CCV. WHOSE CUNNING DECLARES ITS IMBECILITY. NAPOLEON, during nearly the whole of his march from Dresden to Moscow, hoped to receive some communication from the Emperor Alexander. He had At only one, and that of little or no consequence. length, embarrassed with the magnitude of his plan, he desired Berthier to state in a letter to General Barclay, The Emperor directs me to request you to present his compliments to the Emperor Alexander; tell him, 'that neither the vicissitudes of war, nor any other circumstance, can diminish the friendship he entertains 'for him.' For Napoleon to suppose that Alexander could be deceived by a message like this, we should,— had we not known his capability better,-have supposed him to have been a very great, nay, a very laughable, blockhead. It certainly, however, proves, and that very satisfactorily, that he was, occasionally, if not a very great fool, at least a very great knave: and this may serve to remind us that the French have a saying, that a wise man learns to shave on the chin of a fool. Some men's eyes resemble those of insects; they are immovable. Some resemble the bittern, which opens its bill so widely, that the eyes appear to be fixed in the bill; and some the lynx, the eyes of which were supposed, in ancient times, to have the power of seeing, not only through stone walls, but marble and granite. Others pretend to sound where no line can fathom; and their vision resembles those of the fallen spirits, as drawn by Dante : 'We view, as one who hath an evil sight, -but when they approach, Or actually exist, our intellect Then wholly fails.'-Cary; Inferno. And this reminds us of Alcina in Ariosto*, who, externally, was all beauty and captivation; internally, filthy and detestable; the figurative personification of mental blindness and dissimulation. And many men are so, who think themselves exceedingly wise. Leo X., for instance, circumvented every one at the beginning of his pontificate †, by the easiness of his manners, and the depth of his imposture; yet he laid the foundation, much against his intention,-for the subsequent degradation of the Roman See. Lord Cowper says of Harley (Earl of Oxford), that he loved tricks, not from their necessity, but from an inward satisfaction he felt in applauding his own cunning. If so, he resembled one of the electors of Bavaria. Sir,' said Gustavus Adolphus to St. Etienne, 'the elector of Bavaria is a sort of prince, who keeps ' in his wardrobe a set of upper garments of various 'hues; and changes those exterior robes convertibly ' with his interests, wearing black one day, white a second, variegated colours a third day, but always concealing the Burgundian cross next his heart. If it is 'his sincere desire to be well received in our court, let ' him produce himself in one unvarying form. Let him open the gates of Ingoldstadt, disband his army, *Orlando Furioso. + Guic.; Hist. d'Ital., xvi. Hardwicke Papers. ' refund his extortions, restore the palatinate, reform 'what is past, and give good security for all which is 6 to come.' Lambert, in Cromwell's time, was greatly addicted to stratagem; but he gained little by his plots and plans. To disguise his ambition, and watch his opportunities, he went to his house at Wimbledon, and fell 'to dresse his flowers in his garden, and work at the 'needle with his wife and maides *. Alas! - Who seeks in these True wisdom, finds her not; or, by delusion, There is a proverb†, implying, that a small share of cunning argues a vast deal of imbecility. There can be no doubt of this! Cunning is, in fact, the ass clad in the lion's skin; and hence, for example, we may despise all the Te Deums, which are chanted merely for the purpose of disguising a defeat. CCVI. WHO CHANGE THEIR SKINS AS IT WERE. St. Vincent's rocks. THIS romantic scene is said to resemble the vale of Tempe. The stone is a species of marble, being susceptible of polish; and many plants are found growing spontaneously, that are little, if at all, known in any other part of the kingdom. Yesterday the sun went down shrouded in mist; and *Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 341. 4to. so intense a darkness immediately succeeded, that we could almost have fancied ourselves in one of those planets, in which, from the want of an atmosphere, the transitions from light to darkness, and from darkness to light, are instantaneous. To-day we saw, for the first time in our lives, a snake in the act of casting its skin. We saw it with pleasure; for every thing, that is new to us in Nature, has a permanent interest. Some plants cast their cuticles every year; a new one being generated underneath. Of this the alder is an example. Not only lobsters reproduce their claws, after losing them, but crabs, crayfish, prawns, pandels, and shrimps. Spiders, also, reproduce their legs; and fable, if not truth, assures us (according to Varro and Strabo), that iron and other metals have the power of reproducing in the mine. Men, also, change their skins, as it were, not only every year, but almost every day. Plato has a fine passage in his' Banquet,' in regard to the changes we are perpetually undergoing. We are new men both in body and soul; in our hair, flesh, bones, and blood; in our habits, manners, and opinions; wants, wishes, pleasures, and pains. These being for ever changing, their places are supplied by others. Even our knowledge is in perpetual fluctuation. We lose today and acquire again to-morrow. We remember this moment what we had been incapable of recollecting three minutes before. We are, nevertheless, called the same person, let us grow as old as we will, and undergo as many changes as we may. But time and expe VOL. II. S rience contradict the assertion. We are essentially different. CCVII. MILTON Says: BRAWLERS FOR EQUALITY. -Orders and degrees Jar not with liberty; but well consist.'-Par. Lost, v. 791. So Shakspeare, in Henry V. 'Government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent; Like music.' Equality is a phantom! Were we all upon an equality,' said Johnson, 'we should have no other en'joyment than mere animal pleasure. Our tails would 'grow.' 'You are not, by this term,' says Voltaire, in his Essay on the Spirit of Nations*, to understand that absurd and impossible equality, by which the master and the servant, the magistrate and the artificer, the 'plaintiff and the judge, are confounded together; but that equality by which the subject depends only on the 'laws.' There are some, however, nay, a multitude, who, in their argument, desire nothing less than equality; but who, in their practice, are not quite so extravagant. They have no wish to raise those beneath up to their level; but to bring those who are beyond, down * See, also, Clement, Roman. Epist. c. 37, &c. |