Our readers will judge for themselves of the sincerity of Napoleon, in the following observations: the nation. Otherwise I should be obliged to turn borreau, and cut off the heads of October 1st.-Repeated to Napoleon what Sir Hudson Lowe had desired me on the 23d. He replied, I expect nothing from the present ministry but ill treatment. The more they want to lessen me, the more I will exalt myself. It was my intention to have assumed the name of Colonel Meuron, who was killed by my side at Arcola, covering me with his body, and to have lived as a private gentleman in England, in some part of the country where I might have lived retired, without ever desiring to mix in the grand world. I would never have gone to London, nor have dined out. Probably I should have seen very few persons. Perhaps I might have formed a friendship with some savans. I would have rode out every day, and then returned to my books.' I observed, that as long as he kept up the title of majesty, the English ministers would have a pretext for keeping him in St. Helena. Ile replied, they force me to it. I wanted to assume an incognito on my arrival here, which was proposed to the admiral, but they will not permit it. They insist on calling me General Bonaparte. I have no reason to be ashamed of that title, but I will not take it from them. If the republic had not a legal existence, it had no more right to constitute me general than first magistrate. If the admiral had remained,' continued he, perhaps matters might have been arranged. He had some heart, and, to do him justice, was incapable of a mean acDo you think, added he, that he will do us an injury on his arrival in England?" I replied, I do not think that he will render you any service, particularly in consequence of the manner in which he was treated when he last came up to see you, but he will not tell any falsehoods; he will strictly adhere to the truth, and give his opinion about you, which is not very favorable.' Why so?' replied he, we were very well together on board ship. What can he say of me? that I want to escape, and mount the throne of France again? I replied, that it was very probable he would both think and say so. Bah,' replied Napoleon. If I were in England now, and a deputation from France were to come and offer me the throne, I would not accept of it, unless I Anew such to be the unanimous wish of tion. 6 that it must have been at the time when I At p. 173, we have B.'s opinion of the military policy of England, and of the Battle of Waterloo: which we give rather because they illustrate his own character, than for any intrinsic value in his observations : The worst thing England has ever done,' continued he, was that of endeavouring to make herself a military nation. In attempting that, England must always be the slave of Russia, Austria, or Prussia, or at least subserviant to some of them; because you have not a population sufficiently numerous to combat on the continent with France, or with any of the powers I have named, and must consequently hire men from some of them; whereas, at sea, you are so superior; your sailors are so much better, that you can always command the others with safety to yourselves and with little comparative expense. Your soldiers have not the requisite qualities for a military nation. They are not equal in address, activity, or intelligence to the French. When they get from under the fear of the lash, they obey nobody. In a retreat they cannot be managed; and if they meet with wine, they are so many devils (tanti diavoli), and adieu to subordination. I saw the retreat of Moore, and I never witnessed any thing like it. It was impossible to collect or make them do any thing. Nearly all were drunk. Your officers depend on interest or money for promotion. Your soldiers are brave, nobody can deny it; but it was bad policy to encourage the military mania, instead of sticking to your marine, which is the real force of your country, and one which, while you preserve it, will always render you powerful. In order to have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.' If you had lost the battle of Waterloo,' continued he, 'what a state would England have been in! The flower of your youth would have been destroyed; for not a man, not even Lord Wellington would have escaped.' I observed here, that Ld. W. had 'determined never to leave the field alive. Napoleon replied, he could not retreat. He would have been destroyed with his army, if instead of the Prussians, Grouchy had come up.' I asked him if he had not believed for some time that the Prussians who had shown themselves, were a part of treat. There was a wood in his rear, and but one road to gain it. He would have been destroyed. Morover, he allowed himself to be surprised by me. This was G.'s corps. He replied, certainly; and I can now scarcely comprehend why it was a Prussian division and not that of G.'I then took the liberty of asking whether, if neither G. nor the Prussians had arrived, it would not have been a drawn battle.Napolcon answered, The English army would have been destroyed. They were defeated at mid-day. But accident, or more likely destiny, decided that Ld. W. should gain it. I could scarcely believe that he would have given me battle; because if he had retreated to Antwerp, as he ought to have done, I must have been overwhelmed by the armies of 3 or 400,000 men that were coming against me. By giving me battle, there was a chance for me. It was the greatest folly to disunite the English and Prussian armies.— They ought to have been united; and I cannot conceive the reason of their separation. It was folly in W. to give me battle in a place, where, if defeated, all must have been lost, for he could not re a great fault. He ought to have been encamped from the beginning of June, as he must have known that I intended to attack him. He might have lost every thing. But he has been fortunate; his destiny has prevailed; and every thing he did will meet with applause. My intentions were, to attack and destroy the English ariny. This I knew would produce an immediate change of ministry. The indignation against them for having caused the loss of forty thousand of the flower of the English army, would have excited such a popular commotion, they would have been turned out. The people would have said, What is it to us who is on the throne of France, Louis or Napoleon; are we to sacrifice all our blood in endeavours to place on the throne a detested family? No we have suffered enough. It is no affair of ours,-let them settle it amongst themselves. They would have made peace. The Saxons, Bavarians, Belgians, Wirtemburghers, would have joined me. The coalition was nothing without England. The Russians would have made peace, and I should have been quietly seated on the throne. Peace would have been permanent, as what could France do after the treaty of Paris? what was to be feared from her? These,' continued he, were my reasons for attacking the English. I had beaten the Prussians. Before 12 o'clock I had succeeded. Every thing was mine, I may say, but accident and destiny decided it otherwise. The English fought most bravely doubtless, nobody can deny it.but they must have been destroyed. We give some accounts of the retreat from Moscow : The I asked him, if in less rigorous climates the Poles were as good soldiers as the French. Oh, no, no. In other places the Frenchman is much superior. commandant of Dantzic informed me, that during the severity of the winter, when the thermometer sunk 18 degrees, it was impossible to make the French soldiers keep their posts as sentinels, while the Pole suffered nothing. Poniatowsky,' continued he, was a a noble character, full of honour and bravery. It was my intention to have made him king of Poland, had I succeeded in Russia.' I asked to what he I attacked the Russian army of 250,000 strong, entrenched up to their necks, with 90,000, and totally defeated them. 70,000 Russians lay on the field. They had the impudence to say that they had gained the battle, though two days after I marched into Moscow. principally attributed his failure of that expedition. To the cold, the premature cold, and the burning of Moscow, replied Napoleon. I was a few days too late-I had made a calculation of the weather for fifty years before, and the extreme cold had never commenced until about the 20th of December, twenty days later than it be- SKETCHES AND FRAGMENTS. gan this tnne. While I was at Moscow, the cold was at three of the thermometer, By the Author of The Magic Lantern.' and was such as the French could with This little work appears to contain pleasure bear; but on the march the ther- the unlaboured effusions of an elegant mometer sunk 18 degrees, and consequent-mind, expressed in pleasing and unaf fected language. An entire sketch will enable our readers to judge for themselves of the manner in which it is written. THE RING. Walking up St. James's Street a few days ago, I was attracted by some very beautiful specimens of bijouterie, displayed for sale in the window of a shop; and seeing a very curious antique ring, set in diamonds, labelled for a sum that I fancied beneath its value, I was tempted to purchase it. Examining my bargain while sitting in my easy chair after dinner, I dropped asleep, as is my usual custom; and the ring being the last subject of my thoughts, gave rise to the following dream. I thought that, while in the act of contemplating my new purchase, it thus addressed me--and, however unnatural and improbable it may seem, that an inanimate object should be gifted with the power of speech, yet, with the usual incoherence of a dream, all appeared to me perfectly correct. ly nearly all the horses perished. In one night I lost 30,000. The artilery, of which I had 500 picces was in a great measure obliged to be abandoned; neither aanmunition nor provision could be carried. We could not make a reconnaissance, or send out an advance of men on horseback to discover the way, through the want of horses. The soldiers lost their spirits, fell into confusion and lost their senses. The most triffling thing alarmed them. Four or 5 men were sufficient to frighten a whole battalion.Instead of keeping together, they wandered about in search of fire. Parties, when sent out on duty in advance, abandoned their posts, and went to seek the means of warming themselves in the houses. They separated in all directions, became helpless, and fell an easy prey to the enemy.Others lay down, fell asleep, a little blood came from their nostrils, and sleeping, they died. In this manner thousands perished. The Poles saved some of their horses and artillery, but the French, and the soldiers of the other nations I had with me, were no longer the same men. In particular, the cavalry suffered. Out of 40,000, I do not think that 3,000 were saved. Had it not been for that fire at Moscow, I should have succeeded. I would have wintered there. There were in that city, about 40,000 citizens, who were in a manner slaves. For you must know that the Russian nobility keep their vassals in a sort of slavery. I would have proclaimed liberty to all the slaves in Russia, and abolished vassalage and nobility. This would have procured me the union of an immense and powerful party. I would either have made a peace at Moscow, or else I would have marched the next year to Petersburgh.Doubtful, however, of his own skill Alexander was assured of it, and sent his as a connoisseur, he determined on consultdiamonds, valuables, and ships to England. ing a person considered a perfect judge in Had it not been for that fire, I should have such matters; and, with all the unsuspisucceeded in every thing. I beat them 2cious openness of his countrymen, told my days before, in a great action at Moskwa; པ་་ D'T S2. No sooner had he left the house, Do not undervalue me because this day I came into your possession for a comparatively trifling sum. Though you sce me now with my lustre dimmed by age and want of care, time was that I wore a different aspect. In my fate you will see the lot of all sublunary grandeur, and I shall therefore relate to you my eventful history. I was purchased in Rome, where I was examined and admired by many a virtuoso; but a young Englishnnan, on his travels, no sooner saw me than he wished to possess me. than iny master hastened to the virtuoso and we had not been long there, when 1 that the Englishman had named as the ar- observed that my prison was never opened, biter of my destiny; and having originally that my master exhibited certain symptoms demanded double my value, he now offered of chagrin and impatience which boded a handsome douceur to the antiquary, if he something disagreable. One day he seized could, by his commendations, ensure my my cage with a violence that threatened its sale to the young amateur. Those two annihilation, and flattered me with the hope precious Romans soon came to a perfect of liberty: but the lock soon obeyed his understanding; in a day or two the bar-hand; and from the frequent exclamations gain was made, and I was consigned to the care of my new master. Though I disliked the cupidity of my late owner, and wished to leave him, still it was not without a pang that I bade adieu to the lovely cameos and intaglios that had been so long my neighbours in the same drawer; and the precious antique gems that had been so often in close contact with me, never appeared to possess so many charms as in the moment that I was torn from them for ever. My vanity, however, consoled me for the separation; for it had been cruelly wounded by having overheard my crafty countryman say, that he had two Ioles, one on a beryl, and another on a sardonyx, both far superior to me, who am, as you perceive, an agate, and that he heartily wished me off his hands, as no one but an Englishman would buy me. My new master having looked at me with a carelessness that bespoke him as little interested as skilled in antiques, consigned me to his writing-box: where I lay side by side with many other articles of virtu, and surrounded by all the gages d'amour with which he had been favoured since he left college. Here I law in inglorious obscurity for some time; for though my prison was frequently opened, to draw from it a fresh supply of money, I remained unnoticed. At length, by finding my cage moved about, I guessed that a change in my destiny was taking place, and I soon discovered, by the rumbling motion and rude jolts which I experienced, that I was leaving my native city, the once proud and imperial capital of the world. I shall pass over the grief which this parting caused me; nor shall I dwell on the disagremens that took place between my fellow-travellers and myself on the journey: our careless master had bestowed so little attention in packing us, that we frequently experienced some of the unpleasant rubs of life. The glass that covered a portrait fell a victim to one of the quarrels, and some beautiful Roman shells were shattered into fragments, "We proceeded to Florence, and thence to Paris, where we took up our abode; I heard him utter, of Cursed fool!' Stupid dupe!' Stingy father!' I guessed that something unusual had occurred, and I found he was writing to solicit from his father fresh supplies. His application failed of success, but brought him a recal. We soon bade adieu to Paris, and set out for England,-that country of whose wealth I had heard so much, and whose sons have been considered as the natural prey of the artful and designing. The first gleam of light that visited me in England shone through the dusty panes of a window in the Custom House at Dover; where my prison was unceremoniously opened, and my companions and myself exposed to the view of a crowd of spectators, amidst a heap of clothes-bags, dressingcases, port-feuilles, portmanteaus, china, artificial flowers, &c. &c. &c. Never shall I forget the scene that presented itself to me. The looks of inexorable rigidity of the custom-house officers,-the pale faces of the owners of the various properties, which told a piteous tale of sufferings past, and from which they had not yet recovered. The soiled dresses, mis-shaped hats and bennets, and uncurled ringlets falling over languid cheeks,-showed the ladies in no very favourable point of view; while the unshorn chins, and rumpled neckcloths of the gentlemen, betrayed that they had not escaped the disasters of the briny element. Each individual stood close to his or her property; and all personal suffering appeared to be forgotten in the anxiety which they felt to recover their possessions from the ruthless fangs of the customhouse officers. One lady was declaring that a piece of fine Mecklin lace, found in her band-box, was English manufacture; and another was insisting that a piece of French silk, which was discovered peeping through her pocket-hole, was merely the lining of her dress. Innumerable female voices, all speaking together, were heard around, making confusion doubly confused; while the gentlemen, who appeared less able to argue with the revenue officers, contented themselves with undervaluing their properties, that the duties might be proportionally reduced. I made one reflection on the scene around me, which was, that the female sex are all addicted to dealing in contraband goods, or smuggling, as it was there called; for out of above 50 ladies present, there was not one who did not endeavour to defraud the revenue. After witnessing several animated contests, and countless seizures, it at length came to my turn to be examined, and I felt my dignity not a little offended by being taken up between the soiled finger and thumb of one of the inspectors, who, after viewing me for a moment, pronounced me English, which my master having with rather a disdainful smile tacitly admitted, I was restored to my old abode, and with my companions, again huddled up in our narrow cell. of my prison, and consigned, with some other articles of virtu, to the fair sister of my master. She admired me extremely; but returned me to her brother, with the observation, that he had better reserve me for the finger of a fair female friend of hers, to whom he was to be presented at dinner; but to all his enquiries as to the name of this fair unknown, she declined giving any information. I was placed on the dressing-table of my master, and could not help observing that when attiring himself for dinner this day, he bestowed more than his accustomed care in arranging his neck cloth, and giving his hair that careless waving flow so much admired by travelling beaus. I had hitherto fancied that the male sex were superior to the minor considerations of personal decorations; but I now discovered that no blooming nymph of seventeen, at her first presentation, could have taken more pains in displaying her charms to the best advantage, than did my master on the present occasion. I felt considerable interest to know the result of his interview with the fair unknown, but had no means of gratifying my curiosity. I remarked, however, that from this eventful day, he appeared more than usually anxious to adorn his The scene I had witnessed conveyed no favourable impression of England; and I could not help ejaculating to myself, Is this, then, that famed land of freedom of which I have so often heard; and whose laws, and protection of private property, are so frequently held up to admiration? How prone are mankind to misrepresent, and exaggerate; and how ill governed must this same England be, and how defective its laws, when the goods, for which an in-person to the best advantage; and at the dividual has paid his money, and which, of course, have become his property, are taken from him without even civility of an excuse, and this by the very officers employed to carry their boasted laws into effect! I made many more wise reflections on laws and governments, but of which, as they did not concern my history, I shall spare you the recital; let it suffice to say, that no where had I heard law and justice so violently denounced as in an English custom-house and there it was I first learned that they are not synonymous terms. end of a few weeks, I observed him draw a small torquoise ring from his finger, which he kissed with a rapture that excited my astonishment mingled with indignation, that an ornament so inferior to myself could be so valued, while I was left whole weeks unnoticed on the dressing-table, or only casually touched by the housemaid when arranging the room. At length I was one day taken up, and conveyed by my master to a celebrated jeweller, to whose care he consigned me, with particular injunctions to have me reset, encircled with diamonds, and made to the size of a very small gold ring which he left as a pattern. He gave innumerable directions, expressive of his anxiety to have me completed; all of which convinced me that I was designed for the finger of some fair lady, and the unknown immediately occurred to my memory. The jeweller, whose only object was to incur as much expense to his employer as possible, encircled me with a row of brilliants, so large as nearly to hide my diminished head; and having now all the appearance of a modern antique, I was restored to my master, and the next day was placed by him on one of the most |