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barism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant.

Such, sir, is the natural progress of human operations, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride.

47. CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.-Phillips.

He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind, bold, independent, and decisive a will, despotic in its dictates-an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character-the most extraordinary, perhaps, that in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life, in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledge no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed in the list where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny.He knew no motive but interest-he acknowledged no criterion but success he worshiped no God but ambition, and with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross: the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic: and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed catholic, he imprisoned the pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars! Through this pantomime of policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory-his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny

ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his councils; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the character of his mind—if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field.—Nature had no obstacle that he did not surmountspace no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity! The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplaces in his contemplation; kings were his people-nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were titular dignitaries of the chess-board !—Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant.

It mattered little whether in the field or in the drawing-room -with the mob or the levee-wearing the jacobin bonnet or the iron crown-banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg -dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsig-he was still the same military despot!

In this wonderful combination, his affectations of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he affected the patronage of letters-the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy-the persecutor of authors and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning! the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Staël, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character.-A royalist—a republican and an emperor—a Mohammedan—a catholic and a patron of the synagogue—a subaltern and a sovereign-a traitor and a tyrant-a Christian and an infidel-he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original-the same mysterious, incomprehensible self-the man without a model, and without a shadow.

48. TO THE JURY IN THE CASE OF J. A. WILLIAMS FOR a libel ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM.-Brougham.

66

The Church of England has nothing to dread from external violence. Built upon a rock, and lifting its head towards another world, it aspires to an imperishable existence, and defies any force that may rage from without. But let its friends beware of the corruption engendered within and beneath its massive walls, and in that corruption let all its well-wishers, all who, whether for religious or for political interests, desire its stability, beware how they give encouragement to the vermin bred in that corruption, and who stick and sting against the hand that would brush the rottenness away! My learned friend sympathizes with the priesthood of Durham; and innocently enough laments that they possess not the power of defending themselves through the public press. Let him be consoled; they are not so very defenseless; they are not so entirely destitute of the aids of the press, as through their council they affect to be. They have largely used that press, I wish I could say as not abusing it"-and against some persons very near me, I mean especially against the defendant, whom they have scurrilously and foully libeled, through that very vehicle of public instruction, over which, for the first time, among the other novelties of the day, I now hear they have no command. Not, indeed, that they have wounded deeply, or injured much, but that is no fault of theirs-and, without hurting, they have given annoyance. The insect nestled in filth, and brought into life by corruption-I mean the dirt-fly, though its flight be lowly, and its sting puny, can buzz and storm, and irritate the skin, and offend the nostril, and altogether give nearly as much annoyance as the wasp, whom it aspires to emulate. So these reverend slanderers-these pious backbiters-devoid of force to wield the sword, snatch the dagger; and destitute of wit to point or to barb it, and make it rankle in the wound, steep it in venom to make it fester in the scratch. Those venerated personages, whose harmless and undefended state is now deplored, have been the wholesale dealers in calumny-the especial promoters of that vile traffick of late the disgrace of the country and now they come to demand protection against retaliation, and shelter from just exposure; and, to screen themselves, would have you prohibit all investigation of the abuses by which they exist, and the malpractice by which they disgrace their calling. If all existing institutions and all public functionaries must henceforth be sacred from question amon

ance it leaves; pious the example it testifies; pure, precious, and imperishable, the hope which it inspires! Can you conceive a more atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor this inestimable benefit-to rob society of its charm, and solitude of its solace; not only to outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the gate of infamy and of shame! I conceive few crimes beyond it. He who plunders my property takes from me that which can be repaired by time: but what period can repair a ruined reputation? He who maims my person affects that which medicine may remedy: but what herb has sovereignty over the wound of slander? He who ridicules my poverty or reproaches my profession, upbraids me with that which industry may retrieve, and integrity may purify: but what riches shall redeem the bankrupt fame? What power shall blanch the sullied snow of character? Can there be an injury more deadly? Can there be a crime more cruel? It is without remedy-it is without antidote—it is without evasion! The reptile calumny is ever on the watch. From the fascination of its eye no activity can escape; from the venom of its fang no sanity can recover. has no enjoyment but crime; it has no prey but virtue; it has no interval from the restlessness of its malice, save when, blasted with its victims, it grovels to disgorge them at the withered shrine where envy idolizes her own infirmities. Under such a visitation how dreadful would be the destiny of the virtuous and the good, if the providence of our constitution had not given you the power, as, I trust, you will have the principle, to bruise the head of the serpent, and crush and crumble the altar of its idolatry!

It

43 LIMITATION OF THE AMOUNT OF PENSIONS.-Curran

I am surprised that gentlemen have taken up such a foolish opinion, as that our constitution is maintained by its different component parts mutually checking and controlling each other: they seem to think with Hobbes, that a state of nature is a state of warfare; and that, like Mohammed's coffin, the constitution is suspended between the attraction of different powers. My friends seem to think that the crown should be restrained from

doing wrong by a physical necessity; forgetting, that if you take away from a man all power to do wrong, you at the same time take away from him all merit of doing right, and by making impossible for men to run into slavery, you enslave them most

effectually. But if, instead of the three different parts of our constitution drawing forcibly in right lines, at opposite directions, they were to unite their power, and draw all one way, in one right line, how great would be the effect of their force, how happy the direction of this union! The present system is not only contrary to mathematical rectitude, but to public harmony; but if instead of privilege setting up his back to oppose prerogative, he was to saddle his back and invite prerogative to ride, how comfortably might they both jog along; and therefore it delights me to hear the advocates for the royal bounty's flowing freely, and spontaneously, and abundantly, as Holywell in Wales. If the crown grants double the amount of the revenue in pensions, they approve of their royal master, for he is the breath of their nostrils.

But we shall find that this complaisance, this gentleness between the crown and its true servants, is not confined at home; it extends its influence to foreign powers. Our merchants have been insulted in Portugal, our commerce interdicted;—what did the British lion do? Did he whet his tusks? Did he bristle up and shake his mane? Did he roar? no; no such thing— the gentle creature wagged his tail for six years at the court of Lisbon, and now we hear from the delphic oracle on the treasury bench, that he is wagging his tail in London to Chevalier Pinto; who, he hopes soon to be able to tell us, will allow his lady to entertain him as a lap-dog; and when she does, no doubt the British factories will furnish some of their softest woolens to make a cushion for him to lie upon. But though the gentle beast had continued so long fawning and crouching, I believe his vengeance will be as great as it is slow, and that posterity, whose ancestors are yet unborn, will be surprised at the vengeance he will take.

This polyglot of wealth, this museum of curiosities, the pension list, embraces every link in the human chain, every description of men, women, and children, from the exalted excellence of a Hawke, or a Rodney, to the debased situation of a lady who lombleth herself that she may be exalted. But the lesson it inculcates forms its greatest perfection; it teacheth, that sloth and vice may eat that bread which virtue and honesty may starve for, after they have earned it. It teaches the idle and dissolute to look up for that support which they are too proud to stoop and earn. It directs the minds of men to an entire reliance on the ruling power of the state, who feeds the ravens of the royal aviary that cry continually for food. It teaches them to imitate those saints on the pension list, that are like the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin,

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