and, we will add, sublimity of his character, there was no language so gross-no falsehoods so flagrant-no subterfuge so mean-no trick so puerile and contemptible-which he would not condescend to employ for any and for every purpose: every page of his personal history affords proof of this, but none with such striking effect as this Voice from St. Helena.'

Our readers have seen that, in the very first days of Sir Hudson Lowe's acquaintance with him, he abandoned all decency of language, and gave way to the natural license of his tongue. It is truly astonishing, that the temper and self-command of Sir Hudson Lowe should have maintained themselves under such trials as O'Meara describes. No allegation is even whispered, that Sir Hudson ever lost, in their conferences, the respect which he owed to his prisoner and to himself; and when, in one or two instances, he appears to have expressed himself strongly to O'Meara, on the subject of some of Buonaparte's provocations, it was in the tone of honest indignation, against the most wanton and wilful calumnies-repeated and repeated, after they had been refuted and rerefuted.

In a visit of ceremony, one of the first Sir Hudson paid Buonaparte, and before any cause of offence had, or could have been given by the governor, and in a conversation about indifferent topics, Buonaparte, as he himself boasts to O'Meara, insulted Sir Hudson in the most wanton, and-we want a word-Buonapartian manner.

'It appears,' said he, that this governor was with Blucher,' (the fact is not so,) and is the writer of some official letters to your government descriptive of part of the operations of 1814. I pointed them out to him the last time I saw him, and asked him, " Est-ce rous, Monsieur?" He replied "Yes." I told him that they were "pieines de faussetés et de sottises, (full of falsehood and folly.) He shrugged up his shoulders, appeared confused, and replied-J'ai cru voir cela, (I wrote what I thought I saw.)"'-vol. i. p. 49.

In another interview between Buonaparte and Sir H. Lowe, on the 18th of August, 1816, Buonaparte himself says, that after a great deal of violent personal abuse against Sir Hudson, the governor contented himself with calmly observing that Buonaparte did not know him; that if he knew him he would change his opinion.'-vol. i. p. 93.

To this mild and conciliatory remark, Buonaparte replied with a torrent of scurrility, to which his own language only can do justice.

Know you, Sir!' I answered how should I know you?-people make themselves known by their actions, by commanding in battles ;you never commanded in battle! you have never commanded any but

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vagabond

vagabond Corsican deserters, Piedmontese and Neapolitan robbers. I know the name of every English general who has distinguished himself; but I never heard of you, except as a clerk to Blucher, or as a commandant of robbers; you have never commanded or been accustomed to men of honour? He said that he had not sought the employment. I answered-Such employments are not asked for, but were given by government to people who had dishonoured themselves. He said, that' he only did his duty, and that I ought not to blame him, as he acted only according to his orders. I replied, so does the hangman.'!-vol. i. p. 94.

In this strain Buonaparte boasts that he went on for a considerable time, concluding, at last, by calling the governor'sbirro Siciliano, a Sicilian thieftaker, and not an Englishman.' We do not believe that even Buonaparte could have been guilty of such infamous insults; but whatever was his violence, it is satisfactory to know that, with moderation, which nothing but a recollection of Buonaparte's situation could either have suggested or justified, Sir Hudson only replied, 'Vous êtes malhonnête, Monsieur-Sir, you are rude,' and left him abruptly.

The reader will ask, how it happens that O'Meara, whose object is to exalt Buonaparte, should have related all these conversations, which lower the character of the ex-emperor, while they exalt that of Sir Hudson, and contradict so many others of O'Meara's own narrations :-the reason is obvious, and most remarkable. Some of them he had already reported in writing, at others Rear Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm was present! and therefore the disgraceful fact could not be concealed. We could fill our Number with similar instances of outrage against the governor, but we presume our readers are already sufficiently convinced of the difficulties of Sir Hudson Lowe's position, and the trials to which the feelings and the temper of a British officer were thus exposed.

But it was not against Sir Hudson Lowe alone that Buonaparte directed his Billingsgate eloquence; to all mankind, with a half dozen exceptions, he is equally complimentary, and as long as Sir George Cockburn, Sir Hudson's predecessor, had the command, he was equally odious, and equally abused. O'Meara conveniently begins his journal with Sir Hudson Lowe's accession to the government, so that he is not obliged to detail all Buonaparte's slander of Sir George Cockburn; nay, it became their object to raise him, for the purpose of degrading his successor; but enough escapes to show, that if all had been reported, Sir George would not have fared better than Sir Hudson. "Napoleon said, "I believe the admiral (Sir George Cockburn) was rather ill treated the other day, when he came up with the new governor ;"

vernor;" I (O'Meara) replied, that the admiral conceived it an insult offered to him, and certainly felt greatly offended. Napoleon said, I shall never see him with pleasure; but he did not announce himself as being desirous of seeing me.'-vol. i. p. 29.

That is, Sir George had not gone through the ceremony which Buonaparte exacted, of asking, through the Grand Marshal of the pulace, an audience of leave from his Imperial Majesty. O'Meara, however, parried this grievance by observing, that

'Sir George wished to introduce officially to you the new governor, and thought that, in that capacity, it was not necessary to be previously announced.'-vol. i. p. 29.

Nor was it, ever if Buonaparte had been at the Tuileries for the interview had been previously arranged; but he replied, with his usual falsehood and violence :

'He should have sent me word, through Bertrand (the grand mar, shal) that he wanted to see me; but, continued he, he wanted to embroil me with the new governor; it is a pity that a man who has talents (for I believe him to be a very good officer in his own service) should have behaved in the manner he has done to me; it shows the greatest want of generosity to insult the unfortunate, and is a certain sign of an ignoble mind.'-vol. i. p. 30.

O'Meara represents that he attempted a defence of the admiral, but that Buonaparte resumed- In my misfortunes I sought an asylum, and I have found contempt, ill treatment, and insult.'i. 30. And then he proceeded to enumerate his grievances against Sir George Cockburn, which are too contemptible for detailed notice.

In another conversation O'Meara tells him that when emperor he had caused Sir George Cockburn's brother to be arrested, while envoy at Hambro', and conveyed to France, where he was detained for some years.-vol. i. p. 127.

'Now,' replied Buonaparte, 'I can comprehend the reason why your ministers selected HIM. A man of delicacy would not have accepted the task of conducting me here under similar circumstances.'-vol. i. p. 128.

Our readers will observe the unworthy insinuation that our ministers selected Sir Geo. Cockburn, because they thought he had some private enmities to revenge upon his prisoner; and that Sir George had the indelicacy to accept the office under such circumstances.-Now mark the fact-the envoy arrested at Humburgh was, as we recollect, Sir George Rumbold; and Mr. Cockburn, as any one may find in the Red Book, was not envoy there till after the retreat from Moscow: and thus fall to the ground at once the charge against the government and the base insinuation against Sir George Cockburn!

Next to Sir Hudson Lowe and Sir George Cockburn, the objects of Buonaparte's abhorrence are-as they ought to be—the Duke of Wellington and the late Marquis of Londonderry. With that truth and consistency which belong to his character, Buonaparte assures the assenting O'Meara, that Wellington is no general: that he is a man of no understanding, no generosity, no magnanimity (ii. 231.)-that he won the battle of Waterloo by accident, by destiny, or by folly (i. 174.):—that he ought to have been destroyed-that the plan of the battle will not reflect any credit on him in the eyes of the historian-that he committed nothing but faults-chose a miserable position-permitted himself to be surprized;-in short, that he had no talent, but only courage and obstinacy: and even something must be taken away from that; for it is to the courage of his troops, and not to his own conduct as a general,' that he is indebted for the victory (i. 463, 416.) All this silly stuff is tediously and elaborately spun out by O'Meara; but we shall content ourselves with only two observations on it:-If the Duke of Wellington was surprized at Waterloo, and if his plan was so foolish, and his position so ill chosen, what shall be said of those who suffered themselves to be beaten by such an incapable general; and beaten, too, in a way, and to an extent of rout, that never was before seen in a civilized army? We also beg to ask of these candid commentators, why are the duke's previous campaigns in Spain never once alluded to? if accident, or destiny, or folly, won Waterloo, what was it that conquered at Vimiera, Talavera, Oporto, Busaco, Torres Vedras, Salamanca, Fuentes d'Onor, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse? By what accident, destiny, or folly, was it that Wellington never was defeated? that, with a small corps on a remote coast, he began the liberation of the world, and pursued the glorious object, with cautious rapidity, through six years and an hundred battles, from the rocks of Roleia to the plain of St. Denis? We could descant with pleasure on this glorious theme; but contempt for the occasion restrains us.

Lord Londonderry was, we readily agree with Buonaparte, as great a fool in the cabinet, as the duke at the head of his army. It is really amusing to observe how differently Buonaparte treats those whom he defeated or over-reached, and those who defeated him, either in the field or in council. The best general of the Austrians,' says he, (i. 203.) is the Archduke Charles,'—whom he had beaten ;-but Prince Schwartzenberg'-who had beaten him, in the gigantic battle of Leipzig-was not fit to command 5,000 men.' (i. 203.) The Duke of Wellington, as we have just seen, has no one quality of a general; but Sir John Moore, the misfortunes of whose retreat Buonaparte loved to exaggerate,

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exaggerate, was a brave soldier, an excellent officer, and a man of talent.' (i. 55.) In the same spirit, he characterizes Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox :

Fox,' he said, 'knew the true interests of ENGLAND. He was received with a sort of triumph in every city in FRANCE through which he passed. It must have been a most gratifying sensation to him to be received in such a manner by a country which had been so long hostile to his own. Pitt would probably have been murdered.'-vol. ii. p. 121.

All this is very hard on the memory of poor Mr. Fox, and is, we dare say, as false as it is ridiculous; but if the fact of Mr. Fox's extreme popularity in France were true, we cannot subscribe to the ex-emperor's inferences: we doubt whether Scipio was very popular at Carthage; Regulus, we know, was murdered there; and we suspect that the opinions of the French populace on the true interests of England will not much disparage the fame of William Pitt.

With equal justice and magnanimity, Buonaparte never calls Lord Londonderry, to whose 'pertinacity' he attributes his downfall (ii. 83.) by any other names than blockhead' (i. 160. ii. 164.) dupe' (i. 395.) ' libeller? (i. 421.) ' LIAR' (i. 401. 420, ii. 88.) In the excess of his vulgar fury, he forgets that these endeavours to degrade his antagonists, tend, in fact, to degrade his own reputation; but when did he ever care for consistency or truth?

The proofs that he adduces of Lord Londonderry's imbecility and wickedness are almost comic. We select the following, which, from its being frequently repeated, seems to have been his cheval de bataille against the diplomatic reputation of the late secretary of state :

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"At the conclusion of the war your ministers," he said, "should have told the Spanish and Portugueze governments, we have saved your country-we alone have supported you, and prevented your falling into the power of France ;-(what! can the Devil speak true? )— we have shed our blood in your cause-we have expended many millions of money, and consequently the country is overburthened with debt which we must pay; you have no means of repaying us; our situation requires that we should liquidate our debt; we demand therefore that we shall be the only nation allowed to trade with South America for TWENTY YEARS-In this way we shall recompense ourselves without distressing you.'-vol. i. p. 261.

Admirable! No doubt Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Italy, and the United States, would have gladly concurred in giving England the exclusive monopoly of the great South American continent for twenty years!-The object would have been so just, the policy so clear, and the whole

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