possibly such a task has been already accomplished, but I have never met with, or heard of any work in which it has been done. Histories and memorials of him by hundreds exist; but as I said, I know of no collection of those short nervous sayings of his, many of which evince the sublimity of poetry or the point of epigram-at times as profound as though they fell from the lips of Plato, or as tersely sententious as though Cato were the speaker-supplying a key to a

whole character in a sentence-flashing a marvellous light on an abstruse point or a complicated question by a solitary phrase, or removing a difficulty with a brief dictum.

I have not the presumption to call your attention to the great outlines of him who though styled “the Little Corporal," was an intellectual giant: another eye must scan its collossal proportions; be it my business this evening merely to direct your attention to the marvellous workmanship of a part of the statue nearest to view. Many of you possibly have had an opportunity of visiting the column of the Place Vendôme, in Paris, constructed from the spoils of those victories which it is designed to commemorate. A series of bold reliefs, scrolled from the base to the capital, and fashioned from the cannon of the enemy, illustrate the triumphal fields of Rivoli and Marengo, Jena and Wagram, Austerlitz and Friedland; while the summit is crowned by the well-known form of the Chief of all these great combats, who, with folded arms, like a solitary and awful stylite, or the pillar hermit, looks from his lofty station towards that palace and those gardens once the abode and witnesses of his glory. Others have undertaken, and others will still undertake, the high task of describing the brilliant series of achievements delineated upon that proud column, and upon which the greatness of Napoleon, like his statue, rests; but be mine the less ambitious and more suitable task to loiter with the old veteran of the Empire, who below keeps the entrance of this proud column; and as he sells his garlands and

lithographs of him under whom he fought, recounts and recites to the visitor the memorable sayings and camp gossip of his great hero. He will repeat to you off-hand and from recollection many of the Apopthegms which I have attempted to search out for you this evening. Like the old column-keeper in the Place Vendôme, I too shall expect some gratuity at your hands; and let, I beseech you, that gratuity take the shape of your patient indulgence for the imperfections of a lecture, which other avocations pressing weekly and imperatively on me have left but scant leisure to compile.

It first accidentally occurred to me whilst conversing with a friend to make a selection of the phrases of Napoleon, merely for my own pleasure, thinking that I might find ample room for them on a sheet or two of paper; but when I came, for the purposes of this lecture, to gather the sentences together, as I find them scattered over his numerous memoirs, his proclamations, and the accounts of his campaigns, I found the collection much larger than could be included in the time ordinarily allotted to lectures of this kind; I therefore retained only those which appeared to me the most characteristic; though I am quite willing to believe in performing this task, I may possibly have omitted or overlooked some that possessed more force, originality, or fire than any I have cited.

From his St. Helena conversations I make few or no extracts; for though the voluminous accounts furnished by the companions of his exile, and the host of notes published by those who were favoured with an audience

or intruded themselves upon the presence of the fallen hero, supply many passages marked by the originality, profound sagacity, and muscular strength that ever distinguished all he said: still his St. Helena remains are rather elaborate conversations than apophthegmsretrospective reviews by himself of that marvellous life of strife and action, command and empire, in the collisions, councils and stormy passages of which were elicited from him those sudden, brief, picturesque, and almost magical expressions—thoughts, indeed, that breathed, and words that burned-snatches of inspiration that in the emergent moment shot like electricity through the hearers, worked like a spell on the rudest natures, or astonished the more thoughtful by the suddenness with which, like a touch of lightning, they solved and smote open in an instant, questions upon which politicians and reasoners had been vainly trying their talents for hours. Interesting as the spectacle of Napoleon seated by the summer-house of Briars, or under the porch of Longwood, dictating the commentaries of his wars, or vindicating or philosophising upon the acts of his rule, may be; for the purposes of my lecture I must follow him in his stirring career, and pick up those glittering fragments, scintillations that, like sparks from fire and steel, were struck in the tumult of the battle field, or broke from him without premeditation in these ever-changing but always remarkable circumstances and conjectures, through which his wonderful course lay. The forced repose of the chained eagle on his island rock was interesting enough; but