prompt, every way articulate character is in itself perhaps small,
compared with our great chaotic inarticulate Cromwell's. Instead of
"dumb Prophet struggling to speak," we have a portentous mixture of the
Quack withal! Hume's notion of the Fanatic-Hypocrite, with such truth as
it has, will apply much better to Napoleon than it did to Cromwell,
to Mahomet or the like,--where indeed taken strictly it has hardly any
truth at all. An element of blamable ambition shows itself, from the
first, in this man; gets the victory over him at last, and involves him
and his work in ruin.

"False as a bulletin" became a proverb in Napoleon's time. He makes what
excuse he could for it: that it was necessary to mislead the enemy, to
keep up his own men's courage, and so forth. On the whole, there are no
excuses. A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in the
long-run, _better_ for Napoleon too if he had not told any. In fact,
if a man have any purpose reaching beyond the hour and day, meant to be
found extant _next_ day, what good can it ever be to promulgate lies?
The lies are found out; ruinous penalty is exacted for them. No man will
believe the liar next time even when he speaks truth, when it is of
the last importance that he be believed. The old cry of wolf!--A Lie is
no-thing; you cannot of nothing make something; you make _nothing_ at
last, and lose your labor into the bargain.

Yet Napoleon _had_ a sincerity: we are to distinguish between what is
superficial and what is fundamental in insincerity. Across these outer
manoeuverings and quackeries of his, which were many and most
blamable, let us discern withal that the man had a certain instinctive
ineradicable feeling for reality; and did base himself upon fact, so
long as he had any basis. He has an instinct of Nature better than his
culture was. His _savans_, Bourrienne tells us, in that voyage to Egypt
were one evening busily occupied arguing that there could be no God.
They had proved it, to their satisfaction, by all manner of logic.
Napoleon looking up into the stars, answers, "Very ingenious, Messieurs:
but _who made_ all that?" The Atheistic logic runs off from him like
water; the great Fact stares him in the face: "Who made all that?" So
too in Practice: he, as every man that can be great, or have victory in
this world, sees, through all entanglements, the practical heart of the
matter; drives straight towards that. When the steward of his
Tuileries P