that what appear to be his conclusions on these great matters are embodied in his narrative, we find less direct statements than we might have expected, or at least wished and hoped to find. The church of Scotland, with its struggles, divisions, and evolutions is treated with a uniform respect-with a ready appreciation of whatever nobleness of thought or action was enlisted in its service; but for anything which Mr. Burton allows us to see, it is regarded by him externally as a mere fact of history, with the fate of which no conviction of his own is at all substantially connected; and so far perhaps he does but adhere to his proper province; and exhibits,

in his treatment of so critical a subject, the true historic power. We have already said for him as much as can be said for almost any living historian, in giving him credit for so uniform and so just a distribution of his sympathies, in saying that party prejudice never blinds him to the excellences of those with whom politically he least agrees, or palliates the vices of his friends; while virtue and vice in their broader forms, as they appear in action, are feelingly and equitably appreciated. But we can say more than this. On delicate questions, where the opinions of right-minded men are still divided, such, for instance, as resistance to established governments, and the conditions under which men venture on them, he can speak in a wise and dispassionate temper, which it would be well if, in these revolutionary times, we could all learn to imitate. After the extinction of the rebellion of 1715 arose the awful question

What were the victors to do with the many hundreds of the vanquished, with whom the fortresses and prisons were crowded? No government can extend to defeated insurgents the privilege of prisoners of war, without opening the way to continued insecurity, and causing more public misery than the utmost severity can create. The security which nations have against the turbulent dispositions of their neighbours is, that they cannot be assailed by isolated collections of individuals; the State itself must make war. But if a government were to treat all the individual subjects who disturb its order, with the etiquette due to nations making war with it, all guarantee for

internal tranquillity would vanish. Whenever interest or passion excited them with sufficient force, bands of the people would rise against any government, however beneficent, if the alternative were success or a treaty without punishment. He who takes the desperate determination of rising against a settled government, must not only look in the face the misery and ruin he spreads around unfortunately, the ambitiously-selfish can contemplate such a vision without emotion-but on the axe or the gibbet for himself, if he should fail. The prospect of martyrdom is the test of his sincerity, whether it be born of the fanaticism which calls men to fight for a leader or an opinion, without reference to the chances of success, or be founded, like the projects of a Sidney or a Russell, on well-weighed calculations for the benefit of a people. Nor when, in the defeat of the great enterprise, all is lost that is worth living for, can the forfeiture of a purposeless life, to one of high motives or strong enthusiasm, be a formidable addition to the ingredients of the bitter cup.

Excellent, however, as this passage is, the light which it reflects upon the writer's mind is still imperfect. The lesson, after all, is only a political one read to governors and subjects, and we look for something more broad and comprehensive, something which shall serve to show us our own steps. The most difficult problem of statesmanship is to discover how best to deal with offences against the moral law, which are not crimes or offences against life or property. The moral enormity of fornication and of adultery, for instance, is scarcely less in the eyes of a Christian than that of theft and murder; and in rude ages they have been visited with similar penalties. But the difficulty of car. rying into effect laws of such extreme severity has led to successive modifications of them; and at present the worst of these two is a civil offence to be expiated by the payment of moneys, and the other is left to enlightened opinion-that is (as far as men are concerned), to no Intermediate punishment at all.

between the two extremes, lay in European history the long period of ecclesiastical discipline, the last surviving exercise of which in these islands was to be found in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Mr. Burton's narrative leads him across

the mention of it, and in his eyes it was a barbarous custom, which the enlightenment of modern times has left behind it. The secessions, one after another, which broke off from the Establishment, in pursuit of a loftier standard than was to be found any longer within its pale, are described as efforts to remain behind the age; and those high aspirations after excellence, that hatred of sin which was the central motive power of the Scotch Reformation, and was the secret of its strength, finds toleration only from Mr. Burton, as if it were something which he did not understand.

And yet, surely, if to fight against evil in all forms be our real business in this world (and if that be not our business, it is time for us to learn what is), we shall not prosper in such a warfare by lowering the standard of what we require of each other, or putting away those checks on sin which the vigour of other ages enabled them to bear. Let Mr. Burton seriously ask himself whether enlightened public opinion,' humanizing influences,' and such like, have any real tendency to check what we call sin. In his own Scotland, for instance? He believes in the philosophy of History. Let him look through the history of the world-look to that history which is the great antitype of our own, the Roman-to the effects of that 'progress of civilization' which abolished the censorship as barbarous, and left the morals of the people to the control of opinion-which became tolerant, and large-minded, and philosophical, and put away the old austerities as unbecoming in a cultivated nation.

Very likely it was time for church discipline to vanish when the enact ments of it were evaded by a return to the indulgences' of Tetzel; and dispensations were disposed of to those who could afford them on payment of money. But if there be 'progress' here, it is progress towards a place not hitherto considered a desirable goal of human efforts; and the abolition of the form is nothing more than a confession that there is no longer virtue to give life to it. The form is put away, not because it is superseded by another of fuller efficacy, but because it is

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an unpleasant reminder of the evil of practices which there is no more heart to resist; because as long as it remains it is an uncomfortable witness of degeneracy, and interferes with the self-congratulation of an age which flatters itself with the outward splendour of its material triumphs.

It is remarkable that the only class of men to whom Mr. Burton attributes any transcendantly high qualities (and when a large body of persons exhibit a distinctive type of character, it is through the influence of some pervading conviction, habit or belief) are a class, the marked characteristics of which he observes to be disappearing without regret, and almost with satisfaction, the Cameronians of the west. He is not blind to the lofty nature so often displayed by them. In detail, he can even admire their actions; but he cannot appreciate the temper of the men, or, it would almost seem, understand the connexion between their conduct and their faith. He can describe their astonishing practical ability, their steadiness of purpose, their patience in suffering, their moderation and calmness in victory. The noblest action related in his book is the defence of Dunkeld by the Cameronian regiment; and one of the most touching descriptions is his brief notice of the battle of Steinkirk, where they were deserted and cut in pieces, after a defence so gallant that it almost turned the fortunes of the day,' and 'many a stern-featured westland Scot was found on that field, with a wellthumbed Bible in his pocket.' But for all this, Mr. Burton cannot like them. Their intolerance' is a deadly sin never to be forgiven; and he appears to regret the misfortune which united so much gallantry with so unpardonable a fanaticism.

The ruling principle among them (he says) was the simplest and broadest of all human principles,-that I am right and you are wrong, and whatever opinion different from mine is entertained by you must be forthwith uprooted, &c. &c.

Surely neither was this their principle, nor was intolerance their fault. They believed that right is infinitely to be loved, and wrong to be infinitely hated; and their fault

K

was, not in refusing to tolerate what they thought wrong, but in the narrow theory which they had formed of it. Narrow they were. They had fallen among hard times, and had lost the broader and more genial sympathies of the early Scotch reformers; they believed that the Divine grace was confined under their hard and straitened formula; and they could not conceive that it could be present in any human soul under other conditions. But that, believing themselves to be right, they refused to tolerate and compromise with error, only shows that their belief was real-that it was not a perhaps, like that of most men, but an iron conviction. All good men are intolerant-intolerant of evil. If they love good, they hate evil. It is the first condition of a sound heart. Only let the sound understanding go along with it, to determine rightly what is evil. Mr. Burton would not wish us to tolerate lies, or sin, or folly. They are to be fought against, trampled out, exorcised by all means, and with all energy of heart and soul. Not indifference of heart, but a wiser spirit of discrimination, is the thing to be desired; the Cameronian temper with a wiser creed. And yet if it is in the heart, rather than in the understanding, that the issues lie of good and evil, those poor Cameronians, in all their narrowness, had a wiser and more real sense of the meaning of their being in this world than has been found yet attainable on any theory of progress of the species. In his tenderness for them, Mr. Burton believes, that, at all events, they would have yielded to the softening influence of advancing civilization.' They would have yielded, we sup

pose, to the temptations of worldliness and comfort, like the Establishment, or like the poor Cameronian regiment, which lapsed into the uniform modified licentiousness of other military bodies.' And that would have been matter for congratulation.

Advancing civilization,' 'progress of humanity,' and such like, may serve to make the world run smooth and easy, and may form the tempers, here and there, of a few moderate and thoughtful men like Mr. Burton; but they are principles too vague to exercise a subduing influence over the passions, as they exist in the masses of mankind; and those forms of human nature which have hitherto been considered to be the highest and the noblest, are attainable only through convictions of that iron kind which all powerful nations and all strongly organized bodies have alike exhibited in the eras of their greatness, and in virtue of which they are alone great.

But we will leave this. Perhaps we have said too much about it. It would be a poor compliment to Mr. Burton to identify him with thinkers who, like the false mother in Solomon's judgment that was ready to divide the child, cut up the truth into opinions, and leave us all to choose for ourselves as our inclinations guide us. If occasionally the language of such men has escaped from him, the scope and tone of his own mind, as will have been seen by the extracts which we have given from him, are set at a far loftier pitch. He has written what, in all essentials, is a calm, wise, and excellent book, and with these warm epithets we take our leave of it and of its author.

In

Germany, comprising the smaller and the larger States, Napoleon's history is more familiar to the general public than the history of the Great Frederick, of Prince Eugene, of the Archduke Charles-nay, even than the story of the life of old Blucher himself. In far-off Russia the military man who reads at all reads more of Napoleon than of Peter the Great, of Potemkin, or of Suwarroff. In Spain, among the most vain-glorious race under the sun, the name of the overrated victor at Baylen-Castaños-is now less known than that of the French Emperor; and in Italy, producing in the middle ages great captains, Bonaparte is regarded as a soldier springing from their own soil-a soil always fertile in great creations. Even among the Americans, a people as proud and exclusive as the Spaniards-and with a million of better reasons for being so-the name of Napoleon is as well known, if not so much revered, as that of Washington; and his history and life are more talked of than are public or private details concerning George Washington or Andrew Jackson. There is some reason for this world-wide renown. Napoleon was more than a great general and consummate captain. He was also a great administrator, a great ruler, and a great law-giver— a man who, by his genius, his energy, and his art of fascinating and dominating his countrymen, not merely rose to the highest command of her armies, but who also won by his victories the way to supreme civil power. The position to which he

raised himself, whether in civil or in military life, was self-carved and self-created; and as there is no instance in history of such unique success and such wonderful reverses, our love of the wonderful, and our desire for startling excitement and strange contrasts, induces us to resort to the biography of this marvellous man as a species of strong intellectual dram. We can find in ancient, mediæval, and modern story the lives of men wiser, and more truly great and glorious; but in what pages other than in Napoleon's own biography shall we find the life of a man so renowned as soldier, statesman, lawgiver, Chief Consul, Emperor. Our own illustrious Duke was more distinguished by sagacity, by fortitude, by an imperious sense of duty-was more remarkable for his conscientious discharge of every obligation imposed on him, than the French general and emperor; but it is for this very reason that the history of his life wants the variety which as drama, melodrama, farce, and tragedy, is presented in the life of Napoleon. Men, whether gentle or simple-whether educated or uneducated, love the strange and the marvellous rather than the simple and homely; and this is the reason why the lives of Washington and Wellington are less read than that of the lieutenant of artillery transmuted into conqueror and captive-into First Consul, Consul for life, and Imperial Cæsar.

The books which have been written about Bonaparte may be numbered by hundreds, not by scores. Amidst such a multitude there are many bad, many indifferent, a few good, and a very great number interesting. One of the oldest books on the subject is the Voice from St. Helena, written by O'Meara, his surgeon, that volume having been published more than thirty years ago. Appearing soon

after the death of Bonaparte, it was eagerly read, not merely in England, but all over the world. Containing a vast deal of personal detail, undoubtedly true and authentic, in reference to the Emperor and his household, recounted in a style clear and unpretending, it is yet, in other respects, a mendacious and most malignant book, and more particularly so in reference to the late Sir Hudson Lowe. The office to which that gentleman was appointed, though most onerous and responsible, was a most invidious and unpleasant one, requiring the greatest delicacy, firmness, temper, and tact. Held by the most indulgent, conciliating, and amiable man in the world, it was an office that never could have been discharged, in reference to the captive and his suite, without incurring angry and hostile feelings on their part. This must be borne in mind in considering the question of Napoleon and Sir Hudson Lowe, in order to come to a just judgment in regard to the complaints of the one and the conduct of the other. Sir Hudson Lowe was a man of firmness, discretion, and temper, adhering to the letter of his instructions, and performing strictly and conscientiously his duty. But had he been more than thishad he been suave and benignant as an angel, he never could have been otherwise than disagreeable to the long spoiled child of fortune and of victory of whom he had been made, by the force of an English Act of Parliament, the legal custodier.

To return, however, to the book 'of O'Meara. If that book had never been written-had never obtained the vogue which it confessedly did attain-it is probable that these letters and journals of Sir Hudson would not have seen the light. It is from the book of O'Meara that he appeals to posterity; and we must say that he appeals not in

vain.

It has been said that there is a vitality almost approaching to immortality in calumny. The observation is not without a good deal of truth. For eight or ten years after it was published, the Voice from St. Helena had a great run, and notwithstanding the able criticisms and refutations of the Quarterly Review,

was accepted by many as unadulterated truth. But time, the great reformer, winnows and sifts all things, and reduces all things to their proper proportions. Time has operated to disclose the true character of O'Meara, the object of his volumes, and, as a consequence, to dull the edge of his calumnies. It is a great pity that the late Sir Hudson Lowe did not publish some, if not all, of his materials eight-andtwenty years ago, when the Napoleon fever was at its height. Then he might have counteracted the impression produced on men of Napoleon's age, and of a generation a few years younger; but having delayed his vindication for considerably more than a quarter of a century, the tomb has closed over nearly all his contemporaries, and the men of mature age, who formed their opinions on ex parte evidence thirty years ago, are not likely to be as anxious to set themselves right as they would have been when the question was the one topic of the day.

Why Sir Hudson Lowe so long delayed his vindication is not satisfactorily accounted for. He tells us himself there are few, if any, public administrations of which the records are so complete as those of his government at St. Helena. There is not only a detailed correspondence, addressed to his Majesty's Government during the five years that Napoleon remained under Sir Hudson's custody, but the greater part of the conversations held with Bonaparte himself was at the time immediately noted down with an ability and exactness which reflect the greatest credit on the Governor's military secretary, Major Gorrequer. This gentleman was not only a perfect master of the French language, but possessed a memory remarkable for its accuracy and tenacity, and was therefore eminently qualified to report the conversations at which he was himself present, and to detect any error to which a misapprehension of the meaning of foreigners might lead other persons who repeated what passed at interviews with Bonaparte and his followers. Why, then, were not these reports of conversations and occurrences, by Major Gorrequer, given to the world long ago? Many erroneous im