The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1869-04-10 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

APOLEON THB GREAT. —The conception which M. Lanfrey has for t.ed of Napoleon's character is an intelligible one enough. Selfishness, developed to it. -• t . - arena, if we judge rightly, be described by Ifie author as the predominant eliaracteristic of the can. Att .ched to his family as constituents of his greatness, fond of his soldie 8 as the inatruments of his ambition, loving France as the scene of his glory, he was yet ready at any moment to sacrifice family, army, and country to the advancement of his own interests or the gratification of his own vanity. Constitutionally hum .ne, he would sarifice the lives of thousands on the balk-field without the slightest compunction, and w .uld s metion the perpetration of a murder, like that of the Duke .af d'Engheim, for no other reason than an impression that a show ot vigour would strengthen his position. But analysis of character is not a pursuit tor which M. Imnfrey seems to no to have any special fancy. Ile describes the ache of the hero of his inarrative, and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusi Mt as to the motives which led to those actions. He takes, indeed, an almost morbid delight in showing how the indifference to convictions of every kind, the freedom from prejudices, the absence of mend cansideradons, which constituted Napoleon'a strength constituted his weakness also, and led to his ultimate downfall. Withaut principls himself, he con d never credit the existence of principle in ot ers ; indifferent to truM or justice he could never realise the influence that these collides exert over mankmd ; devoid of the instinct ti p triotism, he always overlooked its operation as an element of human affairs. So it came to pass that time after time he committed blunders and involved hims if in difficulties which men with not one tenth port of his ability, but with a truer appreciation of humanity, would have avoided. Indeed, the chief moral M. Lanfrey has to teach is that the world has given Napoleon I. credit for a ele ,mess of vision and a grasp ot mind which he was far from possessing. The expedition to Egypt, the propostM invasion of England, the naval campaign which terminated in Ttafagar, the conquest of Prussia, were all, as the artrator endeavours to show, giaantin follies dne te se o,orwooning vaniTy, and redeemed only from the disastar which ought to have followed them, partly by In k, will more by the errors of Napoleon's oppo en's. In fact, if this view is correct, the march ti Id..scow is only the logical termination of the imperial career. t' When you think,:'—to quote the author's words, of the tier aes Wire:Pei 11l Ilia hands, and of the unworthy use to which f r so long a time lie applied it with impunity, your imagination carries you back to those amine powers who play RO Important a part in Oriental tales. So lorg as the hero retains the talisman everything prospers with him beyond the kends of possibility. The principles which govern Other oret hs,. foe km ito eviatenee. Unheard of prodigies arise without effort under his unconscious hands. He knows neither good nor evil; he laughs at impossioilities He malra, at his pleasure, at all that is just sod saored . From him madness becomes genial; imprudefiee, skill; iniquity, justice; and the wore lie tramples under foot all rules of wisdom, right, and commou seam, the more his success swells and grows and fills the world. The very vast laws oh nature seem to be upset; mankind contemplates with supers.itious terror the sinister glory of the meteor. They are ready to deify this privileged, invulnerable mortal, whose astounding fortune can be compromised by no crime, weakened by no folly. One day the talisman is broken or lost, and of a sudden the god disappears. There is nothing Inftbut a wretched lunatic you ask whether this elect of dynasty has not been ita victim, and your mind hesitates in perplexity between horror and pity. Such is the history of Napoleon r.—Saint  WI