one, when Marbot was his aide-decamp.

Napoleon, having wrested the crown of Spain from its rightful owners, as we have seen, lost no time in despatching them to the respective residences which he had selected for them in France as prisoners of State. In less than a month after his arrival in Bayonne, Ferdinand was escorted to Valençay, and on the following day (May 12th, 1808) his unprincipled mother, King Charles, and the Prince of the Peace left for Compiegne.

In the meantime Napoleon had peremptorily sent for his brother Joseph, who, reluctantly quitting his books and his quiet life as King of Naples with many just forebodings, reached Bayonne four weeks after the Spanish royal family had left it. The emperor met him in great state on the road, and conducted him to Marrac with every sign of distinction likely to impress the Spanish visitors with his high estimation of their future king. Joseph spent a month in forming his court and household, receiving deputations, consulting the members of the Junta who had been brought to Bayonne to meet him, and generally making arrangements, under his brother's guidance, for taking up his arduous and unsought position as King of Spain. On July 9th Napoleon accompanied Joseph and his imposing cavalcade of guards, grandees, counsellors, and courtiers along the royal road to Spain as far as Bidart, the wellknown and picturesque village near Biarritz, where, five years later, the author of The Subaltern" fought with our gallant 85th Foot under Wellington at the battles of the Nive. Here he bade adieu to Joseph, taking from his uniform the cross of the Legion of Honor which he had worn at Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland, and fastened it on to his brother's breast. The members of the Spanish Junta accompanied Joseph in three detachments, one party each day in advance, one always with him, and one bringing up the rear, while French troops, from the several garrisons on the way, met him and lined the route. So long as Joseph was near France and the emperor, he was well received by the Spanish people; but the further he

travelled from the French frontier, the less was the welcome displayed and the more his cortège dwindled, until July 11th, when he entered Madrid without a single Spaniard in his train except the Captain-General of Navarre. The very next day he wrote thus to Napoleon: "There were two thousand men employed in the royal stables; all have left, and from nine o'clock yesterday I have not been able to find a single postilion. The peasants burn the wheels of their vehicles so that they cannot be used; and my servants, even those who were supposed to wish to come with me, have deserted."

But it is not my purpose to follow further the eventful fortunes of King Joseph, or of his illustrious brother, who, after visiting St. Jean-de-Luz with Josephine, where he looked into everything, and ordered many public works to be carried out, quitted Château Marrac and Bayonne on the day on which Joseph entered Madrid. The emperor and empress passed through Puyoo and Orthez to Pau, where, in contrast to the new King of Spain at Madrid, they were received with the utmost enthusiasm, to which the triumphal arch at the entrance to the town bore testimony in this inscription, Hommage de la ville de Pau à Napoleon le Grand.

Napoleon had sent his armies into Spain with these grandiloquent words. "Soldiers after triumphing on the banks of the Vistula and the Danube, you have passed with rapid steps. through Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiers! I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard* contaminates the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal: in terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphal eagles to the Pillars of Hercules; there also we have injuries to avenge. A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labors, but a real Frenchman could not, ought not, to rest until the seas are free and open to all." These promises were not quite

"Leopard" was a common expression of Napoleon's to denote the English, and originated in the three leopards (now called lions) forming part of the Royal Arms of England.

ACCORDING to the biographer of Lord Macaulay, a person need possess but a very moderate reputation, and have played no exceptional part, in order to have his memoirs written. How comes it, then, it may be asked, that so considerable a personage as Croker was has not had what Carlyle styles "posthumous retribution" paid to him? It is true that a mass of his correspondence has been collected and published under the editorship of his friend the late Mr. Louis J. Jennings; but the biographical thread which connects the letters in those volumes is of the slenderest description, and although "the true life of a man is in his letters, we would fain have a complete biography of the great reviewer, a biography which would forever dispel the calumnies that grew around his name, and

made it in some men's mouths a synonym for all that was base and contemptible. Whether for good or ill, Croker early in life made it a rule never to reply to any attack that was made upon him, no matter how vile or slanderous it might be, but to live it down; and from this rule he never, with one notable exception, deviated. From one point of view this had for him an advantage, for so numerous were the attacks made upon him and the slanders hurled at him, that were he to have replied to them, he would have had his hands so full that he would have found but little time for literature and politics, to both of which his life was devoted. The disadvantage at which his self-imposed rule placed him was the sufficiently obvious one that the slanderer mistook the silent contempt with which he was treated, and was reinforced by various smaller fry, who repeated and spread what they either knew to be false or did not trouble to investigate. Thus we find him variously described as "one of the most murderous critics that ever lived-a veritable assassin, who used pen instead of dagger." "The man who killed Keats by his violent attack on him in the Quarterly Review. "The wick

edest of reviewers." "A man of low birth and no principles." "A defamer whose path was paved with dead men's bones." A bad, a very bad man, wrote his enemy Macaulay in his diary, "a scandal to politics and to letters."

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That all these statements were at variance with the truth a few facts will go to show. His father, John Croker, was descended from an old Devonshire stock, and held the position of Surveyor-General of the Excise and Customs in Ireland. Edmund Burke described him as "a man of great abilities and most amiable manners, an able and upright public steward, and universally respected and beloved in private life. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Rathbone, of Galway, and was a lady of culture and refinement. It was in the town of Galway that their son, John Wilson Croker, was born on December 20th, 1780. Having a slight stutter, he was early sent to the school of the great elocutionist James Knowles (father of Sheridan Knowles), in Cork; but although an improvement was effected, he never altogether conquered the impediment. From here he was sent to another school in the same city, kept by a French family, with whose language he acquired a great facility. He then was sent to Mr. Willis's school in Portarlington, where at twelve years of age he was "head of the school, facile princeps in every branch, and the pride of the masters." So great and retentive was his memory that he had Pope's Homer" by heart. From Mr. Willis's he went to the more advanced school in the same town presided over by the Rev. Richmond Hood (who in later years became the second Sir Robert Peel's classical tutor), and he then passed to Trinity College, Dublin, where he was entered in November, 1796. During his four years' residence there he won a distinguished place among brilliant contemporaries, was conspicuous as a speaker in the Historical Society, and gained several gold medals for essays. He left Trinity (which he later had the honor of

representing in Parliament) with a B.A. degree, obtaining that of LL.D. in 1809.

Being destined for the law, he entered himself at Lincoln's Inn in 1800, and for the two following years devoted himself to legal studies. He varied these labors by contributing to periodicals of the day, and collecting a vast mass of literature bearing on the French Revolution, a subject which deeply interested him, and to the study of which in all its aspects he gave so much attention that he came to be considered about the best-informed man in all England regarding it.

He returned to Dublin in 1802, and two years later created a sensation by publishing (anonymously) a sort of imitation of the " Rosciad," entitled

Familiar Epistles to Frederick E. Jones, Esq., on the Present State of the Irish Stage." It was in octosyllabic verse, and although having both point and sparkle, was vastly inferior to Churchill's masterpiece. Jones was, it may be mentioned, lessee of the Crow Street Theatre, and Dublin society raved about the book. One journal said the author was an "infamous scribbler," while another declared it was evident that he was "a well-educated gentleman." With characteristic coolness, Croker published in the successive editions (it went through five in a year) an abstract of the conflicting praise and abuse lavished upon his book. A few extracts will serve to show the nature of the satire :

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Next Williams comes-the rude and rough,
With face most whimsically gruff,
Aping the careless sons of ocean,
He scorns each fine and easy motion;
Tight to his sides his elbows pins,
And dabbles with his hands like fins;
Would he display the greatest woe,
He slaps his breast and points his toe;
Is merriment to be expressed,
He points his toe and slaps his breast;
His turns are swings-his step a jump-
His feeling fits-his touch a thump;
And violent in all his parts,

He speaks by gusts and moves by starts. The acting-manager, Fullam, was thus dealt with

Come, then! lead on the rear guard, Fullam, who with deputed truncheon rule 'em; And tho' the buffo of the band, Tower the second in command (Thus, as old comedies record,

Christopher Sly became a Lord).
Cheer up! nor look so plaguy sour-
I own your merit, feel your power;
And from my prudent lips shall flow
Words as light as flakes of snow,
For should I vex you, well you might
Repay't by playing every night,
And-furnished with most potent engines,
Gubbins or Scrub-take ample vengeance.
But truce to gibing, let's be fair-
Fullam's a very pleasant player;
In knavish craft and testy age,
Sly mirth and impotence of rage,
He's still, though often harsh and mean,
The evenest actor of our scene.

Montague Talbot, famous in light
comedy parts, was highly praised :—
He reigns o'er comedy supreme-
By art and nature chastely fit
To play the gentleman or wit:
Not Harris's or Colman's boards,
Nor all that Drury Lane affords,
Can paint the rakish Charles so well,
Or give such life to Mirabel,
Or show for light and airy sport
So exquisite a Doricourt.

induced him to publish another, and in The phenomenal success of this book 1805 appeared "An Intercepted Letter Canton, to his friend in Dublin." from JT, Esq., written at This was a vigorous satire on Dublin city, and recalls to mind Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," which, however, lives, while Croker's work, having run through seven editions in twelve months, is utterly forgotten.

ations of a busy man, for, having been These, however, were but the recrecalled to the Irish bar in 1802, he joined the Munster circuit, and soon enjoyed a considerable practice, which was in a measure due to the important position held by his father. This brought him into contact with O'Connell, with whom he had, as he told his friend Charles Phillips,* a "sharp encounter of wits" at their very first meeting; but no ill-will followed, and when they met some years afterward in London they greeted each other cordially.

* Author of Recollections of Curran. When Phillips was writing this book he wrote to Croker for reminiscences of the great Irish. orator and advocate. Croker replied: "I have never, even in my youth, been able to sit down to remember. Conversation breaks through the surface that time spreads over events, and turns up anecdotes, as the plough sometimes does old coins."

In 1806 he married Miss Rosamond Pennell, daughter of William Pennell, afterward for many years British Consul at the Brazils. This marriage was the happiest event in his life, and they lived to celebrate their golden wedding just a year before he died. In a letter to a friend, written shortly after his marriage, he thus describes his wife, who was his junior by nine years :

Don't indulge yourself in fancying my dear wife to be one of those fine and feathered ladies who have a little learning, a little language, a little talent, and a great deal of self-opinion. She is nothing like this. She has none of what Sir Hugh Evans calls "affectations, fribbles and frabbles." She is a kind, even-tempered, well-judging girl, who can admire beauty and value talent without pretending to either, and whose object is rather to make home happy than splendid, and her husband contented than vain. In truth, she is all goodness, but for literary tastes she has, as yet, none, and her indifference on this point becomes her so well that I can hardly wish for a change.

He now turned his attention to active politics, and on the collapse of the "Ministry of all the Talents" he stood for Downpatrick, and was elected. Thus early he advocated the Catholic claims for Emancipation, which at the general election in 1810 cost him his seat for Downpatrick; but he was returned for Athlone. He advocated similar views in his "Sketch of Ireland Past and Present," published in 1807. This was a brilliant success, speedily going through twenty editions, and, remarkable to relate, seventy-seven years afterward (i. e. in 1884) its lustre was found sufficiently undimmed to justify its republication.

This sketch contains a fine passage on the character of Swift, which Sir Walter Scott copied when he came to write his memoir of the immortal dean. It is worth while quoting it :

On this gloom one luminary rose, and Ireland worshipped it with Persian idolatry, her true patriot-her first-almost her last. Sagacious and intrepid, he saw-he dared; above suspicion, he was trusted; above envy, he was beloved; above rivalry, he was obeyed. His wisdom was practical and prophetic-remedial for the present, warning for the future. He first taught Ireland that she might become a nation, and England that she must cease to be a despot. But he was a Churchman; his gown entangled his course and impeded his efforts. Guiding a

senate, or heading an army, he had been more than Cromwell, and Ireland not less than England. As it was, he saved her by his courage, improved her by his authority, adorned her by his talents, and exalted her by his fame. His mission was but of ten years, and for ten years only did his personal power mitigate the Government; but though no longer feared by the great, he was not forgotten by the wise; his influence, like his writings, has survived a century; and the foundations of whatever prosperity we have since erected are laid in the disinterested and magnanimous patriotism of Swift.

On the night that he first took his seat in the House of Commons he made his maiden speech. Something which had fallen from the lips of no less a person than Grattan on the state of Irefand stimulated him into replying, and notwithstanding that he spoke after so illustrious an orator, his speech elicited warm commendation, and was the means of his becoming acquainted with .Canning, who asked to be introduced to him, and together they walked home. to his lodgings. This acquaintance ripened into friendship, which ended only with Canning's death. It may not be out of place here to mention that among several poems which Croker published, and which are not devoid of merit, his lines on the death of Canning are considered very fine.

Among the many able speeches which the famous Duke of York case called forth, none were better or more effective than Croker's, who had in a short time made quite a name for himself in parliamentary debate, and was a formidable opponent, as Macaulay afterward found out, and grew to hate him for it.

With the outbreak of the Peninisular War came the necessity for Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterward Duke of Wellington) to take up the command, and as he was at the time Secretary of State for Ireland, Croker was recommended to him by Perceval as the most competent man to look after the duties of the office. So well did he discharge the duties imposed upon him that when, in 1809, on the reconstruction of the Cabinet consequent upon the duel between Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became Premier, he appointed Croker Secretary to the Admiralty. At first Croker hesitated about abandoning his profession, which was now yield