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JULIUS CESAR.

LOUIS NAPOLEON has recently given the world the first volume of a Life of Julius Cæsar, the obvious design of which is to justify his own conduct in seizing the throne of France. The subject was well chosen for his purpose, but he should have published it in another man's name, for no one much regards what an accused person has to say in his own defence. It is better for a criminal to employ a skilful advocate than to plead his own cause. We must own, however, that there are points of resemblance both between Cæsar and the first Napoleon, and between Augustus, his successor, and Napoleon III.

Caius Julius Cæsar, born July 12th, one hundred years before Christ, owed his first popularity among the people of Rome to the fact that, though born to noble rank, he joined the party opposed to the ancient aristocracy. He courted the people by giving them gladiatorial shows and public banquets, in which he wasted his estate and involved himself in enormous debts. Advanced, at an early age, to public office, and holding a seat in the Senate, he employed his power and cast his vote on the popular side, and was held in great esteem by the people before he had dazzled them by victories in the field. Nature appeared not to have formed him for a warrior; for, in early life, he was slender and of weakly constitution, and seemed chiefly to desire distinction as an orator and political leader. Napoleon, also, was of so diminutive a figure, so pale, thin, and insignificant looking, that, one day, in presenting himself in uniform to the lady whom he was courting, she burst into the most immoderate laughter at the ludicrous contrast between his appearance and his martial costume. Napoleon, too, began his career as a

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radical republican, and served first in the armies of the Republic.

Cæsar was thirty-six years of age before he had commanded an army. His military career lasted eighteen years, during which he conquered part of Spain, the whole of France, a large portion of Germany, and made two incursions into Great Britain. As a general, he strikingly resembles Napoleon, especially in the astonishing rapidity of his movements, and in his tact in securing the confidence, the homage, the enthusiastic devotion of his troops. His tactics in war, and his policy after triumph, were precisely those of Napoleon. When, by swift marches, by skilful and unexpected concentrations of force, he had overwhelmed and paralyzed the enemy, and the conquered country lay before him despairing and utterly helpless, then he was accustomed to conquer anew by clemency, by offering peace on terms unexpectedly favorable, by heaping honors and bounties on the chiefs. There never was a greater general. After the closest study of the campaigns of both, we should be inclined to accord to Cæsar and Napoleon equal rank as soldiers, but for the fact that Napoleon was Cæsar's pupil. At college, Napoleon studied Cæsar's tactics, and in the field he applied them to modern circumstances, methods, and weapons. master in everything; but it is only a giant that giant's footsteps. Only a man of genius can be truly the pupil of a man of genius.

man.

Cæsar was his can tread in a

After more than ten years of conquest, Cæsar, the idol of his soldiers and of the Roman people, was still regarded with jealous hatred by the aristrocratic faction at Rome, the head of which was Pompey, a great soldier, but a weak, vain, ambitious This faction, at length, drove from the Senate and from the city Caesar's leading friends, who fled toward the camp of their chief. "The die is cast," exclaimed Cæsar. He led his veteran legions across the Rubicon, and made open war upon Pompey. Two short, swift, and masterly campaigns sufficed for the total destruction of his enemies, and Pompey himself was slain, and his head brought to Cæsar. The victor was as clement in this new triumph as he had been when warring against the Germans and the Gauls. The chiefs of the aristocratic party

were promptly pardoned, and many of them were placed in high commands. Brutus, who had served under Cæsar, and who had sided with Pompey, was one of those whom Cæsar forgave, and advanced to the governorship of a province. Of all the host who had been in arms against him, not one man was executed, nor the estate of one man confiscated, - the aim of the conqueror being to restore peace to his distracted country, that he might at once begin the execution of his still vaster designs.

Julius Cæsar, at the age of forty-seven, was master of the greater part of the Roman world. The ancient forms of republican government were carefully preserved; but not the less was the whole power of the state wielded by one man. He appeared to desire to use his power for the good of the country. He built temples, established new military posts, sent forth colonies, restored the cities injured in the civil wars, corrected the calendar, projected a survey of the empire, and a codification of the laws. But he was not satisfied with these peaceful conquests. He seemed, as Plutarch remarks, as jealous of his old renown as though that renown belonged to another man, and he burned for new triumphs, so dazzling that they should cast into the shade all his previous achievements. Aiming at nothing less than the subjection of the world to his imperial sway, he prepared to transport his legions to the remotest frontiers of the empire, and saw, in prospect, the whole earth under Roman laws and institutions, governed by Roman lieutenants, all owning allegiance to the central power-himself. This was Napoleon's error too. Napoleon appeared entirely great until he assumed the trivialities of the imperial dignity, and pretended to give away kingdoms. It is the error natural to men whose talents are immense, and whose souls are little.

In the plenitude of his power, Cæsar became haughty, irritable, harsh toward the nobles, impatient of contradiction, restless. He needlessly wounded the self-love of those who served him, an error he had never committed when he was climbing to the throne of the world, an error which truly great men never knowingly commit. In the midst of the execution of his gigantic schemes, a conspiracy was formed against him, which aimed at his life. Of the men engaged in it, all but Brutus

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