The only plausible pretence for the treatment of the abdicated emperor was--that his surpassing genius, and his great hold on the military part of the French character, rendered him a necessary exception to the rule regarding prisoners of war, and made it indispensable to the safety and repose of the world, that he should be prevented from appearing again on the grand stage of European politics. This is confessedly on the dangerous plan of doing positive injustice for the sake of what the doers think safe and necessary. But we deny the necessity. We say the argument is built on utter ignorance of human nature, and a wilful blindness to all history and experience. Napoleon was grand in his views, because he admired and loved greatness for its own sake. He never sullied his conquests by partitioning and dividing the conquered. He could afford not to weaken his enemies by petty violations of national integrity. He encouraged every thing liberal and noble, which did not at the same time interfere with his personal authority. He cherished literature, art, and science; and they, in return, reflected true glory upon him. He never insulted and mocked mankind by pretending an eternal right in himself and his successors to trample them under his feet, because he was an emperor. He had always a respect for liberty, though he so often forgot it in his greater eagerness for power. He never laid claim to _holiness_, but acknowledged himself, in his proudest moments, sovereign, "_by the constitutions of the empire_." He was not vindictive; his long military rule was never sullied by any act which could be compared in infamy with the imprisonment of the unfortunate TRENCK by that Prussian FREDERICK, whom the legitimate abusers of NAPOLEON call "the _Great_." The prominent fault of his career as a leader of a new and revolutionary period, was that, instead of looking forward, he looked backward, and became an imitator instead of an original. He evidently had the glories of former ages strongly in his view; and was to be a great conqueror, not because the times wanted _him_, but because there are medals and statues in the world, and dynasties were founded by CÆSAR. In the height of his prosperity, he was a CHARLEMAGNE--another "Emperor of the West;" and, in his adversity, he forgot the Prince Regent of England so far as to talk to him of THEMISTOCLES[68:A]. And yet there was a romance even in this, which set him above all ordinary conquerors. He had the poetry, as well as the prose, of the military art about him. _He_ would never have sunk into a mere lounger and man of pleasure, or stood behind any commonplace man with a gold stick in his hand. [68:A] The following is a translation of the letter above referred to: "Rocheford, 13th July, 1815. "YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS,