ake Napoleon
Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil
engineer.

The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive
intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his
more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The
former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should
scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name
of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so
prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of
sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]

[17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
those left dead on the fields of battle in which
Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
Napoleon.

Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of
mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any
coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western
railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the
Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the
steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services
rendered to mankind by its subjugator.

Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias
the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science
to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England,
in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to
legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of
egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The
introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most
excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of
antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred
only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs,
such as the