We have thus broadly stated some of Mr Kinglake’s eminent qualifications for his task, and a detailed notice of his work will necessarily include others. And it is easy to believe that he might have selected a variety of subjects, his execution of which would have insured unqualified praise. But for the present task, as might have been seen before he commenced it, his fitness was marred by one circumstance. His political course had proved that his animosity towards the French Emperor amounted to a passion, or, as those who did not care to pick their words might say, a mania. It might be guessed beforehand, therefore, that the Emperor would scarcely meet with fair play at his hands. And considering the share taken by that personage in the events which Mr Kinglake had undertaken to record, to misrepresent his policy or his doings would be to distort the history. Any one who entertained such a misgiving must have found it strengthened when, on glancing over the table of contents, he perceived that nearly a quarter of the first volume, amidst what purports to be a record of the “transactions that brought on the war,” is occupied with an account of the _coup d’état_ which substituted an empire for a republic in France. On reading the volume his suspicions would inevitably be converted into certainty. More than that, indeed, for he would find that his anticipations were far exceeded by a satire so studied, so polished, so remorseless, and withal so diabolically entertaining, that we know not where in modern literature to seek such another philippic. Had Mr Kinglake contrived in this chapter to have completely relieved his feelings and have been contented with flaying the Emperor and thus have done with him, leaving him to get through the rest of the book as naturally and comfortably as he could be expected to do without his skin, we might consider it as an episode which we should have been at liberty to set apart from the main purpose of the work. But like King Charles I., whom David Copperfield’s friend, Mr Dick, never could keep out of his memorial, this diabolical caricature of despotism haunts the narrative at every turn. The canvass is spread, the palette is laid, the artist is at his easel full of his subject—all the great personages of the time are to figure there, and great incidents are to form the background. The spectator is at first charmed with the progress of the design; but presently, amidst the nobly-drawn portraits, there is a sketch of a monarch with cloven feet appearing beneath his robes, and a tail curling under his throne; and whereas the rest of the picture is in true perspective, all that relates to this figure has a separate horizon and point of sight. The result is as if Gilray in his bitterest mood had got into Sir Joshua’s studio and persuaded him to let their fancies mingle in one incongruous work.