Since the publication of the Sixth Edition of this work, the French
nation, and the world at large, have obtained an additional evidence, to
which I hope they will attach as much weight as it deserves, of the
reality of the wonderful history I have been treating of. The Great
Nation, among the many indications lately given of an heroic zeal like
what Homer attributes to his Argive warriors, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
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LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~} {~GREEK
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EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
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TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, have formed and executed the design
of bringing home for honourable interment the remains of their
illustrious Chief.
How many persons have actually inspected these relics, I have not
ascertained; but that a real coffin, containing real bones, was
brought from St. Helena to France, I see no reason to disbelieve.
Whether future visitors to St. Helena will be shown merely the
identical _place_ in which Buonaparte was (_said_ to have been)
interred, or whether another set of real bones will be exhibited in
that island, we have yet to learn.
This latter supposition is not very improbable. It was something of a
credit to the island, an attraction to strangers, and a source of
profit to some of the inhabitants, to possess so remarkable a relic;
and this glory and advantage they must naturally wish to retain. If
so, there seems no reason why they should not have a Buonaparte of
their own; for there is, I believe, no doubt that there are, or were,
several Museums in England, which, among other curiosities, boasted,
each, of a genuine skull of Oliver Cromwell.
Perhaps, therefore, we shall hear of several well authenticated skulls
of Buonaparte also, in the collections of different virtuosos, all of
whom (especially those in whose own crania the "organ of wonder" is
the most largely developed) will doubtless derive equal satisfaction
from the relics they respectively possess.