POSTSCRIPT TO THE NINTH EDITION.

The Public has been of late much interested and not a little bewildered, by the accounts of many strange events, said to have recently taken place in France and other parts of the Continent. Are these accounts of such a character as to allay, or to strengthen and increase, such doubts as have been suggested in the foregoing pages?

We are told that there is now a Napoleon Buonaparte at the head of the government of France. It is not, indeed, asserted that he is the very original Napoleon Buonaparte himself. The death of that personage, and the transportation of his genuine bones to France, had been too widely proclaimed to allow of his reappearance in his own proper person. But "uno avulso, non deficit alter." Like the Thibetian worshippers of the Dalai Lama, (who never dies; only his soul transmigrates into a fresh body), the French are so resolved, we are told, to be under a Buonaparte—whether that be (see note to p. 56) a man or "a system"—that they have found, it seems, a kind of new incarnation of this their Grand Lama, in a person said to be the nephew of the original one.

And when, on hearing that this personage now fills the high office of President of the French Republic, we inquire (very naturally) how he came there, we are informed that, several years ago, he invaded France in an English vessel, (the English—as was observed in p. 52—having always been suspected of keeping Buonaparte ready, like the winds in a Lapland witch's bag, to be let out on occasion,) at the head of a force, not, of six hundred men, like his supposed uncle in his expedition from Elba, but of fifty-five,(!) with which he landed at Boulogne, proclaimed himself emperor, and was joined by no less than one man! He was accordingly, we are told, arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced to imprisonment; but having, some years after, escaped from prison, and taken refuge in England, (England again!) he thence returned to France: AND SO the French nation placed him at the head of the government!

All this will doubtless be received as a very probable tale by those who have given full credit to all the stories I have alluded to in the foregoing pages.



POSTSCRIPT TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION.

When any dramatic piece takes—as the phrase is—with the Public, it will usually be represented again and again with still-continued applause; and sometimes imitations of it will be produced; so that the same drama in substance will, with occasional slight variations in the plot, and changes of names, long keep possession of the stage.

Something like this has taken place with respect to that curious tragi-comedy—the scene of it laid in France—which has engaged the attention of the British public for about sixty years; during which it has been "exhibited to crowded houses"—viz., coffee-houses, reading-rooms, &c., with unabated interest.

The outline of this drama, or series of dramas, may be thus sketched:

Dramatis Personae.

A. A King or other Sovereign.

B. His Queen.

C. The Heir apparent.

D. E. F. His Ministers.

G. H. I. J. K. Demagogues.

L. A popular leader of superior ingenuity, who becomes ultimately supreme ruler under the title of Dictator, Consul, Emperor, King, President, or some other.

Soldiers, Senators, Executioners, and other functionaries, Citizens, Fishwomen, &c.

Scene, Paris.

(1.) The first Act of one of these dramas represents a monarchy, somewhat troubled by murmurs of disaffection, suspicions of conspiracy, &c.

(2.) Second Act, a rebellion; in which ultimately the government is overthrown.

(3.) Act the third, a provisional government established, on principles of liberty, equality, fraternity, &c.

(4.) Act the fourth, struggles of various parties for power, carried on with sundry intrigues, and sanguinary conflicts.

(5.) Act the fifth, the re-establishment of some form of absolute monarchy.

And from this point we start afresh, and begin the same business over again, with sundry fresh interludes.

All this is highly amusing to the English Public to hear and read of; but I doubt whether our countrymen would like to be actual performers in such a drama.

Whether the French really are so, or whether they are mystifying us in the accounts they send over, I will not presume to decide. But if the former supposition be the true one,—if they have been so long really acting over and over again in their own persons such a drama, it must be allowed that they deserve to be characterized as they have been in the description given of certain European nations: "An Englishman," it has been said, "is never happy but when he is miserable; a Scotchman is never at home but when he is abroad; an Irishman is never at peace but when he is fighting; a Spaniard is never at liberty but when he is enslaved; and a Frenchman is never settled but when he is engaged in a revolution."



POSTSCRIPT TO THE TWELFTH EDITION.

"Time" says the proverb, "rings Truth to light." But the process is gradual and slow. The debt is paid, as it were, by instalments. It is only bit by bit, and at considerable intervals, that Truth comes forth as the morning twilight to dispel the mists of fiction.

It is above forty years that men have been debating the question:—Who were the parties that burned the city of Moscow?—without ever thinking of the preliminary question, whether it ever was burnt at all. And now at length we learn that it never was.

The following extract from a New Orleans paper contains the information obtained by an American traveller—one of that great nation whose accuracy as to facts is so well known—who visited the spot.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL—CITY OF MOSCOW.

Senator Douglas is said to have made the discovery, while travelling in Russia, that the city of Moscow was never burned! The following statement of the matter is from the Muscatine (Iowa) Inquirer:

"Coming on the boat, a few days ago, we happened to fall in company with Senator Douglas, who came on board at Quincy, on his way to Warsaw. In the course of a very interesting account of his travels in Russia, much of which has been published by letter-writers, he stated a fact which has never yet been published, but which startlingly contradicts the historical relation of one of the most extraordinary events that ever fell to the lot of history to record. For this reason the Judge said he felt a delicacy in making the assertion, that the city of Moscow was never burned!

"He said, that previous to his arrival at Moscow, he had several disputes with his guide as to the burning of the city, the guide declaring that it never occurred, and seeming to be nettled at Mr. Douglas's persistency in his opinion; but, on examining the fire-marks around the city, and the city itself, he became satisfied that the guide was correct.

"The statement goes on to set forth that the antiquity of the architectural city—particularly of its 'six hundred first-class churches,' stretching through ante-Napoleonic ages to Pagan times, and showing the handiwork of different nations of History—demonstrates that the city never was burned down (or up)."

The Inquirer adds:

"The Kremlin is a space of several hundred acres, in the heart of the city, in the shape of a flat iron, and is enclosed, by a wall of sixty feet high. Within this enclosure is the most magnificent palace in Europe, recently built, but constructed over an ancient palace, which remains, thus enclosed, whole and perfect, with all its windows, &c.

"Near the Kremlin, surrounded by a wall, is a Chinese town, appearing to be several hundred years old, still occupied by descendants of the original settlers.

"The circumstances which gave rise to the errors concerning the burning of Moscow, were these:—It is a city of four hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, in circular form, occupying a large space, five miles across. There the winters are six months long, and the custom was, and still is, to lay up supplies of provisions and wood to last six months of severe cold weather. To prevent these gigantic supplies from encumbering the heart of the city, and yet render them as convenient as practicable to every locality, a row of wood houses was constructed to circle completely round the city, and outside of these was a row of granaries, and in these were deposited the whole of the supplies. Napoleon had entered the city with his army, and was himself occupying the palace of the Kremlin, when, one night, by order of the Russian governor, every wood house and every granary simultaneously burst into a blaze. All efforts to extinguish them were vain, and Napoleon found himself compelled to march his army through the fire. Retiring to an eminence he saw the whole city enveloped in vast sheets of flame, and clouds of smoke, and apparently all on fire. And far as he was concerned it might as well have been, for though houses enough were left to supply every soldier with a room, yet without provisions or fuel, and a Russian army to cut off supplies, he and his army could not subsist there. During the fire some houses were probably burnt, but the city was not. In the Kremlin a magazine blew up, cracking the church of Ivan more than a hundred feet up, but setting nothing on fire.

"Mr. Douglas saw the fire-marks around the city, where wood houses and granaries for winter supplies now stand as of old; but there appears no marks of conflagration within the city."

Any wary sceptic, indeed, might have found much ground for doubt in the very accounts themselves that were given of the conflagration. For, the Russians have always denied that they burned it; and the French equally disclaimed the act. Each of the two parties between whom the accusation lay, strenuously denied it. And it must be acknowledged that each had very strong presumptions of innocence to urge. It was certainly most unlikely that the Russians should themselves destroy their ancient and venerable capital; and that, too, when they were boasting of having just gained a great victory at Borodino over an army which, therefore, they might hope to defeat again, and to drive out of their city. And it was no less unlikely that the French should burn down a city of which they had possession, and which afforded shelter and refreshment to their troops. This would have been one of the most improbable circumstances of that most improbable (supposed) campaign. To add to the marvel, we are told that the French army nevertheless waited for five weeks, without any object, amid the ashes of this destroyed city, just at the approach, of winter, and as if on purpose to be overtaken and destroyed by snows and frost!

However, all the difficulties of the question whether any of these things took place at all, were by most persons overlooked, because the question itself never occurred to them, in their eagerness to decide who it was that burned the city. And at length it comes out that the answer is, NOBODY!

THE END.



POSTSCRIPT.

With respect to the foregoing arguments, it has been asserted (though without even any attempt at proof) that they go to prove that the Bible-narratives contain nothing more miraculous than the received accounts of Napoleon Buonaparte. And this is indeed true, if we use the word "miraculous" in the very unusual sense in which Hume (as is pointed out in the foregoing pages) has employed it; to signify simply "improbable;" an abuse of language on which his argument mainly depends.

It is indeed shown, that there are at least as many and as great improbabilities in the history of Buonaparte as in any of the Scripture-narratives; and that as plausible objections,—if not more so,—may be brought against the one history as the other.

But taking words in their ordinary, established sense, the assertion is manifestly the opposite of the truth. For, any one who does,—in spite of all the improbabilities,—believe the truth of both histories, is, evidently, a believer in miracles; since he believes two narratives, one of which is not miraculous, while the other is. The history of Buonaparte contains—though much that is very improbable—nothing that is to be called, according to the established use of language, miraculous. And the Scriptures contain, as an essential part of their narrative, Miracles, properly so called.

To talk of believing the Bible, all except the Miracles, would be like professing to believe the accounts of Buonaparte, except only his commanding armies, and having been at Elba and at Saint Helena.

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One cannot doubt that in the course of the forty years that this little Work has been before the Public, some real, valid refutation of the argument would have been adduced, if any such could have been devised.

1860.

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THE END