versâ, he is forsworn. The same principle | ley, or a radical like Godwin, was to be anof truth laid down before, applies here also. nihilated, is like passing from a field of The critic is bound by literary veracity to civilized warfare-where cannon and baygive the "just expression of his impres-onets do the work, and where, when the sion." The correctness of the impression is fight is over, the wounded are cared for what makes him more or less intellectually and the slain decently buried-to the fit for his office. The fairness of the ex- onslaught of Choctaws and Ojibbeways, pression of that impression is what makes tearing and screaming, and striking their him morally honest or otherwise in the foes with poisoned arrows and clubs and discharge of it. stones, and finally marching off, brandishing their scalps, and performing a wardance to their own entire satisfaction. "Nous avons changé tout cela." Critics can rarely now be charged before the court martial of literature with "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." They are fair and worthy soldiers, if not all Bayards and Du Guesclins. But there is yet one trick of unlawful warfare common among them. They do not abuse, or vilify, or use personalities against an author of whom they disapprove; but they persist in seeing in his book what they think ought to be in it-by no means what he has really put there. A species of traditional national history has long been current, in which the Tory, the Democrat, the Highchurchnian, the Free thinker, the Strong-minded woman, the Sentimental Philanthropist, and many other beasts and beastesses, assume recognized forms, much like the heraldic two-headed eagle, the fork-tailed lion, the pelican wounding itself to feed its young with its blood, and other equally veracious creatures. Regular modes of treatment of these animals have long been established, and constitute a most convenient art Now, what shall we say to the literary morality of our time in respect to this matter? Of the multitude of criticisms which issue every week from the periodical press, how many are conscientiously written? how many are the "just expression of the writer's impression" of the books reviewed? Of course, thank Heaven the majority are meant, in a certain but not very strict way, to fulfill this principle. There is a common justice and fairness here in the world as elsewhere; and no one imagines reviewers to be a peculiarly unrighteous order of the community. But is such justice universally done? If, indeed, a book have no particular tendency at all, whether religious, political, or social; if the writer have managed to escape touching any of the dozen red-hot plowshares which lie for ordeal in every path of literature, then, indeed, he may be tolerably sure of a just review. But how does it happen that, when we read a book which is not of this colorless sort which has some definite principles, and aims at some definite pur pose how does it happen, we repeat, that we know beforehand with such singular foresight, that the said book will be praised in such and such a Review, and pulled to pieces in such another? The phenomenon is inexplicable, if we maintain the perfect judical fairness of the critical press. It betrays our profound convictions that, in the long-run, prejudice al ways conquers truth; for some cause (one side or the other) must needs be sound, and supported by sound arguments; and yet we feel assured beforehand that no arguments will make it go down with its opponents. Happily, however, a very great change is taking place in the whole tone of such criticism. The higher journals are manifestly swayed by a desire to exercise, if not the impartiality of a judge, yet at least the consideration of a gentleman even for an enemy or an inferior. To look back on the old reviews in Blackwood or To judge a book fairly, a critic is assurthe Quarterly, where an "infidel" like Shel-edly bound to try first really to under somewhat conventional, indeed, but saving a world of trouble and study. Thus, when a man wants to paint a carriage-panel, or engrave a seal, he does not go to the Zoological Gardens and copy a real eagle or lion or pelican, but sketches quite happily, out of his moral consciousness, the two heads and the forked tail and the sharp beak and bleeding breast. So the reviewer, having briefly ascertained by a glance with what sort of beast he has to do, proceeds to write his critique, currente calamo, describing his tory eagle, or infidel roaring lion, or philanthropic pelican, without any further notice of the poor animals who are screaming in their cages for better recognition-"I have not got two heads!-or I two tails!-nor do I ever pick myself to pieces!" stand what the author means, and then, | to examine. He finds the centipede, and [September, having understood him, he may, if he can, the panther, and the fruit of ashes. They refute and expose the fallacy of his argu- are all really in the work; but to discover ments. But how high a tone of criticism them he passes by many a vineyard and does this involve! - how much candor, olive-yard and cornfield and flowery plain, and self-denial, and intelligence in the and gives, in effect, though not in literal critic! Yet no man has a right to under- words, an absolutely false impression of take the office at all, who is not morally what may be, after all, and intellectually prepared to fulfill it in with milk and honey." such a spirit. To make his own article a land flowing brilliant and readable; to launch a few sharp sayings at an opponent; to perform, in the two or three pages allotted for his critique, a set of literary tours de force, with epigrams for pirouettes, and sarcasms for wit, may be all very natural and excusable; but a reviewer is engaged, before all this, to do justice both to the author he reviews and the reader who will learn from him of his book; and he has no right to perform his pas seul before the audience till he has done that duty. What would the old Israelites have said to their "spies" if instead of bringing back the grapes of Eshkool, they had returned with specimens of the centipedes of the wilderness of Marsaba, the tail of a panther from Ajalon, and some apples of Sodom from the Dead Sea shore? This is, after all, the sort of report many a reviewer gives of the books he undertakes the converse of this dispraise of inimNot less unjust is the practice which is ical books, namely, the over-praise of those which are on the critic's side of politics or religion; or the works of his private friends. How arguments, poor and false, are pronoucced sound and forcible; how low sentiments and garbled quotations, and all the other literary sins, are condoned by partial confessors. Of this class there is no need to tell. Moses told us it was wrong to bear false witness against our neighbor; but after three millenniums, very few of us think it harm to bear witness just a little bit untrue in his favor. questions which recur every day concernSuch are a few of the more obvious ing literary morality. The subject may, perhaps, be resumed in a future article, and other problems discussed which seem no less to require adjustment. nais QUEEN From Bently's Miscellany. HORTENSE-MOTHER OF NAPOLEON III.* HORTENSE - EUGENIE, mother of the country, she there learnt that her huspresent, Emperor of the French, was band, who had severed family and monthe daughter of the Empress Josephine archical ties for the revolution, was, by a by a former husband-M. de Beauhar- caprice not a little characteristic of such and she was sister to Eugène movements, about to be sent to the scafBeauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. The mar-fold by the very party for whom he had riage of Josephine, who was a Made- fought and bled, and indeed sacrificed moiselle de la Pagerie, with the Viscount every thing. Beauharnais, and of which these two children were issue, was not a happy one, and Madame de Beauharnais withdrew for a time to the society of her family at La Martinique. Driven back to her own * La Reine Hortense. Par E. FOURMESTRAUX, Auteur d'une étude sur Napoléon III, every exertion to save her husband, but Josephine, forgetting her wrongs, made without success; and after being herself imprisoned, the future Viceroy of Italy being apprenticed to a carpenter, and the parties were liberated by the events of future Queen of Holland to a milliner, an the ninth Thermidor, and Eugène joined the army under the protection of General | busy at her drawings. Angry, as the first Hoche. consul was waiting, she asked her if she expected to get her bread as an artist. "In the times in which we live," gravely responded the young damsel, "it is quite possible that it may be so, mamma." Various versions have been published of the circumstances under which Bonaparte and Josephine became first acquainted-all more or less romantic. M. E. Fourmestraux gives his own particular version of the incident: 66 'Appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior, Bonaparte had been charged by government to take all necessary measures for maintaining public tranquillity. One of his orders to this ef fect was to deprive the inhabitants of Paris of their arms. "One morning Lemarois, one of his aide-de-camps, came in, followed by a boy fourteen years of age, who vehemently reclaimed a sword which the police had taken from him. Addressing Bonaparte, Eugène said him: General, give me back my father's sword, my sole inheritance, and to which I cling more than to life!' "Struck with the generous sentiments of the boy, Bonaparte had his sword at once returned to him. "A few days afterward the general was relating this incident of filial piety at a party at Barras's, at which Josephine happened to be present. She was introduced to Bonaparte, who congratulated her on having such a son, and was on his side charmed by her grace and amiability. Such were the circumstances which gave origin to a marriage from which came so much greatness and so many vicissitudes to the Beauharnais family." Hortense was at this epoch at a board ing school kept by Madame Campan at Saint-Germain. She was, according to her historian, an apt and promising scholar. When Bonaparte on his return from Italy became first consul, the whole family were united in the Tuileries. Eugène, as aide-de-camp to the general, had won his spurs in Italy and in Egypt. Hortense, albeit between sixteen and seventeen years of age, seems to have been more amused than dazzled with the selfwill and impetuosity of Bonaparte. "My father-in-law," she used to write to Madame Campan, "is a comet, of which we are but the tail; we must follow him without inquiring whither he is going. Is it for our happiness or for our misfortune?" One day, at Malmaison, Hortense had not come down to dinner. Josephine went up herself for her, and found her VOL. LXIII.-NO. 1 Such was the influence of the first consul, that Hortense was soon sought in marriage. She admitted that she was not herself in a position to select a husband, but she reserved to herself the right of refusal in case the person did not please her, and she exercised it at once. The manner in which her claim to such a privilege was conceded by the first consul, had great influence in cementing that esteem and regard for his will which attained its acme in after-life. Mademoiselle de Beauharnais was very fair, of a beautiful complexion, and graceful in her person. The expression of her countenance was that of mildness and benevolence, but her bearing was dignified. She was remarkable for her talent as an artist, as also as a musician. Her melodies, composed at various epochs of her life, have obtained an European fame. France is indebted to Hortense for the romance of "Le Beau Dunois," which opens with the strophe "Partant pour la Syrie." All her romances and all her melodies met with greater or less success. Malmaison had received its name "Mala Domus," from having once been the home of Norman adventurers who had been cursed by the people. But since that it had been exorcised and sanctified as a monastery, and, finally, had been turned into a country house. Bonaparte, before embarking for Egypt, had written to Josephine to secure a country residence for his return. She hesitated some time between Ris and Malmaison, but decided in favor of the latter. When the general became first consul he installed himself in the Luxembourg, but the palace of the Medicis was only his political residence, his leisure hours were spent at Malmaison. The dignified silence and severe etiquette which became afterward the law at the imperial palaces of Saint Cloud and the Tuileries were then unknown. It was at that time not an uncommon thing to play at prisoner's base. On one side were Bonaparte, Lanriston, Rapp, Eugène, and the demoiselles Auguié; on the other Josephine, Hortense, Jerome, Madame Caroline Murat Isabey Didelot, and de Luçay. They of Madame Campan's that Hortense did were all young people. The game would not reciprocate these demonstrations of be followed by a collation, and in the affection. Madame Campan, indeed, acevening by a play performed by them-cuses her former pupil merely with want selves. Hortense was among the most of demonstrative sensibility, but she knew successful. A friend wrote to Madame that in reality it arose from indifference Campan, "Hortense is delicious, Madame to her husband. Murat charming, Bourienne perfect, Jerome unique!" It would appear that Bonaparte projected early a matrimonial alliance between his third brother, Louis, and Hortense. Bonaparte spoke to Louis about it after the affair of Marengo, but this young man had allowed himself to be captivated by a young lady he had met at his sister's school-since married-and it was not till on his return from Portugal that Josephine joined General Bonaparte in bringing about this projected alliance. The general was particularly attached to both parties, and when he sought to unite them it was that they might participate together of the brilliant future which he already in his mind destined for them. But there existed contrasts in the two which never would marry, albeit they were united in person. Louis, although a soldier by profession, was not a soldier by nature. Nay, he had an innate antipathy to war, and mourned over the disasters entailed by it. He was not even ambitious. He loved retirement and study. Hortense, on the contrary, was endowed with an ardent temperament, to which ambition was by no means a stranger. Louis reproached her with frivolity and love of display; Hortense, on her side, would have preferred that Louis had distinguished himself more with his sword and less with his pen. Add to this, our biographer himself admits that the fact of the marriage being imposed upon them rendered it obnoxious to both. Take place, however, it did, at least as far as the civil contract goes, on the 3d of January, 1802, at the Tuileries, in the presence of the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families. "Never," says King Louis, in his Memoirs, "was there a more gloomy ceremony; never did a young wedded couple feel more sensibly the presentiment of all the horrors of an ill-assorted and forced marriage." A first son was, however, born on the 10th of October, 1802, and Louis is said to have congratulated the mother with infinite grace and sensibility; but it would appear from a letter We are assured, however, that she continued to be affectionate, modest, and natural in character. She especially continued to cultivate those arts which constitute her imperishable crown. Louis Bonaparte was recognized, on the proclamation of Napoleon, as Emperor of the French, like his other brethren, a prince of the imperial blood, and his second son, born on the 11th of October, 1804, received the names of Napoleon-Louis. Eugène de Beauharnais was also created a prince, and Hortense became Princess Louis Bonaparte. Whilst Napoleon was busy placing on his head the old iron crown of Lombardy, appointing his son-in-law viceroy, and, as was his custom, providing him with a wife, Prussia was threatening the Low Countries and the north of France. Prince Louis Bonaparte received orders to organizè an army of the north, which he effected with so much promptitude that in a month's time his headquarters were estab lished at Nimeguen, and Prussia, met on two sides-Holland and France-hesitated to act. The prince on this withdrew his troops, much to the dissatisfaction of the emperor, who had his designs on that country-designs which Louis Bonaparte did not share in, nor did he even care for the vain and empty honor of a crown. Indeed, when shortly afterward, the Batavian republic was declared to be an hereditary sovereignty by Napoleon, as a punishment for its having carried on commercial relations with Great Britain, and a deputation came to solicit the prince-now designated Louis Napoleon-to accept the throne, he at once declined it. But when to his brother he professed as an excuse that the climate did not agree with him, the latter said roughly, "It is better to die king than to live a prince." And he was, like others, obliged to succumb before the indomitable will of the emperor. Hortense, called upon to share the sov ereign power with her husband, was mainly cheered, we are told, by the thoughts of the additional amount of good which it would be in her power to do. But it was not without deep regret! that she tore herself away from her country and her mother-she had never, indeed, been yet separated from the latter, except at rare and brief intervals. The new king quitted Saint-Leu on the 15th of June, 1806, with the children and their mother; they arrived at the Palace du Bois, near the Hague, on the 18th, and made their public entry a few days afterward. Their reception was much more enthusiastic than was expected. King Louis was personally known to the Dutch, and was both loved and respected by them for his personal qualities. The reputation of Queen Hortense for goodness and benevolence had preceded her, and her youth and beauty came to add to the favorable feelings already awakened in her favor. The young queen set to work at once devouring books that related to the new country of her adoption. In the list recommended by Madame Campan, we find the indispensable Histoire Abregee, as also Les Délices de la Hollande; but we are told, although they are not mentioned, that "serious" books on the resources, the commerce, and independence of the old country of the stadtholders were also transmitted or recommended for her perusal. The court was also made to assume a brilliant appearance. Almost all who surrounded the queen were young like herself, and the costumes adopted by the officers of the crown and public functionaries were in a style of magnificence hitherto unknown to the republican simplicity of the Dutch people. Balls succeeded to festivals, and Queen Hortense danced, we are told, with "incomparable perfection." Louis had accepted the throne with repugnance, but once at the head of affairs he frankly associated himself with the interests of Holland. The emperor had selected his household-one by one he got rid of them all and surrounded himself with Dutchmen. The French troops he dismissed at once, and would only enter his capital with a national escort. M. de Broc, who had married Adèle Auguié, Hortense's bosom friend, was among those thus dismissed, but his wife remained with the queen. "The comfort of a sincere and devoted friendship be. came," we are told, "at this epoch more and more essential to Queen Hortense." It seems, in fact, that it is from this epock that date the misunderstandings which took the place between King Louis and his wife of what had never before gone beyond mere coolness or indifference. Napoleon rated his brother roundly for his conduct. "You have the best wife in the world, and the most virtuous, and yet you make her miserable. Let her dance as much as she likes, it is pleasant at her time of life. My wife is forty years of age; I write to her from the field of battle to go to a ball. You want a woman of twenty years of age, with all its illusions, to live like a nurse always washing her child. Unfortunately," he added afterward, "you have a wife who is too virtuous; if you had a coquette she would lead you by the nose." A further source of discomfort arose at the same time from Hortense's favoring the few French that remained at the court, whilst Louis treated them with manifest coldness. In this respect Hortense is said to have associated herself more intimately with the policy of the sovereign who constituted the glory of France than his own brother did. The proneness of the more frivolous among the French for scandal, which did not spare Marie Antoinette, nor even Josephine, when Bonaparte was in Egypt, found, it is well known, occasion for ma levolent gossip in this misunderstanding, but the language of Napoleon's letter is of itself sufficient to drive such silly rumors back to the foul sources from whence they emanated. The war with Prussia, in 1807, separated the king and queen for a brief time, and Hortense was enabled to visit her mother at Mayence. The death of their eldest son, Prince Napoleon-Louis, who perished after a few hours' illness from croup, in the same year, had a great effect on both the king and queen, and for once in their lives they mingled their tears in a common grief. Hortense took the loss so much to heart that her mother, the empress, came to meet her at Laeken, near Brussels, whither the king conducted her. Mademoiselle Avrillon relates in her Memoirs that the king himself "was likewise in a condition to excite pity: overwhelmned with grief, he was so likewise to such an extent by infirmities that he could scarcely walk." Distraction and change of scene were recommended as a cure for such poignant grief, and Cauter |