[24] Germaniae vocabulum recens et nuper additum; quoniam qui primi Rhenum transgressi Gallos expulerint, ac nunc Tungri, tunc Germani vocati sint:  ita nationis nomen in nomen gentis evaluisse paullatim, ut omnes, primum a victore ob metum, mox a seipsis invento nomine, Germani vocarentur.—­Tacitus, de Mor.  Germ.

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POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

It may seem arrogant for an obscure and nameless individual to claim the glory of having put to death the most formidable of all recorded heroes.  But a shadowy champion may be overthrown by a shadowy antagonist.  Many a terrific spectre has been laid by the beams of a halfpenny candle.  And if I have succeeded in making out, in the foregoing pages, a probable case of suspicion, it must, I think, be admitted, that there is some ground for my present boast, of having killed Napoleon Buonaparte.

Let but the circumstances of the case be considered.  This mighty Emperor, who had been so long the bugbear of the civilized world, after having obtained successes and undergone reverses, such as never befel any (other at least) real potentate, was at length sentenced to confinement in the remote island of St. Helena:  a measure which many persons wondered at, and many objected to, on various grounds; not unreasonably, supposing the illustrious exile to be a real person; but on the supposition of his being only a man of straw, the situation was exceedingly favourable for keeping him out of the way of impertinent curiosity, when not wanted, and for making him the foundation of any new plots that there might be occasion to conjure up.

About this juncture it was that the public attention was first invited, by these pages, to the question as to the real existence of Napoleon Buonaparte.  They excited, it may be fairly supposed, along with much surprise and much censure, some degree of doubt, and probably of consequent inquiry.  No fresh evidence, as far as I can learn, of the truth of the disputed points, was brought forward to dispel these doubts.  We heard, however, of the most jealous precautions being used to prevent any intercourse between the formidable prisoner, and any stranger who, from motives of curiosity, might wish to visit him.  The “man in the iron mask” could hardly have been more rigorously secluded:  and we also heard various contradictory reports of conversations between him and the few who were allowed access to him; the falsehood and inconsistency of most of these reports being proved in contemporary publications.