o* s. XL JAF. si, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
99
literature concerning him multiplies and aug-
ments with the progress of the years. Lord
Wolseley, who is, of course, upholding his own
profession, has said during the present year that
he regards Napoleon as " the greatest human being
God ever sent to this earth of ours." Be our indi-
vidual estimate of Napoleon what it may, there
can be no question as to the general interest
in his doings, and the literature concerning him
augments instead of diminishing. The work of
M. Dayot is unique in its class. For the task of
showing the emperor in his habit as he lived the
materials are superabundant. Thousands of designs
of every kind are found in the national collections,
the whole of which, under the charge of their re-
spective archivists, have been placed at the disposal
of M. Dayot, while private collections, including
those of the various members of the family (ex-
imperial and other), must nearly double the number.
No human being has, indeed, left behind him an
equal number of portraits, designs, reproductions,
&c. For the purpose of our author, moreover, the
gross ' 'personiti cation " of a work of mechanical
industry, or even the quaint designs of an Oriental
caricaturist, are scarcely less valuable than the
pictures of the greatest artist. Authoritative
presentations of Napoleon in his early days are
naturally few, no portrait from life of the young
Corsican child being known, and it was not until after
the second campaign of Italy that Gros assigned
definitely to the young warrior the physiognomy
subsequently maintained. Childish portraits, all
more or less imaginary, were subsequently multi-
plied. In these he is shown adopting as a child
the attitudes and gestures subsequently familiar.
The most interesting, though only on account of
the manner in which it catches the spirit of the
engravings of the eighteenth century, shows the
future emperor at the age of six repeating his
lesson to his mother, who is seated in a glade of
a considerable park. A work of high interest is
an early portrait by Greuze. This has not, of course,
the slightest historical value, and is whimsically
sentimentalized, the features being, in M. Dayot's
opinion, like those of " la jeune h'lle ;\ la cruche
cassee." With this effeminate head it is well to
compare that exhibited in the portrait by Guerin,
with its hollow cheeks and prominent cheekbones,
and the look, "piercing as a sword," which Taine
describes. Italian portraits of the time of Marengo
are scarcely to be recognized by the side of the
French. A lithograph of Raffet, dated 1796, shows
Napoleon for the first time in an attitude in which
subsequently he was often depicted. Attention
must necessarily be arrested by Gerome's design
'CEdipe,' showing Napoleon alone in presence of
the Sphinx. A fair quantity of the designs of the
consular period are in the shape of medallions,
though a striking profile in crayon which is repro-
duced is attributed to Ingres. A portrait by the
same painter from the Musee de Liege approaches
much more nearly the conventional type. Some
disgraceful caricatures by Gillray follow. One on
p. 69 seems inspired by the spirit of the "Terror."
A portrait by Greuze of the First Consul is less
lackadaisical, but also less interesting, than the
earlier work of the same master. In his numerous
conversations with David Napoleon uttered a wish,
frequently realized thenceforward, to be painted,
calm himself, on a fiery horse. After the accession
to empire the painting 'A Portrait of Napoleon,'
by Meissonier, is a fine piece of work, but has, of
course, no authority. To this period belongs the
statue which surmounted the column of the Place
Vendome. An English engraving by Wright is a
wonderful specimen of unintentional caricature.
Dramatic, but rather conventional, is the picture
by Gros of the meeting between Napoleon and
Francis II. Canova's great statue was executed
during his second visit to Paris. The absence in
Russia gave a respite to designs of interest. With
the Cent Jours came a recrudescence. Many
of the pictures at St. Helena will be new to the
majority of English readers. The caricatures of
this, as of previous epochs, are of revolting brutality
and vulgarity. A separate chapter is devoted to
the handwriting of Napoleon. Various appendixes
add to the interest of the volume. The work is
admirably done, and is bound to find a place in
every Napoleon collection.
Lives and Legends of the Great Hermits and Fathers of the Church, with other Contemporary Saints. By Mrs. Arthur Bell. (Bell & Sons.) MOKE rapidly than was to be expeated has the second volume of Mrs. Arthur Bell's lives of the saints followed the first, for a notice of which see 9 th S. ix. 339. The second volume carries the record from the third to the seventh century, including, accordingly, the great persecution of the fourth century, which did more to swell the ranks of canonized martyrs than any other period in history. Keen enough were the sufferings inflicted upon the immediate successors of the apostles and the earliest disseminators of Christian faith. The general atti- tude of the pagan world of that portion of it especially which treated its own ceremonial with a formal acquiescence, into which entered scarcely an element of belief was often tolerant, and some- times admiring or even approving. In later days the contest between the votaries of the ancient creed and those of the new developed into a struggle for life and death.
A third volume, which is in preparation, will deal with the English bishops and kings, the medi- eval monks, and other later saints, and will, pre- sumably, conclude an interesting and important series. It is not only in the beauty and tasteful- ness of the get-up that the volume resembles its predecessor. Method and treatment are the same, as is the order of arrangement, and the sources of the illustrations are, in the main, identical. Mrs. Bell carries out her investigations with the same zeal and discretion she has hitherto observed, and with the reserve indispensable in a work of this class, the mere inception of which is surrounded with dangers. While the stories as accepted in the best-known hagiologies are retold, the results of the latest school of investigators are included in her pages, and the newest light that has been cast upon Christian symbolism illuminates her records. The illustrations, moreover, retain their old charm. Donatello's ' St. George,' a statue in the Museo Nazionale, Florence, serves as an appropriate frontispiece. To Alinari, of Florence, many admir- able reproductions are due. From the Accademia in the same city come the twin portraits by Fra Filippo Lippi of St. Antony the Great and St. John the Baptist. Following designs are by Sodoma, Andrea Mantegna, Andrea del Sarto, Bernardino Luini, Botticelli, Sebastiano del Piombo, Paolo Veronese, Raphael, Perugino almost all the greatest Italian painters of sacred subjects, together with a few designs- of Northern provenance two
