76 Letter on Affairs in general. [JAN. 



which, under powerful impulse and excitement, the more marked and dis- 

 guished specimens of " our nature " are capable of becoming. For in- 

 stance, I saw Richard the Third quite " in nature," as I saw him when 

 Mr. Young acted the character a few nights since which he did very ill. 

 Or, I see him equally " in nature," if I see him represented ASLEEP ; but 

 that is not the situation in which I desire to see him. Nature is necessary 

 perhaps on the stage, to the justification of every thing ; but, of itself, it 

 justifies nothing. 



So, the " real potentates " of tragedy, of Buonaparte's chamber they 

 are no doubt the personages of tragedy but they are not yet in tragic 

 situations. They are tyrants captives warriors ; but the audience- 

 chamber is not their scene of tragic action. They are the puppets ; but 

 they are not wound up : they are the straws that will dance upon the 

 electric plate ; but the " charge" is not yet applied which puts them into 

 motion. Persons may be permanently wretched, but they cannot be per- 

 manently " tragic," The stage, or the poet, selects them at the peculiar 

 moment when they happen to be so. And here is the error. Buonaparte 

 is not tragic while he converses with M. Talma about exits, and entrees, 

 and gold lace. But I will make him tragic in a moment it is but to 

 change the scene only, with it (mark !) how I shall change his quiescent 

 aspect ! 



I will take him not talking about " acting " to M. Talma in the Louvre ; 

 but sending off L***** in the teeth of all probability, and even of all 

 hope-^-with threats that the messenger could scarcely listen to without 

 admiration, and arguments so insane, as could impose upon no human 

 creature out of a madhouse but the proposer, on a last desperate mission 

 -^such as even desperation itself could hardly have thought to wait the 

 answer of to NEGOCIATE with Alexander (and seven hundred thousand 

 Russians in arms) after the destruction of Moscow ! I will take him 

 not talking of himself as " the most tragic person in the world " but 

 beginning to doubt very horribly how much longer he should be any per- 

 son in the world tragic or not tragic at all. I will take him as he 

 stands in that very curious work of Segur's driving from him, on the 

 retreat out of Russia, those messengers who brought him accounts of the 

 real state of his affairs. It is the very identical condition of Macbeth : 



" Bring me no more reports let them fly all !" 



And, like the last, it is said there was a fate in which he trusted ; a fact 

 not unlikely ; for the minds of men so circumstanced must be wound up 

 if not to a species often of frenzy yet to a state of feeling of which 

 individuals ordinarily situated can have little comprehension. 



" Provisions for forty thousand men, and forage for the horses !" (He 

 writes the arrangements which are to mislead his troops collected at 

 Witepsk). " Sire, there are not supplies for two thousand men, and to 

 collect an ounce of forage is impossible.". ..." The division of Ney, with 

 sixty thousand men !" " Sire, the Marshal has not two thousand men 

 in arms.". ..." The division of Marshal Ney, with sixty thousand men, 

 will cover the passage of the Beresina I" 



These are the moments in which I will take him those of hurry 

 bankruptcy confusion ruin I when he dictated despatches, every 

 syllable of which was false ; commanded services, notoriously impossible ; 

 and disposed of corps, which he knew were no longer in existence. I 

 will take him, 'surrounded not by Generals soliciting crowns ; but by 



