The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-01 00:00:00

Tltk: SUN, LOXDON, WEDNESDAY_ EVENING, JULY 1, 1846.

for so doing. "Philip Basil" is a sufficient attestation
of this: Will he revert to the original dic-
tates of his ambition, and forsake, as incon_
sisterit with his talents, such conventional frib-
bles as Courtall in " Rebecca and her Daughters ?"
If he acts thus, and restrains the superfluity of his fancy,
and imparts a more artistic sequence to his plots, he
may produce something worthy of himself, and not un-
worthy of forming another link in our chain of literary
treasures. The two volumes before us, amidst an
abundance of valueless matter, justifies us in anticipat-
ing much. Mr. Stephens has it in his power to realise
or disappoint those anticipations. May they be
realised !

MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACKWOOD.
It has become quite a necessity in magazine writing
to flavour the literature of such periodicals with com-
pilations of historical romance. For one thing, it im-
parts a semblance of solidity to what might otherwise
appear the mere frippery of pencraft, and infuses both
brilliancy and interest into a number which might
otherwise elicit the stigma of immeasurable dullness.
AmOng the melodramatic class of these publications, the
court debaucheries of Charles IL furnish a dainty sup-
ply of materiels to be dished up into "4. revel at Sedg-
ley's Lodgings," or "A walk in the Mall with Nelly ;"
with others of a more morbid appetite the " Reign of
Terror " is the most popular epoch ; while those of a
fastidious delicacy situate their plots in the purlieus of
the Palais Royal, during the reign of the Grande
Monarque. There are, however, three themes which
present attractions to all descriptions of magazines, and
which, but for their being altogether exhaustless, would
have long since become frittered away into the veriest
commonplace ; those themes are, to employ the lan-
guage of Count Montholon, " a single thing, a single
event, and a single man—the thing is Waterloo ; the
event, the fall of the Empire ; and the man, Napoleon."
History will become wholly distastefull when these
mighty and momentous facts—than which none are
more mighty or more momentous in the entire range of
history—fail to arouse the attention and to kindle the
imaginations of men. Blackwood, in the present num-
ber, adds another chapter to the commentaries which
have already been written, and will still continue to be
written, again and again, upon these three extraor-
dinary topics. By a rather anomalous clash of words,
the paper is entitled " The Last Recollections of Napo.
Leon," and every one who is familiar with the political
creed • and the literary antipathies of our Edinburgh
contemporary cannot remain in doubt for a single in-
stant as to the sentiments which are inculcated in the
contribution. They are thoroughly anti-Napoleon.
They are built up on a succession of fallacies which
have not even the merit of being specious; every alter-
nate sentence is a sophism, but such a sophism as John
Willet himself would have penetrated in a second, The
writer undoubtedly is not so facetiously outré in his hatred
for the Emperor as Colonel Mitchell ; indeed he concedes
so much as to acknowledge that " it is perfectly childish
to question the talents of Napoleon," though in good
sooth "it needs no ghost to tell us that." But while
thus grudgingly eulogising his " antipathy," he discloses
the real prejudices of his heart in the sentence, " that
the character of Napoleon was a singular compound of
the highest intellectual powers with the lowest moral quali-
ties r A very "singular compound," without question !
"The highest intellectual powers with the lowest moral
qualities." Why, that is literally a description
of the arch-fiend himself ; and surely it is not
indicative of the coolness of dispassionate criticism,
to compare an historical character with the
attributes of the devil ! To our thinking such a proceed-
ing is the very quintessence of bigotry. But taking the
sentence in its literal acceptation, it is altogether a meta-
physical paradox, for the most illustrious analysers of
the human intellect, men who have anatomised the
phases of the mind, and familiarised themselves with the
emotions of the heart, coincide in declaring it to be in-
compatible with ethics, and to be averse to all experience,
to suppose the possibility of a man wholly and essentially
depraved. The utter villain is a creature to be encoun-
tered in novels and melodramas, but never in real life ;
for even those who are almost demonised in nature, re-
tain some lurking place (however gloomy) for the sym-
pathies and tenderness with which they are still linked
with humanity. In either case, therefore, the senten-
tious expression with which this contributor to
Blackwood sets out, is clearly an exaggeration.
That is the premise of the entire article ;
and the premise being thus exaggerated,
the inferences are, by necessity, nothing but one mar-
velous distortion. Among other things, the writer de-
clares that Napoleon was selfish and heartless. Now
history assures us, that never was man so worshipped
as was this man. Colonel Muiron was shot dead at
Arcola in defending his life ; Savary wept in the bit-
terest anguish, because not permitted to share his exile
at St. Helena. On the return from Elba, the hive of a
whole nation preserved his life better than a Phyrric
phalanx. His wives entertained towards him the sin-
cerest affection : his household submitted voluntarily
for six years to the most cruel caprices, and the most
irksome privations of banishment, rather than be se-
parated from the great man whom they loved so well.
Heartless, forsooth 1 Then, as to his selfishness—
what pomps, and pensions, and dignities did he not
shower upon his satellites, only to be repaid by ingrati-
tude in the days of his tribulation. Many times did he re.
• turn the crowns of Austria and Prussia to their conquered
monarchs; and, at one period he permitted Alexander to
return to Russia in freedom when captured by the
grand army :—was this selfishness? So far was Charles
James Fox from deeming on or heartless
.4.1 m. • ---44,,,Laatt as he was

certain he was the greatest of men 1" Novtee
more readily bow to the judgment of Charles James
Fox than to those of the anonymous Blackwood con-
tributor, MM:Chateaubriand, Bourrienne, Mitchell, and
the Due d'Otranto, all put together. But we neither
pin our opinions down to the dictation of Fox or any
other personage: the scroll of history has been written
and unrolled, let those, who will, read ! We might, with
the least possible effort, disclose the flimsiness of all
those fallacies which we have already remarked as the
principle constituents of this article, but that we con-
eeive such efforts to be little better than killing summer
flies, which must inevitably die away when the cool-
ness of the wintry future has passed over them.
Agreeing with an elegant writer in the Cyclopmdia,
Brittanica (a Professor of Edinburgh too !) that "no
one has been (like Napoleon) the object of such unspar-
ing abuse, such bitter detraction, such inveterate and
unrelenting rancour," we agree with him also in the
conviction that "neither envy, nor malice, nor hatred,
nor slander can ultimately succeed in depriving him of
his just fame." Believing this we can afford to pas€ over
such relics of the Georgean prejudices in silence, and to
leave the justification of the Emperor Napoleon to time
and the reason of posterity—satisfied that while his
memory will be one of unparalleled greatness, it will
be no less a memory of eminent and beautiful goodness.
" Marlborough's Dispatches," " Rogues in Outline," and
"Elinor Travis" are continued, the latter with some-
what of improvement. The tale of " The Americans
and the Aborigines" is brought in this number
to a conclusion, and, though it may bear the
appearance of a rather questionable compliment,
we consider the last part to be decidedly the most ac-
ceptable. Colonel Lord llowden's description of " The
Death of Zumalacarragui" is a literary curiosity, and
will be perused with the utmost interest ; the disserta-
tion upon" Peru" conveys a remarkable bulk of useful
information. By far the most agreeable contribution, to
ourselves, however, is that headed " New Scottish Plays
and Poems," which is brimming over with the music
and the poesy of the " Land o' Cakes"—the land of
mountain and of tarn"—" the land of Ossian and of
Burns"—or by whatever other title of beauty you may
please to affix upon Scotland. It is a critical essay, well
worthy of the taste and the nationality of Blackwood.