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try that never tired, an activity that kept all around him in a whirl, he attended himself to the details of these various works; while, at the same time, he was negotiating with princes and powers, fixing the boundaries of kingdoms, planning campaigns, and shaping out the destinies of two hundred millions of men!

Nor was this all: he was at the same time, day by day, month by month, fashioning the civil and criminal law of France; forming, in short, a code by which justice was to be administered throughout the land. Here, then, the soldier was closeted with lawyers, and here he was also the master. Every law, every paragraph was scanned by him, in these councils, and many of the best features of the "Code Napoleon," which is still the law of France, and an imperishable monument of the sagacity and wisdom. of its founder, were of his suggestion.

Perhaps the powers of Napoleon were in no way more clearly evinced, than in the ascendancy he gained over mankind. All who came into his presence, felt his superiority; marshals, generals, ministers, peers, princes. It was not his history alone which impressed those who were around him. When he was exiled to Elba, Ney, one of his most gallant officers and able generals, gave his adhesion to the Bourbons. When Napoleon came back, Ney determined to oppose him: but the moment he was in the presence of the emperor, his knee irresistibly bent in homage to the spirit that seemed to rule all destinies.

Never was a man's power over a nation more severely tested than when Napoleon came back, de

feated, from Russia. He returned to Paris, the bearer of his own story of misfortune. An army of almost half a million of men, sons, brothers, fathers, lovers— the chivalry of France, had perished in the snows of the north. There was hardly a family which had not now to mourn the loss of some near and dear friend. Millions of money, wrung from the people, had been lost; the banner of France had quailed; the conqueror was conquered; the once invincible emperor was a fugitive!

Here was a state of things to try the soul of a nation. How natural for sorrow to turn in anger against its author,-for disappointment to vent itself upon him who has occasioned it! Yet such was not the course of things now. Napoleon but stamped upon the earth, and thirty millions of people obeyed his call. There was no wavering,-no hesitation. Money, men, munitions, were lavished as if nothing had been lost-as if the country were inexhaustible; and in a few brief weeks, all that could be done by France, was done for Napoleon. There is no instance in history equal to this, as furnishing evidence of the sway which one man has acquired over the mind and heart of a populous and intelligent nation. It is a homage to the power, the mastery of Bonaparte, which is without a parallel.

Napoleon's reception on his return from Elba also evinces the ascendancy he had acquired over the hearts of the French people. And at a still later date, we have seen proofs that this ascendancy had not a slight foundation. Though Europe had risen in battle array, and banished him from the theatre of

his renown; though other kings had ruled over the nation; though a lone island was his grave, and his image had long been withdrawn from the sight, still, after a lapse of six and twenty years, his senseless form is borne back to France, and we see a nation in tears over his coffin! What legitimate prince was ever thus wept-what other man, public or private, has ever been honored with such a testimony to his dominion over the hearts of thirty-five millions of men?

But while we thus acknowledge the intellectual greatness of Napoleon, and ponder with admiration upon it as a spectacle of human capacity, calculated to exalt our views of man, we must still bestow the most emphatic condemnation upon his character and career. His aim was universal dominion, for no good or philanthropic purpose, but only to gratify the hungering and thirsting ambition of his soul. In attempting to realize this wicked dream, he sacrificed millions of human lives, and would, had it been required, have sacrificed half the human race. Nor was this reckless waste of happiness, this utter contempt of mankind,-their hopes, fortunes, feelings, pains, pleasures,—the only charge which we must lay to his account.

Universal dominion, at which Bonaparte aimed, involves a general prostration of the sense of rectitude in the hearts of men. Implying, as it does, universal despotism, it is a thing so wicked, so monstrous, that it cannot be, till the light of justice and truth is put out in the human bosom. Bonaparte, then, was warring, not against men's physical power alone, but

against the light of reason-the laws of justice written by the finger of God in men's hearts. England appears to have been the only European power that had not quailed before him. In that country there was a light that he could not extinguish; a fire that he could not quench; a power he could not subdue. It was the moral energy of England that finally crushed him. It was the good sense, the right feeling, the religious light which continued to nerve the arm, and guide the hand, and illuminate the soul of that nation, until, at last, roused by her spirit, all Europe was awake to the danger that threatened the world, and by one united but stupendous effort, it was averted.

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JOHN WOLFGANG VON GÖTHE, or Goethe, was born at Frankfort, on the Maine, August 28th, 1749. His father was a doctor of laws, and an imperial counsellor of high standing. He was a great admirer of pictures, and had a considerable collection, embracing many fine specimens. He early directed the attention of his son to these, pointed out their beauties and defects, and thus excited his interest in them. This

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