Martinsburgh Gazette

[FROM THE LITERARY VISITOR, July 29.]

POPULARITY

THE present degradation of Bonaparte is an impressive example, how precarious that popularity is which is not built on the basis of virtue. To day he casts his eyes around him and calls, and thousands flock to his standard. He appears like destiny embodied moving amongst mortals-prosperity or adversity, happiness or misery, life or death, await but his word; they are summoned forth by a smile or a frown, and he acknowledges no law but the impulse of his own will, in the distribution of blessing, or curses, to his fellow men. He speaks, and a city is wrapped in flames: he frowns, and a continent is loaded with chains. He bends a glance on the Atlantic, and commerce vanishes. But where is this terrific being, who although unseen, is felt in the sufferings of the human race; who plays with states, kingdoms, empires and continents like dice. Behold him, in a sequestered Island, the outcast of Europe-shunned by the wise and good, as an unholy thing; a mendicant pensioner on the contemptuous bounty of a foe, content to hold his stipend & his existence at his mercy. Behold him shrinking from the resentment of his own flatterers and panegyrists, and imploring protection from his old enemies, the Cossacks. He who before seemed to hold all Europe in fee simple, is ejected from the continent, and owns scarcely soil enough for a grave. Thus ends the empire of crime and sacrilege-thus is Almighty Justice vindicated at last.