SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Horroar, History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon. Forming a Se- quel to " The History of the French Revolution." By M. A. fliers, late Prime Minister of France. Member of the French Academy, and of the Institute, &c. &c. Translated by D. Forbes Campbell, Esq., with the sanction and approval of the Author. Volumes I. II. Colburn.

SOCIAL POLITY,

Slavery in the United States. A Letter to the Hon. Daniel Webster. By M. B.

Sampson Htehiey.

POETRY,

Hebrew Dramas ; founded on Incidents of Bible History. By :William Tennant, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of St. Andrews.

FICTios, Henries, Edinburgh. The Prime Minister ; an Historical Romance. By William 11. 0. lUngston, Author

of "The Circassian Chief," &c. In three volumes Bentley.

St. Patrick's Eve. By Charles Lever. Illustrated by This Chapman and Hall.

STATISTICS,

American Facts, Notes, and Statistics, relative to the Government, Resources, En- gagements, Manufactures, Commerce, Religion, Education, Literature, Fine Arts, Manners and Customs, of the United States of America. By George l'almer

Putnam Wiley and Puligen•

TRIERS'S HISTORY OF THE CONSULATE AND THE Erarraz.

IT was remarked by Voltaire, that the ancient historians excelled the moderns by not descending to minute particulars, which produce a ga- zette rather than a history. In this general remark of his predecessor is embraced the critical character of the work of M. Thiers. The arrange- ment is very skilful--chronological, yet following the natural order. The general characteristics of the times are impressed upon the reader; who is made to feel the exhaustion and fears of France consequent upon the crimes of the Terrorists and the corrupt weakness of the Directory, with the national disposition to cling to any one who could maintain order; without scrutinizing too closely the despotic means he might adopt. The financial difficulties and social disorders overcome by Bonaparte, the legislative constitution established after the overthrow of the Directory, and the internal improvements effected, are all distinctly presented to the mind. Foreign affairs, or perhaps the dispositions of foreign courts, are exhibited; as well as the characters of the leading French politicians, and the leading strategy of the campaigns ; for though the battles and man- oeuvres are described with a minute prolixity, and apparently by a man , who has obtained a knowledge of his subject at second-hand and drawn it dry, yet the general plan and scope of the campaign is impressed upon the reader. To do all this is a great merit; but the highest historical merit is to do it with fewer words, and in a different style. The work is less a his- tory than an account. It wears the air of a report from a Parliamentary committee or Government commission: nor is it altogether free from in- dividual weaknesses. In some rhetorical terms and peculiarities of argu- ment, as well as in a general diffuseness of style, we are reminded of "Monsieur le Redacteur 3 whilst the "jalousie de metier" peeps out in the depreciatory estimate of Talleyrand and Fouche. The misstatements respecting Pitt and "English ambition" are of a more general and a graver class. The Ilfallne,sbury Correspondence * was not indeed available to M. Thiers; • but his own archives were, and the advantage his connexions with the French Government have given him are rather paraded. When, therefore, we find him maintaining that rites proposals to the Directory were insincere, we are driven to suspect the industry or distrust the accuracy of the historian.

The time contained in the two volumes before us is something less than

eighteen months—November 1799, April 1801. It embraces the es- tablishment of the Consular Government, the restoration of order, and con- fidence at home, with Bonaparte's theatrical offers of peace to the King of Great Britain and the Emperor of Austria. These having failed, the active and secret preparations of the First Consul are described, with his plans for Moreau's campaign upon the Rhine and his own in Italy, which terminated in the successive defeats and discomfiture of Kray and in time victory of Marengo. The armistice following these successes induces a natural pause, during which we are carried to Egypt, and have a survey of its condition and the feelings of the army, with a narrative of events till the assassination of Kleber. The state of the principal courts of Europe, and the negotiations commenced between Austria and France, are next exhibited ; till the evident efforts of Austria to gain time caused the winter-campaign which produced the battle of Hoheulinden and Morea.u's march upon Vienna. Peace with Germany brings us back to internal affairs, including the conspiracy to assassinate Bonaparte, known from its instrument the "infernal machine." A closing chapter, entitled "Neutral Powers," describes the efforts of Bonaparte to shut the Con- tinent against Britain, gives an account of the Northern Confederacy, the battle of Copenhagen, the assassination of the Emperor Paul, and elide with Lord Hawkesbury's overtures for peace on the part of England.

The most instructive if not the most interesting portion of the book is

the account of Boneparte's restoration of the finances ; which contains the germ of the present administrative system in France, and may be perused for its hints as to the means of ordering and forestalling revenue : the reader, however, will not fail to observe that France, even in her state of anarchy, had the power to bear the burden imposed—the money was there before it could be taken. The most curious part of the work is the sketch of the Abbe Sieyes, and his constitution; to both of which full justice is shown by M. Thiers, and perhaps some degree of favour. The warlike portion of the history is, as we have in- timated, the least successful, except in the description of the mili- tary administration, and the passage of the Alps. This last is stripped of all its exaggerated romance, and shown in the light of a business trans- action, in which the novelty of the enterprise with a large army, the resolute will, and the orderly arrangement, form the true points ot' con- See Spectator, 11th January 1845. Even this is perhaps conceding too much. The work is but just printed, and on the very last page M. Thiers reite- rates, that the negotiation of Lord Malmesbury, in 1797, was but an empty demonstration on the part of Mr. Pitt." sideration. Having shown this reality in his narrative, M. Thiers should have been as true in his panegyrics, and not have talked about the "modern Hannibal" and so forth. Napoleon concentrated his army at thafoot of the mountain, followed a road that had been used for centuries, and met not a single enemy till he had descended on the Italian side, when a fort impeded the passage of artillery. Hannibal had both to find and fight his way from the Rhone to Italy : his was an exploring expedition of discovery as well as the march of an army ; and it never can be paralleled till some unknown Alps shall be found. We might as well compare a rough passage across the Atlantic with the voyage of Columbus.

The most amusing parts of the book are the sketches of individuals— ministers, kings, and courtiers. These, however, are not exactly history —they want the tone of history : in substance, indeed, they are little beyond the anecdotes of a gossip-monger, though somewhat elevated by the style.

CHARLES THE FOURTH OF SPA.

The King of Spain was an honest man; not harsh and blunt like Louis XVL, MOM agreeable in person, but leas informed, and surpassing him in weakness. He rose very early, not to attend to his royal duties, but to hear masses, and then go down to his workshops, where, surrounded by turners, smiths, and armourers, and stript off' his clothes hire them, he wrought in their company at all sorts of work. Though very fond of the chase, he liked still better to manufacture arms. From his shops he went to his stables, to assist in dressing his horse!, and indulged in the most incredible familiarities with his grooms. After spending the first half of the day in this manner, he took a solitary repast, to which neither the Queen nor even his children were admitted, and devoted the rest of the day to the chase. several hundred horses and servants were set in motion for this daily pleasure, which was his predominant passion. After riding like a young man he would return to his palace, give a quarter of an hour to his children, half 'an hour to the signature of the papers submitted to him by the Queen and his Ministers, sit down to play with some of the nobles of his court, sometimes take a nap with them, till the hoar for his last meal, which was followed immediately by his re- tirement to bed, always at one and the same fixed time. Such was his life, without a single variation throughout the year, unless during Passion-week, which was devoted entirely to religions exercises. In other respects, an honest man, faithful to his word, mild, humane, religious, of exemplary chastity though net cohabiting with his wife, ever since his physicians had, by her directions, Otdered him to abstain from it: he had no other share in the scandals of his court, in the faults of his government, than in suffering them to be committed, without perceiving them, without believing them, during the course of a long reign- THR NEM AND THE OONSUL.

The partiality of the King [for Bonaparte] soon became unbounded. Having seen the arms sent to the Prince of Peace, he conceived and expressed a wish to have some of the same sort. Some magnificent specimens were manufactured forthwith; and he received them with real joy. The Queen also wished for dresses; and Madame Bonaparte, who was celebrated for her taste' sent all the most exquisite and elegant productions of that kind in Paris. Charles IV., generous as a Castilian, unwilling to be behindhand, took care to make a right royal return. Knowing that horses would be acceptable to the First Consul, he stripped the studs of Aranjnez, Medina Cceli, and Altamira, of their handsomest inmates, to find first six then twelve, then sixteen horses, the finest in the Penin- sula. One cannot tell where he would have stopped, had he not been checked in his ardour. He took two months to select them himself; and nobody could have performed the task better, for he was a consummate judge. He appointed, more- over, a numerous train to accompany them to France; chose his best grooms for this mission,—clothed them in magiuficent liveries; and imposed but one condition on all this parade; namely, that, while travelling in France, his grooms should attend mass every Sunday. A promise was given that his desire should be com- plied with; and his joy at making a handsome present to the First Consul was then unalloyed. Though fond of France, this excellent Prince had a notion that it was impossible for a man to live in that country many days without wholly forsaking the religion of his forefathers. The eclat of these demonstrations suited well the views of the First Consul rt gratified him: he thought it useful to show to Europe, and even to France, the successors of Charles V., the descendants of Louis XIV., taking honour to themselves from their personal relations with him.

roncia.

M. Fouche, charged to exercise this power, [Minister of Police,] formerly an Oratorian and a Conventionalist, was an intelligent and a crafty personage, neither good nor wicked, well acquainted with men, especially the bad, and de- spising them: employing the funds of the Police in supporting the agents of troubles as much as in watching them; always ready to procure bread or a place for every Tenon weary of political agitations; thus making friends for the Govern- ment, and more especially for himself; creating for himself obliged dependents, far superior to credulous and deceitful spies, who never failed to inform him of everything that it was his interest to know; having persons under obligations to him in all the parties, even among the Royalists, whom he knew how to manage, and to repress at the right time; always forewarned, never overrating danger, nor ting it to his master; clearly distinguishing an imprudent man from one exaggerating feared, knowing when to caution the one, to proceed against the other; n short, managing the Pohce better than it ever was managed, for it consists in disarming animosities as much as in repressing them; a superior Minister, if he had had elevated intentions—if his indulgence had sprung from any other prin- ciple than an indifference to good and evil—if his activity bad proceeded from any other motive than a passion for interfering in everything, which rendered him irksome and suspicious to the First Consul, and frequently gave him the appear- ance of a vulgar intriguer. For the rest, his intelligent but ignoble countenance was a faithful mirror of the qualities and vices of his soul. * * M. Fouche, half faithful to the Revolutionary party, [Jacobins,] took pleasure in showing indulgence to his old friends, and dared, in reference to them, to con- tradict the First Consul. Well knowing their moral situation, appreciating more especially the villains of Royalism, he was incessantly repeating that the danger, if there were any, was from the Royalists much more than from the Revolu- tionists, and that they should soon have occasion to perceive this. He had even the merit, but not for a long time, of insisting that it would be well not to forsake the Revolution and its ideas quite so much. Hearing already the flatterers of the day assert that it was necessary to proceed more rapidly in reaction, to disregard the prejudices of the Revolution, and to return to something that should resemble monarchy minus the Bourbons, be dared to censure, if not the aim' at least the imprudence with which certain persons pursued that track. While admitting the 'nstice of his opinions, given with good sense, but without frankness and without ity, the First Consul was struck but not pleased with them. He aeknow- the services of this personage, but had no esteem for him.

The sketch of M. Cambaceres is considerably more favourable than the common estimate of him:, but the eminent position he so long held could scarcely have been retained under Napoleon without some superior

CAMBACEFAS.

The First Consul prized the plain good sense of M Fowl* relished the graces

of M. de Talleynuid, but absolutely- believed neither the one nor the other on any subject; and as for his confidence, had given that, given it wholly and entirely, but not to either of those two men—to his colleague Cambaceres. The latter, with an understanding far from brilliant, had extraordinary good sense, and an unbounded attachment to the First Consul Having trembled for ten years of his life under proscribers of all sorts, he loved with a,•nd of affection the power- ful master who at length procured him the faculty of breathing at his ease. He loved his power, his genius, his person, from which he had not received, and hoped_ never to receive, anything but favours. Acquainted with the weaknesses of men, even of the greatest, he counselled the First Consul, as one ought to counsel when one wishes to be attended to, with perfect sincerity, with extreme discretion, never for the purpose of showing off his own wisdom, but always to be serviceable to. ac Government which he loved as dearly as himself, always approving of all its sets in public, whatever they might be, and never disapproving of them but in private, in an absolute tete-l-tete with the First Consul; keeping silence when there was. no good to be done, and when censure could be but a vain pleasure of find* fault; sure to speak his mind, and with a oourage highly meritorious in a man-se extremely timid, when he was in time- to prevent a blunder or influence the gene* ral conduct of affairs. And, as if a character which is incessantly under soli- restraint must needs be betrayed into some weakness, the Consul Cambaceres ex- hibited a puerile vanity with his inferiors, lived with some subaltern courtiers, who paid lint fulsome homage, walked every day in the Petals Royal in a ridi- culously magnificent dress, and sought in the gratification of a gourmandise that has become proverbial, pleasures which were suited to his vulgar but prudent soul. Of what consequence, however, are a few foibles, redeemed by superior reason! The First Consul cheerfully forgave these foibles in his colleague, and made much of him. He appreciated that superior good sense which never wished to shine but to be useful, and which threw a tempered and true light upon every- thing. He appreciated above all the sincerity of his attachment, laughed at his weaknesses, but always with delicacy., and paid him the very high compliment of confiding everything to him alone, of never being concerned but about his judg ment. Hence he was susceptible of no influence but his; an influence scarceIy suspected, and on that account very great.

BONAPARTE CROSSING THE ALPS.

He set out to cross the Col, before daylight on the 20th [May MO.] Be was accompanied by Duroc' his Aide-de-camp, and De Bourrienne, his Secretary Artists have delineated hint crossing the Alpine heights mounted on a fiery steed. The plain truth is, that he ascended the St. Bernard in that gray surtont which he usually wore, upon a mule, led by a guide belonging to the country; evincing, even in the difficult passes, the abstraction of a mind occupied elsewhere; con- versing with the officers scattered on the road, and then, at intervals, questioning the guide who attended him, making him relate the particulars of his life, its pleasures, his pains, like an idle traveller who has nothing better to do. This guide, who was quite young, gave him a simple recital of the details of his obscure ex- istence, and especially the vexation he felt because for want of a little moner he could not marry one of the girls of his valley. The First Consul, sometimes' listening, sometimes questioning the passengers with whom the mountain was covered, arrived at the Hospice; where the worthy monks gave him a warm recep tion. No sooner had he alighted from his mule than he wrote a note which he handed to his guide, desiring him to be sure and deliver it to the Quartermaster of the Army, who had been left' on the other side of the St. Bernard. In the evening, the young man, on returning to St. Pierre, learned with surprise what powerful traveller it was whom he had guided in the morning; and that General Bonaparte had ordered that a house and a piece of ground. should' be given to him immediately., and that he should be supplied, in short, with the means requisite for marrying and for realizing all the dreams of his modest ambition. This mountaineer died not long since, in his own country, the owner or land given to him by the ruler of the world. This singular act of beneficeno4 at a moment when his mind was engaged by such mighty interests, is worth of attention. If there were nothing in it but a mere conqueror's caprice, dis- pensing at random. good or evil, alternately overthrowing empires or rearing a cottage, it may be useful to record such caprices, if only to tempt the masters- of the earth to imitation: but such an act reveals something more. The human soul in those moments when it is filled with ardent desires is disposed'M kindness: it does good by way of meriting that which it is soliciting of Pro, vidence.

The First Consul halted for a short time with the monks, thanked them,for- their attentions to his army, and made them a magnificent present for the rat of the poor and of travellers. He descended rapidly, suffering himself, according to the custom of the couro try, to glide down upon the snow, and arrived the same evening at Etroublett

ADVANTAGE OF INSTITUTIONS.

Such a state of things [the violence of Paul] could not long continue, and must inevitably terminate in some deed of violence, similar to that which more than: once had been witnessed in this empire, where it is true, rapid advances hare been made towards civilization, but where actual barbarism was the point of starting. The idea of getting rid of the unhappy Paul by the accustomed means, that is to say by a revolution at the palace, there where the palace is the nation, suggested itself to every mind. Let us set a proper value upon the advantages of institutions. At another extremity of Europe, upon one of the greatest thrones of the universe, sat a prince afflicted also with insanity, a headstrong but pious and good prince, George HI. This King, occasionally deprived of his reason during whole months, had just experienceda relapse of his malady, at one of the most critical moments for England. Nevertheless, the business ot the nation pro- ceeded in the most regular and ordinary course. The constitution providing the, King with Ministers, who conduct the Government on his behalf, this aberration of the royal mind, did not in any way prejudice the affairs of the nation. Mr: Pitt held the government for George 111. precisely as he had held it during seven- teen years: the thought of an atrocious crime never entered into the imagination of any one. At St. Petersburg, on the contrary, the spectacle of an insane prince on the throne gave rise to the most sinister projects.

Besides the literary merits already mentioned, one of the most striking qualities of this work is the practical or worldly as opposed to the merely speculative mind. M. Thiers speaks of persons and events like a man who has a knowledge of the one and has been engaged in the other. Hence, in despite of blemishes in style and taste, and an unnecessary minuteness of detail, there is little of mere writing throughout his book, and nothing of verbiage. His first great fault is the pervading one of having written his work to exalt Bonaparte and depreciate everybody else. National mannerism and national faults are to be expected and allowed for ; but M. Thiers seems designedly to have adopted for a lite- rary if not a personal purpose the faults of a faction. Professing in words to censure the Terrorists, he adopts the worst because the political vices of the Jacobins and of Napoleon—their unscrupulous disregard of national, popular, and individual rights ; substituting their own arbi- trary will for the laws of nations and of nature. Though often depro. ciatory to persons, M. Thiers is rarely unjust towards them ; and he is not unfrequently complimentary even towards an enemy—if that enemy is not an Englishman': but in the larger matters of war and politics he enema devoid of moral sense, and to be prepared with a de-

Enos or an apology for any and every atrocity of the Empire. Coupled With this, too, or springing from it, is the logical fault of substituting periods for reasoning, and giving us a phrase instead of an argument. It is a more general characteristic of his nation, that when pressed:by a filet he meets it by a fancy. See the use of an iff—the Frenchman is ripeaking of Marengo and Desaix.

"He had marched the whole day; and at three.o'clock his heads of columns at length appeared at the entrance mto the plain, in the vicinity of San Giuliano. He haeff, preceding them at a gallop, rode up to the First Consul. Happy in- spiration of a lieutenant equally- intelligent and attached! happy fortune of youth ! H, fifteen years later, the First Consul, now so well seconded by his Generals, had found a Desaix on the field of Waterloo, he would have preserved the empire, and France her preponderant position among the powers of Europe."