said that Napoleon, a trained and experienced officer of artillery, a member of the mathematical section of the Institute of France, and the founder of the Egyptian Institute, knew little more of science than any well-educated gentleman. To compare his knowledge of astronomy with that of George III. is unfair. If Herschel meant nothing more than what the King learned from him and Mainburg and Bevis during half a century, of the ways and methods of observing, it may be perfectly true, and yet may have been such as Napoleon, with his natural quickness and his knowledge of mathematics, could have picked up in an hour or two. But a comparison of the two men—one doing little more than signing his name, the other leading mighty armies, fighting terrible battles, and ruling almost a whole continent—seems exceedingly absurd, from an intellectual point of view. Nor should it be forgotten that Napoleon, by taking the learned men of France to Egypt with him, entertaining them at his table on shipboard, and protecting them in their researches, laid the foundation of a new science, which has filled mankind with wonder—the languages and records of the ancient worlds of Egypt and Assyria. To say that he affected to know more than he did know was, if true, a justifiable pretence in a man ruling over many nations, and absorbed in multitudinous details. But to charge him with hypocrisy for expressing his views on Almighty Wisdom is not creditable to either poet or astronomer. If Herschel conversed with him by means of an interpreter, the latter may have done, and possibly would do, injustice to the Emperor, perhaps to the astronomer also. But
