1 POETRY: The Old Book-keeper, 514. Priestly Thanks to Napoleon, 514. LIFE AND LABORS OF FRANCIS WAYLAND, D.D., LL.D., late Pres- MRS. PUTNAM'S RECEIPT BOOK, AND YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER'S KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND; OR, THE LINE OF THE ILLUSTRATED ANNUAL OF PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY. Preparing for Publication at this Office — THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. By the author of "Heir of Redclyffe.' THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of "Nina Balatka." THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By Mr. Trollope. Just Published at this Office THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu. 50 cents. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay ommission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second The Complete work 20 66 50 "" Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PRIESTLY THANKS TO NAPOLEON, thou claimest the French throne to fill, By both the divine grace and popular will. The will of the people set thee on that throne; Thou rulest, the vulgar suppose, by thine own. They deem thee a Jove that hath only to nod, And be, by all nations, obeyed as a god. For what if at naught thee JUAREZ hath set, And BISMARCK hath braved thee ?- the end is not yet. Thou bidest thy time-hast employment at home, Society's saviour, defender of Rome! Thou liftest thy finger-enough is the show- For guarding the crown of our Pontiff and How generous, how noble espousing our cause, Whilst we and our Chief curse thy maxims and laws. Denounce and condemn, with one heart, soul, and voice, What gave thee thy sceptre - the people's free choice! We hate French philosophers all that they teach And French civil marriage, French licence of speech. And France's religious equality, ban- No thanks for the troops for our sway that have bled, No thanks for the blood thou wouldst yet have them shed No thanks on our subjects for thrusting our rule, Thyself and thy people thereby to befool. Our thanks are for those who of French souls have care, And know how to work the Confessional chair: Whom thou dost not dare, for thine empire, offend They force PONTIUS PILATE the Pope to be friend. Punch www A From the Edinburgh Review. Correspondance de Napoléon I", publiée par ordre de l'Empereur Napoléon III. Vols. I-XV. Paris: 1858-1864. THE diffidence we feel in commencing our present task arises far less from the thought of what we shall say, than from the consciousness of all that must unavoidably be left unsaid. The mass of materials before us is disheartening from its abundance and the stern necessity for rejection and compression, which generally becomes evident to reviewers when they draw nigh to their concluding pages, strikes us with dismay at the very outset. The salutary warning of Boileau 'Qui ne sut se borner ne sut jamais écrire,' ing their discretionary power French appointed a lected in the Correspondence, are as little likely, we should say, to be overlooked by posterity as those of his Roman prototype. Fourteen other volumes had followed in quick succession, with an interval of only a few months between each, when suddenly, in 1864, the Commission, notwithstanding its zeal in the cause of historical truth-or, as it may be surmised, in consequence of a zeal too little tempered with discretion was superseded, and other editors were appointed in its stead. was never more necessary than in the present instance, and no writer who was not resolved to confine himself strictly within cer-ries of the modern Cæsar, as they stand coltain self-imposed bounds could hope in a few pages to give any idea of the value and interest of the Correspondence of Napoleon I. The work is still in progress and will not be completed, it is said. for some years. Twenty-one volumes have been already published, comprising nearly twelve thousand closely printed large octavo pages, and containing upwards of seventeen thousand letters, proclamations, bulletins and documents of different kinds, all emanating, directly or indirectly, from Napoleon - yet these only bring the collection down to the If any surprise was felt by the public, it spring of 1811. Judging from these data, was caused, not by the measure itself, but and taking into consideration the fact that by the fact of its having been so long dethe number of letters contributed from pri- layed. Had the situation of the French vate and foreign sources increases as the press been different, had there existed in Correspondence draws nearer to our own France any of those sure and prompt means times, we may pretty safely reckon on about for testing public opinion which free counten volumes more. Under these circumstan- tries afford, there can be little doubt that ces we might fairly hope to be excused, with- the knowledge of the impression produced out further explanation, for limiting our criti- by the publication of this Correspondence cism in the present instance to what may would have quickly dispelled the delusions be considered as the first half of this stu- of those who flattered themselves that they pendous collection. But a short account of were raising a monument to the glory of the the two successive Editorial Commissions to founder of the Bonaparte dynasty. No which the duty of carrying out the instruc- pamphleteer, however hostile, could have tions of the present Emperor of the French produced a work half so damaging to the has been entrusted, will show that we have reputation of the imperial hero; no libeller, drawn no arbitrary line for our own conve- however unscrupulous, would have dared to nience, and that, in some very material re-invent some of the letters which have thus spects, the first fifteen volumes of the Cor- been given to the world in the blindness of respondence may be taken as a separate political idolatry. But it was long before work. Where so much depends on the the effect on the public outside the imperialspirit in which the selection of materials is ist atmosphere could be appreciated, and, in made, a change of editors - involving, as in the meantime, fifteen volumes had been this case, a change in the mode of exercis- published. The work was expensive and quite beyond the reach of popular readers; it was long and filled up in a great measure with administrative and military matters which deterred indolent minds accustomed to the light food of small chronicles and lively causeries. Newspapers and reviews were afraid to tread on such dangerous ground, and withheld their criticism; in a word. the Correspondence, all things considered, was little read and still less spoken of. Now and then a political writer, bolder than the rest, would quote some startling passage to show the evils of uncontrolled power and the dangers of excessive centralisation, but without daring to add a commentary. So the work proceeded rapidly and poiselessly, watched and appreciated only by a select few. It was half completed before its most zealous promoters had found out that their pious efforts had resulted in the most complete and irrefragable collection of accusing testimony that any one man was ever made to furnish against himself. Still, the stifled whispers of public opinion will with time, in the best ordered States, grow into a collective murmur which makes itself heard, even through palace walls and in the chambers where Imperial Commissions sit; and in 1864, as we have said, the present Commission was appointed. It consists of six members only -a manageable number- and the President is Prince Napoleon. With the labours of this second Commission we do not mean to deal, our object in alluding to them being merely to show that the spirit in which they are conducted is somewhat different from that which actuated the first editors. A single sentence, taken from Prince Napoleon's first half-yearly Report to the Emperor, will suffice: they exhibit the Emperor as he would have wished to be presented to the judgment of future ages. Most certainly they do not show him as he painted himself at St. Helena, when the fear of posterity was upon him. It is impossible to read some of these letters without feeling wonder that men devoted to the imperial dynasty, and jealous of its honour, should have willingly given them to the world. Was it possible that unquestioning admiration had so far blunted their moral sense, that they could not foresee what the judgment of mankind would be? We would rather try to believe that the Commissioners were enlightened and honest men, who, being carried away by the engrossing interest of the labours in which they were engaged, forgot all else, and lost sight for a time of the political passions of the day in the ardour of historic research. We have, however, heard it whispered that even these conscientious collectors have not given us all, and that some letters, incautiously sent to the Commission by their too confiding possessors, have been neither inserted nor returned. Be that as it may, the first part of the Correspondence, as it stands, is a most valuable collection of materials for history, and the public may well be thankful for it. Many of these letters, it is true, have been published before: some in a collected form under the Restoration, others, interspersed in the memoirs or correspondence of those to whom they were addressed; but the effect is much heightened by the circumstance of their being now presented in one series. The same subject was often treated by Napoleon in several letters, and the mode of treatment generally varied greatly according to the correspondent. The discrepancies and contradictions thus brought forward are not the least curious parts of the work. We have said that our first care must be to circumscribe our field. The fact of limiting our review to the first fifteen volumes would scarcely prove a sufficient precaution. These range over fourteen eventful years, from the siege of Toulon in 1793 down to the end of August 1809, after the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit, and comprise nearly fourteen thousand documents of different kinds. Naturally we had almost said fortunately- these are of very unequal interest, and many may pass unnoticed without any great effort of self-denial on the part of the reviewer. The distinction between what strictly comes under the head of Correspondence and the general works wwwwwww -or, to speak more properly, no nation which had submitted to it- could recover without long and patient efforts. France has not yet recovered and perhaps never may. Strange to say, the Editorial Commissioners appear to have been principally guided in their selection of letters by their desire to show the perpetual interference of Napoleon in all the affairs of his Empire, great and small. The ubiquitous and allpervading nature of his authority is dwelt on and brought out with evident pride and complacency. One might almost suppose the object had been to prove how minute and yet how powerful an engine of despotism personal government could be. In the first Report this is clearly expressed: The most surprising result of the perusal of this varied Correspondence is the impression it conveys of the universal and powerful mind which embraced everything, and could in turn rise to the sublimest and loftiest conceptions, or condescend with equal facility to the most trifling details. At one time, soaring high above the world, Napoleon marks out the limits of new States; at another, his solicitude centres in the humblest hamlet of his Empire. Nothing seems to him beneath his notice when he seeks to put his designs into effect. He is not satisfied in giving the most precise orders, he sees to their execution himself with indefatigable perseverance.' ... of Napoleon has not been sufficiently kept in view by the Commission. Proclamations, bulletins, messages to the Senate exposing the general situation of the affairs of the Empire all of which are to be found in the Moniteur'- have been reprinted. Official documents, which, though signed by the Emperor, were certainly the work of ministers or even of employés of an inferior order, instructions for the fleet, long lists of the works of art taken from foreign capitals, extracts from publications of the day which have been, with more or less good reason, attributed to Napoleon, and fragments of speeches reported secondhand, swell the bulk of these volumes. Even as regards the Correspondence properly socalled, the rules laid down by the Commission have not been strictly adhered to. The selection is arbitrary and incomplete. Letters have been inserted into the collection which in no way relate to branches of public interest,' while they are too few and too uninteresting to give an idea of Napoleon's familiar correspondence. A dozen unmeaning notes to Joséphine, for instance, are given for no other reason, it would seem, than to show that some sparks of common humanity lingered in the Imperial breast. Again we might well have dispensed with the conventional letters of condolence addressed to the families of those who died in battle, or the official letters notifying the birth of infant princes or princesses of the Imperial family. Still, after deducting all Napoleon was singularly desirous of makthat is useless and uninteresting, there re- ing it believed that everything emanated mains an almost bewildering mass of at- from himself, and the well-known decree tractive matter, and some rules of selection for regulating the internal organisation of must be laid down to avoid losing ourselves the Théâtre Français, which he dated from hopelessly. We purpose, therefore, dwell- Moscow, is only one among a thousand ining only on such portions of the Correspond- stances. At the very zenith of his power, ence as explain the traditions of the Imperial with one half of Europe under his rule and system which still survive in France and the other half in arms against him, he coninfluence her government, or on those which cocted little police-plots, planned scurrilous illustrate the personal character of Napo- pamphlets for literary hirelings, suggested leon. We cannot attempt to follow the caricatures which he thought might be tellgreat events of history by the help of the ing against his enemies, found time for the Correspondence On these it throws no ordering of fêtes and monuments, read renew light. But it does throw great and ports on the chitchat of the salons of Paris, powerful light on much that must seem in- and denounced their intrigues himself, with comprehensible to most Englishmen in the great pride in his superior vigilance, to his domestic politics of France. It brings the mortified Minister of Police. The pettiness theory of personal government, and the of his administration would in the present whole machinery, so to speak, of centralisa- day be considered ill-judged in a moderatetion so forcibly before the reader. that the ly large household. This activity, however, shortcomings and backslidings of France in might have been admired had it been sucher search after liberty are explained. The cessful, but, unfortunately, the pamphlet, network of administrative tyranny, without the caricature, and the monument designed a loophole for escape, as it is exhibited in by the imperial meddler were generally these pages, is fearful. No nation which bad. In spite of his police and counterhad been subjected for years to such a régime police, his empire was so insecure that |