The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" I am badly served in the north," he writes ;
and "I left a splendid army and excellent
" cavalry at Troyes, but the soul is wanting."
He speaks of the indecision and timidity of
General Maison, and complains that his
Ministers wanted presence of mind. In the
midst of his brilliant victories, from Feb. 10
to 18, we mark how rapidly the process of ex-
haustion went on :—" My Young Guard melts
" like a snowball." Never was the break-down
of a mighty empire more complete. To en-
courage his commanders he ordered an ex-
ample to be made of one of them :

The commandant at Soissons basely evacuated the town
without firing a shot. I have ordered the Minister of War
to have him arrested, brought before a court-martial, and
shot. He must be executed in the Place de Greve with
the utmost publicity.

The sentence following is too curiously illus-
trative of Napoleonic ideas of justice to be
omitted:—" Five generals must be appointed
" to try him ;" whether before or after execu-
tion is not stated.
There was a moment in the crisis of his
fate when peace was practicable ; though,
luckily, his confidence in his fortune pre-
vented negotiation. While the capital was
threatened, Joseph wrote, urgently pressing
an arrangement with the allies :—" If it be
" possible, then, peace—peace at any price."
The peace which at this time appeared practi-
cable was a treaty with Napoleon recognising
the ancient, limits of France—those which ex-
isted previous to 1792. The Bonapartists
hoped for what they called the natural limits,
the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine. There
was falsehood in the mind of Joseph in the
midst of his extremity:—

The whole of Europe joins in wishing to reduce France
to what she was in 1792. Let it, therefore, be the founds.
tion of a treaty which is rendered imperative by circum•
stances. . . . The natural limits would be a real boon,
both for France and the rest of Europe ; we might then
hope for a lasting peace, but impossibility relieves from
every obligation. Peace now is indispensable; it may be
broken on the day when France is able to reassert her
rights. Make, then, whet in your breast you will con-
sider as a mere truce, since the enemy's injustice will not
permit you to make an equitable peace.

With his succ6sses, Napoleon made sure that
this " equitable peace " was within his reach.
On Feb. 18th, he notices, with this style of
comment, the flag of truce sent Lim by Prince
Schwartzenberg

It is hard to be dastardly to such a degree. . . . On
the first repulse these wretches are on their knees. . . .
I shall not grant any armistice till I have cleared my
territory of them.
He adds:—

If I had signed on the terms of the ancient limits, I
should have rushed to arms in two years, and I should
have told the nation that I had signed, not a peace, but a
capitulation.

Was this a man to be trusted ? Joseph sud-
denly changed his tone at news of the victo-
ries, and declared every one would recognise
thelwisdom of his Majesty's conduct in listen-
ing to no terms except the "natural limits.'
But his panic soon returned, and he again
prayed for a peace at any price, which would
leave the Napoleonic family in power "Never
lose sight of my son," wrote Napoleon. " I
" would rather know that he was in the Seine
" than in the hands of the enemies of France."
Joseph replied, " Why not appeal to Austria ?
" Your son is the grandson of Francis." This
Joseh, who was to die on the walls, like the
last Emperor of Constantinople, travelled com-
fortably to Orleans with an immense train of
carriages, and reminded Napoleon of family
wants :

Mamma is in want of money ; six months of her pen-
sion is due. Neither has Jerome any money.

This must have reached Napoleon while he
was in his agony at Fontainebleau, and also a
later letter, showing what he might still expect
from the brotherly love of Joseph :

Should the Bourbons be called to the throne . . I
could not possibly live in France, nor could I take my
wife and children to the island of Elba. If sad necessity
should force your Majesty thither, I will go to visit you,
and to prove to yon my attachment; but it will not be
until I have placed my wife and children in safety.
At the close of the correspondence there is a
most interesting letter from the present Em
peror of the French, dated New York, April
22, 1837, addressed to his uncle Joseph, jus-
tifying his Strasburg attempt. Joseph, it
seems, was annoyed at the enterprise ; it
failed, and Prince Louis Napoleon, with some

65

bitterness and much pathos, deprecates his
uncle's displeasure. If I had been success-
ful, he says, it might have been magnani-
mous to break with me, but—

when against my will I escape from the bayonet and the
scaffold to a foreign shore, I find there only contempt and
disdain on the part of my family !

The letter is written in a most unaffected
style, and for that reason one passage in it is
the more remarkable :

As for me, however you may treat me, my behaviour will
not alter; the general sympathy, the tranquillity of my
conscience, and, above all, the persuasion that if the Em-
peror looks down upon me, he approves me—these are the
considerations which compensate for the many mortifica-
Cons and injuries which I have endured.

We have been led to dwell on these volumes
so long from the kind of fascination which
they possess. Were all other books relating
to Napoleon lextinct, we might from this
"Correspondence" alone obtain a complete
view of his character, with all its intellectual
energy, and all his ungovernable ambition.
For another reason the book is especially
valuable. It justifies the part of England in
the last great war. It shows that peace with
Napoleon was impossible, as nothing less than
universal empire would have contented him.
The moral of his meteoric career has been well
read lby his sagacious nephew—" The age of
" conquests has passed." Time has assisted
to realise this remarkable expression. Napo-
leon 111. seems desirous of making full
amends to Europe for the ravages inflicted
on it in the last generation by Napoleon I.

The Tragedies of iEschylus. Re-edited, with an
English Commentary, by F. A. Paley.

London: Whittaker and Co.
THE above is a new volume of the "Biblio-
theca Classica," edited by Mr. Long and Mr.
Macleane. Mr. Paley's claims as an editor of
iEschylus have been long admitted by all
scholars, and it with great pleasure we see
that his work has been selected for the series
in question. As, however, our present busi-
ness is naturally confined to a comparison
between Mr. Paley's recent and earlier per-
formances, we must limit ourselves to the
selection of two or three passages as examples
of the method in which he has availed him-
self of such works as have appeared in the
interim.

In the beautiful speech of Danaus in the
" Supplices" (949), Mr Paley, while adopting
some of the verbal emendations of Hermann,
has given a different sense to the following
difficult lines :

zips; oau "ra d' 144ixerstT2; cats.l.4s4•
kit; at mlitsirova-s xal &Wet? Ti 1.441/ ;
xai XVJJ'atati X3l "'navy:ll3;i,
xisiit.u.l.4.49' its crrci‘'orra. votpiTcris Kirtris;,
ximpt wthoinsTur thirtsr Ohm.
In his former edition the two last stood
thus :

41.100-714'91.
Xti,:lru/thes7% 0'1%;q10,701, xnpo'crer es liLos'c, £;
xa- X:Lict 34.4.1:021)7a1/ escr'l.4.eme Spy.

The new reading is doubtless the best, and
more consistent with what has gone before
than the idea of Venus preventing these aggres-
sions, which is the sense of the first reading,
and which Hermann, substituting saxv,L,o-0 for
retains now.

In " Septem Contra Thetas" (84), Mr. Paley
adopts into the text the emendation of di y4c
for ixdit.4o;, which he had suggested in his pre-
vious edition, in opposition to the opinion of
Hermann, who still maintains that the original
word is correct.

In the " Agamemnon' Mr. Paley's notes
on the first Chorus are,
very full and sa•
tisfactory ; and his other emendations in
this play, either original or taken from Her-
mann or Covington, are generally entitled to
the praise of judiciousness. We have only space
for two instances, one of which we have se-
lected on account of it being rather less
felicitous. But the following emendation
strikes us as admirable :

az, a; fhOi Tore µire gl'ikXceit Triet 71till
'Eki)nc olx.
Xlife al/01.401:401N; ;wen yinceiAihivo;,
eiqr iriarxibwr e:axgr
eics'croi ix euertitiv
eiv4cs'al OvilerXoVGA 11214Wr—Ag., 774.

°!

All former editions for ix o:.,T,;iy have either
a'3o6alov or ix4:".o-,oy, the latter of which
is Herumum's. But, as Mr. Paley observes,
neither gives at all a satisfactory sense to the
passage; whereas i'x OLlerf:, involving only
the change from o to 0, gives at once a simple
and natural one, and appropriately refers to
Agamemnon's attempt to give a religious
sanction to the expedition. In the speech of
Cassandra (A.g., 1293) Mr. Paley has adopted
two laudable emendations of Hermann, though
he shrinks from the somewhat wholesale
alteration proposed in a third. In lino 1293,
for jl7ll/ r 14"ivOY he reads p;;(7,10 OLi L;;;:iyoy ; and
again in 1299, xpi4..1,11, for Ti;4m But We are
rather surprised at his remarks on the famous
/ocus A/putt:tut in the last four lines :

l'w iSpOTties 71p11.),F4CiT'' fhiV
crx-tei" Tic isr ift3i444/1/• t: a; Li-rtc;i,
Aokesic :qptu'cro-cur cririyy3; W'Xscrtv
Tctier' ktirwr ti.iihNoy
The true reading of this much disputed
passage, says Mr. Paley, is due to Professor
Conington. Now here there certainly seems
t) us to be a double mistake. For neither the
reading nor the interpretation given are Mr.
Coniugton's, nor is the interpretation, in our
opinion, the true one. Mr. Conington under-
stands the it N h(TTUX;I clause, of death simply ;
that man has got a worse change than that
from adversity to prosperity hanging over
him, viz., that from life to death. Mr. Paley
seems to suppose that the second alternative
is intended to be advantageously contrasted
with the first—that, whereas prosperity is un-
stable, in adversity we know the worst, and
end it by death. Of these two we certainly
prefer Mr. Conington's reading, who had not,
when he wrote, the advantage of Hermann's
emendation, 7r,q44,1y ; but we think both
commentators have been led astray by under-
standing the last line of all, x%l iXtiV,VI9
to refer to the two states of man just described,
Mr. Paley further supposing that there is a
contrast intended between the speaker and Aga-
memnon. But we think Hermann's transla-
tion of this passage much more simple and
natural. He would make imivwv refer to
line 1272, where the chorus expresses pity
for Cassandra, wTx;ip.o7, otxztii w (71 eloves.Tou p.Opou ;
and the sense would then be, " How mise-
rable is the condition of humanity ! Pro-
" sperity, at the best, is as vague and evancs-
" cent as the outline of a picture (vita) ; yet
"even that little is liable at any moment to be
"completely swept away by the stroke of ad-
" versity, as the picture is with the sponge.
" And this state of things is, in my opinion,
" much more deplorable than my own particu-
" lar fate, which you say you pity." This read-
ing obviates the necessity of reversing the
usual signification of and IXISYWV.
Our general conclusion from the perusal
of this work is, that it will decidedly sustain
the high character of the " Bibliotheca
Classica." The emendations are, on the whole,
both numerous and cautious, and contain all
the pith of Hermann's critical sagacity, with-
out being infected by his rashness , and, to
sum up our judgment in one word, it is, we
should say, the safest edition that can be put
into the student's hands.

Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects. Cam-
bridge : Macmillan and Co.
Tan names which appear in the " Contents" of
this volume will be a warrant to the public fo its,
excellence. Messrs. Maurice, Kingsley, Trench
Dr. Chambers, and Mr. Tom Taylor, form a phalanx
of supporters which promises well for the success of
the institution which these lectures are intended to
promote. Where all are so good, it would perhaps
be invidious to make a selection ; yet we cannot re •
fraiu from expressing our sense of the extreme
appropriateness of such subjects as that taken up by
Dr. Chambers—i.e., "The Influence of Occupation
on Health "—in which he dwells upon the various spe-
cial causes of disease to which the different trades
and callings of the poorer classes are liable, and
points out simple and efficacious precautions against
them. Knowledge of this kind will be invaluable to
a lady district visitor. 'Mr. Kingsley's and Mr.
Trench's are both in their way most excellent and
interesting essays—the one on j" The Country
Parish," the other on " Teaching by Words." In
point of fact, however, every one of the subjects
touched on would furnish matter for a separate
review ; and we must content oursel‘es with recom
mending the work most heartily to a'l our readers,
and especially ladies resident in town.

I

THE PRESS.

The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children.
By the Rev. C. Kingsley. Cambridge : Macmillan
and Co.

THERE is no living writer batter qualified for such a
work as this than the author of " Westward Ho "
The present volume contains the three legends of
Perseus, the Argonauts, and Theseus ; and, instead
of any comments on the method of treatment, we
prefer giving our readers one or two extracts which
will show the singular charm of Mr. Kingsley's
style when devoted to what is purely poetical and
fanciful. Here is the journey of Perseus through
the air :

But Perseus leaped away to the southward, leaving
the snow and the ice behind ; past the isle of the Hyper-
boreans, awl the tin isles, and the long Iberian shore ;
while the sun rose higher day by day upon a bright blue
summer sea. And the terns and the sea-gulls swept
laughing round his head, and called to him to stop and
play, and the dolphins gambolled up as he passed, and
offered to carry him on their backs. And all night long
the sea•nymphs sang sweetly, and the Tritons blew upon
their conchs, as they played round Galatsea their queen, in
her car of pearled shells. Day by day the sun rose higher,
and leaped more swiftly into the sea at night, and more
swiftly out of the sea at dawn ; while Perseus skimmed
over the billows like a sea-gull, and his feet were never
wetted ; and leapt on from wave to wave, and his limbs
were never weary, till he saw far away a mighty mountain,
all rose•red in the setting sun. Its feet were wrapped in
forests, and its head in wreaths of cloud ; and Perseus
knew that it was Atlas, who holds the heavens and the
earth apart.