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Untitled Article
and water mingle in the atmosphere . The proposition to improve the quality of the cement which covers our modern buildings , is founded on correct principles , as well as that for preserving from rust the iron which is used in bridges and other erections , and on the soundness of which the stability of the buildings themselves depend . No one can rise from the perusal of this little pamphlet without being convinced that Colonel Macerone is a man of considerable intellect and
shrewdness , accompanied with great practical skill in all that relates to the general principles of engineering and architecture , so far as they form part of the business of a government . He is evidently also a man accustomed to the habits of self-reliance and prompt resource in cases of emergency . But the fact of his having been in confidential employment under the system of Napoleon , is an evidence of his being a highly useful man for public service , in things of more importance than mere soldiering . When Napoleon fell , he fell also , or shortly afterwards , and a
black mark was put against his name by the Holy Ailiance , sentencing him to be driven off the face of the earth if persecution could accomplish it . The English Tories keep up the proscription , and the Whigs appear to back them , or they would have found employment for so enterprising a spirit . Had the English * three days * come to pass when Lord Grey resigned , Macerone would probably have been found in his element . He would have started into utility and notoriety as a leader of the people for the time , and the same skill which can construct roads would have
known how to show others the readiest methods of pulling them in pieces , and forming barricades . England would now have been a republic , and employment suited to their capacity and to their works would have been found for skilful and active men like Macerone . But as Colonel Napier , in his admirable work on the Ionian Islands , says of Sir Frederic Adam—the Whigs do not know how to choose men—even if they be sincere in desiring to choose the best . The quality which ,
above all others , gave Napoleon his ascendency , was the capacity for choosing men ; in short , the faculty of judgment . It has ever been the same witli great men . It is the case with almost all successful men in every career , where an object is to be achieved by the multiplicity of hands . No man can do every thing for himself , and if he cannot choose fitting instruments he goes to ruin , if his undertakings be on a large scale . With manufacturers and merchants it is precisely the same ,
and in every branch of civil engineering also . The highest powers of invention , if unaccompanied by this faculty , are profitless to the owner , unless he can combine them with the faculty in some other person . I cannot conclude without stating , that every one professing to be a practical politician ought to make a point of reading carefully Colonel Napier ' s truly excellent work , in order that he may understand how the poor Greeks are used by their 4 protectors , ' the British government ;
and also what they are capable of under a wise system . It is disgraceful to the community that such an admirable man and governor as Colonel Napier should have been displaced , to please such a wretched fribble as Sir Frederic Adam . It is a greater disgrace to the Whig government , that he should be still kept out of the employment for which he is suited , and liia country as well as the Greeks be deprived of his services , while the poor reptile Adam is promoted to Madras , to afflict the poor Indian 8 ubject 8 on a larger scale . Jan . 25 , 1834 . Junius Redivivus .
Untitled Article
Colonel Macerone . 159
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 159, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/75/
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