Napoleon the great was a misnomer, for he failed in being entitled to it-especially in adversity.

But, he was the greatest of soldiers, and the most wonderful man of his era,

He conquered one half of Europe, and made the other half to tremble

The far southern Pyramids proclaimed him victor,
And he burnt the Czar out of his northern capital,
He dethroned monarchs, and crowned his generals,
Yet he encouraged learning, the sciences and arts-
And the works of his savants survive his fall,
He embellished his country with the chef d'œuvres
of old,

And made Paris the envy of the world.

If England was not enslaved, yet may not her sons claim but half the merit*

And he saddled them with an irremedial debt.
Austria durst not refuse him a bride

Nor the monarch of Britain the disuse of a long cherished though antiquated title,

And when by the bandying of nations his audacious ambition was overthrown

He went down to his distant and isolated grave, With his code in his hand, and his sword by his side

66

(These are not merely figures of speech, for when on board the "Bellerephon," the Secretary to the commission reminded the Admiral (Lord Keith) "that the orders of the Privy Council were imperative about all the prisoners being disarmed,—and that General Buonaparte was retaining his side arms-his lordship sharply replied to the functionary to attend to his pen, and mind his own business," thus a blot on the national escutcheon was prevented, and Lord Keith was ennobled, though he had not worn a coronet). Of less dubious merit and more amiable acquirement was his fondness for Poetry, and especially for Ossian.

*Refers to the words King of France upon the English coins of the then day, which Napoleon, when first Consul, declined to receive the British Ambassador until abrogated.

900

ALFRED THE GREAT

the

and good king of the Anglo Saxons; Legislator, Philosopher, Poet and Warrior-he found English mind unformed and barren, and he led it to knowledge, moral sentiments, and moral reasoning. His attachment to religion increased his influence among his descendants, and in his country, and the laws he made over a thousand years ago still rule the land.

"O my Lord-thou that overseest all of the world's creatures, look down on mankind with mild eyes, now, they here in many of the world's waves struggle and labour, miserable earth's citizens, forgive them now.

1300.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English Poetry— his was the age of Gower and Wycliff, in England, of Dante Boccasio and Petrarch in Italy, and of Froisard in France. He appeared with all the lustre and dignity of a true poet in an age which compelled him to struggle with a barbarous language, and a natural want of taste.

Whanné that April with his shourés sote
The droughte of March hath percéd to the rote,
And bathéd every veine in swiche licòur,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eké with his soté brethe
Enspiréd hath in every holt and hethe

*From Alfred's translation of 'Boethus.' (modernised).

The tendre croppés, and the yongé sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfé cours yronne,
And smalé foulés maken melodie,
That slepen allé night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir coràges ;-
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken strangé strondes,
To servé halwes couthe in sondry londes ;
And specially, from every shirés ende
Of Englelond, to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martyr for to seke,

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.
Befelle, that, in that seson, on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devoute coràge,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nine and twenty in a compagnie
Of sondry folk, by àventure yfalle

In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Canterbury wolden ride.
The chambres and the stables weren wide,

And wel we weren eséd atté beste.

And shortly, whan the sonne was gon to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everich on,

That I was of hir felawship anon,

And madé forword erly for to rise,

To take oure way ther as I you devise.

1600.

JOHN MILTON.

With Homer and with Virgil, only to be named.

Of man's first disobedience and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death unto the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, 'till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat-
Sing heavenly muse.

Illumine; what is low raise and support, "That to the height of this great argument; "I may assert eternal Providence

And justify the ways of God to men."

"Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine "Fair to the eye-inviting to the taste,"Of virtue to make wise; what hinders then To reach, and feed at once both body and mind? So saying her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate ! Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost."

1640.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
God said let Newton be-and all was light.

He was beyond all precedent master of mathematical and abstruse science. -He shewed why weary Sol submerges in the western wave while Orion in blue ether proudly disdains to bow his head. He proved-among countless other physiological truths-that white was but a melange of colours, and why an apple falls; he prophesied that the brightest brilliant in the King's tiara, would be proved to be (as it is now shown) but of the nature of a cabbage stock.

READER

despair even to attempt his knowledge, but we may all with profit reflect upon the gentleness of his disposition. It is recorded that when a mass

of his calculations and years of mathematical deductions and dates was in a moment destroyed through the overturning of a lamp by his little spaniel, his anger was limited to the expression of "O Fido! Fido, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done."

1700.

THE REV. ED. YOUNG.

Perhaps after Holy Writ, there is no work in the language, assuredly no poem, so stimulating to our sluggish sensibilities on the awful nature of Time than are the convincing arguments expressed in the complaint of Young's Night Thoughts.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that thro' ev'ry stage: When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool:
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same.

And why? because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves : Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found,
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
E'en with the tender tear, which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? that were strange !
O my full heart!-But should I give it vent,
The longest night, tho' longer far, would fail,
And the lark listen to my midnight song.