11 AUGUST 1877, Page 21

Blackwood, Auguet.—Besides the stories, Blackwood has an able estimate of

Victor Hugo, a careful accouut of our recent policy in 1.02okt—well worth reading by any one unable to face the Blue-book for himself —and a most interesting sketch of Murat, the soldier king, *hose real character is not quite understood in England. The writer mentions a fact we have not seen before, that both Talleyrand and t Feucha intended that if Napoleon were killed in action, Murat should be Emperor,—and that Murat probably resisted the divorce from Josephine for that reason. He wanted a childless master. He trotted, like all Napoleon's kings, under Napoleon's dictation, and had, like Louis of Holland, a strong idea that his duty was to his own people, and not to France. The writer forms a high estimate of Murat as a General, but coincides in the popular estimate of his want of capacity , in polities and disposition towards treachery.