low-citizens, look with suspicion on the political quacks and agitators that obstruct our public assemblies; they are afraid of the influence of their opinions; and they regard us as dangerous only in an inferior degree to the French. We are bound to admit, on the other hand, that some of our best and wisest statesmen blame the Ger. mans for carrying out their monarchical and aristocratical ideas rather too far; but it cannot be denied, that from the good feeling prevalent throughout the German states, and from the reciprocal kindness of manner that subsists between the governors and the governed, there are no people practically more happy, or more mildly ruled. Whether we look at the dig. nified but paternal sway of Austria, at least on the northern side of the

Alps, or at the highly enlightened and fraternal dominion of the Prussian monarchs, as well as at the goodnatured simplicity of most of the smaller governments, it is impossible not to feel respect and good-will for German politicians. In their social relations we have nothing to lose by close contact with them. The inhabitants of Vienna, it is true, are not to be imitated in some of their practices, especially in the higher walks of life; nor is the prevalent love of gambling to be apologized for any more in the Germans than it is in the French ;-still they are a sober steady set of people, with as little harm in them as most others; and threy will stand a very fair comparison with their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The heads of the Germans are apt to run a wool-gathering both in religious and philosophical matters; but these are subjects rather above the plain comprehensions of us unsophisticated islanders; and by the time our German friends come to understand each other, or themselves, we shall probably be able to pick out the good part of their systems for our own benefit. We should certainly avoid the wild dreaminess of their mystical systems; but their patient and laborious spirit of research, their thorough going determination of diving to the bottom of all matters scientific, literary, or political, and their faculty of linking together their results in lucid systems and practical plans-all this calls for an Englishman's unqualified admiration. The warmth of their religious feelings, whatever their denominations

may be, and the tolerance universally practised by all sects towards each other, constitute two of the most amiable and the most valuable features of the German character. It will be long in England before we have either so much true piety among us, or so much real charity.

The Russians, a hundred years ago, were only assuming their station among the civilized nations of Europe; but, though their empire has been gradually on the increase, till in its unwieldy extent it occupies no small portion of the globe, apprehensions of their influence in Western Europe, and of their possible aggrandizement, were not generally entertained till after the late war. Russia was certainly a first-rate power at the end of the last century, and had her due weight in Europe;-but the public press respected her; and it has only been within the last five-and-twenty years that she has been pointed out as the bugbear of England, the colossus of the north, and the incubus of the world. Russia has done very little to justify the extraordinary virulence of prejudice that exists against her; and if the circumstances under which she has been and is at present placed be fairly considered, most of the accusations brought against her will fall to the ground. When, by the defeats of the Tartars, and the first conquests over the Ottomans, Russia found herself assuming the stability and consistency of an European rather than an Asiatic power; and when, after the defeat of the Swedish madman, and the efforts of the great Peter, she had definitively assumed a befitting station among the Christian and civilized nations of the world, the immense extent of her territory, however rude and scanty its inhabitants, and however loosely some parts might cohere, forced her to adopt an almost exclusively military policy, and to be ready to wield her arms for defence not less than for aggression. That she should have obtained the Finnish provinces of her northern territory, the Lithuanian and Polish districts of her middle frontier, and the countries conquered from Turkey on her southern, is not to be construed into the working of a more restless ambition than has possessed other nations, when the peculiar circumstances of the populations, both conquering and conquered, are taken into account;

and when we reflect that foreign conquest and aggression were considered, at that time, to be legitimate objects of pursuit by all nations in the world. It is true that similar occurrences could not now take place in Europe, without exciting reprobation; and the great partition of Poland showed that the sense of civilized nations as to the true principles of national law and public justice was much ameliorated: we do not say that such aggressions were devoid of ambition, and were not in many points indefensible; but we assert, that any other nation placed under the same circumstances as Russia then was, would have acted in the same manner. France, which attempted universal robbery under Napoleon, and England, which has taken such wide steps towards the sub. jugation of the Eastern Indies, cannot with good consciences fling any reproaches of ambition against Russia. The position that this great power has at length made for herself is this, that she occupies the wide chasm between European civilization and Asiatic barbarism that she unites under her sway numerous Christian tribes more or less civilized, who are thrown in contact on her frontiers with some of the wildest and most warlike of the uncivilized and heathen people of Asia: and that, as a necessary consequence, the war of knowledge against ignorance must go on, and the bloody amalgamation must be made, which has ever been the fate of large divisions of mankind when they are thrown together in physical contact, though wide from each other in moral culti vation. As for the last troubles in Poland, or the war still going on against the Circassians, it is sufficient to observe that subsequent events in the first case, and many co-existing ones in the second, are to be alleged in justification of the conduct of Russia. It is now well known that it was only the false-grounded agitation produced by the empty boastings of French Liberals after the events of July 1880, that put ideas of revolt into the heads of the misguided Poles. They had few causes for discontent, and no real ones for revolt: and had it not been for the aggressive spirit of French republican propagandism, the Poles would have gone on improving under the just and merciful dominion of the Czar. Doubtless the heroic eeds of that unfortunate people en

tu

title them to the admiration of Europe for their individual courage; but had not Russia repressed that revolution, had she not thereby boldly and determinedly come forward to put an immediate check on the pernicious influence of French opinion and French example, every constituted monarchy in Europe might at this day have been degraded into a republic; and France, that is to say, the mob of Paris, would have assumed the dictatorship which Russia is accused of wishing to pos

sess.

The use made by Russia of her victory on that occasion, reflects great credit on her spirit as a nation: no rebellion of the same magnitude and danger, was ever followed by fewer vindictive measures to no subjects who had so violently rejected the authority of government, was the confidence of the monarch ever so speedily restored. Poland is now once more in the path of order and happy obedience, and is destined to attain that vigour by consolidation with the Russian empire, which, in an isolated condition, she never could have hoped for.

These fortunate results are due chiefly to the personal good qualities of the emperor-one of the most honourable, enlightened, and amiable princes that ever filled an European throne; and they have also been greatly promoted by the moderate but firm conduct of the eminent statesmen who are at the head of affairs in the Russian empire. With regard to Circassia, Russia has exactly the same excuse that England has with the Asiatic tribes on her north-western frontiers, and a far better one than the French can allege for their conquests in Africa. It is indeed much to be wished that an amicable arrangement could be come to in the Caucasus, and that the great work of peaceful civilization should be allowed to proceed : it would be far better for western nations to offer their good services to effect such a settlement, than to waste their temper and their reason in idle exclamation, against "the inordinate ambition of Russia."

The inhabitants of the immense Russian empire comprehend so many distinct tribes, that they may call themselves the cousins, if not the brothers of the rest of the human race: it is difficult, therefore, to say with what precise portion of them an affinity to the English people exists. Of this, however, there is no doubt, that

the inhabitants of Russia proper are not at all likely to become similar to the southerns, according as they get more and more civilized: while it is no less true that the upper classes, and especially the high nobility of Russia, will bear a most honourable comparison for their really good qualities with the corresponding classes of any country. The high refinement and the multifarious accomplishments of Russian nobles and Russian statesmen and diplomatists, entitle them to universal respect wherever they are known: and the conduct and character of the members of the imperial family, their elevated generosity of spirit, their unaffected simplicity and goodness of heart, their courage and their princely bearing, place them very high indeed among the royal houses of Europe. It is far better to cultivate the friendship of, and to form an intimate alliance with, a young and vigorous power like Russia, with her various populations promising to distinguish themselves in all the branches of human skill and industry, imbued too with an uncorrupted spirit of respect for constituted authorities, than to endeavour to curry favour with a power which has thrown itself into the descent of political degrada. tion, and the subjects of which have more of the elements of disorganization than of improvement among them; while, from their innate spirit of restless discontent, they cannot but continue for a long time to be causes of annoyance and distrust to their neighbours. Russia is likely to become not only a producing, but also a manufacturing country-and that too on a scale which the world has as yet no notion of: the moral, the social, and the civilizing influence which she in her turn will some day exercise on the world, cannot but be immense she must become a commercial as well as a political power; and if her progress be only as sound as it has hitherto been rapid, the limits of her moral and physical strength will be difficult to be assigned. The energies and the efforts of such a nation as this, are much better objects for Englishmen to contemplate, than those of the degenerate nations of southern Europe. Britons may strengthen their national character, and add new spirit to their own by associating with northern allies: whereas the company of degenerated southerns, who are already

in the period of national decline, can only tend to weaken and corrupt their best principles.

On the other hand there is infinitely more good-will towards England among the Germans and the Russians, than among the French or any other people of southern Europe. Our brethren of the north admire the manly and straightforward spirit that characterizes us, whereas our neighbours in the south regard it only as insolence and pride: the former, like ourselves, know that a people are only then happy when every individual is kept in his proper place, and that the force and dignity of a country depend intimately upon the good order and regularity preserved among its inhabitants: the latter, on the contrary, are restlessly trying to realize theories of equality, and are hastening by internal divisions to make themselves at once debilitated and contemptible. The Germans have always been our right hearty good friends and relations; the Russians are equally willing to become our warm allies and supporters, whether in arts or arms; the French on the contrary are now more jealous of us than ever, and hate us with a hatred that is the fiercer from its having been long pent up or diverted from its purpose: they not only proclaim themselves our national enemies, but they glory in it.

This will be seen more clearly if we advert to the present state of the Eastern question, which in real fact is that of the peace of Europe, or rather of the preponderance of the well-disposed and the orderly over the brawlers and brouillons of this quarter of the world. Russia, whatever it may please democratical writers and hunters after cheap popularity to assert as to her unbounded spirit of aggression and intrigue, has shown rare moderation towards Turkey ever since the conclusion of the general peace in 1815. The advantages given her by her arms she has not abused; her territory has not been unduly aggrandized; her claims on Turkey have been neither excessive, nor harshly enforced. She has al ways stood by the Sultan as his ready and consistent friend; and though, from the mere circumstance of locality, she must feel a nearer interest in the fate of the Turkish empire than the western nations of Europe, while, from the relations that have long subsisted between the two people, she is in the

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position of a powerful and respected friend rather than of an equal and indifferent ally, no act has yet been committed by her that can at all warrant the accusation of usurpation and illegitimate protection which have so commonly been thrown out against her. If Russia has played the part of an nsurping protector towards Turkey, France has done it much more towards Spain, Austria towards southern Italy, and England towards Portugal. Ever since the formation, however, of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, Russia has done anything but gain ground with the Porte: she has taken no unfair advantage of the clauses, secret or patent, of that compact; and she has allowed it to expire without seeking to renew her advantages in any way that can give umbrage to the rest of the great powers. gard to the late phases of the TurcoEgyptian question, the acts and the diplomacy of Russia have been more open and straightforward than those of any other European power perhaps ever were before. Her enlightened statesmen saw the true bearing of the question, and knew wherein the real balance of power in Europe consisted they were fully aware of the intrigues of France, and of the secret intentions of the anarchical party in that country to support the pasha at the expense of the sultan; they proposed the coalition of the great powers for the equitable adjustment of that quarrel, which France would have been only too glad to turn into a source of universal mischief; and they had the signal honour of devising and effecting the union which has been crowned with such decided success. It is no small credit at the same time, we are bound to confess, to the administration of our own foreign department, that it should have been in such accurate information concerning the real condition of Syria, and the actual strength of the pasha, as to have at once discarded the false and insidious assertions of the French abroad, and the admirers of French alliance at home: it does England honour, that while she has acted in a perfectly straightforward and honourable manner towards France, she showed that she estimated her friendship at no more than it was worth. We hail the treaty of the 15th July as one of the most happy events of modern diplomacy, and we trust that the good feeling it has produced between British

and Russian statesmen will become universal, not only between the two governments, but also between the two people. During the recent operations in Syria, Russia has stood aloof in a manner that has at once astonished and silenced her detractors : she held a moderate naval and military force ready at the summons of her ally the sultan: she gave the most frank and cordial assurances of her disinterestedness; and in the short course of warlike proceedings, which have terminated in the submission of the rebellious pasha, she has not fired a single gun in defence of the Ottoman flag.

What has been the conduct of France in this affair? It has at length transpired, by the public declarations of her ejected and disappointed Ministers, that the liberal party of that nation have all along been the secret advisers and stimulators of Mehemet Ali; that they have blinded and deceived him with exaggerated statements of their own power and intentions, in the same way as they deceived Poland to her ruin. It is pretty evident to whoever can add two and two together, that the French admiral at the mouth of the Dardanelles connived at, if he was not secretly instructed to favour, the treachery of the Capitan-pasha and the delivery of the Ottoman fleet. It is proved by papers found in the French Foreign Office after M. Thiers's dismissal, that he was secretly encouraging Mehemet Ali to reject the mediation of the four powers, at the very time that, in his official notes to the British Cabinet, he asserted that he was doing the contrary. While France was acting thus, she was launching out, through all the organs of her press, in the most violent invectives against the Punic faith of England, the rapacity of Russia, and the imbecility of the two German powers. M. Thiers, with the profligacy of a republican parvenu, said openly, in certain Parisian salons, that he would set on foot a system of propagandism against Germany and Italy. He has not denied this fact when taxed with it in the Chamber: and one of his colleagues has openly admitted, in a public debate of the Deputies, that it was the intention of his Cabinet to effect a temporary (permanent?) occupation of the Balearic islands. There has never been an instance within the present century of

such dishonourable and profligate diplomatic conduct on the part of any Government as that of which M. Thiers's administration has been proved guilty in the face of all Europe. His Cabinet has, however, been playing almost as false a game towards the French nation as towards foreign powers; for it has excited the worst passions of the worst portion of the people-the political mob of the capital-and has not hesitated to compromise the safety and the industry of the quiet industrious populations of the provinces, in order to please the hungry and rapacious crowd of expectants of all kinds with which Paris is infested. Fortunately for the sake of France, the manufacturing and commercial classes have taken the alarm; and now that the inadequacy, not only of their military and naval preparations, but also of their "sinews of war," (we allude to the deficit of thirty-two millions sterling, while in a state of peace, be it observed,) has been brought to light, they will derive from these circumstances additional arguments to prevent a conflagration.

One of the men who had the courage to come forward at a time when all the rest of the nation-or rather a noisy part of the nation-were blustering about war, was M. de Lamartine. This gentleman, whose poetical powers are generally esteemed more highly than his political lucubrations, had nevertheless been long enough in the East, and had acquired a sufficiently accurate view of the true interests of France with regard to the rest of Europe, to see at once through the shallow pretences set up by the men in office; and he published, as early as September last, three very remarkable letters, under the title of " La Question d'Orient, La Guerre, Le Ministère," in which, with great lucidity of thought and force of expression, he explained the actual state of the case as it is now known to all Europe. He pointed at the fallacy of attempting to maintain that the integrality of the Ottoman empire would be best preserved by a partial dismemberment; and he showed the insin. cerity of the assertion, that France had been duped and insulted by the Four Powers. He demonstrated the policy of rescuing the oppressed po pulation of Syria from the tyrannical exactions of Mehemet Ali; and

he urged his country to come frankly forward, admit her mistake, and make an amicable coalition with the other arbiters of European destinies. Fortunately for France, similar views were entertained by the honourable and enlightened statesman who then filled the office of her ambassador in England; and on the formation of the present Cabinet, the only course of policy that the country could safely pursue, was at once courageously avowed and acted on. It is most earnestly to be hoped by the friends of France that this policy will continue to receive the cordial support of the legislature, and that similar counsels, systematically persevered in, will ultimately bring that country within the limits of social reason and public honour.

We confess, however, that, on looking calmly at the present condition of France with regard to the rest of Europe, we see in it many causes for apprehension, and that we can assign no probable limits to the existence of such causes. The extraordinary virulence of enmity against England, and against all regularly constituted governments, which broke out in France at the end of last summer, and has since continued unabated among a considerable portion of the nation, is a most fearful element of trouble, that will probably endure for a long time. France, it should be remembered, is a military republic, with an arbitrary government at its head; actuated, on the one hand, by an overweening idea of self-importance and a thirst for extra-territorial aggression; and on the other, by a cordial detestation of its supreme authorities and the reigning dynasty, by whom it feels itself to have been politically swindled; a passion for the extension of the frontier to the Rhine, and the obtaining of a preponderance in Italy; with a strong but indefinite wish for revenge against Russia, on account of Poland and Moscow, and an earnest desire to humble England in any way that may be possible: such is the prevailing notion of the best foreign policy for France entertained by nine-tenths of her talkers: (we say nothing of Spain, nor the mistake of England in making the Quadruple Alliance ;) while with regard to home policy, the people, disgusted with their burdens, and with the corruptions of the system by which