Charles Phillips, 1787-1859, an eminent barrister and orator, was born in
Sligo, Ireland, and died in London. He gained much of his reputation as an
advocate in criminal cases. In his youth he published some verses; later
in life he became the author of several works, chiefly of biography.
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He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered
among us like some ancient ruin, whose power terrified the glance its
magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the
throne a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A
mind, bold, independent, and decisive; a will, despotic in its dictates;
an energy that distanced expedition; and a conscience, pliable to every
touch of interest, marked the outlines of this extraordinary
character--the most extraordinary, perhaps, that in the annals of this
world ever rose, or reigned, or fell.
Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy
of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a
stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity. With no friend but his sword,
and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and
wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him,
as from the glance of destiny.
He knew no motive but interest; acknowledged no criterion but success; he
worshiped no God but ambition; and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at
the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he
did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the
hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he
bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted
child of the Republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins
both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism.
A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he
impoverished the country; and in the name of Brutus, he grasped without
remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Caesars.
The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and
the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his
performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too
incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw
a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient
capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplace in his
contemplation: kings were his people; nations were his outposts; and he
disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as
if they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard! Amid all these
changes, he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the
field, or in the drawing-room; with the mob, or the levee; wearing the
Jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown; banishing a Braganza, or espousing a
Hapsburg; dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or
contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic he was still the same
military despot.
In this wonderful combination, his affectations of literature must not be
omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters;
the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of
authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection
of learning; the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the
denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De
Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.
Such a medley of contradictions, and, at the same time, such an individual
consistency, were never united in the same character. A royalist, a
republican, and an emperor; a Mohammedan, a Catholic, and a patron of the
synagogue; a subaltern and a sovereign; a traitor and a tyrant; a
Christian and an infidel; he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same
stern, impatient, inflexible original; the same mysterious,
incomprehensible self; the man without a model, and without a shadow.
NOTES.--St. Louis (b. 1215, d. 1270), a wise and pious king of France,
known as Louis IX. Napoleon was appointed to the Military School at
Brienne, by Louis XVI. Brutus, Lucius Junius, abolished the royal office
at Rome (509 B. C.), and ruled as consul for two years.
Jacobin Bonnet.--The Jacobins were a powerful political club during the
first French Revolution. A peculiar bonnet or hat was their badge.
Braganza, the name of the royal family of Portugal. Maria of Portugal, and
her father, Charles IV. of Spain, were both expelled by Napoleon.
Hapsburg, the name of the royal family of Austria. Napoleon's second wife
was Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Emperor. Czar.--The treaty of Tilsit
was agreed to between Bonaparte and the Czar Alexander on the river Memel.
Leipsic.--Napoleon was defeated by the allied forces, in October, 1813, at
this city.
Palm, a German publisher, shot, in 1806, by order of Napoleon, for
publishing a pamphlet against him. De Stael (pro. De Stal), a celebrated
French authoress, banished from Paris, in 1802, by Napoleon. Kotzebue, an
eminent German dramatist. David, the leading historical painter of his
times in France. De Lille, an eminent French poet and professor.