BONAPARTE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3174, 31 August 1881, Page 4

BONAPARTE.

Professor Seeley's article on ' Bonaparte ' in this month's Macmillan adds a now interest even to the greatest figure of modern history. His scientific explanation of Napoleon's vast power is indeed more able than original. It is hardly so much !> paradox as Professor Seeley supposes t< gay that N apoleon was the result of fcV levee en masse rather than of the Revolution ov that Imperialism, ' thafc form which p. State assumes when it postpones even other object to military efficiency,' in France as elsewhere rather from the exigencies of a great foreign war than from the la.situdo which succeeds domestic convulsion. Most men, too, will be willing tr> admit nowdays that 'of the vast fabric of Bonaparte's greatness more than half wa? not built by him at all, but for him.' It is in dealing with the personal character of Napoleon thafc Professor Seeley is most striking and novel. In his view Bonaparte is not an instance of a nature originally noble which was corrupted by power or carried away by passion. He rather proves that ' there really is a human type in which vast intelligence is found disasociated from virtue.' He was not impelled by the desire to do good, but by ' an almost maniacal' love of fame. Such judg ments have been passed before, hut seldom under the support of temperate argument like Professor Seeley's. And never before has any writer of authority attributed so much deliberation to Napoleon's schemes of Eastern conquest and a world-embracing theoracy. According to Professor Seeley, h in all seriousness proposed to imitate the career of Mahommed, and to be a prophet kin..' In exact contradiction of ( arlyle'? Cunoep'ion. tbe hero in this ease 'is really ;• great deceiver, a man who revels in th'thought of governing mankind by their credulity ; who, brought up in Europe, as ii were, discovered for himself th" art; of the great Prophet conquerors of Asia. ' Whaf has generally been regarded aa an aberration in Napoleon is thus represented as his main design.—Pall Mall Gazette.