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      808 __ The Leape B-. [No. 438, August 14...

      808 __ THE LEAPE B-. [ No . 438 , August 14 , 185 s

      *Y.. 4 V 4^«^ Irltenijlu** ?

      irifmiitut - —*—

      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret aud try to enforce tleni . —Edinburgh Review . a '

      Napoleonic Books. Jlettres De Napoleon I...

      NAPOLEONIC BOOKS . JLettres de Napoleon I . Paris . ISAntichita dei Bonaparti . Di F . Stefano . Venice . ttistoire de Ulmperatrice Josephine . Par M . Joseph Aubenas . Paris . Towards the end of February was published the first volume of the Correspondence of Napoleon X . It is a goodly volume , large quarto , issued from the imperial printing-press with unequalled typographical magnificence , " regardless of cost ; " and , so far as printing , paper , and binding are concerned , the work will take high rank , among rare editions , in the libraries of bibliomaniacs , for it is a remarkable specimen of typography as a fine art . The Roxburgh Club will doubtless give it the place of honour m their collection . The very magnificence of the work , however , renders it a sealed book to the million . Accordingly , tlie present month is to witness its publication in a cheaper and more homely form for general circulation , in order that the earliest Napoleonic ideas may permeate the masses and take root in the popular mind . Whether such a result will be ultimatehr achieved is a question , which time alone can decide . Meanwhile , one thing is certain : the

      publication of the Correspondence and its quotation piecemeal in the Montieur have ruffled the national spirit in . Austria , and irritated the Austrian army , from the Emperor downwards , to a . degree quite unexpected and altogether unprecedented . If we are to credit the rumours in circulation , the revival , with so much pomp and in so significant a manner , of the opinions entertained by the victor qf Marengo of the Austrian Empire and its most illustrious servants , has been the cause of that coolness evinced by [ Francis-Joseph towards his imperial brother , which the learned Thebans of the Constittitionnel

      have endeavoured to resent in language as violent and discourteous as mav be found m the Italia del Topolo , and . whichwould fill Barclay's draymen with deligbt . The Correspondence has been edited by a commission appointed by the Emperor , and composed of Marshal Vaillant , Minister of War , president ; that versatile prohibitionist and modern Admirable Crichton , the Baion . Dupin ; General Aupick . ( since dead ); Count Boulay ( de la MeurtUe ) ; De Chabuer , Director-General of the Archives ; Count de Champagnjy ; M .. Chasserieu , Council of State ; Cucheval-Claiigny , Conservator of the Sainte - Genevieve

      Library ; General Count Flaliaut ; M . Armand Lefebvre , Councillor of State and Director at the Foreign Office ; M . P . Me ' rime ' e ; General Baron Pelet ; and M . Perron , chef de division in the Ministry of State . It is not likely that tlie result of this joint-stock editorship will falsify the old adage about " too many cooks , " as we shall presently see . The volume opens with a report from the Minister of State upon the " lofty importance of this publication , " winch is followed by a copy of the decree instituting the commission , and by the report of the latter to the Emperor . This report is intended , apparently , to serve as a preface .

      and it is to be regretted , perhaps , that the claims upon the space in the columns ot the 2 'imes will not ; admit of its translation in extenso , for it must henceforth be regarded as a model of dedicatory literature which leaves Grub-street fur behind . Whether it be mere fancy or not , one sees in the report , or dedication , traces of that fine roman hand wluch noted down the military , naval , and commercial ^ forces of Great Britain years ago , and vluch has praised and abused every system of government in turn . "The ruling passion conquers reason still . " Nevertheless a few quotations may be acceptable . The report commences in the following independent and grandiloquent strain : —

      Sire , Augustus placed Coesar in the number of tho gods , and dedicated a temple to liim , tho temple has disappeared , tho Commentaries havo remained . Your Majesty , wishing to rniao to tho chief of his dynasty an imperishable monument , lias orduined ns to collect and publish tho political , military , and administrative correspondence of tho Emperor Napoleon I . Your Majesty has comprehended that tho most brilliant homage to render to tliis incomparable genius was to make it altogether known . No ona id ignorant of his victories , the laws with which he endowed our country , the institutions that ho established and which have remained immovalle after so many revolutions ; his

      vlctbe continuity of JSapoleonac thought , the editorial commission pitches its notes in a loftier key : — But that which the reading of a correspondence so varied offers of the most surprising ( character ) , perhaps , is the power of that universal intelligence ¦ which nothing escaped , which in turn rose , without effort , to the most sublime conceptions , and descended with the same facility to the lowest details . Anon , soaring above the world , Napoleon traces thereon the limits of new states , sometimes his care is directed to the humblest hamlet of his

      empire ; his glance embraces questions in their entirety , plunges there in all directions , and penetrates their smallest parts . Nothing seems un-worthy his attention when it becomes a question of carrying out his designs , and it is not enough for him to give orders the most precise , he superintends the execution himself with indefatigable perseverance . The letters of Napoleon cannot add to his glory ; but they make his prodigious destiny the better understood , the prestige he exercised over his contemporaries , the worship of which his memory is the object , in fine , the irresistible impulse by which Prance has replaced his dynasty upon the summit of the edifice he had constructed . Of course the publication has not been undertaken from personal motives , nor yet to glorify tlie recorder of the reigning dynasty : —

      These letters affoTd , moreover , the most fruitful instruction . Thus is it in a vein of general utility that your Majesty has conceived the idea of a publication which , always serious and practical , is addressed to peoples as well as to governments , to military men and statesmen no less than to historians . From the work , those letters which relate to private life haye been omitted . It is not probable the omission will he felt to be a serious evil so much regretted , seeing tie curious and copious information supplied in the History of Josephine on this point . But the editorial commission , if it has exercised the right of rejection , has abstained from any alteration of the original text of the letters

      beyond correcting tlie orthography . The crude and harsh criticisms of Napoleon on his contemporaries are maintained , and it may be easily imagined how harassed and annoyed many must feel to find their fathers spoken of in such terms . Grammatical errors have been carefully preserved wider the dis guise of " slight incorrections of language , " for a reason which seems strange to come from Members of the Institut . These blunders " denote the impetuosity of the composition , and in many instances cannot be corrected without weakening the originality of an energetic style , going straight to tiic object , brief and precise , like the word of command . "

      The commission boasts of having examined upwards of ten thousand works published on Napoleon or his reign , and of having revised numerous documents from all parts of the world , among which are signalised letters to the sovereigns of ltussia , Austria , Uavaria , Sardinia , Sweden , Wurtemberg , and Hesse ; the collection , in forty-seven volumes of documents , relative to the campaigns of Italy and Egypt ; the correspondence with the Prince Eugene , and with the dignitaries of the Empire . The commission also examined 40 , 000 documents in the archives of tho Empire , 20 , 000 in the War Office , 2000 in the Foreign Office , 1500 in the Admiralty , and 1100 in tlie other offices of state and libraries , besides the columns of tlie Manileur .

      Tho first volume of the actual Correspondence of Napoleon I . opens with tlio siege of Toulon , m the year II ,, and comprises a portion of the Italian , campaigns , terminating with the defeat of Wurmser in tho year IV . It contains 1018 documents of varying interest , the major part of which have not been published before . Tho IVcnch people who have been accustomed to look upon the republican armies as composed of

      un-In 1 * i « i * tit i . • A . ¦* <• selfish patriots , will doubtless be surprised to learn that Napoleon did notnt allvlcAv them in that liglit . In the very first letter signed , by-thc-bv , "Buonaparte , " the young Commander of Artillery of the Army of the South , wrote to the Committee of Public Safety : I havo liad to contend with iguomnco and tho bnse passions it engenders , " and lie asked that a general mi ght be sent " who might , by his rank even , contribute to tho consideration and impose upon a

      ° ur ° fJg ! lOramU x Ses of . ^ staff with whom he ^ obliged always to capitulate and dogmatise tiV stroy tlicir prejudice—4 th Brumaire , year IT JnT C I ' ° Vh , ° n the C ^ aeerS ^ Sery oP the Army of Italy , General Bonaparte does not appear to have formed a more favourable opinion fa ¦ i , wrote to Camot , 27 th Germinal , vear IV finrifir 1796 ) , " The corps * f engineers and JS S lven . UP . . t ° most ndiculous gossiping j-th eJ never Hunk of the good of the service , but always the fimiVAnipnpp . nf lnHiin ^ nale « a .. j ,, *"« ja uie convenience ot individuals" And tlip frn

      . ™ that by mistake fired on and killed General LaK he qualifies as " cowards . "—General Orders 2 nS Floreal , year IV . ( May 9 , 1796 . ) The pilS , ! ££ Densities and peculiar characteristics of the Armv of Italy are the subject of constant comment . In a re port addressed to the Directory , 19 th Germinal veil IV ( April 18 , 1796 ) the Genial BonapSffl that he had found this army not only destitute of everything , but without discipline ; ' and in a per petual insubordination , " and he moreover stated what is not _ so generally known , that a DaiininV

      company had been formed in which royalist or counter-revolutionary songs were sung , and that he had sent before a council of war two officers accused of having cried Five le Roi . The 3 rd Flore ' al of the same jear ( April 22 , 1796 ) , the General issued an order of the day , in which , after expressing satisfaction at the bravery of the troops , he said , "But he ( tlie General Uonaparte ) sees with horror the frightful pillage to which perverse men cive them .

      selves up who rejoin their corps after battle to indulge in excesses the most dishonourable to the army and to the French name . " Instructions were issued "to arrest officers who , by their example , had authorised the pillage that bad then existed for tvro days , and moreover to slioot , according-to the nar ture of circumstances , officers and soldiers wlto , by their example , may have excited others to pillage . In a letter , to the Directory , 5 th Horealo . f the same year ( April 24 , 17 % ) , describing the battle of Moudoy j , it is stated : "The soldier without bread is guilty of excesses of furor which niakes one blush to be a man . The capture of Cera and Mondovi may give the means , and I am going to make some terrible examples . I will restore order or I mil

      cease to command these brigands" The republicans still affect to consider it an insult that this epithet should have been applied to their fathers by the royalists ; it is scarcely probable they will change opinion because the term was freely used by General Bonaparte . The generals commanding the Austrian Armj are certainly not flattered . Avgcnteau -was beaten a plate couture , and Beauleiu is represented as disconcerted , calculating badly , and constantly falling into the traps laid for him , possessing the audacity of fury but not of genius , while the Austrian Army is characterised by anecdotes which it may be presumed were intended for Buncomb , and which represent twelve soldiers ( roing down on

      their knees before one French carabineer who fell upon them sword in hand , and , like Marlborough ' s Irish soldier , surrounded tlioin . —Letter to the Executive Directory , 18 th Messidor , year IV . ( July 0 , 1790 ) . Of course the English fare no better . They arc represented , in a letter to Citizen Dupiii , 4 thNivose , year II . ( Dec . 24 , 1703 ) , as having retreated at Toulon with " such " unheaid-of precipitation" as to have left a great part of their tents and baggage in the hands of the republican army . And m a letter to Major lioiiclh , dated "Head-quarters , Castiglione , 2 nd Tlicrniidor , year IV . ' ( July 20 , 179 G ) , praising the endeavours to promote the union of Corsica to France , they arc held forth as " ces orfftteilleux Anglais " ( To he oontviucd . )

      *Y.. 4 V 4^«^ Irltenijlu**

      tones and reverses arc in all mouths ; History has related what he lias done , but she has -not always known liis designs ; she had not the secret of the many admirable combinations which fortune baffled , « f the many grand projects for the execution of -which time alone was -wanting . The traces of the thoughts of Napoleon were dispersed , it was necessary to unite and bring them to light . After dwelling with complacency upon the fact of having read over some thousands of letters , and expressing regret for the few breaks that occur in

      English Surnames. English Surnames, Ami ...

      ENGLISH SURNAMES . English Surnames , ami tfitir place in the . Teutonic Fnmihj . By Robert Ferguson . Routlcdgc nwl Co . Some apologue similar to the familiar story of Jft yes and no Ej / cs may probably be found in the literature of every nation . To tlio botanist ; tlie barren granite bears an interest in its scattered lichens : to the naturalist tho meanest insect has its history and associations . Every tiling , we suppose , lists ils special power to interest nnd instruct , could we but find the key to it . Mr , Verguson lias opened tlio last isauo of the . Post Office Londoit . . ' Directory , ami has found it—if not such a companion as an ordinary man would euro to sit under a h-ce with on ft sunny afternoon—at all events not n dry book . Its endless lists of streets , squares , and alleys , aii'j tnidcs , ami professions—its double , eloso-p / rintcA

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 14, 1858, page 808, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_14081858/page/16/