Total ruin is like Waterloo; slow decline is St. Helena. Fate in the person of Wellington still retains some dignity; but how wretched when it takes the form of Hudson Lowe!209 Destiny becomes a dastard. We see the man who negotiated the treaty of Campo Formio210 reduced to haggling over a pair of silk stockings. This diminution of Napoleon had diminished Britain. A ruined man goes through both of these phases, Waterloo and St. Helena, reduced to the scale of everyday life.
