_Tablet to Napoleon_ (Vol. i., p. 461.).--The form and punctuation given to
this inscription by C. suggest its true meaning. Napoleon is called the
Egyptian, the Italian, for reasons similar to those for which Publius
Cornelius Scipio obtained the name of "Africanus." There is, however,
another sense in which the epithet "bis Italicus" is applicable to
Napoleon: he was an Italian by birth as well as by conquest. It is in this
sense that Voltaire has applied to Henri Quatre the second line of the
following couplet:--
"Je chante ce héros qui régna sur la France
Et par droit de _conquête_, et par droit de _naissance_."
As to the "lingual purity" of the inscription, there is not much to be said
about it, one way or the other. It is on a level with most modern
inscriptions and epitaphs in the Latin language; neither so elegant as the
Latinity of Dr. Johnson, or Walter Savage Landor, nor yet so hackneyed as
our "Latin de cuisine."