Baden. A Rhapsody on Gambling, &c. The Passage down the Rhine. Worms. Mayence. - ERRATA IN VOL. II. Page 308. line 1. for widows read windows. 308. line 3. for indeed read however. 262 282 299 314 ON finally quitting Milan, which we did soon after our return from Pavia, we set out northwards, having abandoned our intention of visiting Lodi, the memorable scene of one of the earliest and bravest of Napoleon's exploits, where at the head of a column of several thousand men, he crossed the bridge of the Austrians, - and carried it by a coup de main, in the midst of a most slaughtering fire on the part of the enemy. He had not then learned the cry of " Sauve qui peut;" besides which he was then a mere soldier of fortune* with 66 A somewhat curious anecdote has lately come out respecting 'l'Empereur" when he was in his larva form, and his glory merely in embryo. A young officer who had been discharged after the siege of Toulon, and thereby reduced to the greatest straits, got himself admitted, through the influence of an old domestic, to the presence of Tallien, to whom he represented his destitute condition, 2 AN EMBRYO EMPEROR. nothing to lose and every thing to win. And, as our English Horace says "Let him storm castles who's not worth a groat." at the same time pointing to his ragged uniform, the elbows of which were quite worn out. Madame Tallien's compassion was excited by the applicant's miserable appearance, and ordered that he should forthwith be supplied with the materials for a new suit. The cloth was accordingly delivered to him; and in that piece of cloth, it has been said, originated the chain of those important events which thenceforth acted upon the destinies of Europe, on its cabinets and its armies. The young officer, in whom the reader has recognised no other than Napoleon himself, got a new uniform made, and began to cut a figure in Madame Tallien's salon de compagnie. Here it was that he first met Madame de Beauharnois; her he soon afterwards married, became General, First Consul, Emperor. No doubt he might still have distinguished himself even had he not obtained the notice of Madame Tallien; but then it might have been under a very different train of circumstances, and in all probability he might never have seen his Josephine. Certain it is, at all events, that to Madame Tallien he was first indebted for the opportunity of which his genius so well availed itself; and how did he afterwards testify his gratitude to his early benefactress?-by refusing to receive her at court, and compelling Josephine to break off all intercourse with her!! What a noble, generous trait in the character of the Corsican adventurer! Such was the man whom the British nation has been accused of putting to death by inches; just as if they ought rather to have cherished, for the sake of humanity, a life whose owner in the whole course of it had never caused a single drop of blood to be spilt. The lives that man sacrificed to an ambition as insensate as it was insatiable1, amounted to more in number than the minutes of his existence. By no one has Napoleon's greatness been more truly appreciated than a German dramatist, who makes the Duchesse d'Angoulême say to Louis XVIII., "Sire, call him the powerful, 1 "I never committed a crime in all my political career.” NAPOLEON IN EXILE, p. 332. JOURNEY FROM MILAN. 3 The arch of the Simplon, which we passed by as we drove out of Milan, seemed to mock at the conqueror's fallen greatness; and to stand there as the memento of inordinate selfishness.* It was soothing to turn from these reflections to the contemplation of the face of nature, which, although marked by nothing of ideal beauty, was cheering and cheerful in the extreme. The land might be described as literally teeming with fatness, so abundant was the produce that every where met the eye. The whole country was one continued garden not exactly an Eden,- on the contrary, far more of a kitchen-garden, which, except to those who are so ultra-sentimental that they can live upon verdure and dew, or in less figurative style, can dine like a horse, on grass, is no very disagreeable object after all. At least, the At least, the grapes and figs, the Indian corn, vegetables and fruits that were intermingled along our road in rich profusion, formed no unpleasing picture to our eyes. There were, besides, the gigantic, the terrific; but apply not the epithet great to the murderer of D'Enghien. Style not that man great who has sacrificed truth, honour, justice, humanity, to his ambition and lust of power. Such greatness is but that of a demon. He who is truly great would not sell his honour and his conscience at any price. Not so he of whom you speak; O trust me, I know the tiger emperor well. Ay, he would crawl serpent-like to the victim upon whom he could not spring with his claws; and suffer himself to be trodden upon, could he be assured that he could dart his venomous fangs into his heel." * See Frontispiece. THE POETRY OF CLOUDS. many spots that might have been transferred to canvass with pleasing effect-particularly by a skilful pencil, which should give prominency only to the more attractive and expressive features, keeping down whatever would be trivial and derogatory from pictorial character. Barren and intractable, indeed, must that object be, from which the painter who is endowed with feeling is unable to win any artistical phenomena. Few things seem less promising to the pencil than a hazy fog; yet Vernet sometimes painted fogs; and some of them might even be termed delicious. It is the fashion, at least with all those who would assume credit for being of poetical temperament, to talk in high-flown rapturous phrases, of the deep azure heaven of Italy; nevertheless, the silvery humid skies of our own climate offer infinitely greater scope to the powers of the landscape painter. What infinite gradations and variety both of tints and forms do they exhibit, compared with the monotony of a sky which, copied upon canvass, frequently looks not much better than so many square inches of blue taffety! Surely the pearly hues and the liquid radiance of an English sky, diffusing themselves over a landscape, have something in them far more eloquent to the imagination than the uniform serenity of the other while the latter partakes somewhat of the satiety of enjoyment, the former array themselves in all the allurement of hope. Nay, it is rather inconsistent that of all persons in the world, those who profess |