, by his minute knowledge of the prices of good
and bad cyder, and of the produce and other circumstances of the various
districts of the department. Even the Royalist gentry were impressed
with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of
their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged,
the first faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely
obliterated in almost every member of that intolerant faction. Other
princes have shown an equal fondness for minute details with Napoleon,
but here is the difference. The use they made of their knowledge was to
torment their inferiors and weary their company: the purpose to which
Napoleon applied it was to confine the expanses of the State to the
objects and interests of the community."

Lord Holland dwells at some length on the treatment to which Napoleon
was subjected by the English Government, and on the generous attempts of
Lady Holland to alleviate his captivity. This part of the volume has
much present interest, and will be read with great eagerness by all. Of
the Emperor's temper, he says:

"Napoleon, even in the plenitude of his power, seldom gratified his
revenge by resorting to any act either illegal or unjust, though he
frequently indulged his ill-humor by speaking both of and to those who
had displeased him in a manner mortifying to their feelings and their
pride. The instances of his love of vengeance are very few: they are
generally of an insolent rather than a sanguinary character, more
discreditable to his head than his heart, and a proof of his want of
manners, taste, and possibly feeling, but not of a dye to affect his
humanity. Of what man, possessed of such extended yet such disputed
authority, can so much be said? Of Washington? Of Cromwell? But
Washington, if he had ever equal provocation and motives for revenge,
certainly never possessed such power to gratify it. His glory, greater
in truth than that of Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, was that he never
aspired: but he disdained such power; he never had it, and cannot
therefore deserve immoderate praise for not exerting what he did not
possess. In the affair of General Lee, he did not, if I recollect, show
much inclination to forgive. Even Cromwell did not possess the power of
revenge to the same extent as Napoleon. There is reason, however, to
infer from his moderation and forbearance that he would have used it as
sparingly. But Cromwell is less irreproach