BUONAPARTE BECOME SHOPKEEPER. 59 the accomplishment of two objects in one action, that he kills two birds with one stone;" and in this science it is that Buonaparte appears to be peculiarly dexterous. At first, being a military man, he had only soldiers under his command; and, when he turned Shopkeeper, he must have been somewhat in difficulty for proper persons to employ in his service in the new line, as soldiers are not easily converted into retail bucksters. But even this has been done by a curious amalgamation; and we now see, in the service of Napoleon, creatures of the most wonderful anomaly, and a villanous compound between War and Trade. War is their trade, and their trade is a war. He has his armies of custom-house officers, buccaneering for wealth and plunder; his mercantile agents and Douaniers are trading armies, seeking the same ends by means with only a shade of difference. The inkhorn is suspended from the same belt from which hangs the cartouche-box; the pistol and the pen are slung together. We have cordons of troops, and cordons of Douaniers; posts military and commercial; seizures by the soldiery, and seizures by the civil power; contribution and confiscation; bankruptcy and bayonets tend to the same object; and decrees or regulations, and general or regimental orders, are, in point of effect, absolutely similar. A commission in the coast army is, in fact, a license to trade; and a license to trade is a military commission in every place of commerce. What with agents of the one description, and agents of the other, this new Shopkeeper has contrived to get all the Colonial Produce of the Continent into his own hands. He will sell it for his own emolument, and invent new stratagems to obtain more goods under false pretences. The this Swindler thinks to rival the fair trade of Britain; but surely the wisdom of our forefathers shall not now be discovered to be folly, and the present generation be doomed to see it proved, that honesty is not the best policy.No! we shall not be condemned to witness roguery completely and ultimately successful, though practised on the highest scale. Even though the great Emperor be turned a swindler, a smuggler, a monopolist, a forestaller, and a regrater, he shall not succeed in his nefarious practices. Tardy Justice will at length overtake him; and the crimes that would draw destruction on a lowly head, shall not escape vengeance on the Crown of a Sovereign! This new occupation of Buonaparte must, after all, form a singular contrast with that occupation which is gone-Trade! trade! his whole soul is now bent on trade! and we no longer hear of the warlike Chief leading his armies to glory and to victory. The laurels of Buzaco and of Talavera are left for other minions of Fortune to reap, while her higher favourite has converted the saddle of the war-horse into a covering for his writing-stool-his tent into a counting-roomhis columns of troops into columns of figures-his sword into a grey-goose quill-his Marshal's truncheon into a convenient rule, with which and with his iron stile he draws the lines in his book instead of lines in the field, and may thence be said still to rule with a rod of iron! No longer does he peruse with anxiety the returns of the slain and the list of the wounded: his cares are centred in the returns of the market-prices, and the lists of bankruptcies, dividends, and supersedeasesHe does not inquire the number of prisoners taken, and the prisons where confined; but the number of seizures and the depôts-Conscription has given way to confiscation-He who should have been studious to learn how Lord Wellington contrived to smuggle Portuguese troops in English uniforms into the battle of Buzaco, is employed in sorting pepper and all-spice, and THE DOWNFALL OF MINISTERS. 61 and making new tariffs, when he ought to be practising tare and tret at the head of his army. No thought is now engaged on the transportation of artillery and ammunition-the cartage of tea and sugar is a more agreeable speculation: the trade in human flesh and blood has been superseded by the trade in treacle and molasses; and the highest ambition of the Conqueror seems to be, to become the Carrier of Europe! IN THE DOWNFALL OF MINISTERS. [From the same, Nov. 5.] When beggars die, there are no comets seen. Nall ages of the world the human race have put more or less faith in omens; and though, in our times-times, it may be asserted, of presumption and scepticism-we do not go to the same extent of belief in portents and prognostications that the ancients did, who divined by the flight of crows, and augured from the guts of calves; yet, on a reference to that most authentic source of prediction, Moore's Almanack, and an attentive examination of the mysteries of fortune-telling, as practised by itinerant gypsies in the country, and settled conjurors in the metropolis, we must be ready to confess, that the Fates do, even to this day, sometimes give little hints and intimations beforehand of what they are about.-Many of these indications of what is to come to pass doubtless escape our observation; as it is not upon every occasion that Scotsmen and Edinburgh Reviewers (who are the only mortals acknowledged to be legitimately possessed of the second sight) are inclined to exercise their facul- . ties, and enlighten the darkling world. But some are so very obvious, that every man who runs may read, and they require merely to be noticed to be understood. Of Of this description is the direful prognostic which portends the calamity under the head of which these observations are written. On a dismal night of the last week of the wintry month of October, and on a dreary blasted heath, were the two Chief Ministers of the Britith Empire overthrown.-O! where are thy lachrymals, Britannia?-but pails will do !— then weep them full-empty them, and fill them again with thy tears, while it is told unto thee, that thy Lord Chancellor, and thy Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury (two great offices in one little person), were, upon Hounslow Heath, on their return from Regal Windsor, tumbled from their carriage, and thrown into the mud !-O! where were thy guardian angels when this shocking catastrophe took place?-They must surely have been busy on some other spot, and looking after the safety of some other persons; else never could they have suf fered thy chiefest ornaments and most mighty directors to be so unceremoniously filthified and bedraggled! But what was the accident in itself to the fearful forebodings with which, as an omen, it must fill every breast! The coachman's reins falling from his trembling hands the wheels of the vehicle stoppinghow like the wheels of an Administration standing still! The springs breaking-how like the failure of the Cumberland springs on which the state machine is hung! The pole snapping-how like the (Wellesley) Pole giving way! The whole overturning!-how like a complete smash and Downfall of Ministers!-No wonder that the shock struck their appalled senses with dismay and terror; and that they should, like Balteshazzar of old, apply to every probable source to have the sign explained, and their fears either confirmed or dispelled. In this dilemma, there being now no Daniels, or Soothsayers, or Magicians; and, indeed, THE DOWNFALL OF MINISTERS. 63 indeed, very few Wisemen or Conjurors, to whom they could have recourse; they were fain to consult with the Cunning Men, and therefore immediately called a Cabinet Council. Eut hence, after much witchcraft, sorcery, and incantation, they were obliged to depart as ignorant as when they entered the mystic chamber; for they found that the more they stirred in the mysterious caldron, they were the more in Double, double, toil and trouble! Compelled, therefore, to wait the natural issue and result of the affairs foretold by the Hounslow Heath prodigy, with spirits sunk and countenances woe-begone, they abide the same in fearful expectation. Well do they know that no magic arts can now avail them; well do they know that they can raise no spell so deep, nor utter any invocation so potent, (no, not even the cry of "No Popery!") as to turn the course of events; for it is now evident, that the Destinies have fixed the end; and what the Destinies declare, no human power, however great, may possibly avert. Leaving then the will of Heaven to be done, as we do with resignation, we briefly proceed to notice some of the terrestrial circumstances flowing from that overthrow. No sooner did the forlorn Premier, and the Head of the Law, find themselves safely snd softly lodged in the mud, than they exchanged mutual congratulations, on having so well escaped from their elevated situation; and the former, being tinctured with religious sentiments, expressed a wish (for which the Archbishop of Canterbury is not much indebted to him!) that the Head of the Church had been with them, in order to have returned thanks to Providence for their great preservation: yet his Grace will not participate in that wish, and no doubt rejoices in the thought that the elevation of the pulpit is not liable to |