S.I.B.
* * * * *
THE DEATH OF MURAT.
(_For the Mirror._)
"Where the broken line enlarging
Fell or fled along the plain,
There be sure was Murat charging:
There he ne'er shall charge again."
BYRON.
Perhaps the features of romance were never more fully developed than in
the last days and death of Murat, King of Naples. To speak panegyrically
of his prowess, is supererogatory; as his bravery has been the theme of
history and of song. But a pathetic paper in _Blackwood's Magazine_,
affectingly describes his fall from splendour and popularity to servile
degradation and unmerited military death. He has many claims on our
interest and pity; whether we view him as the enthusiastic leader of
Napoleon's chosen, against the wily Russians, in the romantic array of
"a theatrical king," bearing down all impediment; or the plumeless and
proscribed monarch of "shreds and patches," hiding from his enemies
amidst the withered spoils of the forest. The writer of the paper
referred to, in describing his arrival at Ajaccio, says, "I was sitting
at my door, when I beheld a man approach me, _with the gaiters and shoes
of a common soldier_.
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