On the execution of his task, it becomes the Author to be silent. He is aware it must exhibit many faults; but he claims credit for having brought to the undertaking a mind disposed to do his subject as impartial justice as his judgment could supply. He will be found no enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of hostility is ended when the battle has been won, and the foe exists no longer. His splendid personal qualities-his great military actions and political services to France-will not, it is hoped, be found depreciated in the narrative. Unhappily, the Author's task involved a duty of...

The young Napoleon had, of course, the simple and hardy education proper to the natives of the mountainous island of his birth, and in his infancy was not remarkable for more than that animation of temper, and wilfulness and impatience of inactivity, by which children of quick parts and lively sensibility are usually distinguished. The winter of the year was generally passed by the family of his father at Ajaccio, where they still preserve and exhibit, as the ominous plaything of Napoleon's boyhood, the model of a brass cannon, weighing about thirty pounds. We leave it to philosophers to...

These advances towards universal empire, made during the very period when the pacific measures adopted by the preliminaries, and afterwards confirmed by the treaty of Amiens, were in the act of being carried into execution, excited the natural jealousy of the people of Britain. They had not been accustomed to rely much on the sincerity of the French nation; nor did the character of its present chief, so full of ambition, and so bold and successful in his enterprises, incline them to feelings of greater security. On the other hand, Buonaparte seems to have felt as matter of personal offence...

Yet the British administration, while they had thus embraced a broader and more adventurous, but at the same time a far wiser system of conducting the war, showed in one most important instance, that they, or a part of them, were not entirely free from the ancient prejudices, which had so long rendered vain the efforts of Britain in favour of the liberties of the world. The general principle was indeed adopted, that the expeditions of Britain should be directed where they could do the cause of Europe the most benefit, and the interests of Napoleon the greatest harm; but still there remained a...

Napoleon was not less original as a tactician than as a strategist. His manoeuvres on the field of battle had the promptness and decision of the thunderbolt. In the actual shock of conflict, as in the preparations which he made for bringing it on, his object was to amuse the enemy upon many points, while he oppressed one by an unexpected force of numbers. The breaking through the line, the turning of a flank, which had been his object from the commencement of the fight, lay usually disguised under a great number of previous demonstrations, and was not attempted until both the moral and...