Cokes, the Mansfields, the Langdales, where there is little or no call for other critical qualities than those he eminently possessed, he is thoroughly at home, and effective throughout. And we must note with more than a nota bene, with an optimè nota, the essay devoted to Grote's History of Greece; which History has given occasion to numerous reviews, in our quarterly, monthly, and weekly journals, distinguished by refined scholarship, sagacity, and eloquence; but in hardly one of them, considering the scope and conditions of the article, do we find a keener appreciation of the great theme, a finer sympathy with its heroes and sages, a more genuine enthusiasm for the study of them, in life and death, speaking and doing things which the world will not willingly, will at its peril, let die. The character he draws of Pericles, as the noblest and best of demagogues, but still a demagogue not exempt from the necessities of his class, though posterity owes too much to his era to scrutinize too carefully his acts; that of Cleon, whom the war enabled, as a master of criminative eloquence, to keep up a sort of reign of terror both within and without the walls, over the wealthier class and over the allies, and whose portrait by Thucydides (impeached by Mr. Grote as maliciously unfaithful) is confirmed, so far as comedy can confirm history, by the caricature in Aristophanes; and especially that of Nicias, whose super stition, though most gross, seems to have been, as Thucydides intimates, the diseased side of a religious nature-it being probable that the same man who sacrificed his army by refusing to march because there was an eclipse of the moon, would in a cruel and faithless generation have shown mercy and kept his oath; these estimates of character claim study from the reader, as they imply it in the writer. they come in sometimes, and answer their purpose. The rush of coroneted, starred, and ermined nobles, to fawn on a railwayking and profit by "scrip," in common with their own flunkeys, excites to the remark, that it is a mournful lesson we learn when we see "a clodhopper filling his capacious pockets with fine dust, and by the very act reducing all men to his level, and below it; precisely as a bird-catcher, filling his fist with crumbs, calls down the sweetest singers of the grove almost from the skies to his feet." Falkland is described as striving for peace with the passionate enthusiasm of a child heart-broken by the quarrels of a discordant household. Mr. Carlyle is described as refraining from putting shoulder or even finger to the wheel, but preferring to make mouths at a machine temporarily imbedded in the mud, and swearing that it is dropping to pieces every time it bravely struggles to get out of the rut. Mr. Colman, the American, again, who is disgusted at the resolve of us lost Britishers in April, 1848, to have no revolution at all, is described as making mouths at Issachar for resting quietly under his burdens. The plethoric platitudes of many a modern biography elicit the complaint, that this or that man's memory has been suffocated by the very means taken to perpetuate it: the world has asked for an embalmed heart, and it receives a lumbering carcase. Why some scores of Lord Langdale's letters should have been printed by his biographer, Mr. Duffus Hardy, it is said to be just as easy to decide, as it is to discover the claims of the organboy who kills you with his discord, and then asks remuneration for his crime. Authors are told that they will, if sagacious, be as concise, and give posterity as little trouble as need be: their jewels may be transmitted without the encumbrance of setting, and their needles will not be the less welcome without the accompaniment of a bottle of hay." A duodecimo, it is added, does not, we know, "realize" as much across the counter as two volumes quarto, but then it may possibly float down the river of time, while the bulkier voyagers are quietly sinking to the bottom. In another tone, the suspense with which the Anglo-Indian community, in that anxious winter of 1841-2, their fears preponderating over their hopes, expected tidings from Cabul, is compared to the feelings of those who watch from some lofty point of shore a well-known vessel making hasty preparations against a storm too lately seen, and wait almost breathless for the moment when some drifting fringe of cloud shall THE visit of the Emperor and Empress of those political questions which deal with the France-now that it is over, and the fine future destiny of the world. But when both writing of the newspapers on the subject has these elements of interest are combined--ceased-must still be regarded as a great when the most romantic of careers sees its historical fact. It takes its place among hero in the possession of the whole power those pageant incidents which, looking back of France, and master of the position in the into history, seem commemorative of certain great struggle of nations, we cannot overepochs, either as points of culmination in estimate the interest and importance attachwhich the spirit of the era attained its great- able to anything which can give an insight est splendor, or ås points of departure, from to his character and mode of thought, and which human progress took a new direction. afford us some clue in our speculations as to We are too near the historical pageant we what is likely to be the future of one aphave just seen performed to guess the char-parently so marked out from the rest of the acter it will have in history; meantime, its chief effect has been to centre the eyes of all on him who played the principal part in it. Louis Napoleon is, out of sight, the most conspicuous man at present alive-whether we regard his descent from that race which produced Napoleon I., his own remarkable career prior to his accession to power, or the wisdom and sagacity which has since characterized his administration, there is no one who so universally attracts European attention. And, even if there were no elements of romance in his career-were he simply a legitimate monarch, destined to the purple from his cradle--the formidable power which he wields, the peculiarity of his position, and the greatness of the present crisis, in which he must act the most important part, were sufficient to rivet on him the eyes of all those who pay the slightest attention to species. Now, a man's writings have always been regarded as one of the best indexes to his character: the reason is, that his writings are his thoughts. We propose, therefore, to make use of this index to character, in attempting to attain some insight into that of Napoleon III. The volumes before us purport to contain his collected works. They were published in Paris in 1854, we believe under his personal superintendence-at all events, with his full consent and approval. Independent of the interest attachable to them from the remarkable character of their author, the intrinsic merit of many articles in the collection is very considerable: so much so that, if it were not for their condensed style and unornamental diction, we are convinced they would have secured to Louis Napoleon no ordinary reputation as a writer; and now that his political position "Les Euvres de Napoleon III." Libraire commands attention, this want of artistic d'Amyot Editeur, 8, Rue de la Paix. 2 vols. 1854. interest will not prevent them from being extensively read and we predict with confidence that the more they are known and studied, the more will the estimation of Louis Napoleon as a man of intellect be enhanced. But the excessive condensation of his style renders the task we have undertaken peculiarly difficult; for it is impossible to give a just view of the contents of these volumes either by quotation or by giving a general idea of his method of reasoning on the multifarious topics he discusses. The one method would exhibit our author in his weakest aspect, as he is deficient in point and imagination as a writer; the other method could not be adequately carried out in fewer words than the author himself employs. Indeed, these volumes are rather like a review-and not a very lively onethan like an original work; and how are we to review a review? In these circumstances, we think the best method we can pursue, in order to give a fair account of Louis Napoleon's writings, will be to go over the different articles seriatim, discussing fully those subjects which seem to us to be of importance, briefly indicating the leading idea in others, and giving only the names of such articles as seem to us of no general importance or interest. This plan implies a chariness in disquisitions of our own. We will in general leave Louis Napoleon to speak for himself; and, at once and at the outset, give up any pretensions to originality on our part, and all intention of showing off our own powers of political speculation. ernment. He adopts, as his text, the celebrated pensée of Pascal: "Le genre humain est un homme qui ne meurt jamais, et qui se perfectionne toujours," which he paraphrases somewhat thus: The human race does not die, but it is subject to all the maladies of the individual; and, although it perfects itself ceaselessly, it is not exempt from human passions-the cause, to the race as to the individual, alike of elevation and of degradation; and, as in man there are two natures and two instincts-the one inducing to perfection, the other to decay; so society contains in its bosom two contrary elements-the one the spring of immortality and progress, the other that of disease and disorganization. Hence the origin of government, as a means of developing the higher elements, and of impeding the downward tendencies of society. But, as every nation has its idiosyncrasy, a model government suitable to all is impossible. On the contrary, the government of each nation, if a good one, must differ, in some respects, from that of all others; a diversity which must be co-extensive with difference in race, in climate, and in that previous history out of which has sprung those national habits and traditions which, to so great an extent, distinguish from each other the different nations of the earth. But, irrespective of the necessity of adapting government to national peculiarities, there is another difficulty inherent in its very notion; for, whereas nothing is necessary to develop the divine principle in society but liberty and labor, compulsion and restraint are the main instruments to be employed in checking the action of the causes of decline and fall. Thus the means of government are, to a certain extent, contradictory; for, if liberty be unrestrained, vice will develop itself fully as fast as the higher principles of civilization; and, on the other hand, if liberty be restrained, the legislator runs the risk of impeding the growth of social good, as well as of its opposite. The principal treatise in these volumes, and that on which Louis Napoleon seems ready to rest his literary fame, is "L'Idée Napoleonienne;" and we cannot better describe its purport than by saying that it is an attempt to solve the great historical problem of Napoleon Bonaparte. The theory propounded may generally be described as an attempt to prove that the whole career of this most remarkable of men, was the strict development of a preconceived plan, This statement of the case being premised in which nothing was impulsive, but all government being essentially relative, and flowed in logical sequence from certain fixed always, at best, but a balance betwixt conprinciples which he ever kept in view. We tradictory modes of action-the question do not believe that this solution is correct, relative to Napoleon Bonaparte is two-fold. or that Napoleon I. was so purely an in- First. Did he rightly apprehend the peculiar tellectual monster as it would make him: character of the French nation? and, secbut it is, after all, nearly as good as any ond. Did he hit upon the best equipoise other with which the world has yet been between the opposing forces by which govfavored. ernment must act? The first question reIn approaching his subject, Louis Napo-ceives its answer in the general scope of the leon first tries to establish an ideal of gov- treatise; and, as we go on, we will find that, cient regime, by the aristocracy and the king; but now the aristocracy being defunct, the kingly principle alone was obtainable, and only in the form of the imperial power of Napoleon. On the other hand, the temporary interests of the community, fluctuating from day to day, and which had no adequate protection under the old regime, were now to be committed to the guardianship of a body chosen from the people by some method of popular election. But while Napoleon I. found it very easy and natural to attend to the permanent interests of society, it was impossible, our author says, fully to protect the temporary interests. Their rights were, in the meantime, to be deferred to a more convenient opportunity. Still, according to our author, liberty was the principle which was ultimately to triumph under Napoleon's policy. "Her name, no doubt, was not at the head of the laws of the empire, nor placarded in the streets, but every law of the empire prepared her reign tranquil and sure." But, meantime, it was necessary, first of all, to drive back the foreign enemy; and that being done, it still remained to repress the bitter hatred of parties; and where there was neither religion, patriotism, nor public faith, to create them. Above all was it necessary to give dignity and prestige to government, the very principle of which had been discredited. But to accomplish all this, force-even despotism-was necessary. in Louis Napoleon's opinion, his uncle instinctively adapted himself to the ésprit Française. The second question necessitates an inquiry into the state of France when Bonaparte seized the supreme power. Now, in justice to Napoleon Bonaparte, in cannot be too distinctly kept in view that, on his advent to power, the disorganization of France was complete. The old system of things had been utterly ruined; every institution had in turn been destroyed, and all attempts at reconstruction had only resulted in a more wide-spread anarchy. It was the task of Napoleon I. to select, out of the mass of heterogeneous and discordant elements the principles of order and government. This task he accomplished under the guidance of a principle, as simple as judicious. He saw that, although the old order of things was utterly bereft of vitality, still its forms were the channels through which the French nation had been accustomed to receive the mandates and feel the influence of authority. On the other hand, the revolution had evoked new principles of action, and created new interests; in particular, it had utterly abolished all caste, and left a free course of talent irrespective of birth. Napoleon, therefore, retained the old forms, as the channels of authority, but poured into them the energy and ambition of the revolution. This policy was not his invention, though our author speaks of it as if it were. Julius Cæsar acted on the same principle, with this single and instructive difference, that he infused monar- So argues Louis Napoleon as to the policy chical ideas into republican forms, whereas open to his uncle, and so, doubtless, would Napoleon infused republican ideas into forms he justify his own government; nor are we derived from the monarchy. This difference prepared to dispute that in either case the arose from their positions being inverted re-justification is insufficient :latively to each other. In both, the design was to amalgamate the old with the new. But to return to France: the old forms alone were not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the new society: it was necessary to institute new ones. Napoleon did so; but, according to his nephew, the following was the somewhat elaborate reasoning which guided him in the task. Reverting to the parallel between the individual and society, it is to be observed that as man has permanent and temporary interests, so has society; and as, in the one case, reason is the guardian over the first class of interests, while the others are cared for by inclination and appetiteso, in society, it behooves that there be a permanent guardian of permanent interests, and a fluctuating and changeable guardian of temporary interests. Now, the one class of interests was fully provided for under the an "Il faut plaindre les peuples (says our author) qui veulent récolter avant d'avoir laboure le champ, ensemencé la terre et donné à la plante le temps de germer d'éclore et de mûrir, une erreur fatale est de croire qu'il suffise d'une declaration de principes pour constituer un nouvel ordre de choses." Napoleon was less tyrannical than the governments which preceded him. Like our friends the Americans, the French Republicans had been somewhat inconsistent. They could hardly speak without an ovation to liberty, fraternity, and equality; but they applied these terms only to those who coincided with them in opinion, and ostracised the rest of the nation. So true is it that despotism and republicanism differ only in this, that the former is the tyranny of one, the latter the tyranny of many; and as it is proverbial that corporate bodies are less amenable to moral | considerations than the individual members which compose them, the many-headed corporate tyrant may be expected to be more unscrupulous than the single Baseleus, who cannot escape criticism under cover of the number of his confederates in iniquity. Thus, in the case of France, although we have grave doubts of the solicitude of Napoleon I. for liberty, and have not much more confidence in the liberal tendencies of his nephew, they both ameliorated the tyranny which existed before they seized on the supreme powSuch an amelioration was indeed necessary to the policy of Napoleon I., since he avowedly tried to enlist in his service the abilities of all parties-"Je suis national," said he, "je me sers de tous ceux qui ont de la capacité et de la volouté de marcher avec moi." This quotation expresses the real essence of the Napoleonic system, whether under the uncle or the nephew; but it also involves its vice, for how can men of all shades of opinion enlist under a single banner, without an appalling sacrifice of political er. honor? Louis Napoleon now proceeds to illustrate, by a detailed examination of his uncle's policy, the somewhat vague and general observations of which we have endeavored to give an idea. He classes his remarks under two heads-first, the administrative organization of the empire, and second, its political organization. The administrative organization, he says, like the greater part of the institutions of the Empire, had a temporary object to fulfil, and a distant end to attain. Centralization was the only means of reconstituting France; but its excess under the Empire ought not to be considered as an end, but as a means; the time was to come when France was to be decentralized, and local government developed. We think the remarks on this subject by our author worthy of attentive consideration. He glories in being the copyist of his uncle, so that the time may come when he will head a reaction against that excessive centralization which has been the bane of France. In Napoleon Bonaparte's time centralization was es sential, to enable France to combat her en emies, and his surpassing genius enhancing its intensity, France became a system of political telegraph, the centre of which was Paris, because it was the residence of the Great King. Under Louis Napoleon no such necessity can be alleged. He is at peace with all Europe, except with that power against which all Europe is banded. His subjects are submissive to his will, and by an unquestionable majority have adopted him as their Emperor. Our author gives the details of what he designates as the Administrative Organizations. These are embraced under the general heads of "Ordre Judiciaire, Finance, Establissement de Bienfaisance, Communes, Agriculture, Industrie, Commerce, Travaux, Publics, Instruction, l'Armée." We do not purpose to follow him in these details, descriptive of the vanished government of the first Empire. A full account of the matter will be found in Alison, who, in the main, coincides with our author. But irrespective of the special information such a detailed account will afford, it is instructive as a specimen of perfect organization, and as such will repay the study of our statesmen. There was very little redtapism under the first Napoleon; but, notwithstanding, things went on with the precision of clockwork; the reason was that personal energy was the motive power. Bonaparte was no advocate of the laissez aller philosophy; he interfered in everything, and perhaps principally in those concerns which political economists think it of the last importance to leave to private enterprise and association; for instance, he interfered between the employers of labor and the workmen, but the manner of his interference was by means of courts of arbitrators representing both interests. He interfered with commercial credit, and contemplated organizing a system of assistance to the mercantile interest in seasons of monetary difficulty. But above all, Napoleon directly interfered to encourage industry by directing towards it the light of science, and with that lofty generalization which so strikingly distinguished him, he said-" Si l'on m' eût laissé le tempsbrentôt il n'y aurait plus eu de metiers en France tous eussent été des arts." Napoleon encouraged only scientific education, as that which could immediately be made useful to the State. But such training was undoubtedly recommended to him by another reason, namely, that it is more conducive to submission to authority than a more general teaching. Metaphysical and moral speculation inevitably leads to discussion as to the limits of authority and the obligation to obedience, while the romance and poetry of all countries extol the liberator and patriot, and expatiate on the charms of freedom. On the other hand, the lesson taught by the exact sciences, is that of implicit obedience to uncontrollable law, of speculation confined within impassable channels, and regulated by |