ted order than that of the latter. Washington belongs not, like Buonaparte, to that race of Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpass the ordinary stature of mankind. Nothing astonishing attaches to his person; he is not placed on a vast theatre; he is not pitted against the ablest captains of the age, and the mightiest monarchs of his time; he traverses no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna, and from Cadiz to Moscow; he defends himself with a handful of citizens, on a soil without recollections and without celebrity, in the narrow circle of the domestic hearths. He fights none of those battles which renew the triumphs of Arbela and Pharsalia; he overturns no thrones to recompose other's with their ruins; he places not his foot on the necks of Kings. Something of stillness envelopes the actions of Washington; he acts deliberately; you would say that he feels himself the representative of the liberty of future ages, and that he is afraid of compromising it. It is not his own destinies but those of his country, with which this hero of a new kind is charged; he allows himself not to hazard what does not belong to him. But what light bursts from this profound obscurity! Search the unknown forests where glistened the sword of Washington, what will you find there? Graves? no! a world, Washington has left the United States for a trophy of his field of battle. Buonaparte has not any one characteristic of this grave American: he fights on an old soil, surrounded with glory and ce lebrity he wishes to create nothing but his own renown; he takes upon himself nothing but his own aggrandizement. He seems to be aware that his mission will be short, that the torrent which falls from such a height will speedily be exhausted: he hastens to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as men do a fugitive youth. Like the gods of Homer, he wants to reach the end of the world in four steps: he appears on every shore, he hastily inscribes his name in the annals of every nation; he throws crowns as he runs, to his family and soldiers; he is in a hurry in his monuments, in his laws, in his victories. Stooping over the world, with one hand he overthrows kings, and with the other strikes down the revolutionary giant; but in crushing anarchy he stifles liberty, and finally loses his own in the field of his last battle. Each is rewarded according to his works: Washington raises his nation to independence: a retired magistrate he sinks quietly to rest beneath his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen, and the veneration of nations.Buonaparte robbed a nation of its independence: a fallen emperor, he is hurried. into an exile where the fears of the world deem him not safely enough imprisoned in the custody of the ocean. So long as, feeble and chained upon a rock, he struggles with death, Europe dares not lay down its arms. He expires: this intelligence, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had caused so many funerals to be proclaimed, neither stops nor astonishes the passen ger. The republic of Washington subsists, whereas the empire of Buonaparte is destroyed: he died between the first and second voyages of a Frenchman, who found a grateful nation where he had fought for a few oppressed colonists. Buonaparte and Washington sprang from the bosom of a republic: both born of liberty; the one was faithful to it, the other betrayed it. Their lot in futurity will be as different as their choice. The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age; it will mark the commencement of a new era for mankind. The name of Buonaparte will also be repeated by future generations; but it will not be accompanied by any benediction, and will frequently serve for authority to oppressors, great and small. Washington was completely the representative of the wants, the ideas, the knowledge, and the opinions of his time; he seconded instead of thwarting the movement of the mind; he aimed at that which it was his duty to aim at: hence the coherence and perpetuity of his work. This man, who appears not very striking, because, he is natural, and in his just proportions, blended his existence with that of his country; his glory is the common patrimony of growing civilization: his renown towers like one of those sanctuaries, whence flows an inexhaustible spring for the people. Buonaparte, in like manner, might have enriched the public domain: he acted upon the most civilized, the most brilliant, and the most intelligent, the bravest people upon earth.What rank would he occupy at this day in the uni verse, if he had combined magnanimity with the heroic qualities which he possess'd?-if Washington and Buonaparte in one, he had appointed liberty the heir tohis glory? But this prodigious giant did not completely connect his destinies with those of his contemporaries: his genius belonged to modern times, his ambition to bygone ages; he did not perceive that the miracles of his life far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this Gothic ornament would ill become him. Sometimes he advanced a step with the age, at others he retrogaded towards the past; and whether he opposed or followed the current of time, by his immense strength he repelled the waves or hurried them along with him. In his eyes men were but an engine of power; no sympathy subsisted between their happiness and his. He promised to deliver, and he fettered them; he secluded himself from them; they withdrew from him. The Kings of Egypt placed their sepulchral pyramids, not among flourishing fields, but amid sterile sands: those vast tombs stand like eternity in the desert: in their image Buonaparte built the monument of his own renown. THE PRICE OF AN EQUIPAGE. SHENSTONE. I ask'd my friend, amidst the throng, The gilded coach there-don't ye mind? Oh Sir! says he, what, han't you seen it? Bless me, said I, where can it end? Four powdered slaves, and those the tallest; In lace and food, so large a train? FINIS. |