his dying moments, that he gave his soul back to its Maker as pure as it had come from his hands. Let us hear, however, what Napoleon has to say of his own actions in detail. The poisoning of the sick at Jaffa he totally denies, and we believe this charge is now generally thought to have been falsely fixed upon his memory. In answer to that of having shot three or four thousand Turks some days after the capture of Jaffa,

Napoleon answered, "It is not true that there were so many. I ordered about a thousand or twelve hundred to be shot, which was done. The reason was, that amongst the garrison of Jaffa, a number of Turkish troops were discovered, whom I had taken a short time before at El-Arish, and sent to Bagdat upon their parole not to serve again or to be found in arms against me for a year. I had caused them to be escorted twelve leagues on their way to Bagdat, by a division of my army. But those Turks, instead of proceeding to Bagdat, threw themselves into Jaffa, defended it to the last, and cost me a number of brave men to take it, whose lives would have been spared, if the others had not reinforced the garrison of Jaffa. Moreover, before I attacked the town, I sent them a flag of truce. Immediately afterwards we saw the head of the bearer elevated on a pole over the wall. Now if I had spared them again, and sent them away upon their parole, they would directly have gone to St. Jean d'Acre, where they would have played over again the same scene that they had done at Jaffa. In justice to the lives of my soldiers, as every general ought to consider himself as their father, and them as his children, I could not allow this. To leave as a guard a portion of my army, already small and reduced in number, in consequence of the breach of faith of those wretches, was impossible. Indeed, to have acted otherwise than as I did, would probably have caused the destruction of my whole army. I therefore, availing myself of the rights of war, which authorize the putting to death prisoners taken under such circumstances; independent of the right given to me by having taken the city by assault, and that of retaliation on the Turks, ordered that the prisoners taken at El-Arish, who, in defiance of their capitulation, had been found bearing arms against me, should be selected out and shot. The rest, amounting to a considerable number, were spared. I would," continued he, do the same thing again to-morrow, and so would Wellington, or any general commanding an army under similar circumstances."

About the libels on his own character he thus expressed himself:

"As yet," said he, "you have not procured me one that is worthy of an answer. Would you have me sit down and reply to Goldsmith, Pichon, or the Quarterly Review? They are so contemptible and so absurdly false, that they do not merit any other notice than to write faux, faux, in every page. The only truth I have seen in them is, that one day I met an officer, Rapp, I believe, in the field of battle, with his face covered with blood, and that I cried, oh, comme il est beau! This is true enough; and of it they have made a crime. My admiration of the gallantry of a brave soldier is construed into a crime, and a proof of my delighting in blood. But posterity will do me that justice which is denied to me now. If I were that tyrant, that monster, would the people and the army have flown to join me with the enthusiasm they shewed when I landed from Elba with a handful of men? Could I have marched to Paris, and have seated myself upon the throne without a musquet having been fired? Ask the French nation! Ask the Italian !

"I have," continued he, "been twice married. Political motives induced me to divorce my first wife, whom I tenderly loved. She, poor woman, fortunately for herself, died in time to prevent her witnessing the last of my misfortunes. Let Marie Louise be asked with what tenderness and affection I always treated her. After her forcible separation from me, she avowed in the most feeling terms to *** her ardent desire to join me, extolled with many tears both myself and my conduct to her, and bitterly lamented her cruel separation, avowing her ardent desire to join me in my exile. Is this the result of the conduct of a merciless, unfeeling tyrant? A man is known by his conduct to

his wife, to his family, and to those under him. I have doubtless erred more or less in politics, but a crime I have never committed. The doctor in his book makes me say that I never committed an useless crime, which is equivalent to saying that I have not scrupled to commit one when I had any object in view, which I deny altogether. I have never wished but the glory and the good of France. All my faculties were consecrated to that object, but I never employed crime or assassination to forward it.

"The Duke d'Enghien, who was engaged upon the frontiers of my territories in a plot to assassinate me, I caused to be seized and given up to justice, which condemned him. He had a fair trial. Let your ministers and the Bourbons do their utmost to calumniate me, the truth will be discovered. Le mensonge passe, la vérité reste. Let them employ all dishonourable means like Lord C****, who, not content with sending me here, has had the baseness to make me speak and to put such words into my mouth as he thinks will best answer his views. C'est un homme ignoble. Perhaps they wish me to live for a short time and do not put me to death, in order to make me say whatever will suit their purposes. The ruin of England was never my intention. We were enemies, and I did my utmost to gain the upper hand. England did the same. After the treaty of Amiens, I would always have made a peace, placing the two countries upon equal terms as to commercial relations."

One of the most striking accounts of his gigantic projects, is that of having invaded India, in conjunction with the Russians:

"If Paul had lived, you would have lost India before now. An agreement was made between Paul and myself to invade it. I furnished the plan. I was to have sent thirty thousand good troops. He was to send a similar number of the best Russian soldiers, and forty thousand Cossacs. I was to subscribe ten millions, in order to purchase camels and the other requisites to cross the desert. The King of Prussia was to have been applied to by both of us to grant a passage for my troops through his dominions, which would have been immediately granted. I had at the same time made a demand to the King of Persia for a passage through his country, which also would have been granted, though the negotiations were not entirely concluded, but would have succeeded, as the Persians were desirous of profiting by it themselves. My troops were to have gone to Warsaw, to be joined by the Russians and Cossacs, and to have marched from thence to the Caspian Sea, where they would have either embarked, or have proceeded by land, according to circumstances. I was beforehand with you, in sending an ambassador on to Persia to make interest there. Since that time, your ministers have been imbéciles enough to allow the Russians to get four provinces, which increase their territories beyond the mountains. The first year of war that you will have with the Russians, they will take India from you.”

I asked, then, if it were true that Alexander had intended to have seized upon Turkey? Napoleon answered, "All his thoughts are directed to the conquest of Turkey. We have had many discussions together about it; at first I was pleased with his proposals, because I thought it would enlighten the world to drive those brutes, the Turks, out of Europe. But when I reflected upon the consequences, and saw what a tremendous weight of power it would give to Russia, in consequence of the numbers of Greeks in the Turkish dominions, who would naturally join the Russians, I refused to consent to it, especially as Alexander wanted to get Constantinople, which I would not allow, as it would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. I reflected that France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands, which would have been nothing in comparison with what Russia would have obtained. Iconsidered that the barbarians of the north were already too powerful, and probably in the course of time would overwhelm all Europe, as I now think they will. Austria already trembles; Russia and Prussia united, Austria falls, and England cannot prevent it. France under the present family is nothing, and the Austrians are so lâches, that they will be easily overpowered. Una nazione a colpo di bastone.* They will offer little resistance to the Russians,

* Means, a nation that may be ruled by blows.

who are brave and patient. Russia is the more formidable, because she can never disarm. In Russia, once a soldier, always a soldier. Barbarians, who, one may say, have no country, and to whom every country is better than the one

which gave them birth. When the Cossacs entered France, it was indifferent to

them what women they violated, old or young were alike to them, as any were preferable to those they had left behind. Moreover the Russians are poor, and it is necessary for them to conquer. When I am dead and gone, my memory will be esteemed, and I shall be revered in consequence of having foreseen, and endeavoured to put a stop to, that which will yet take place. It will be revered when the barbarians of the north will possess Europe, which would not have happened had it not been for you, signora Inglesi.”

Yet he denied having aimed at universal dominion.

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I ventured to ask if he had aimed at universal dominion. "No," replied Napoleon ; my intention was to make France greater than any other nation; but universal dominion I did not aim at. For example, it was not my intention to have passed the Alps. I purposed, when I had a second son, which I had reason to hope for, to have made him king of Italy, with Rome for his capital, uniting all Italy, Naples, and Sicily into one kingdom, and putting Murat out of Naples." I asked if he would have given another kingdom to Murat. Oh," replied he, "that would have been easily settled."

Since the fall of Napoleon, the cessation of evils that were felt, or apprehended, from his power, has naturally occasioned among all, but the scum of writers, a moderation of tone with respect to him, which was not in vogue whilst men's passions were excited by the fluctuating events of the war. Even commiseration for his having expired cut off from the wife, child, and relatives, that would have willingly shared his captivity, is, perhaps, the predominant feeling of the British public at this moment. Time, as it presents new objects of public alarm or aversion, is not likely to weaken this compassionate sentiment towards a great and fallen enemy. Unhappily, also, whilst his place is so immoveable and his niche so high in the temple of fame, the progress of events is making it every day more and more apocryphal whether he was the sole and worst foe to the general interests and liberties of Europe among the crowned heads of his age. When the Holy Alliance, in the express words of their decree, put him out of the pale of civil society, they had but one means of practically justifying their sentence of excommunication, and that was to have acted on principles diametrically opposite to the ambition, inhumanity, and perfidy with which they charged him. But how have the Continental Powers shewn their title to pronounce Napoleon the exclusive enemy of human rights, and deserving, at their hands, to be put out of the pale of civil society?— potentates who have themselves trampled on the independence of smaller states-who have committed the most flagrant injustice on Saxony and Genoa-who have conspired against the freedom of the European press-who have interpreted legitimate governments to mean the atrocious edicts of a Turkish divan-who have proclaimed principles that, if admitted, would have forbidden Lord Exmouth to attack Algiers who have refused constitutions promised to their people— who have massacred men, in Italy, for attempting to frame a free government-and who have looked with criminal passiveness on the tortures and extermination of Christians in Greece, whom they could

have saved by a word of their breath. To Napoleon's memory we can do nothing worse than to compare his most arbitrary acts and intentions with theirs; but to institute any comparison between their intellects and his, would be a mean and absurd insult to his ashes.

BRIDAL CUSTOMS OF THE IRISH.

"Make banket, and good cheer,

And everilk man put on his nuptial gown."

Quod R. M. of Ledington Knycht.

WITHIN the recollection of the oldest inhabitants of a small town in Tipperary, a woman of prepossessing deportment, with a beautiful infant at her bosom, was discovered on a cold autumnal morning crouching in the belfry of the deserted and ruinous parish-church. She was pale, silent, and totally abstracted from every earthly object but the sleeping little beauty in her arms. The hospitable inhabitants of the town brought her food and raiment, and warmly tendered her a shelter from the rude inclemency of the time beneath their homely roofs. She preferred, however, abiding in the solitude of the old belfry, and her woes were for ever. buried in her own heart. At midnight she was often heard singing some strange melody in a low plaintive tone, as she walked with hurried steps across the mouldering parapet of the little tower.

The child grew up and prospered, and at the age of sixteen was said to be a wonder of beauty by those who had accidentally seen her when gazing on the passengers, who daily forded the river that laved one side of the grey and dilapidated church. Her rigid, but loving mother, never suffered her to descend the winding steps which led to the grass-covered chancel. She deemed her too fair to be exposed to the rude gaze of the daring young men who dwelt in the environs, and the maid passed her childhood and youth without once straying from the brink of the old belfry. Young Mary's beauty was her bane. She bemoaned her fate, and earnestly implored her careful mother to bless her with a single hour's liberty, to wander among the fair fields and green woods that smiled around her desolate habitation. But the solitary woman was inexorable. She wept while she denied the prayers of her child, and spoke of the world's crimes, from which she said they were happily set apart, until her heart overflowed with the remembrance of her past griefs, and Mary forgot her own desires in assuaging the mental anguish of her beloved mother.

At length a young man, who was the pride of the flourishing family of the Strahans, saw young Mary at the little casement of the belfry, and was so charmed with the beauty of her countenance, that in the warmth of his heart he vowed to win her love, and woo her from her dismal abode, in spite of every impediment. By dint of continual and most acute watching he at length attracted her wandering gaze, and the interest he seemed to feel for the innocent and kind-hearted maiden produced a strange but delightful sensation in her heart. They soon understood the full extent of each other's hopes and fears, and mutually

endeavoured to invent some plan whereby they might obtain a parley. The wary mother observed an alteration in young Mary's manner, and watched her more narrowly, and confined her more closely, if it were possible, than before. But the most simple woman in love is an overmatch for the wisest and most crafty of parents. Mary contrived to elude the suspicious eye of her mother, and by the aid of a stout rope which she fixed to the stone bars of the casement, Strahan ascended nightly to its verge. Their young hearts were soon linked to each other by the strongest ties of pure, unjaded, youthful love. The maid thought of nothing but Strahan during the day, and he lingered about the weeds and brambles that wayed over the tombs of the old ailes, happy to be near his love, and listening in anxious expectation for the usual melodious signal which summoned him to the base of the tower. The affair could not long remain in this state. One night the mother detected Strahan in the act of ascending to the belfry by his usual contrivance, and to his infinite alarm thrust out a rusty sword-blade above his head when he was within a few yards of the window, and at an immense distance from the ground. She interrogated him as to his motives and desires, and insisted, as he valued his life, on a full and unequivocal reply. The young man honestly confessed his name and intentions, and moreover avowed that he had communed with the maiden at the casement for many preceding nights. The mother's blood flowed rapidly to her heart as he spoke. She feared the worst, and fiercely brandishing the sword-blade above the youth's grasp, threatened in a tone of stern resolution to cut the cord asunder unless he solemnly swore by the most holy vow, and upon the cross in his bosom, to marry her child at day-break. The youth joyfully assented: and at his pressing request, the weeping and terrified Mary approached the casement, and there contracted herself to him by the most sacred ceremony of breaking bread and parting silver together.

The next day a priest pronounced the nuptial benediction upon them, and the old woman soon after died in the belfry, without imparting a single particular of her history even to her child. Various were the surmises in which the curious neighbours indulged; but whatever they thought of the mother, Mary was idolized by all. She was waning in years, and the parent of seven beautiful girls when I first beheld her. She then resembled a noble ruin; beauty still lingered about some parts of her fine form in spite of the finger of time, her heart was joyous and blithe as ever, and none of the young maidens around her entered into the festal customs of Ireland with more zeal and delight, than the fine spirited dame who had lingered out her childhood in the mouldering turret of St. James's church. She was an object of curiosity and wonder to the neighbouring peasants: and so much had been talked of her strange history in my hearing, that I gladly accepted a warm invitation to join with a party of my boisterous rustic acquaintances in the revelries of her youngest daughter's wedding, which was celebrated with all the ancient rural pastimes and ceremonies at the house of the bride's hospitable father, the far-famed and venerable O'Donnel Strahan. He dwelt in the centre of a rich vale that basked in the vivifying beams of the noontide sun, a little on the left of a great highway. A strong rivulet flowed through the corn-fields around his abode, which