In fine, with an eye to see at a glance, a mind to devise, a tongue to persuade, a hand to execute, this great man was circumspect in recklessness, poised and vigorous in violence, cool and calculating to a minutia in audacity and passion. As a friend, affectionate and volatile--as an enemy, fierce and placable--as a politician, patriotic and venal. Proud of his patricianship, whose _status_ and manners he has lost, he is humble about a statesmanship that makes the first of his glories. The best of writers, his works are written for him; the greatest of orators, his speeches are made for him! Has he the most unerring of judgments? He prefers another's! Is he a popular tribune? He is also a royalist parasite! Is he earnest? He is then insincere! Does he evidence great principles? He seeks bribes! Does he enforce moderation? He awaits vengeance! Does he cause confusion? He is seeking order! Would he save the nation? He is selling its liberties! Wonderful man! great with enormous weaknesses, bad with many excellencies, immortal by the expedients of an hour, his genius is a combination of almost impossible perfections, as his political life the colossal result of a thousand contradictions. United, they yield a deathless character, whose Titanic proportions shall, age after age, be huger, as the mighty shadows that cover it shall grow darker! FOOTNOTES: [7] It was this invasion that made Corsica a French island, and consequently Napoleon Bonaparte a French citizen [8] He had also been confined in two prisons, in the Ile de Rue, and the Castle of Dijon. [9] Madame Campan's Memoirs. [10] Madame de Stael. [11] Bertrand de Moleville. [12] De Levis. [13] De Ferrieres. [From Hogg's Instructor.] THE "COMMUNIST" SPARROW--AN ANECDOTE OF CUVIER. We have been struck with the following anecdote of the great Cuvier, which is recorded in the "Courrier de l'Europe" for February, 1850, and trust the following translation will prove as interesting to our readers as it has been to us. It forms an amusing chapter in natural history, and forcibly illustrates that close observation which so frequently characterizes eminent men. Poverty in youth has a purifying tendency, like the "live coal" of old which the angel passed over the lips of Isaiah. It inures the soul to struggling, and the mind to persevering labor and self-confidence: it keeps the imagination away from the temptations of luxury, and the still more fatal one of idleness, that parent of vice. It, moreover, becomes one of the most fruitful sources of happiness to the man whom God permits to come out of the crowd and take his place at the head of science and art. It is with ineffable delight that he looks behind, and says, in thinking of his cold and comfortless garret, "I came out of that place, single and unknown." George Cuvier, that pupil of poverty, loved to relate one of his first observations of natural history, which he had made while tutor to the children of Count d'Henry.