But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly wicked as has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to assassinate the nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been done by Nicholas of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse with that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended himself against the charge of scourging nuns to convert them to the Greek church, administers the knout to a noble and beautiful lady because she had given shelter for an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why then so zealous against Napoleon only? He is but a specimen of what man must become when he _will_ be king over the bodies, where he cannot over the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is any worse in the sight of God to drain France of her best blood by the conscription, than to tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to perish in a dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not prize what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one in place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius which, in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial barrier that hid the nations of Europe one from the other--that has left the "career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese alliance" can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of civic improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all _thoughts_ became _things_; it has been spoken in blame, it has been spoken in praise; for ourselves we see not how this most practical age and country can refuse to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful practical genius.