clared
in Parliament that the very persons who detested this great man had
acknowledged that for ten centuries there had not appeared upon earth
a more extraordinary character.... "All Europe," he added, "has worn
mourning for the hero"; and those who contributed to that great
sacrifice are destined to be the objects of the execrations of the
present generation as well as to those of posterity.

Just at the time the great spirit of the hero was passing on to the
Elysian Fields, there, as he used to fancifully foreshadow, to meet
his brave comrades in arms who had preceded him, a tempest of unusual
severity broke over "the abode of darkness and of crimes." Houses were
shaken to their foundation; the favourite willow-tree, where he had
often sat and enjoyed the fresh breezes, was torn up by the hurricane,
as indeed were the other trees round about Longwood. This terrible
disturbance of the elements was characteristically interpreted as
being the voice of the living God proclaiming to the world that the
Emperor was being thundered into eternity to meet his Creator, and to
be judged by Him for the wrongs his political and other opponents said
he was guilty of towards themselves and the human race generally. In
true British orthodoxy, the Great Judge is always claimed as a
fellow-countryman, and Sir Walter Scott is not singular in attributing
this phenomenal disturbance as an indication of coming vengeance
against England's prisoner. The Scottish bard is not altogether
impartial in the send-off of the exile. He associates another colossal
personage with the great Corsican. The Lord Protector, we are
reminded, was similarly borne from time into eternity on the wings of
a devasting tornado. Poor Oliver! whose war-cry was "The Lord of
Hosts," and who never doubted that he was the high commissioner sent
by the Almighty to clean the earth of mischievous Royalists, traitors,
Papists, and other ungovernable creatures in Ireland and elsewhere.

It does not appear to have struck these gentlemen, with their thoughts
centred on Holy Writ and finding comfort in the support it gave to
their contention, that the Great God, instead of making nature break
out with such terrible violence to indicate His displeasure against
this wonderful man, made in His own image and sent by Him to serve
both a divine and a human purpose, was using accumulated natural
forces to show His wrath at the culmination of the most atrocious
tragedy that had ever