ud and the water no more is seen;
Flake after flake
At rest in the dark and silent lake.

XXVIII. CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. (143)

Charles Phillips, 1787-1859, an eminent barrister and orator, was born in
Sligo, Ireland, and died in London. He gained much of his reputation as an
advocate in criminal cases. In his youth he published some verses; later
in life he became the author of several works, chiefly of biography.
###

He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered
among us like some ancient ruin, whose power terrified the glance its
magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the
throne a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A
mind, bold, independent, and decisive; a will, despotic in its dictates;
an energy that distanced expedition; and a conscience, pliable to every
touch of interest, marked the outlines of this extraordinary
character--the most extraordinary, perhaps, that in the annals of this
world ever rose, or reigned, or fell.

Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy
of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a
stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity. With no friend but his sword,
and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and
wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him,
as from the glance of destiny.

He knew no motive but interest; acknowledged no criterion but success; he
worshiped no God but ambition; and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at
the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he
did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the
hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he
bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted
child of the Republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins
both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism.
A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he
impoverished the country; and in the name of Brutus, he grasped without
remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Caesars.

The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and
the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his
performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was the