that gentleman was. Carnot an swered, it was the general of the armed force of Paris. What is his 'name?' said the author. His name is Bonaparte.' Is he a 'man of sense?' 'I really do not 'know.' Has he great military 'skill?' So it is said.' What 'has he ever done that is remarkable?' He is the officer who 'commanded the troops of the con'vention on the 13th of Vendé'miaire.' This was enough for the inquirer; the shade deepened in his countenance: he was one of the electors of Vendémiaire, bigottedly attached to his own opinions; and he retired silently to a corner, observing this gentleman, as he had himself called him, whose open countenance, beaming with expression, could not fail to have pleased him, but from what he had just heard from Carnot. "Bonaparte, seeing the young lady still at her instrument, and the company attending solely to him, said, in a tone of gentleness, '1 have put a stop to your amusements: somebody was singing, I beg I may not interrupt the party. The director apologised the general insisted, and the lady, at last, played and sung two or three patriotic airs: Bonaparte, after amusing himself a few minutes longer, rose, and took his leave. "As soon as he was gone, the whole conversation turned upon the young general, and Carnot predicted, from this interview, that Bonaparte would not stop short where he was. The prediction is verified; but the other directors had not the same penetration: so true is it, that extraordinary talents and merit can only be appreciated by those who are, at least in some degree, possessed of them themselves." ANECDOTES respecting BONAPARTE during his first ITALIAN [From the same Work.] ONAPARTE, when he heard of the death of general Hoche, was extremely affected, and promised a thousand sequins to any one who should write a suitable ode on the restoration of peace in la Vendée. Upon this occasion, a person of the name of Camille presented him with the four following lines. 'Tu veux payer des vers pour Hoche: Jeune héros! demande-les pour toi: On te les fera, sur ma foi, Sans que tu fouilles dans ta poche.' 'For Hoche thou fain would purchase rhymes: Young hero! ask them for thyself, And-or I much mistake the timesThey'd flow without the aid of pelf,' "Some intimate friends of Bonaparte talking freely with him concerning the treaty of Campo Formio, observed, that he had allowed the emperor great advantages in giving up to him the spoils of Venice, and that the destruction of one of the most ancient republics in the world had served only to in demnify the emperor; and what was more, through the success of a republican general. I was playing at vingt et un,' said the conqueror, and being twenty, I stood.' "A few days before his departure for the army of Italy, he was at the house of a friend of Courtois's, where he made a short sketch of his intended intended campaign from memory, in which Millesimo was pointed out as the first theatre of the enemy's defeat. He made a memorandum, that he should drive out the Austrians through the defiles of the Tyrol; and terminated the whole with these words, And at the 'gates of Vienna I shall grant them 'peace.' "Bonaparte, when he went to take pon him the chief command of the army of Italy, was only twenty-six years of age. It is said that on his promotion a friend observing to him, You are very young to go thus, and take the chief command of an army he replied, I shall be old when I return." It is a singular, coincidence, that Bonaparte should have conquered Italy precisely a thousand years after Charlemagne's second entrance into Lombardy; which he had before subjugated to his arms, and from whence proceeding to Rome, he changed the fate of Europe by founding at the end of the, year 800, a new empire, of which all the modern states are but dismembered parts. Arnauld, author of the tragedy of Oscar, addressed the following lines to Bonaparte, upon sending him his piece while he was in the midst of his victories at the head of the army of Italy. Toi, dont la jeunesse occupée. Et trouve, s'il se peut, le tems De me lire entre deux victoires. And haply, 'mid immortal fights, "An old officer, distinguished for his services and his attachment to the republic and Bonaparte, reading a paragraph in a paper which said, that this general was at the head of his troops in the battle of Bronni, observed in a tone of acger If he go on thus, fighting in the advanced guard, let him do what he will, he shall have no thanks from me.' In a company,' said he, where Fontenelle was present, a man of talents made several excellent repartees. When he was gone, the company talked of these sallies, calling them by the name of lucky hits. You are right,' said Fontenelle, but these lucky hits never happen but to men of genius." Success Success in a single instance may be the result of fortune; but when it is continued, Fortune can have nothing to do with it; it is above her induence. “When marshal Villars was appointed to command the army, one of the courtiers of Lewis XIV. observed, that Villars was very lucky Lucky!" said the monarch; no sir, it is beyond that.' Cæsar's expression to the fisherman who conducted him in his bark in a violent storm Fear nothing, you carry Cesar and his ⚫ fortune,' being cited before a ge neral whose success had been as great as Cesar's, the general thus expressed himself on the occasion: There is more prudence than pride in this mode of speaking, which is calculated to strike the imaginations of men, without offending their vanity.' "This remark is as just and profound as it is happily expressed. "The achievement of the conquest of Italy in the short space of two years gave rise to the following appropriate stanza: Pour affervir le Tibre, Annibal employa feize ans ; Bonaparte iis deux printems.' "It was said of Voltaire by Lin, guet, that there was stuff enough in him of which to make several philosophers and great literary men: this thought of the author of Annales Politiques has been applied by 2 man of talents to Bonaparte, of whom he said, there was enough in him to make many great gene. sals and consummate statesmen, "The following little dialogue, the thought of which, however, is neither very natural, nor very new; Dugazon, the actor, having made use nearly of the same idea long before, is from the pen of Fabien Pillet. "Le Transport Imprudent; Dialogue sar De ce héros cher au Français, A la moitié de son histoire. Of this young hero, dear to France, And o'er the bowl recount- E're half you tell the amount.' written contained as much wit and "If all the puns that have been delicate turn of expression as the following, I should be almost rer conciled to them: but for one that' is good, we have more than a hundred that are despicable; sic fqta volunt. There is something so singular in the anagram discovered in the two words Révolution Française, that it may be excusable perhaps to mention so trifling a circumstance, when Bonaparte is the subject of it. The mode of forming the anagram is this: from the two words révolution Française the word veto is to be taken away; when, the remaining letters being joined together, this sentence will be produced: un Corse la finera a Corsican will ' end it.' "Some Italian chronologers have told us that the ancestors of Bonaparte first settled in Corsica about four centuries ago, having been obliged to quit their native country, Sarzana, on account of the war then existing between the Guelfs and the Gibelines, in which they had fought for the national independence. We shall not enter into so useless a controversy, from which no additional splendor is to be derived to the hero of Italy. Why should we search into the annals of past times for merit which can in no way belong to him, when the present affords him sufficient glory, and the prospect of the future is too brilliant to render any such inquiries of consequence to his fame?" PARTICULARS of the LIFE of MILTON. [From TODD's Edition of the Poetical Works of JOHN MILTON.] "HAV. N. in 1632, Milton left AVING taken the degree of the university, and retired to his father's house in the country, who had now quitted business, and lived at an estate which he had purchased at Horton, near Colnebrooke, in Buckinghamshire. Here he resided five years in which time he not only, as he himself informs us, read over the Greek and Latin authors, particularly the historians, but is also believed to have written his Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, and 1 Penseroso, and Lycidas. The pleasant retreat in the country excited his most poetic feelings; and he proved himself able, in his pictures of rural life, to rival the works of Nature which he contemplated with delight. In the neighbourhood of Horton, the countess dowager of Derby resided; and the Arcades was performed by her grandchildren at this seat, called Harefield intended a compliment to his fair Place. It seems to me that Milton neighbour (for fair she was) in his L'Allegro. Towers and battlements it sees The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.' The woody scenery of Harefield, and the personal accomplishments of the countess, are not unfayour able to this supposition; which, if admitted, tends to confirm the opinion, that L'Allegro and II Penseroso were composed at Horton. "The Mask of Comus, and Lycidas, were certainly produced under the roof of his father. It may be observed that, after his retirement to private study, he paid great attention, like his master Spenser, to the Italian school of poe ry. Dr. Johnson observes, that his acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by the ⚫ mixture mixture of longer and shorter verses in Lycidas, according to the rules of Tuscan poetry.' In Comus the sweet rhythm and cadence of the Italian language is no less observable. Of these poems, as of his other works, the reader will find critical opinions in their respective places. I must here observe that the house in which Milton drew such enchanting scenes, was about ten years since pulled down; and that, during his residence at Horton, he had occasionally taken lodgings in London, in order to cultivate music and mathematics, to meet his friends from Cambridge, and to indulge his passion for books. approaching towards the Newtonian philosophy, to have been caught at Florence from Galileo or his disciples. ་ "From Florence he passed through Sienna to Rome, where he also stayed two months; feasting, as Dr. Newton well observes, both his eyes and his mind, and delighted with the fine paintings and sculptures, and other rarities and antiquities of the city. It has been judiciously conjectured, that several of the immortal works of the finest painters and statuaries may be traced in Milton's poetry, They are supposed by Mr. Hayley to have had considerable influence in at"Milton became acquainted (du- taching his imagination to our first ring his travels in Italy) with the ce- parents. He had most probably lebrated Galileo, whom many bio-contemplated them,' the elegant graphers have represented as in writer continues, not only in the prison when the poet visited him. colours of Michael Angelo, who But Mr. Walker has informed me 'decorated Rome with his picture that Galileo was never a prisoner in of the creation, but in the marble the inquisition at Florence, although of Bandinelli, who had exccuted a prisoner of it. On his arrival at two large statues of Adam and Rome on February 10th, 1632, that Eve, which, though they were far illustrious philosopher had surren- from satisfying the taste of con dered himself to Urban, who order-noisseurs, might stimulate even by ed him to be confined for his philo-their imperfections the genius of a sophical heresy in the palace of the poet.' The description of the Trinita de' Monti. Here he re- creation in the third book of Paramained five months. Having re- dise Lost (line 70S, 719), is supposed tracted his opinion, he was dismiss by Mr. Walker to be copied from ed from Rome; and the house of the same subject as treated by Ramonsignor Piccolomini in Sienna phael in the gallery of the Vatican, was assigned to him as his prison. called La Bibbia di Raffaello,' About the beginning of December, in There are indeed several interesting 1633, he was liberated, and return- pictures relating to Adam and Eve ed to the village of Belloguardo near in the Florence collection, together Florence, whence he went to Arce- with the Fall of Lucifer,' supposed tri, where it is probable, he receiv to be the work of Michael Aned the visit of the English bard. gelo, which Milton might have also Milton himself has informed us that seen. Mr. Danster ingeniously he had really seen Galileo; and conjectures the Paradise Regained Rolli, in his Life of the poet, consi- to have been enriched by the sugders some ideas in the Paradise Lost, gestions of Salvator Rosa's masterly "Author of Historical Memoir on Italian Tragedy,' 4to. 1799," |