CAPTAIN COLES’S NEW IRON TURRET-SHIP-OF-WAR.

KNOWLEDGE
FOR THE TIME:

A Manual

OF

READING, REFERENCE, AND CONVERSATION ON SUBJECTS OF LIVING INTEREST, USEFUL CURIOSITY, AND AMUSING RESEARCH:

HISTORICO-POLITICAL INFORMATION.
PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.
DIGNITIES AND DISTINCTIONS.
CHANGES IN LAWS.
MEASURE AND VALUE.
PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
LIFE AND HEALTH.
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

Illustrated from the best and latest Authorities.

By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF CURIOSITIES OF LONDON, THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, ETC.

LONDON:

Lockwood and Co., 7 Stationers’-hall Court.

MDCCCLXIV.

TO THE READER.

The great value of contemporary History—that is, history written by actual witnesses of the events which they narrate,—is now beginning to be appreciated by general readers. The improved character of the journalism of the present day is the best evidence of this advancement, which has been a work of no ordinary labour. Truth is not of such easy acquisition as is generally supposed; and the chances of obtaining unprejudiced accounts of events are rarely improved by distance from the time at which they happen. In proportion as freedom of thought is enlarged, and liberty of conscience, and liberty of will, are increased, will be the amount of trustworthiness in the written records of contemporaries. It is the rarity of these high privileges in chroniclers of past events which has led to so many obscurities in the world’s history, and warpings in the judgment of its writers; to trust some of whom has been compared to reading with “coloured spectacles.” And, one of the features of our times is to be ever taking stock of the amount of truth in past history; to set readers on the tenters of doubt, and to make them suspicious of perversions; and to encourage a whitewashing of black reputations which sometimes strays into an extreme equally as unserviceable to truth as that from which the writer started.

It is, however, with the view of correcting the Past by the light of the Present, and directing attention to many salient points of Knowledge for the Time, that the present volume is offered to the public. Its aim may be considered great in proportion to the limited means employed; but, to extend what is, in homely phrase, termed a right understanding, the contents of the volume are of a mixed character, the Author having due respect for the emphatic words of Dr. Arnold: “Preserve proportion in your reading, keep your views of Men and Things extensive, and depend upon it a mixed knowledge is not a superficial one: as far as it goes, the views that it gives are true; but he who reads deeply in one class of writers only, gets views which are almost sure to be perverted, and which are not only narrow but false.”

Throughout the Work, the Author has endeavoured to avail himself of the most reliable views of leading writers on Events of the Day; and by seizing new points of Knowledge and sources of Information, to present, in a classified form, such an assemblage of Facts and Opinions as may be impressed with warmth and quickness upon the memory, and assist in the formation of a good general judgment, or direct still further a-field.

In this Manual of abstracts, abridgments, and summaries—considerably over Three Hundred in number—illustrations by way of Anecdote occur in every page. Wordiness has been avoided as unfitted for a book which has for its object not the waste but the economy of time and thought, and the diffusion of concise notions upon subjects of living Interest, useful Curiosity, and amusing Research.

The accompanying Table of Contents will, at a single glance, show the variety as well as the practical character of the subjects illustrated; the aim being to render the work alike serviceable to the reader of a journal of the day, as well as to the student who reads to “reject what is no longer essential.” The Author has endeavoured to keep pace with the progress of Information; and in the selection of new accessions, some have been inserted more to stimulate curiosity and promote investigation than as things to be taken for granted. The best and latest Authorities have been consulted, and the improved journalism of our time has been made available; for, “when a river of gold is running by your door, why not put out your hat, and take a dip?”[1]

The Author has already published several volumes of “Things not generally Known,” which he is anxious to supplement with the present Manual of Knowledge for the Time.

THE FRONTISPIECE.

CAPTAIN COLES’S IRON TURRET-SHIP-OF-WAR.

The precise and best mode of constructing Iron Ships-of-War, so as to carry heavy guns, is an interesting problem, which Captain Coles believes he has already satisfactorily solved in his Turret ship, wherein he proposes to protect the guns by turrets. Captain Coles offered to the Admiralty so long ago as 1855 to construct a vessel on this principle, having a double bottom; light draught of water, with the power of giving an increased immersion when under fire; sharp at both ends; a formidable prow; her rudder and screw protected by a projection of iron; the turret being hemispherical, and not a turn-table, which was unnecessary, as this vessel was designed for attacking stationary forts in the Black Sea.

Captain Coles contributed to the International Exhibition models of his ship; admitting (he states) from 7 to 8 degrees depression. In two this is obtained by the deck on each side of the turret sloping at the necessary angle, to admit of the required depression; in the other two it is obtained by the centre of the deck on which the turret is surmounted being raised sufficiently to enable the shot, when the gun is depressed, to pass clear of the outer edge of the deck. A drawing published in 1860, of the midship section from which these models were made, also gives a section of the Warrior, by which it will be seen that supposing the guns of each to be 10 feet out of water, and to have the usual depressions of guns in the Navy (7 degrees), the Warrior’s guns on the broadside will throw the shot 19 feet further from the side than the shield ship with her guns placed in the centre, that being the distance of the latter from the edge of the ship: thus, with the same depression, the shield ship will have a greater advantage, this being an important merit of the invention, which Captain Coles has already applied to the Royal Sovereign. The construction of these turrets, the guns, and the turn-tables on which they are placed, with the machinery to work them, is very interesting; but its details would occupy more space than is at our command. (See Times, Sept. 8, 1863.)

Captain Coles, in a communication to the Times, dated November 4, 1863, thus urges the application of the turret to sea-going vessels, and quotes the opinion of the present Contractor of the Navy on the advantages his (Captain Coles’) system must have over the old one, in strength, height out of water, and stability, and consequent adaptation for sea-going ships. The Captain states:

“I believe I have already shown that on my system of a revolving turret, a heavier broadside can be thrown than from ships armed on the broadside; but it possesses this further advantage, that my turrets can be adapted to the heaviest description of ordnance; indeed, no other plan has yet been put in practice, while it is impossible to adapt the broadside ships to them, without the enlargement of the ports, which would destructively weaken the ships, and leave the guns’ crew exposed to rifles, grape-shot or shells.” Captain Coles then quotes the armaments of the Prince Albert (now constructing at Millwall,) and the Warrior, and shows that although the broadside of the Prince Albert is nominally reduced to 1120 lbs. (still in excess of the Warrior’s if compared with tonnage); it still gives this great advantage, that whereas late experiments have demonstrated that 4½-inch plates can be made to resist 68-pounder and 110-pounder shot, they have also shown that the 300-pounder smashes them when formed into a “Warrior target” with the greatest ease. The Prince Albert, therefore, can smash the Warrior, though the Warrior carries no gun that can injure her; nor can she, as a broadside ship, be altered to carry heavier guns.

The Engraving represents Captain Coles’s Ship cleared for action, and the bulwarks down.

CONTENTS.

I.—[Historico-Political Information], 1-56:

[Politics not yet a Science], —[The Philosopher and the Historian], 1. —[Whig and Tory Ministries], 2. —[Protectionists], —[Rats, and Ratting], —[The Heir to the British Throne always in Opposition], 4. —[Legitimacy and Government], —“[The Fourth Estate],” 5. —[Writing for the Press], —[Shorthand Writers], 7. —[The Worth of Popular Opinion], 8. —[Machiavelism], —[Free-speaking], 9. —[Speakers of the Houses of Parliament], 10. —[The National Conscience], 11. —[“The Nation of Shopkeepers],” 12. —[Results of Revolutions], 13. —[Worth of a Republic], —“[Safe Men],” 14. —[Church Preferment], —[Peace Statesmanship], —[The Burial of Sir John Moore], 15. —[The Ancestors of Washington], 16. —[The “Star-spangled Banner],” —[Ancestry of President Adams], 18. —[The Irish Union], 19. —[The House of Bonaparte], 20. —[Invasion of England projected by Napoleon I.], 21. —[Fate of the Duc d’Enghien], 24. —[Last Moments of Mr. Pitt], 25. —[What drove George III. mad], 27. —[Predictions of the Downfal of Napoleon I.], 29. —[Wellington predicts the Peninsular Compaign], 30. —[The Battle of Waterloo], 31. —[Wellington’s Defence of the Waterloo Campaign], 32. —[Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna], 33. —[The Cato-street Conspiracy], 34. —[Money Panic of 1832], 36. —[A great Sufferer by Revolutions], —[Origin of the Anti-Corn-Law League], 37. —[Wellington’s Military Administration], 38. —[Gustavus III. of Sweden], 39. —[Fall of Louis Philippe], 40. —[The Chartists in 1848], 41. —[Revival of the French Emperorship], 43. —[French Coup d’Etat Predictions], —[Statesmanship of Lord Melbourne], 44. —[Ungraceful Observance], 45. —[The Partition of Poland], 46. —[The Invasion of England], 47. —[What a Militia can do], 48. —[Whiteboys], 49. —[Naval Heroes], —[How Russia is bound to Germany], 50. —[Count Cavour’s Estimate of Napoleon III.], 51. —[The Mutiny at the Nore], 52. —[Catholic Emancipation and Sir Robert Peel], —[The House of Coburg], 53. —[A few Years of the World’s Changes], 55. —[Noteworthy Pensions], 56.

II.—[Progress of Civilization], 57-84:

[How the Earth was peopled], 57. —[Revelations of Geology], 58. —[The Stone Age], 59. —[What are Celtes]? 60. —[Roman Civilization of Britain], 61. —[Roman Roads and British Railways], 62. —[Domestic Life of the Saxons], 64. —[Love of Freedom], 65. —[The Despot deceived], —[True Source of Civilization], 66. —[The Lowest Civilization], —[Why do we shake Hands]? 67. —[Various Modes of Salutation], 68. —[What is Comfort]? 69. —[What is Luxury]? —[What do we know of Life]? 70. —[The truest Patriot the greatest Hero], —[The old Philosophers], 71. —[Glory of the Past], 72. —[Wild Oats], —[How Shyness spoils Enjoyment], 73. —“[Custom, the Queen of the World],” 74. —[Ancient Guilds and Modern Benefit Clubs], —[The Oxford Man and the Cambridge Man], 75. —“[Great Events from Little Causes spring],” 76. —[Great Britain on the Map of the World], 80. —[Ancient and Modern London], —[Potatoes the national food of the Irish], 81. —[Irish-speaking Population], —[Our Colonial Empire], 82. —[The English People], 84.

III.—[Dignities and Distinctions], 85-102:

[Worth of Heraldry], 85. —[Heralds’ Colleg]e, 86. —[The Shamrock], —[Irish Titles of Honour], 87. —[The Scotch Thistle], 88. —[King and Queen], 89. —[Title of Majesty, and the Royal “We,”] 90. —“[Dieu et Mon Droit],” —[Plume and Motto of the Prince of Wales], 91. —[Victoria], 92. —[English Crowns], —[The Imperial State Crown], 93. —[Queen’s Messengers], —[Presents and Letters to the Queen], 95. —[The Prince of Waterloo], —[The See of London], 96. —[Expense of Baronetcy and Knighthood], 97. —[The Aristocracy], 98. —[Precedence in Parliament], —[Sale of Seats in Parliament], —[Placemen in Parliament], 99. —[New Peers], —[The Russells], —[Political Cunning], 100. —[The Union-Jack], —[Field-Marshal], 101. —[Change of Surname], 102.

IV.—[Changes in Laws], 104-144:

[The Statute Law and the Common Law], 104. —[Curiosities of the Statute Law], 105. —[Secret of Success at the Bar], —[Queen’s Serjeants, Queen’s Counsel, and Serjeants-at-Law], 107. —[Do not make your Son an Attorney], —[Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords], 108. —[Payment of an advocate], —[Utter-Barristers], 109. —[What was Special Pleading]? —[What is Evidence]? 110. —[What is Trial]? —[Trial by Jury], 111. —[Attendance of Jurors], —[The Law of Libel], 113. —[Induction of a Rector], 115. —[Benefit of Clergy], —[The King’s Book], 116. —[Compulsory Attendance at Church], 117. —[The Mark of the Cross], —[Marriage-Law of England], 118. —[Marriage Fines], 119. —[Irregular Marriages], 120. —[Solemnization of Marriage], 123. —[The Law of Copyright], 124. —[Holding over after Lease], —[Abolition of the Hop Duty], 125. —[Customs of Gavelkind], —[Treasure Trove], 126. —[Principal and Agent], —[Legal Hints], 129. —[Vitiating a Sale], 130. —[Law of Gardens], —[Giving a Servant a Character], 131. —[Deodands], 132. —[Arrest of the Body after Death], —[The Duty of making a Will], 133. —[Don’t make your own Will], 134. —[Bridewell], 135. —[Cockfighting], 136. —[Ignorance and Irresponsibility], —[Ticket-of-Leave Men], 137. —[Cupar and Jedburgh Justice], —[What is to be done with our Convicts], 138. —[The Game Laws], —[The Pillory], 139. —[Death-Warrants], —[Pardons], 140. —[Origin of the Judge’s Black Cap], —[The Last English Gibbet], 141. —[Public Executions], 142.

V.—[Measure and Value], 146-169:

[Numbers descriptive of Distance], —[Precocious Mental Calculation], 146. —[The Roman Foot], 147. —[The Peruvian Quipus], 148. —[Distances measured], —[Uniformity of Weights and Measures], 149. —[Trinity High-water Mark], —[Origin of Rent], 150. —[Curiosities of the Exchequer], 151. —[What becomes of the Public Revenue], 153. —[Queen Anne’s Bounty], 154. —[Ecclesiastical Fees], —[Burying Gold and Silver], 155. —[Results of Gold-seeking], 157. —[What becomes of the Precious Metals]? 158. —[Tribute-money], 159. —[The First Lottery], —[Coinage of a Sovereign], 160. —[Wear and Tear of the Coinage], —[Counterfeit Coin], 161. —[Standard Gold], —[Interest of Money], 162. —[Interest of Money in India], —[Origin of Insurance], 163. —[Stockbrokers], 164. —[Tampering with Public Credit], —[Over-speculation], 165. —[Value of Horses], —[Friendly Societies], 166. —[Wages heightened by Improvement in Machinery], 167. —[Giving Employment], —[Never sign an Accommodation Bill], 168. —[A Year’s Wills], 169.

VI.—[Progress of Science], 171-232:

[What human Science has accomplished], —[Changes in Social Science], 171. —[Discoverers not Inventors], 172. —[Science of Roger Bacon], 173. —[The One Science], 174. —[Sun-force], 175. —“[The Seeds of Invention],” 176. —[The Object of Patents], —[Theory and Practice], —[Watt and Telford], 177. —[Practical Science], —[Mechanical Arts], 178. —[Force of Running Water], —[Correlation of Physical Forces], —[Oil on Waves], 180. —[Spontaneous Generation], —[Guano], —[What is Perspective]? 181. —[The Stereoscope], —[Burning Lenses], 182. —[How to wear Spectacles], —[Vicissitudes of Mining], 183. —[Uses of Mineralogy], 185. —[Our Coal Resources], —[The Deepest Mine], 186. —[Iron as a Building Material], 189. —[Concrete, not new], —[Sheathing Ships with Copper], 190. —[Copper Smelting], —[Antiquity of Brass], —[Brilliancy of the Diamond], 191. —[Philosophy of Gunpowder], —[New Pear-flavouring], 192. —[Methylated Spirit], 193. —[What is Phosphate of Lime]? —[What is Wood]? —[How long will Wood last]? 194. —[The Safety Match], 195. —[Pottery], —[Wedgwood], 196. —[Imposing Mechanical Effects], 197 —[Horse-power], —[The First Practical Steam-boat], 198. —[Effect of Heavy Seas upon Large Vessels], 199. —[The Railway], —[Accidents on Railways], 200. —[Railways and Invasions], 202. —[What the English owe to naturalized Foreigners], 203. —[Geological Growth], 204. —[The Earth and Man compared], —[Why the Earth is presumed to be Solid], —“[Implements in the Drift],” 205. —[The Centre of the Earth], 206. —[The Cooling of the Earth], 207. —[Identity of Heat and Motion], 208 —[Universal Source of Heat], 209. —[Inequalities of the Earth’s Surface], 210. —[Chemistry of the Sea], 212. —[The Sea: its Perils], 213. —[Limitations of Astronomy], 214. —[Distance of the Earth] [from the Sun], 215. —[Blue Colour of the Sky], 216. —[Beauty of the Sky], 217. —[High Temperatures in Balloon Ascents], —[Value of Meteorological Observations, Telegraph, and Forecasts], 218. —[Weather Signs], 220. —[Barometer for Farmers], 222. —[Icebergs and the Weather], 223. —[St. Swithun: his true History], 224. —[Rainfall in London], 225. —[The Force of Lightning], 226. —[Effect of Moonlight], —[Contemporary Inventions and Discoveries], 227. —[The Bayonet], 228. —[Loot], —[Telegram], —[Archæology and Manufactures], 229. —[Good Art should be Cheap], 230. —[Imitative Jewellery], 231. —[French Enamel], 232.

VII.—[Life and Health], 233-266:

[Periods and Conditions of Life], —[Age of the People], 233. —[The Human Heart], —[The Sense of Hearing], 234. —[Care of the Teeth], —[On Blindness], 235. —[Sleeping and Dreaming], 236. —[Position in Sleeping], —[Hair suddenly changing Colour], 237. —[Consumption not hopeless], 238. —[Change of Climate], —[Perfumes], 239. —[Cure for Yellow Fever], —[Nature’s Ventilation], 240. —[Artificial Ventilation], —[Worth of Fresh Air], 241. —[Town and Country], 243. —[Recreations of the People], —[The Druids and their Healing Art], 244. —[Remedies for Cancer], 245. —[Improved Surgery], —[Restoration of a Fractured Leg], 246. —[The Original “Dr. Sangrado],” —[False Arts advancing true], 247. —[Brief History of Medicine], 248. —[What has Science done for Medicine]? 249. —[Element of Physic in Medical Practice], 250. —[Physicians’ Fees], —[Prevention of Pitting in Small-pox], 251. —[Underneath the Skin], 252. —[Relations of Mind and Organization], 253. —[Deville, the Phrenologist], 254. —“[Seeing is believing],” 255. —[Causes of Insanity], 256. —[Brain-Disease], 257. —[The Half-mad], 258. —[Motives for Suicide], —[Remedy for Poisoning], 259. —[New Remedy for Wounds], —[Compensation for Wounds], —[The Best Physician], 260. —[The Uncertainty of Human Life], 262.

VIII.—[Religious Thought], 266-286:

[Moveable Feasts], —[Christmas], 266. —[Doubt about Religion], 267. —[Our Age of Doubt], 270. —[A Hint to Sceptics], —[What is Egyptology]? 271. —[Jerusalem and Nimroud], 272. —[What is Rationalism]? 273. —[What is Theology]? 274. —[Religious Forebodings], 275. —[Folly of Atheism], —[The First Congregational Church in England], 276. —[Innate Ideas, and Pre-existence of Souls], 277. —[Sabbath of Professional Men], 278. —“[In the Beginning],” 279. —[The last Religious Martyrs in England], —[Liberty of Conscience], 281. —[Awful Judgments], —[Christian Education], —[The Book of Psalms], 283. —[The Book of Job], 285.

[Appendix].

KNOWLEDGE FOR THE TIME.

Historico-Political Information.

Politics not yet a Science.

Mr. Buckle, in his thoughtful History of Civilization, remarks: “In the present state of knowledge, Politics, so far from being a science, is one of the most backward of all the arts; and the only safe course for the legislator is to look upon his craft as consisting in the adaptation of temporary contrivances to temporary emergencies. His business is to follow the age, and not at all to attempt to lead it. He should be satisfied with studying what is passing around him, and should modify his schemes, not according to the notions he has inherited from his fathers, but according to the actual exigencies of his own time. For he may rely upon it that the movements of society have now become so rapid that the wants of one generation are no measure of the wants of another; and that men, urged by a sense of their own progress, are growing weary of idle talk about the wisdom of their ancestors, and are fast discarding those trite and sleepy maxims which have hitherto imposed upon them, but by which they will not consent to be much longer troubled.”

The Philosopher and the Historian.

“I have read somewhere or other,” says Lord Bolingbroke, “in Dionysius Halicarnassus, I think, that History is Philosophy teaching by Example.”

Walter Savage Landor has thus distinguished the respective labours of the Philosopher and the Historian. “There are,” Mr. Landor writes, “quiet hours and places in which a taper may be carried steadily, and show the way along the ground; but you must stand a tip-toe and raise a blazing torch above your head, if you would bring to our vision the obscure and time-worn figures depicted on the lofty vaults of antiquity. The philosopher shows everything in one clear light; the historian loves strong reflections and deep shadows, but, above all, prominent and moving characters.”

In writing of the Past, it behoves us to bear in mind, that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgment which we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, situation, and other incidental circumstances; and it will then be found, that he who is most charitable in his judgment, is generally the least unjust.

It is curious to find one of the silken barons of civilization and refinement, writing as follows. The polite Earl of Chesterfield says: “I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general: one would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and ministers.”

Sir Humphry Davy has written thus plainly in the same vein: “In the common history of the world, as compiled by authors in general, almost all the great changes of nations are confounded with changes in their dynasties; and events are usually referred either to sovereigns, chiefs, heroes, or their armies, which do, in fact, originate entirely from different causes, either of an intellectual or moral nature. Governments depend far more than is generally supposed upon the opinion of the people and the spirit of the age and nation. It sometimes happens that a gigantic mind possesses supreme power, and rises superior to the age in which he is born: such was Alfred in England, and Peter in Russia. Such instances are, however, very rare; and in general it is neither amongst sovereigns nor the higher classes of society that the great improvers and benefactors of mankind are to be found.”—Consolations in Travel, pp. 34, 35.

Whig and Tory Ministries.

The domestic history of England during the reign of Anne, is that of the great struggles between Whig and Tory; and Earl Stanhope, in his History of England, thus points out a number of precisely parallel lines of policy, and instances of unscrupulous resort to the same censurable set of weapons of party warfare, in the Tories of the reign of Queen Anne and the Whigs of the reign of William IV.

“At that period the two great contending parties were distinguished, as at present, by the nicknames of Whig and Tory. But it is very remarkable that in Queen Anne’s reign the relative meaning of these terms was not only different but opposite to that which they bore at the accession of William IV. In theory, indeed, the main principle of each continues the same. The leading principle of the Tories is the dread of popular licentiousness. The leading principle of the Whigs is the dread of royal encroachment. It may thence, perhaps, be deduced that good and wise men would attach themselves either to the Whig or to the Tory party, according as there seemed to be the greater danger at that particular period from despotism or from democracy. The same person who would have been a Whig in 1712 would have been a Tory in 1830. For, on examination, it will be found that, in nearly all particulars, a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne’s reign a modern Whig.

“First, as to the Tories. The Tories of Queen Anne’s reign pursued a most unceasing opposition to a just and glorious war against France. They treated the great General of the age as their peculiar adversary. To our recent enemies, the French, their policy was supple and crouching. They had an indifference, or even an aversion, to our old allies the Dutch. They had a political leaning towards the Roman Catholics at home. They were supported by the Roman Catholics in their elections. They had a love of triennial parliaments in preference to septennial. They attempted to abolish the protecting duties and restrictions of commerce. They wished to favour our trade with France at the expense of our trade with Portugal. They were supported by a faction whose war-cry was ‘Repeal of the Union,’ in a sister kingdom. To serve a temporary purpose in the House of Lords, they had recourse (for the first time in our annals) to a large and overwhelming creation of peers. Like the Whigs in May, 1831, they chose the moment of the highest popular passion and excitement to dissolve the House of Commons, hoping to avail themselves of a short-lived cry for the purpose of permanent delusion. The Whigs of Queen Anne’s time, on the other hand, supported that splendid war which led to such victories as Ramillies and Blenheim. They had for a leader the great man who gained those victories. They advocated the old principles of trade. They prolonged the duration of parliaments. They took their stand on the principles of the Revolution of 1688. They raised the cry of ‘No Popery.’ They loudly inveighed against the subserviency to France, the desertion of our old allies, the outrage wrought upon the peers, the deceptions practised upon the sovereign, and the other measures of the Tory administration.

“Such were the Tories and such were the Whigs of Queen Anne. Can it be doubted that, at the accession of William IV., Harley and St. John would have been called Whigs; Somers and Stanhope, Tories? Would not the October Club have loudly cheered the measures of Lord Grey, and the Kit-Cat find itself renewed in the Carlton?”

The defence of the Whigs against these imputations seems to be founded upon the famous Jesuitical principle, that the end justifies the means. They do not deny the facts, but they assert, that while the Tories of 1713 resorted to such modes of furthering the interests of arbitrary power, they have employed them in advancing the progress and securing the ascendancy of the democracy.

Protectionists.

This name was given to that section of the Conservative party which opposed the repeal of the Corn-laws, and which separated from Sir Robert Peel in 1846. A “Society for the Protection of Agriculture,” and to counteract the efforts of the Anti-Corn Law League, gave the name to the party. Lord George Bentinck was their leader from 1846 till his death on September 21, 1848. The administration under Lord Derby not proposing the restoration of the corn-laws, this society was dissolved February 7, 1853.

Rats, and Ratting.

James, in his Military Dictionary, 1816, states:—

“Rats are sometimes used in military operations, particularly for setting fire to magazines of gunpowder. On these occasions, a lighted match is tied to the tail of the animal. Marshal Vauban recommends, therefore, that the walls of powder-magazines should be made very thick, and the passages for light and wind so narrow as not to admit them (the rats).”

The expression to rat is a figurative term applied to those who at the moment of a division desert or abandon any particular party or side of a question. The term itself comes from the well-known circumstance of rats running away from decayed or falling buildings.—Notes and Queries, 2 S., No. 68.

The Heir to the British Throne always in Opposition.

Horace Walpole somewhere remarks, as a peculiarity in the history of the Hanover family, that the heir-apparent has always been in opposition to the reigning monarch. The fact is true enough; but it is not a peculiarity in the House of Hanover. It is an infirmity of human nature, to be found, more or less, in every analogous case of private life; but our political system developes it with peculiar force and more remarkable effects in the Royal Family. Those who cannot obtain the favours of the father will endeavour to conciliate the good wishes of the son; and all arts are employed, and few are necessary, to seduce the heir-apparent into the exciting and amusing game of political opposition. He is naturally apt enough to dislike what he considers a present thraldom, and to anticipate, by his influence over a faction, the plenitude of his future power. This was the mainspring of the most serious part of the political troubles of the last century: let us, however, hope that it will never be revived; and this we are encouraged to hope from our improved Constitution, as well as from the improved education of our Royal Family.

Legitimacy and Government.

It is an unguarded idea of some public writers that “the Sovereign holds her crown not by hereditary descent but by the will of the nation.” This doctrine is too frequently stated in and out of Parliament; and without qualification or explanation it would be apt to breed mischief in the minds of an ignorant and excited multitude, if the instinctive feelings of common sense did not invariably correct the popular errors of theorists.

“They who have studied the Constitution attentively hold that her Majesty reigns by hereditary right, though her predecessor in 1688 received the Crown at the hands of a free nation. To refer to the right of election, which can be exercised only during a revolution, and to be silent on hereditary right, is to lower the Regal dignity to the precarious office of the judges when they held their patents durante bene placito. Suppose a nation so divided that one casting vote would carry a plebiscite, changing the form of government, or the dynasty, and there would be a practical illustration of a principle—if principle at all—which, when taken as a broad palpable fact, is undeniable in the founder of a dynasty, but when erected into a legal theory it becomes neither more nor less than a permanent code of revolution. Hence the successor of that founder, if his power be not supported by military despotism, is invariably a staunch advocate of his indefeasible hereditary right, though originally derived from the consent of the nation.”—Saturday Review.

“The Fourth Estate.”

The Press has been described as the Fourth Estate of the realm; but it is not so. If we remember rightly, it was Lord Stanley who characterized it as a second representation of the Third Estate. This is nearer the mark, though it is not exactly true, seeing that the press represents, or professes to represent, all the three estates. Its influence on the State is a fact either not acknowledged at all or acknowledged as an evil to be held in check by stringent laws and safeguards. Its place of power is not defined by any written Constitution, and its acts are in our day controlled, for the most part, by no written statute, but only by its own good sense. In its modes of expression, the newspaper press of our country usually keeps far within the bounds which the law prescribes; it voluntarily prescribes for itself a law which has no authority save that of taste. There is not a greater power under the Constitution than this press, which is indeed the source of power to much besides itself. What would public meetings be without the press? Within the present century the method of influencing public opinion by means of great gatherings of the people under the direction of leagues and associations has been perfected. It is a method which derives its momentum from the multiplication of reports. It is a matter of indifference to an orator what or where is his audience, provided through the reporters he can address all England. The Press has thus neutralized one of the evils of democracy as it was known in the olden time. A democratic Assembly meant a rabble, a packed multitude of noisy citizens into which the more quiet and thoughtful class of people did not care to venture. In the democratic Assemblies now every man in England virtually sits. We have good seats, for we are at our own firesides with the newspapers in our hands. In the quiet of our chosen retreats we listen to the “cheers,” and the “hear, hear,” and the laughter which the speech of the orator evokes, and we can calmly measure the words of the demagogue. Upon the very manner of public speaking, too, we imagine that the system of newspaper reporting has had some effect. If we may judge by the very imperfect reports which we have of speeches delivered in the last century, orators were then more inflated and inflammatory in their style than they are now, the momentary impression which they created was beyond anything we can now conceive, and if eloquence is to be judged from its immediate effect they were greater masters of the art than any we can now boast of. If this appears a hard thing to say, when we have such orators among us as Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Disraeli, let us remember the other side of the question—let us take into account that our contemporary first-class orators speak with the full knowledge that in cool blood their speeches will be read word for word on the morrow. They know right well that much of the bombast which might safely be addressed to an admiring and heated audience will expose them only to ridicule when it is reduced to print. Insensibly a more sober standard of oratory is thus established, to the great gain of our deliberative assemblies, and acting as some check upon rhetorical demagogues.—Times.

Writing for the Press.

The organization of a great Newspaper establishment is a remarkable result of practical ability profiting by accumulated experience; but an account of the progress and development of the system is as tedious as a history of the iron manufacture or of the cotton trade. A readable narrative must include matters of more human interest than tables of figures which represent the successive numbers of copies and of advertisements; and although newspapers, like power-looms, may not have sprung into existence of themselves, the names of their obscure founders and managers are deservedly forgotten. Mr. Perry’s name is still known in consequence of his connexion with the old Whig party; Mr. Stuart enjoys a parasitic fame as the employer of Coleridge and of Mackintosh; and the late Mr. Walter exhibited an effective sagacity in the conduct of his business which places him on a level with the Arkwrights and Boltons of manufacturing history. It would not be worth while to extend the list of able editors and spirited proprietors. Successful men of business must be contented to make their own fortunes and to benefit the world at large, without desiring the supererogatory reward of posthumous fame. When the gods, in Schiller’s apologue, had given away the earth and the sea, they reserved the barren sky for the portionless poet; and ever since, the lightest touch of genius, the smallest act which indicated inherent greatness, has been found to retain its place in the memory of men long after capitalists and mechanical inventors have joined the multitude of the dead; abierunt ad plures. The clever lecturer who employs himself in diffusing information on the mechanism of watches probably finds the attention of his audience flag when he attempts to delineate the qualities and virtues of deceased generations of watchmakers.—Saturday Review.

Shorthand Writers.

Stenography, or the art of short writing, is generally stated to have been invented by Xenophon, the historian; first practised by Pythagoras; and reduced to a system by the poet, Ennius. To this art we owe full reports of the proceedings in Parliament. The system of Gurney was employed for this purpose; shorthand notes upon which were found among the Egerton MSS.

The shorthand-writer of the House of Commons states in his Evidence before the Select Committee on Private Bill Legislation that he receives two guineas a-day for attendance before committees to take notes of the evidence, and 9d. per folio of 72 words for making a copy from his notes. In 1862, he received for business thus done for the committees on private Bills 6667l., consisting of 1682l. for attendance fees and 4985l. for the transcripts; this does not include the charges in respect of committees on public matters. He is appointed for the House of Lords also. So much of the business as he cannot execute by his own establishment he transfers to other shorthand writers on rather lower terms, but he himself keeps a staff of ten shorthand writers. Each of these has at least one clerk who can read his shorthand; but the most efficient course is found to be that he have two such clerks, each of whom (and himself also), taking in hand a portion of the notes, dictates to quick writers, so that the mode of transcribing is by writing from dictation, and not by copying. There is a great strain and pressure in order to get the transcript to the law-stationers in time for the requisite number of copies to be ready when the committee meet next morning. In the height of the session, the witness mentions, he provides refreshments for about fifty persons employed at his office during the evening, many of them until midnight, and often later.

The Worth of Popular Opinion.

Popular Opinion is generally founded on the most prominent and the most striking, but for that reason, often the most superficial feature in the interesting object of which a knowledge is pretended. That Cromwell had a wart on his nose; that Byron had a club-foot, which gave him more anxiety than the critiques on his poems; that the head of Pericles was too long, for which reason the sculptors always made his bust helmeted, while that of Julius Cæsar was bald, which made it doubly grateful to that great commander to have his brow encompassed with an oaken wreath, or the coveted kingly diadem; such prominent and superficial accessories of personal appearance, in the case of well-known characters, will often be familiar to thousands who know nothing more of the persons so curiously characterized. But these, so far as they go, are true; they are accurate knowledge, not mere opinion. Even vulgar opinion is not so often altogether false as it is partial and inadequate, and therefore unjust. Of Mahomet, for instance, everybody knows that he was the prophet of an intolerant religion, which its most sincere professors have always most zealously propagated with the sword. This is quite true; but it is far from embracing the whole truth with regard to the religion of the Koran; and he who with the inconsiderate haste of popular logic, uses this accurate knowledge about a fraction of a thing, as if it were the just appreciation of the whole, falls not the less certainly into the region of mere delusion; for though the thing that he believes is true, it is not true as he gives it currency. He is in fact doing a thing in the region of ideas which is equivalent to passing a farthing for a guinea; an act whereby he swindles the public and himself very nearly as much as if he were to pass off a piece of painted pasteboard for the same value.—Professor Blackie; Edinburgh Essays, 1856.

Machiavelism.

It has been well said of Machiavelli, that he has the credit or discredit of having been the first to erect into a science, and reduce it to theory, the art of obtaining absolute power by deception and cruelty; and of maintaining it afterwards by the simulation of leniency and virtue. In political history, he was the first who gave at once a general and a luminous development of great events in their causes and connexion.

Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, says:—“The doctrine which Machiavel taught unto Cæsar Borgia, to employ men in mischievous actions, and afterwards to destroy them when they have performed the mischief, was not of his own invention. All ages have given us examples of this goodly policy; the latter having been apt scholars in this lesson to the more ancient, as the reign of Henry VIII. here in England can bear witness; and therein especially the Lord Cromwell, who perished by the same unjust law that himself had devised for the taking away of another man’s life.”

Free-speaking.

Archbishop Whately, in his very able Lecture on Egypt, referring to the writers on Public Affairs at home, reprehends the practice of exaggerating, with keen delight, every evil that they can find, inventing such as do not exist, and keeping out of sight what is good. An Eastern despot, reading the productions of one of these writers, would say that, with all our precautions, we are the worst governed people on earth; and that our law-courts and public offices are merely a complicated machinery for oppressing the mass of the people; that our Houses of Lords and Commons are utterly mismanaged, our public men striving to repress merit, and that our best plan would be to sweep away all those, as, with less trouble, matters might go on better, and could not go on worse. Charges of this nature cannot be brought publicly forward in the Turkish Empire. In Cairo, a man was beheaded because he made too free a use of his tongue. He was told not to be speaking of the insurrection in Syria, and had dared to be chatting of the news; and there are other countries, also, where because such charges are true, it would not be safe to circulate them. But these writers do not mean half what they set forth. They heighten their descriptions to display their eloquence; but the tendency of such publications is always towards revolution, and the practical effect on the minds of the people is to render them incredulous. They understand that these overwrought representations are for effect, and they go about their business with an impression that the whole is unreal. If one of these writers were visited himself with a horrible dream that he was a peasant under an Oriental despot, that he was taxed at the will of the Sovereign, and had to pay the assessment in produce, valued at half the market-price, that he was compelled to work and receive four-fifths of his low wages in food consisting of hard, sour biscuit—let him then dream that he had spoken against the Ministry, and that he finds himself bastinadoed till he confesses that he brought false charges; that his grown-up son had been dragged off for a soldier, and himself deprived of his only support, and he would be inclined to doubt whether ours is the worst system of Government.

Speakers of the Houses of Parliament.

The late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in a communication which appeared in Notes and Queries, in the week of the author’s lamented death, states the following:

“In modern legislative chambers it has been customary for the Chamber to appoint one of its own members as president. In the English House of Lords the Lord Chancellor is President by virtue of his office. Although a member of the executive Government, and holding his office at the pleasure of the Crown, he is nevertheless a high judicial officer, and is deemed to carry his judicial impartiality into the performance of his presidential functions. In general, however, the president of a legislative chamber is not, according to modern practice, a member of the executive Government. He is an independent member of the legislature, who is appointed by the chamber, and holds his office at its pleasure, such as the Speaker of the English House of Commons.

“The principal functions of the Speaker of the House of Commons were not originally (as the title of his office indicates) what they are at present. The House of Commons were at first a set of delegates summoned by the Crown to negotiate with it concerning the payment of taxes. They might take advantage of the position of superiority which they temporarily occupied to remonstrate with the Crown about certain grievances, upon which they were generally agreed. In this state of things it was important that they should have an organ and spokesman with sufficient ability and knowledge to state their views, and with sufficient courage to contend against the displeasure of the Crown. The helpless condition of a large body which is called upon to conduct a negotiation without any appointed organ is well described by Livy. When the Roman plebeians seceded to the Mount Aventine, after the Decemvirate, the Senate sent three ambassadors to confer with them, and to propose three questions. ‘Non defuit,’ says Livy, ‘quid responderetur; deerat qui daret responsum, nullodum certo duce, nec satis audentibus singulis invidiæ se offerre’ (iii. 50). Since the Revolution of 1688, and the increased power of the House of Commons, the functions of the Speaker have undergone a change. His chief function has been no longer to speak on behalf of the House; that which was previously his accessary has become his principal duty. He has been simply chairman of the House, with the function of regulating its proceedings, of putting the question, and of maintaining order. The Speaker of the House of Commons is now virtually disqualified by his office from speaking; but as their debates have become more important, his office of moderator of these debates has acquired additional importance.

“The position of the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons was similar to that of the Speaker of the English House (see Lord Mountmorres’s History of the Irish Parliament, vol. i. p. 71-79); but in Scotland the three estates sat as one House; there was no separate House of Commons, and the Lord Chancellor presided over the entire assembly.” (See Robertson’s History of Scotland, b. 1, vol. i. p. 276, ed. 1821.)

The National Conscience.

When we come to the proofs from fact and historical experience, we might appeal to a singular case in the records of our Exchequer, viz., that for much more than a century back, our Gazette and other public advertisers have acknowledged a series of anonymous remittances from those who, at some time or other, had appropriated public money. We understand that no corresponding fact can be cited from foreign records. Now, this is a direct instance of that compunction which our travelled friend insisted on. But we choose rather to throw ourselves upon the general history of Great Britain: upon the spirit of her policy, domestic or foreign; and upon the universal principles of her public morality. Take the case of public debts, and the fulfilment of contracts to those who could not have compelled the fulfilment; we first set this precedent. All nations have now learned that honesty in such cases is eventually the best policy; but this they learned from our experience, and not till nearly all of them had tried the other policy. We it was who, under the most trying circumstances of war, maintained the sanctity from taxation of all foreign investments in our funds. Our conduct with regard to slaves, whether in the case of slavery or of the Slave Trade—how prudent it may always have been we need not inquire—as to its moral principles they went so far ahead of European standards that we were neither comprehended nor believed. The perfection of romance was ascribed to us by all who did not reproach us with the perfection of Jesuitical knavery; by many our motto was supposed to be no longer the old one of divide et impera, but annihila et appropria. Finally, looking back to our dreadful conflicts with the three conquering despots of modern history, Philip II. of Spain, Louis XIV., and Napoleon; we may incontestably boast of having been single in maintaining the general equities of Europe by war upon a colossal scale, and by our counsels in the general congresses of Christendom.—De Quincey.

“The Nation of Shopkeepers.”

In the Præludia to the Chronicon Albeldense, attributed to Bulcidius, Bishop of Salamanca, a Spanish writer at the end of the ninth century, we find the following singular refutation of an ungraceful compliment hitherto paid to us by our Gallic neighbours. In a paragraph headed De Proprietatibus Gentium, we see the tables turned in our favour:—“1. Sapientia Græcorum; 2. Fortia Gothorum; 3. Consilia Chaldæorum; 4. Superbia Romanorum; 5. Ferocitas Francorum; 6. Ira Britannorum; 7. Libido Scotorum; 8. Duritia Saxonum; 9. Cupiditas Persarum; 10. Invidia Judæorum; 11. Pax Æthiopum; 12. Commercia Gallorum!” This discovery seems to be invested with an additional interest at a time when our Allies very handsomely acknowledge that they have hitherto laboured under a mistake in their estimate of our national peculiarities.

Results of Revolutions.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in his last work, On the Best Form of Government, has this summary: “There are some rare cases in which a nation has profited by a revolution. Such was the English Revolution of 1688, in which the form of the Government underwent no alteration, and the person of the King was alone changed. It was the very minimum of a revolution; it was remarkable for the absence of those accompaniments which make a revolution perilous, and which subsequently draw upon it a vindictive reactionary movement. The late Italian revolution has likewise been successful; by it the Italian people have gained a better government and have improved their political condition. It was brought about by foreign intervention; but its success has been mainly owing to the moderation of the leaders in whom the people had the wisdom to confide, and who have steadily refrained from all revolutionary excesses. The history of forcible attempts to improve governments is not, however, cheering. Looking back upon the course of revolutionary movements, and upon the character of their consequences, the practical conclusion which I draw is that it is the part of wisdom and prudence to acquiesce in any form of government which is tolerably well administered, and affords tolerable security to person and property. I would not, indeed, yield to apathetic despair, or acquiesce in the persuasion that a merely tolerable government is incapable of improvement. I would form an individual model, suited to the character, disposition, wants, and circumstances of the country, and I would make all exertions, whether by action or by writing, within the limits of the existing law, for ameliorating its existing condition and bringing it nearer to the model selected for imitation; but I should consider the problem of the best form of government as purely ideal, and as unconnected with practice, and should abstain from taking a ticket in the lottery of revolution, unless there was a well-founded expectation that it would come out a prize.”

Sir William Hamilton has well observed that “No revolution in public opinion is the work of an individual, of a single cause, or of a day. When the crisis has arrived, the catastrophe must ensue; but the agents through whom it is apparently accomplished, though they may accelerate, cannot originate its occurrence. Who believes that but for Luther or Zwingli the Reformation would not have been? Their individual, their personal energy and zeal, perhaps, hastened by a year or two the event but had the public mind not been already ripe for their revolt, the fate of Luther and Zwingli, in the sixteenth century, would have been that of Huss and Jerome of Prague in the fifteenth. Woe to the revolutionist who is not himself a creature of the revolution! If he anticipate, he is lost; for it requires, what no individual can supply, a long and powerful counter-sympathy in a nation to untwine the ties of custom which bind a people to the established and the old.”

Worth of a Republic.

Mr. Baron Alderson is described as having a temper too calm for the stormy floor of the House of Commons; but he studied politics as a science, from a safe distance; and his letters contain his opinions on some points expressed with a very deliberate care. To Mrs. Opie, who had been writing against Republics and Republican Government, he says: “I entirely agree with your view of a Republic. As long as men are so wicked, it is an impossibility for it to be a lasting government, for it does not govern, but obey. America is no exception to this rule. In the first place, at its commencement, I believe it was a remarkably moral population; and so the evils would not at first appear. And, since that time, the immensity of its territory has enabled its most active and least self-restrained population to expand itself with less inconvenience. But will the thing last? When the wilderness is peopled, will not the wickedness, which is now expended on the Indians and the weak without observation, become intolerable, and a government strong enough to protect, be the result? Such a one, I think, will hardly be a republic, but, I fear, a despotism, for men always run into extremes. Lynch law is, in fact, an ill-regulated despotism.”

“Safe Men.”

Dean Hook, in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, has the following judicious observations upon appointments of this practically useful class:

“Among the archbishops,” says the Dean, “there are a few eminent rulers distinguished as much for their transcendent abilities as for their exalted station in society; but as a general rule they have not been men of the highest class of mind. In all ages the tendency has very properly been, whether by election or nomination, to appoint ‘safe men;’ and as genius is generally innovating and often eccentric, the safe men are those who, with certain high qualifications, do not rise much above the intellectual average of their contemporaries. They are practical men rather than philosophers and theorists, and their impulse is not to perfection but quieta non movere. From this very circumstance their history is the more instructive; and, if few among the archbishops have left the impress of their mind upon the age in which they lived, we may in their biography read the character of the times which they fairly represent. In a missionary age we find them zealous but not enthusiastic; on the revival of learning, whether in Anglo-Saxon times or in the fifteenth century, they were men of learning, although only a few have been distinguished as authors. When the mind of the laity was devoted to the camp or the chase, and prelates were called to the administration of public affairs, they displayed the ordinary tact and diplomatic skill of professional statesmen, and the necessary acumen of judges; at the Reformation, instead of being leaders, they were the cautious followers of bolder spirits; at the epoch of the Revolution they were anti-Jacobites rather than Whigs; in a latitudinarian age they have been, if feeble as governors, bright examples of Christian moderation and charity.”

Church Preferment.

Lord Chancellor Thurlow, on reading Horsley’s Letters to Dr. Priestley, at once obtained for the author a Stall at Gloucester, saying that “those who supported the Church should be supported by it.”

Peace Statesmanship.

There is nothing more wholesome for both the people and their rulers, than to dwell upon the excellence of those statesmen whose lives have been spent in the useful, the sacred, work of Peace. The thoughtless vulgar are ever prone to magnify the brilliant exploits of arms, which dazzle ordinary understandings, and prevent any account being taken of the cost and the crime that are so often hid in the guise of success. All merit of that shining kind is sure of passing current for more than it is really worth; and the eye is turned indifferently upon, or even scornfully from, the unpretending virtue of the true friend to his species, the minister who devotes all his cares to stay the worst of crimes that can be committed, the last of calamities that can be endured by man.

The Burial of Sir John Moore.

It had been generally supposed that the interment of General Sir John Moore, who fell at the Battle of Corunna, in 1809, took place during the night; a mistake which, doubtless, arose from the justly-admired lines by Wolfe becoming more widely known and remembered than the official account of this solemn event in the Narrative of the Campaign, by the brother of Sir John Moore. In Wolfe’s monody, the hero is represented to have been buried

By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,
And the lanterns dimly burning,—

an error of description which has, doubtless, been extended by many pictorial illustrations of the sad scene, “darkly at dead of night.” The Rev. J. H. Symons, who was chaplain to the brigade of Guards attached to the army under Moore’s command, and who attended the hero in his last moments, relates that during the battle Moore was conveyed from the field into the quarters on the quay at Corunna, where he was laid on a mattress upon the floor, and the chaplain remained with him till his death. During the night, the body was removed to the quarters of Colonel Graham, in the citadel, by the officers of his staff; whence it was borne by them, assisted by Mr. Symons, the chaplain, to the grave which had been prepared for it on one of the bastions of the citadel. It being now daylight, the enemy had discovered that the troops had been withdrawing and embarking during the night; a fire was soon opened by them, upon the ships which were still in the harbour; the funeral service was, therefore, performed without delay, under the fire of the enemy’s guns; and, there being no means to provide a coffin, the body of the general,

With his martial cloak around him,

was deposited in the earth, the Rev. Mr. Symons reading the funeral service.

The Ancestors of Washington.

While America feels a just pride in having given birth to George Washington, it is something for England to know that his ancestors lived for generations upon her soil. His great-grandfather emigrated about 1657, having previously lived in Northamptonshire. The Washingtons were a Northern family, who lived some time in Durham, and also in Lancashire, whence they came to Northamptonshire. The uncle of the first Lawrence Washington was Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the great merchants, who, in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., developed the wool-trade of the country, which depended mainly on the growth of wool, and the creation of sheep-farms in the midland counties. That he might superintend his uncle’s transactions with the sheep proprietors, Lawrence Washington settled in Northamptonshire, leaving his own profession of a barrister. He soon became Mayor of Northampton, and at the dissolution of the monasteries, being identified with the cause of civil and religious liberty, he gained a grant of some monastic land, including Sulgrave. In the parish of Brington is situated Althorp, the seat of the Spencers: the Lady Spencer of that day was herself a Kitson, daughter of Washington’s uncle, and the Spencers were great promoters of the sheep-farming movement. Thus, then, there was a very plain connexion between the Washingtons and the Spencers.

For three generations the Washingtons remained at Sulgrave, taking rank among the nobility and gentry of the county. Then their fortunes failed: they were obliged to part with Sulgrave, and retired to Brington, under, as it were, the wing of the Spencer family. From this depression the Washingtons recovered by a singular marriage. The eldest son of the family had married the half-sister of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, which at this time was not an alliance above the pretensions of the Washingtons: they rose into great prosperity. The emigrant, above all others of the family, continued to be on intimate terms with the Spencers, down to the very eve of the Civil War; he was knighted by James I. in 1623, and in the Civil War took the side of the king. The emigrant who left England in 1657, we leave to be traced by historians on the other side of the Atlantic.

“George Washington, without the genius of Julius Cæsar or Napoleon Bonaparte, has a far purer fame, as his ambition was of a higher and a holier nature. Instead of seeking to raise his own name, or seize supreme power, he devoted his whole talents, military and civil, to the establishment of the independence and the perpetuity of the liberties of his own country. In modern history no man has done such great things without the soil of selfishness or the stain of a grovelling ambition. Cæsar, Cromwell, Napoleon, attained a higher elevation, but the love of dominion was the spur that drove them on. John Hampden, William Russell, Algernon Sidney, may have had motives as pure, and an ambition as sustained, but they fell. To George Washington alone, in modern times, has it been given to accomplish a wonderful revolution, and yet to remain to all future times the theme of a people’s gratitude, and an example of virtuous and beneficent power.”—Earl Russell’s Life and Times of Charles James Fox.

The “Star-spangled Banner” of the United States.

The people of the United States understand little of the proper form, proportion of size, number of stripes even, of their own national flag, the “Star-spangled Banner.”

The standard for the army is fixed at six feet and six inches, by four feet and four inches; the number of stripes is thirteen—viz., seven red and six white. It will be perceived that the flag is just one-half longer than it is broad, and that its proportions are perfect when properly carried out. The first stripe at the top is red, the next white, and so down alternately, which makes the last stripe red. The blue field for the stars is the width and square of the first seven stripes—viz., four red and three white. These seven stripes extend from the side of the field to the extremity of the flag; the next stripe is white, extending the entire length of it, and directly under the field; then follow the remaining stripes alternately. The number of stars on the field is now thirty-one, and the Army and Navy add another star on the admission of a new State into our glorious union. In some respects, the “Banner” resembles the flag of the Sandwich Islands.—American journal.

Ancestry of President Adams.

John Adams, second President of the United States of America, is commonly but erroneously represented to have been the son of a cobbler. Now, he was the son of a clergyman. His descent would have graced any Court in Europe. He was descended from one of the oldest families in Devonshire and Gloucestershire, one of whom sat as an English Baron in the Parliaments of Edward the First. His father, Adam Fitzherbert, was lineally descended from the ancient Counts de Vermandois. Lord ap-Adam’s wife (the ancestress of this second President of America) was the daughter and sole heiress of John Lord de Gournay, of Beverston Castle, Gloucestershire, the representative of the ancient House of Harpitré de Gournai, a branch of the great house of “Yvery,” which was connected with every Sovereign house in Europe. It would be difficult to find a higher descent. The late Mr. Edward Adams, M.P., of Middleton Hall, Carmarthenshire, was a descendant of the elder branch of this family; and Mr. Anthony Davis, of Misbourne House, Chalfont Saint Giles, Bucks, is its representative.

The Irish Union.

It was after the exhaustion caused by the Rebellion in Ireland, that Pitt brought forward his project of the Union, and Lord Cornwallis successfully accomplished it. Mr. Massey describes at great length the means by which, in Castlereagh’s phrase, “the fee simple of Irish corruption was bought;” and the Irish Parliament, like Tarpeia, perished beneath the weight of stipulated bribery. No person acquainted in the least with history, or having any regard for Ireland, will fail to rejoice at the success of a measure which relieved her instantly from a worthless Legislature, and by incorporating her with Great Britain assured her the prospect of just government. But the delay in the grant of Catholic Emancipation, which Pitt had intended to accompany the Union, retarded for many years its benefits; and another part of the Minister’s scheme, a State provision for the Catholic priesthood, remains to this day unaccomplished. Pitt incurred a heavy responsibility on this account. It appears certain from the Castlereagh correspondence that the Irish Catholics supported the Union on something like an implied pledge that they should obtain their political rights; and on this ground, and on that, besides, of the State necessity for emancipation, Pitt can hardly escape the censure of history for not having insisted more strongly in carrying out his policy as a whole, and especially for having, in 1805, consented not to press the subject on the King when he formed his second brief Administration. It is doubtful, however, Mr. Massey observes, whether Pitt could at any period have extorted compliance from George III., or, indeed, from the people of England; and, though his conduct in this matter was not chivalrous as an individual, he may have conceived, as a public man, that he had satisfied honour by his resigning in 1801, and that afterwards he would have not been justified in depriving the country of his services for the sake of a policy impracticable at the moment.—Times review of Massey’s Hist. England.

The published Correspondence of Lord Cornwallis gives, with painful minuteness, the details of management and bribery by which the Union between Great Britain and Ireland was carried to a conclusion; but most readers of the history of the period are satisfied with knowing that the Union was a political necessity, that the parties to be dealt with in effecting it—the Irish Parliament and its patrons—were utterly corrupt, and that persuasion was the only method which it was possible to employ. The result was inevitable. The Government bid high, and as it bid the vendors raised their prices, and still the Government bid higher. At last the owners of seats were gorged with the sum of 15,000l. for each disfranchised borough, and the whole amount of compensation thus extorted reached the magnificent figure of 1,260,000l. We can hardly be thankful enough that Lord Grey’s Government had the firmness to resist the application of so inconvenient a precedent in the Reform Bill of 1832.

The House of Bonaparte.

The Moniteur in 1862 contained five columns on the pedigree of Bonaparte, from Anno Domini 1170, when the first of that name headed an Italian league at Treviso against the German invaders under Frederic Barbarossa. John Bonaparte signs a treaty at Constance on behalf of Italy, and writes himself consul, being in fact le premier consul of his race, in 1182. Two centuries after the Bonaparte escutcheon on their house in St. Andrew’s-square, at Treviso, is ordered to be broken by Venice; and 440 years afterwards that republic is suppressed by a Bonaparte at the treaty of Campo Formio. Details are given of the family’s removal to Florence, San Miniato, and Corsica; of the sack of Rome, at which Jacopo Bonaparte assisted in 1520, and of a comedy, La Vedova, from the pen of another about the same period. Muratori’s Antiquitates Italicæ, vols. 8, 9, and 12, folio, contain numerous diplomatic documents signed by members of this stirring house, ever active in all the revolutions of mediæval Italy. The Moniteur becomes quite an enthusiast about the land that produced this chosen race. The oddest revelation is the fact, that Mala-parte was the original name before 1170, just as it was of the Bolognese family Malatesta, the change having been voted by popular acclaim in public assembly at Treviso. So far the Moniteur. But it might be added that the Beauharnais family, through which the present Emperor comes, had undergone a precisely similar change of name at the request of Marie Antoinette. That house had been known for ages in Poitou as Seigneurs de Bellescouilles, an appellation not quite fitting the Court at Versailles, and altered accordingly. It is rather remarkable that Napoleon I., in the Moniteur of 22nd Messidor, an XIII., 1805, had scouted all idea of ancestry, and ordered a formal declaration to be inserted that his house dated from Marengo, quoting the lines of La Fontaine—“Rien n’est dangereux qu’un sot ami,” meaning the person who had drawn out his pedigree.

The Register of the Imperial family is a large folio volume, bound in red velvet, and having at the corners ornaments of silver-gilt, with the family cipher ‘N’ in the centre. It was commenced in 1806, and the first entry made was the adoption of Prince Eugène by the Emperor. The second, made the same year, relates to the adoption of the Princess Stephanie de Beauharnais, who died Grand Duchess of Baden, and who was cousin of the Empress Joséphine. Next comes the marriage of the Emperor Napoleon I.; then several certificates of the birth of Princes of the family, and lastly of the King of Rome, which closes the series of the certificates inscribed under the reign of the First Emperor. This register was confided to the care of Count Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Minister and Councillor of State, and Secretary of the Imperial family. It was to him, under the First Empire, as it is now to the Minister of State under the Second, that was reserved the duty of drawing up the procès verbaux of the great acts relative to Napoleon. At the fall of the First Empire, Count Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely carefully preserved the book, which at his death passed into the hands of the Countess, his widow. That lady handed it over to the President of the Republic when Louis Napoleon was called by universal suffrage to the Imperial throne.

A Correspondent of the Literary Gazette writes: “I have been afforded an opportunity of examining many of the letters of Napoleon which figure in the Imperial collection; and I assure you that the commission charged with the duty of saying what should and what should not be published, had a most arduous task to perform. For of all the ‘cramped pieces of penmanship’ that were ever seen his are the most cramped and unintelligible. The manner in which the letters are formed would frighten a writing-master into fits, and the lines never run straight, whilst not unfrequently they come into collision. And what is singular is that a great many of the words are grossly misspelt, and that others are only half-written. O vanity of human genius! O triumph for dull little schoolboys! The man who conquered more kingdoms than Alexander knew not orthography!”

Invasion of England projected by Napoleon I.

The 9th volume of the Correspondance de Napoléon I., published at Paris, in 1862, brings to light, for the first time, the whole of his schemes for invading England, which he planned in 1803, when he led a mighty host to Boulogne, in the hope of repeating the scene of the Conquest. The following passage in this volume shows how Napoleon struggled to remove his inferiority in fleets:

“Collect 3000 workmen at Antwerp. Wood, iron, and materials can be brought there from the North. War is no impediment to shipbuilding at Antwerp. If we are three years at war, we must build there not less than 25 ships of the line. Anywhere else this would be impossible. We must have a powerful fleet; and we should not have less than 100 ships of the line. We must also commence building frigates and smaller vessels. St. Domingo cost us 2,000,000f. a month; the English having captured it, this sum must be appropriated to the increase of our navy.”

Such were the conditions of this attack; and such the forces with which Napoleon expected “to conquer the world in London;” and his letters to Soult, to Bruix, to Déeres must convince the reader that he was in earnest in his scheme of “planting the tricolour on the Tower.” The problem for Napoleon to solve was how to transport across the Channel an army of 150,000 men, with horses, cannon, baggage, and equipments, in spite of the naval superiority of England. In these first preparations we must allow he succeeded beyond our worst expectations. Within fourteen months from the commencement of the war he had gathered within ten leagues of our coast, and had placed beyond the power of attack, a flotilla mounting 2000 guns, and able to transport his superb army, which, though numbering 150,000 men, could embark in less than a single tide, and were fully trained for a naval encounter.

So far, at least, as regards the Government, it must be confessed that our preparations to meet this attack were unequal to the danger. In the Channel especially—the point menaced—the naval arrangements made by the Admiralty were very faulty and even ridiculous. Such a Power as England should never have allowed the flotilla to assemble at Boulogne at all; and when it had assembled it should have been assailed by a mass of gunboats and light vessels, which we might have sent out in enormous numbers. Yet the Admiralty persisted in encountering the flotilla with 18 and 12-pounder frigates, which drew too much water to close the shore, and, at long range, were no match for their powerfully armed, though small antagonists; the result was that on no occasion were we able to damage the enemy seriously, and that on some we suffered severely.

In England as well as in France it was thought that the flotilla was to risk the passage unaided, its heavy armament suggesting the notion that Napoleon believed it a match for our fleet in the narrow strait between Dover and Calais. We now know, however, that this was an error, and that Napoleon never intended to embark unless supported by a covering squadron, which, having for a time the command of the Channel, would completely protect the flotilla and the army. In order to have the mastery of the Channel for the forty-eight hours required for the transit, the problem was so to manœuvre his fleets as to bring a superior force off Boulogne, in spite of the numerous English squadrons which watched or blockaded them in all their harbours. He devised a twofold scheme for this end, adapted to the circumstances of the seaboard, and which experience proved to be feasible.

This volume, however, proves sufficiently that, brilliant as were Napoleon’s designs, he could not inspire Villeneuve and Ganteaume with the daring energy of Nelson and Cochrane, or make British seamen of his sailors. The want of discipline, the timidity, and the inexperience, of which there are proofs, explain how Napoleon’s deep-laid designs were brought to an end on the day of Trafalgar.

However, in 1805, Napoleon renewed his invasion scheme, the details of which he thus narrates in the 11th volume of his Correspondance, 1863:

“I wished to bring together forty or fifty sail of the line by operating their junction from Toulon, Cadiz, Ferrol, and Brest; to move them all together to Boulogne; to be there for a fortnight master of the Channel; to have 150,000 men and 10,000 horses encamped on the coast, with a flotilla of nearly 4000 vessels, and then, upon the arrival of my fleet, to embark for England and seize London.... To secure a prospect of success it was necessary to collect 150,000 men at Boulogne, with the flotilla, and an immense materiel, to embark the whole, yet to conceal my plan. I accomplished this though it appeared impossible, and I did so by reversing what seemed probable.”

Thus, in the spring of 1805 Napoleon collected within ten leagues of our shores a flotilla of nearly 4000 vessels, which, moored under the batteries of Boulogne, and armed with very heavy cannon, had long repelled our attempts to destroy them. Encamped around lay the veteran legions which had been selected for the descent, and had been trained with such care to embark and expedite the passage, that Napoleon writes, “150,000 men with a due proportion of guns and horses could within four tides effect a landing.”

His plan was marked with much ingenuity. The aspect of an armed flotilla induced our Admiralty to think that Napoleon relied on it alone to cross; and they felt assured that when at sea, three or four ships would suffice to destroy it. Accordingly, our Channel fleet was reduced to a force of not more than six sail; and the mass of the British Navy was employed either in blockading the enemy’s squadrons or in distant expeditions on the ocean. Could, therefore, one of the blockaded fleets effect its junction with another, and penetrate into the unguarded Channel, a temporary ascendancy at sea might be gained, under cover of which the flotilla could cross and ferry over the French army.

It is only in this volume that we see how nearly Napoleon’s design succeeded so far as regards the descent, and also what were the causes of its failure. Whatever we may think of his project as a whole, it must be allowed that in August, 1805, when Villeneuve put to sea from Ferrol, the Emperor had good reason to expect that his Admirals would fulfil their mission:—

“The squadrons of Nelson and Calder have joined the fleet off Brest, and Cornwallis has been foolish enough to send twenty sail to blockade the French fleet off Ferrol. On the 17th of August—that is, three days after our squadron left Ferrol, Calder left Brest for Ferrol with a northerly wind. What a chance was there for Villeneuve! He could either, by keeping a wide offing, avoid Calder, reach Brest, and fall upon Cornwallis, or with his thirty sail-of-the-line beat Calder’s twenty, and acquire a decided preponderance. So much for the English, whose combinations are so talked of.”

In England the Whigs laughed at the idea of the invasion as a ministerial bugbear. “Can anything equal,” says Lord Grenville in 1804, “the ridicule of Pitt riding about from Downing-street to Wimbledon, and from Wimbledon to Cox-heath, to inspect military carriages, impregnable batteries, and Lord Chatham’s reviews? Can he possibly be serious in expecting Bonaparte now?” So also wrote Fox a year afterwards—“The alarm of invasion here was most certainly a groundless one, and raised for some political purpose by the Ministers.” Whatever the Whigs might then think, there is no doubt now as to Bonaparte’s intentions. “Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours, and we are masters of the world,” are his famous words. His design to invade this country was never relinquished, was cherished as the darling scheme of his life, until within a month or two before Pitt’s death, when the battle of Trafalgar destroyed his hopes for ever.—Selected and abridged from reviews in the Times.

Fate of the Duc d’Enghien.

While the First Consul was meditating the descent upon England, in 1804, his life and government were imperilled by the conspiracy of Georges, Moreau, and Pichegru. The Duc d’Enghien, as is well known, was the innocent victim of this affair, having been arrested on neutral territory, and shot in a ditch, without a trial, in order to strike the Bourbons with terror. While the printed account shows that the plot was a formidable one, that the death of Napoleon and a counter-revolution were really not remote contingencies, and that there were some slight grounds to suspect an intrigue between Dumouriez and the Duke, it also impliedly acquits that Prince of any share in the main conspiracy, and throws the guilt of his cruel fate exclusively on the First Consul. From the list of charges against the Duke, entirely in Napoleon’s writing, it is plain that he did not possess any proofs, sufficient even for the tribunal of Vincennes to convict the prisoner of a design against his life.

These monstrous charges speak for themselves, and accord well with the midnight dungeon, the irresponsible conclave, the undefended prisoner, and the grave dug before the trial for the victim! Moreover, the volume of Napoleon’s Correspondance in which these details are given, has not a trace of the alleged over-rapidity of Savary, of the suppression of the Prince’s letter by Talleyrand, of the order said to have been given to Real to suspend the execution after the sentence, and to await the result of a regular examination—of the hundred and one excuses, in short, which have been urged for Napoleon by his apologists. On the contrary, from the following letter we infer that he wished to avoid discussion about a purpose already determined, and that he feared lest public opinion should condemn his design on the Duc d’Enghien. It is addressed to the Commandant of Vincennes:—

“A person, whose name is to remain unknown, will be brought to the fortress confided to your care; you are to put him in a vacant cell, and to take every precaution for his safe keeping. The intention of the Government is to keep all proceedings concerning him most secret. No question is to be put to him as to who he is, or why he is detained. Even you are not to know who the prisoner is. No one is to communicate with him but yourself; no one else is to see him until fresh orders. He will probably arrive this night.”

Napoleon’s Government, though very despotic, was not, however, usually cruel; and this great crime which, perhaps, was caused by the haunting dread of an assassin’s arm, was an exception to its general tenor.—Times review.

Last Moments of Mr. Pitt.

The news of Austerlitz was the last blow which killed Pitt. The gout, which had hitherto confined its attacks to his extremities, assailed some vital organ. He was not without hopes of getting better. Lord Wellesley found him in high spirits, though before the interview was over Pitt fainted in his presence. His last moments are described by the Hon. James Stanhope, who was present in the room when he died; so that at last we seem to have authentic information of a scene which has hitherto been very imperfectly described. “I remained the whole of Wednesday night with Mr. Pitt,” says Mr. Stanhope in a paper drawn up by him, and of which Earl Stanhope has availed himself in his Life of Pitt. “His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, ‘East; ah! that will do; that will bring him quick.’ At other times he seemed to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out ‘Hear, hear,’ as if in the House of Commons. During the time he did not speak he moaned considerably, crying, ‘Oh, dear! Oh, Lord!’ Towards twelve the rattles came in his throat, and proclaimed approaching dissolution.... At about half-past two he ceased moaning.... I feared he was dying; but shortly afterwards, with a much clearer voice than he spoke in before, and in a tone I never shall forget, ‘Oh, my country! how I leave my country!’ [referring, as it was natural for him to do, to the disastrous state of the continental war produced by the battle of Austerlitz.] From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle,” 23rd January, 1806. He received the Sacrament from the Bishop of Lincoln. Mr. Pitt gave his watch to his servant, who handed it over to Mr. Dundas, M.P., more than twenty years after Mr. Pitt’s death. That watch, a mourning-ring, and box containing the hair, were bequeathed to the Rt. Hon. R. N. Hamilton; and the watch is now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cambridge.

“Pitt is the most forgiving and easy-tempered of men,” says Lord Malmesbury. “He is the most upright political character I ever knew or heard of,” says Wilberforce. “I never once saw him out of temper,” says George Rose. One day, when the conversation turned upon the quality most needed in a Prime Minister, and one said “Eloquence,” another “Knowledge,” and a third “Toil,” Pitt said, “No; Patience.” It was an answer worthy of the great statesman, and recalls that of Newton, who said that he owed his splendid discoveries to the power of fixed attention. Pitt was wonderfully patient, and this which is commonly regarded as a slow virtue he combined with uncommon readiness and rapidity of thought. “What an extraordinary man Pitt is!” said Adam Smith; “he makes me understand my own ideas better than before.” The Marquis Wellesley has left this character of Pitt—a man of princely hospitality and amiable nature:

“In all places, and at all times, his constant delight was society. There he shone with a degree of calm and steady lustre which often astonished me more than his most splendid efforts in Parliament. His manners were perfectly plain, without any affectation; not only was he without presumption or arrogance, or any air of authority, but he seemed utterly unconscious of his own superiority, and much more disposed to listen than to talk. He never betrayed any symptom of anxiety to usurp the lead or to display his own powers, but rather inclined to draw forth others, and to take merely an equal share in the general conversation: then he plunged heedlessly into the mirth of the hour, with no other care than to promote the general good humour and happiness of the company. His wit was quick and ready, but it was rather lively than sharp, and never envenomed with the least taint of malignity; so that, instead of exciting admiration or terror, it was an additional ingredient in the common enjoyment. He was endowed, beyond any man of his time whom I knew, with a gay and social heart. With these qualities, he was the life and soul of his own society; his appearance dispelled all care; his brow was never clouded, even in the severest public trials; and joy, and hope, and confidence, beamed from his countenance in every crisis of difficulty and danger.”—Communicated to the Quarterly Review.

This was “the Heaven-born Minister.” This was “the pilot to weather the storm.” This is he who stands forth as the greatest of our statesmen, and the story of whose life, as fitly told by Lord Stanhope, will have undying interest throughout the world.

Who would have supposed forty years ago that a day was coming when a Frenchman would unhesitatingly write the apology—we had almost said the panegyric—of William Pitt—ce Pitt, as the members of the Jacobin Club used to call him? And yet such is the case. By way of preface to a translation of Lord Stanhope’s last work, M. Guizot has given a very good estimate both of the political relation in which England stands to France, and also of the character of the great British statesman. He conclusively shows that Pitt was positively opposed to a war with France, and did all he could to prevent the inevitable catastrophe.

What drove George the Third mad.

How strange is it to find, upon a close examination of the biography of Mr. Pitt, that early in the present century, the mention of the measure which twenty-eight years later became the law of the land, had the effect of disturbing the reason of the Sovereign: yet so it was. “Pitt had become in a manner pledged on the union of the Irish with the British Legislature to provide for what has since been called the Emancipation of the Catholics. The probability is, that from the first he had underrated the King’s repugnance to the measure; but it has been suggested that had there been no treachery in the camp, and had he been the first to broach the subject to George III., he might have had his own way, and carried the acquiescence of the King. As it was, Lord Loughborough had, contrary to all rule, made the King aware of Pitt’s intentions, and had, for his own selfish purposes, sought to strengthen His Majesty in a most absurd view of his duty. So it happened that instead of Pitt breaking the subject to the King, the King, in a fit of impatience, breaks out upon Dundas. Referring to Lord Castlereagh, who had recently come from Dublin, he said, “What is it that this young lord has brought over which they are going to throw at my head?... The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of! I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure.” “Your Majesty,” replied Dundas, “will find among those who are friendly to that measure some whom you never supposed to be your enemies.” The time for action had evidently come: it was necessary for Pitt to break the silence; he wrote to the King explaining his views, and pointing out that if they were not acceptable it would be necessary for him to resign. Pitt did resign; his successor was appointed, but before the formal transfer of office could take place, the King went mad, and it was this Catholic question that drove him mad. He recovered in a fortnight and told his physician to write to Pitt, “Tell him I am now quite well—quite recovered from my illness; but what has he not to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?” Pitt was deeply touched, and at once conveyed an assurance to the King through the same physician that never again during the King’s reign would he bring forward the Catholic question. Previous to that illness, Pitt had two clear alternatives before him—“Either I shall relieve the Catholics, or I shall resign,”—and he resigned accordingly. But after the illness all was changed. Any one attempting to relieve the Catholics would incur the risk of the King’s derangement. There was but a choice of evils, and it was natural that Pitt should regard it as the lesser evil to postpone indefinitely the settlement of the Catholic claims, which, nevertheless, he regarded as of the utmost importance.”—Times review.

The Rt. Hon. George Rose, when Secretary of the Treasury, had frequent conversations with George III., whom he occasionally received at his house at Cuffnells. Evidently the King took the lion’s share in every dialogue. His remarks and his gossip must have been often amusing, and not always uninstructive. He invariably turned the conversation to personal subjects, and he commented freely on the numerous politicians whom he had in his time employed and baffled. He had a peculiar dislike to Lord Melville, he resented Lord Grenville’s pride, and he accurately described Lord Auckland as an inveterate intriguer. Of himself he said that he seldom forgot and never forgave, but that he always tried to believe the best of every man until he had proved his demerit. Many, he added, improved when they found that they had received more than justice; but it never occurred to him that his own opinion might not form an accurate and sufficient standard of merit.

During the latter part of the time, George III., notwithstanding the continuance of some delusions, was perfectly competent to understand the state of affairs, and there was every reason to suppose that he would become convalescent before his son could take his seat as Regent. For the remainder of his reign, his Ministers and his subjects regarded his occasional insanity as one of the ordinary contingencies of the Constitution. Mr. Pitt, during his second Administration, sometimes obtained from the physicians a written certificate of the King’s competence before he entered his presence for the transaction of business.

Predictions of the Downfal of Napoleon I.

Brialmont and Gleig, in their Memoirs of Wellington, relate—Mr. Pitt received, during dinner, when Sir Arthur Wellesley and other eminent persons were present, intelligence of the capitulation of Mack, at Ulm, and the march of the Emperor upon Vienna. One of the friends of the Prime Minister, on hearing of the reverse, exclaimed, “All is lost! there are no other means of opposing Napoleon.” “You are mistaken,” said Pitt, “there is yet hope, if I can succeed in stirring up a national war in Europe—a war which ought to begin in Spain. Yes, gentlemen, Spain will be the first nation in which that war of patriotism shall be lighted up which can alone deliver Europe.”

At a moment when the prestige of the Empire was accepted everywhere, Wellington not only expressed doubts as to the stability of that edifice, which seemed as if it must endure for ages, but pointed out distinctly the causes which must operate to throw it down, and the means by which its fall might be hastened. From that hour, whilst prosecuting the war in Spain, he took care as much as possible, to regulate his own proceedings according to the general state of Europe. Something told him that the little army on the Mondego had a mighty part to play in the sanguinary drama which agitated the world; and that not the fate of the Peninsula alone was at stake, nor yet the question of England’s supremacy, but the independence and liberty of all nations, menaced by the ambition of one man.

In December, 1811, Wellington wrote to Lord William Bentinck: “I have long considered it probable that we shall see a general resistance throughout Europe to the horrible and base tyranny of Bonaparte, and that we shall be called upon to play a leading part in the drama, as counsellors as well as actors.”

In a letter to Lord Liverpool, in 1811, Wellington wrote: “I am convinced, that if we can only hold out a little longer, we shall see the world emancipated.” And to Dumouriez, July, 1811: “It is impossible that Europe can much longer submit to the debasing tyranny which oppresses it.”

Brialmont and Gleig summarily observe: “It may truly be said that the Duke foretold in succession, the final success of the war in Spain—the influence which that war would exercise over public opinion in other nations—the general rising of Europe against Bonaparte—the fall of the Empire—the disastrous campaign in Russia—and the awakening of the public spirit in Germany.”

When, in 1807, Haydon dined with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, he met there Humphry Davy, who was very entertaining, and made a remark which turned out a singularly successful prophecy; he said, “Napoleon will certainly come in contact with Russia, by pressing forward in Poland, and there, probably, will begin his destruction.” This was said five years before it happened.

Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, first raised Haydon’s enthusiasm for Wellington by saying, one day, at table, “If you live to see it, he will be a second Marlborough.”

Wellington predicts the Peninsular Campaign.

The following is illustrative of the prophetic perception of Wellington at the outset of the contest:—“He dined in Harley-street one day in June, 1808, just before he set out in command of the expedition which was assembling in Cork harbour. The ladies had withdrawn, and he sat tête-à-tête with his host, and was silent. On being asked what he was thinking of, he replied, ’To tell you the truth, I was thinking of the French whom I am going to fight. I have never seen them since the campaign in Flanders, when they were already capital soldiers; and a dozen years of successes must have made them still better. They have beaten all the world, and are supposed to be invincible. They have besides, it seems, a new system, which has out-manœuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of Europe. But no matter, my die is cast. They may overwhelm, but I do not think they will out-manœuvre me. In the first place, I am not afraid of them, as everybody else seems to be; and secondly, if what I hear of their system of manœuvres be true, I think it a false one against troops steady enough—as I hope mine are—to receive them with the bayonet. I suspect that all the continental armies were more than half beaten before the battle began. I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.’”

The Battle of Waterloo.

M. Thiers, in the 20th volume of his Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, presents to his reader a tissue of intellectual illusions in his extraordinary account of the last struggle of Napoleon in Belgium. Common sense and history agree that that effort bears many traces of his hero’s genius, though marked by one characteristic mistake, and that it was baffled by the ability of his antagonists, who crushed him at last by superior numbers. This volume, however, has been written to prove that in every move in this famous contest Napoleon was an infallible commander; that victory must have crowned his standards had his inspiration been only understood; and that his final overthrow was due, not to Wellington’s skill or Blucher’s daring—not to British heroism or Prussian valour, but to the errors and fears of his subordinates. Deserting the region of fact and circumstance, M. Thiers leads us into a dream-land, where the Emperor, like a strategic Providence, holds his puny foes in the hollow of his hand, and predestinates his legions to conquest—where the French army performs prodigies beyond the energies of mortal men—where but for Ney, D’Erlon, and Grouchy, the downfal of its adversaries was certain—and where the inability of these satellites to launch the bolts of military fate was the only cause of the final issue. The above and the following remarks are from The Times review,—

Why the issue of this campaign was so different from that of many of its splendid forerunners may be accounted for with perfect certainty. The Duke and Blucher were different men, of greater ability, and better united than the Generals of any previous coalition, and the large majority of their troops were capable of heroic exertions. The Duke was not the man to allow an accident of time to ruin an ally, and at the crisis of the campaign, on the 16th, he baffled the Emperor by his tactical skill and the intrepidity of his British infantry. Of the subsequent moves by which he won the greatest battle of modern times, it is enough to say that they defy criticism, while the heroism of two-thirds of his army has not been surpassed in military annals. As for the Prussian troops, their stand at Ligny and their subsequent rally and advance to Waterloo, are worthy of the highest commendation; and Blucher’s celebrated march from Wavre is said to have wrung from Napoleon himself the admission that “it was a flash of genius.” It was this combination of talent and valour, unlike anything he had encountered before, that brought the superior numbers of the allies to bear upon Napoleon at last, and involved him and his army in ruin.

As for the armies that met in this bloody strife, we Englishmen think it enough to say that, except the Belgian and Nassau levies, they all did their duty like soldiers. The weak falsetto of M. Thiers detracts from the manhood of that dauntless cavalry “who rode round our squares like their own,” and from the renown of that veteran infantry “who bore nine rounds before they staggered.” Nor will the heroism of Ligny be forgotten, nor the glory of England at Waterloo fade, because an historian chooses to write that the Prussian army “was well beaten,” and that the “English, excellent in defence, are very mediocre on the offensive.” At this time, surely, a French historian might describe the campaign of 1815 with a candid regard to truth alone, and without pandering to the ignoble worship of military despotism.

Wellington’s Defence of the Waterloo Campaign.

Wellington would never have fought at Waterloo unless certain of the aid of Blucher; it is idle, therefore, to speculate on the chance of what the event of the day might have been had this support been unexpectedly wanting. French writers assert that he must have been crushed; but the Duke held a different opinion. The Rev. Mr. Gleig tells us that—

“After dinner the conversation turned on the Waterloo campaign, when Croker alluded to the criticisms of the French military writers, some of whom contended that the Duke had fought the battle in a position full of difficulty, because he had no practicable retreat. The Duke said: ‘At all events, they failed in putting it to the test. The road to Brussels was practicable every yard for such a purpose. I knew every foot of the ground beyond the forest and through it. The forest on each side of the chaussée was open enough for infantry, cavalry, and even for artillery, and very defensible. Had I retreated through it, could they have followed me? The Prussians were on their flank, and would have been on their rear. The co-operation of the Prussians in the operations I undertook was part of my plan, and I was not deceived. But I never contemplated a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from my position, I should have retreated to my right, towards the coast, the shipping, and my resources. I had placed Hill where he could have lent me important assistance in many contingencies, and that might have been one. And, again, I ask, if I had retreated on my right, would Napoleon have ventured to have followed me? The Prussians, already on his flank, would have been on his rear. But my plan was to keep my ground till the Prussians appeared, and then to attack the French position; and I executed my plan.’”

It matters little whether it be a pleasing tradition or an historical fact, but it was commonly said that after the Peace, which crowned the immortal services of the Duke of Wellington, that great general, on seeing the playing-fields at Eton, said, there had been won the crowning victory of Waterloo.

Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna.

By the publication of the Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, vol. ix., the reputation of Lord Castlereagh will profit by such of his letters as had not appeared before. A writer in the Saturday Review remarks:—

“Contemporaries saw that many small States were crushed by the arrangements of Vienna, and that one or two of the larger monarchies, especially that of Russia, were sensibly strengthened. Therefore they concluded that the aim and end of the Congress of Vienna was to aggrandise the greater monarchies, and that the English Minister, biassed by political prejudices or dazzled by royal condescension, had unworthily lent himself to the accomplishment of that object. As the confidential correspondence of that period makes its appearance bit by bit, we are learning to form a juster estimate of what Lord Castlereagh effected at the Congress. It is hard to set limits to the evils which would have been the result of greater facility or less caution on the part of the English plenipotentiary. That Alexander would, but for Lord Castlereagh’s obstinate resistance, have absorbed the whole of Poland into the Russian empire, and that Prussia would have indemnified herself by the annexation of the whole of Saxony, appears certain; and that France and Austria would have plunged Europe back into war, in their efforts to resist, seems not improbable. The greediness of the Powers who had met to divide the spoil threatened incessantly to bring them into collision; and it was on Lord Castlereagh that the ungracious task of moderating their extravagant pretensions fell. If he had failed, and the Congress had come to the abrupt and angry close which seemed more than once inevitable, Napoleon’s return would have been safe and easy. It was hard, but it was unavoidable, that those who only saw the result in a considerable accession to Alexander’s frontier, should have accused Lord Castlereagh of being his tool, when he had been, in reality, resisting Alexander’s pretensions up to the very brink of war.”

This late justice to the eminent diplomatic services of Lord Castlereagh, reaches us some forty years after his death; thus giving the lie to the coarse and unfeeling ribaldry of the so-called “Liberal,” upon the awful termination of the statesman’s life.

The Cato-street Conspiracy.

Early in the year 1820—a period of popular discontent—a set of desperate men banded themselves together with a view to effect a revolution by sanguinary means, almost as complete in its plan of extermination as the Gunpowder Plot. The leader was one Arthur Thistlewood, who had been a soldier, had been involved in a trial for sedition, but acquitted, and had afterwards suffered a year’s imprisonment for sending a challenge to the minister, Lord Sidmouth. Thistlewood was joined by several other Radicals, and their meetings in Gray’s-Inn-lane were known to the spies Oliver and Edwards, employed by the Government. Their first design was to assassinate the Ministers, each in his own house; but their plot was changed, and Thistlewood and his fellow conspirators arranged to meet at Cato-street, Edgeware-road, and to proceed from thence to butcher the Ministers assembled at a Cabinet dinner, on Feb. 23rd, at Lord Harrowby’s, 39, Grosvenor-square, where Thistlewood proposed, as “a rare haul, to murder them all together.” Some of the conspirators were to watch Lord Harrowby’s house; one was to call and deliver a despatch-box at the door, the others were then to rush in and murder the Ministers as they sat at dinner; and, as special trophies, to bring away with them the heads of Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh, in two bags provided for the purpose! They were then to fire the cavalry-barracks; and the Bank and Tower were to be taken by the people, who, it was hoped, would rise upon the spread of the news.

This plot was, however, revealed to the Ministers by Edwards, who had joined the conspirators as a spy. Still no notice was apparently taken. The preparations for dinner went on at Lord Harrowby’s till eight o’clock in the evening, but the guests did not arrive. The Archbishop of York, who lived next door, happened to give a dinner-party at the same hour, and the arrival of the carriages deceived those of the conspirators who were on the watch in the street, till it was too late to give warning to their comrades who had assembled at Cato-street, in a loft over a stable, accessible only by a ladder. Here, while the traitors were arming themselves by the light of one or two candles, a party of Bow-street officers entered the stable, when Smithers, the first of them who mounted the ladder, and attempted to seize Thistlewood, was run by him through the body, and instantly fell; whilst, the lights being extinguished, a few shots were exchanged in the darkness and confusion, and Thistlewood and several of his companions escaped through a window at the back of the premises; nine were taken that evening with their arms and ammunition, and the intelligence conveyed to the Ministers, who, having dined at home, met at Lord Liverpool’s to await the result of what the Bow-street officers had done. A reward of 1000l. was immediately offered for the apprehension of Thistlewood, and he was captured before eight o’clock next morning while in bed at a friend’s house, No. 8, White-street, Little Moorfields. The conspirators were sent to the Tower, and were the last persons imprisoned in that fortress. On April 20th, Thistlewood was condemned to death after three days’ trial; and on May 1st, he and his four principal accomplices, Ings, Brunt, Tidd, and Davidson, who had been severally tried and convicted, were hanged at the Old Bailey, and their heads cut off. The remaining six pleaded guilty; one was pardoned, and five were transported for life.

Southey relates this touching anecdote of Thistlewood’s last hours:—

“When the desperate and atrocious traitor Thistlewood was on the scaffold, his demeanour was that of a man who was resolved boldly to meet the fate he had deserved; in the few words which were exchanged between him and his fellow-criminals, he observed, that the grand question whether or not the soul was immortal would soon be solved for them. No expression of hope escaped him; no breathing of repentance, no spark of grace, appeared. Yet (it is a fact which, whether it be more consolatory or awful, ought to be known), on the night after the sentence, and preceding his execution, while he supposed that the person who was appointed to watch him in his cell was asleep, this miserable man was seen by that person repeatedly to rise upon his knees, and heard repeatedly calling upon Christ his Saviour to have mercy upon him, and to forgive him his sins.”—The Doctor, chap. lxxi.

The selection of Cato-street for the conspirators’ meeting was accidental; and the street itself is associated but indirectly in name with the Roman patriot and philosopher. To efface recollection of the conspiracy of the low and desperate politicians of 1820, Cato-street has been changed to Homer-street.

Money Panic of 1832.

When, in May, 1832, the Duke of Wellington was very unpopular as a minister, and it was believed that he had formed a Cabinet which, it was thought, would add to his unpopularity, a few agitators got up “a run upon the Bank of England,” by means of placarding the streets of London with the emphatic words:—

TO STOP
THE DUKE,
GO FOR GOLD.

advice which was followed to a prodigious extent. On Monday, May 14, (the bills having been profusely posted on Sunday!) the run upon the Bank for coin was so incessant, that in a few hours upwards of half a million was carried off: we remember a tradesman in the Strand bringing home, in a hackney-coach, 2000 sovereigns. Mr. Doubleday, in his Life of Sir Robert Peel, states the placards to have been “the device of four gentlemen, two of whom were elected members of the Reformed Parliament. Each put down 20l.; and the sum was expended in printing thousands of these terrible missives, which were eagerly circulated, and were speedily seen upon every wall in London. The effect is hardly to be described. It was electric.” The agent was a tradesman of kindred politics, in business towards the east end of Oxford-street; and it must be admitted that he executed the order completely.

A Great Sufferer by Revolutions.

King Louis of Bavaria, who abdicated after an insurrection in 1848, has seen his family extensively affected by the dynastic changes which have taken place since 1859. His second son is Otho, the ex-King of Greece, born on the 1st of June, 1815; his third, Luitpold, is married to the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; one of his daughters to the Duke of Modena; and one of his grandsons, or his youngest son Adalbert, was to have succeeded Otho on the throne of Greece. Lastly, the Queen of Naples and her sister, the Countess de Trani, belong to a collateral branch of the Royal family, that of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. The House of Wittelsbach has therefore suffered most materially from the revolutions of Germany, Italy, and Greece, and its members might give a second representation of the famous dinner at Venice mentioned in Voltaire’s Candide.—Le Temps.

Origin of the Anti-Corn-Law League.

The first hint of this great political Association is to be found in the writings of the very individual whose labours tended so much to crown its efforts with success. In the well-known pamphlet, entitled England, Ireland, and America, by a Manchester Manufacturer, Mr. Cobden says:

“Whilst agriculture can boast almost as many associations as there are British counties, whilst every city in the kingdom contains its botanical, phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these again possess their periodical journals (and not merely these, for even war sends forth its United Service Magazine)—we possess no association of traders, united together, for the common object of enlightening the world upon a question so little understood, and so loaded with obloquy, as free-trade.

“We have our Banksian, our Linnæan, our Hunterian Societies, and why should not at least our greatest commercial and manufacturing towns possess their Smithian Societies, devoted to the purpose of promulgating the beneficent truths of the ‘Wealth of Nations’? Such institutions, by promoting a correspondence with similar societies that would probably be organized abroad (for it is our example in questions affecting commerce that strangers follow), might contribute to the spread of liberal and just views of political science, and thus tend to ameliorate the restrictive policy of foreign governments through the legitimate influence of the opinions of its people.

“Nor would such societies be fruitless at home. Prizes might be offered for the best essay on the corn question, or lecturers might be sent to enlighten the agriculturists, and to invite discussion upon a subject so difficult and of such paramount interest to all.”

The pamphlet from which the preceding extract is taken, was published in the early part of the year 1835, about four years before the formation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and at a time when, owing to the very low price of grain, and the prosperity of the manufacturing districts, the question of the Corn-laws scarcely attracted the slightest attention, either in Manchester or in any other part of the country.

Wellington’s Military Administration.

Much misconception exists with respect to the military administration of the Duke of Wellington, who was, at the close of his life, commander-in-chief of the army. He is said to have been wedded to “Brown Bess,” but he is known to have encouraged the introduction of the Minié; and several of the reforms executed by Lord Herbert had been discussed by the Duke with approval. The celebrated letter of 1847 shows what were the thoughts of this great man in reference to our national defences, and they are not perhaps the least valuable legacy which Wellington has bequeathed to England. The following scheme of defence by the Duke, which Mr. Gleig for the first time published, is not perhaps the less interesting because it has been in part accomplished:—

“He considered the Channel Islands—Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney—to be the key of our outer line of defence. In each of these he required that a harbour of refuge should be constructed of sufficient capacity and depth of water to receive a stout squadron; and then, with Portsmouth well guarded on one flank and Plymouth on the other, he held that England would be perfectly safe from invasion on a large scale.... If Government gave him the Channel Islands, Seaford, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, all completely fortified, and ready to receive respectively their squadrons, then he was satisfied that, though it might be impossible to prevent marauding parties from landing here or there, England would be placed beyond the risk of invasion on such a scale as to endanger her existence, or even to put the capital in jeopardy.... Establishing then an outer line of defence, he asked for men and material wherewith to meet an enemy if he succeeded in breaking through that line. He would be satisfied with an addition of 20,000 men to the regular army, provided such a force of Militia were raised as would enable him to dispose of 70,000 men among the principal fortresses and arsenals of the kingdom; keeping at the same time two corps of 50,000 men in hand, one in the neighbourhood of London, the other near Dublin. He should thus have open to him all the great lines of railway, which would enable him to meet with rapidity any danger, from whatever side of the capital it might threaten.”

If we read Volunteers for Militia, we shall see that Wellington’s plan of defence is nearly that contemplated in 1863.

Gustavus III. of Sweden.

In a paper contributed to the Royal Society of Literature, Dr. Hermann has traced the eventful history of the Swedish monarch with great skill, from the period when he ascended the throne, in 1771, to his assassination by Ankerström at the masked ball in 1792. Dr. Hermann shows that Gustavus united in his own person and character most of those qualities, intellectual and moral, which distinguished the latter half of the eighteenth century. Thus, like Catherine of Russia and Frederick the Great, though not to the same extent, he was a believer in those doctrines whose chief expositors were Voltaire and the Encyclopædists; while, in the government of his country, he was ever striving after a system of optimism, which, however beautiful in theory, is wholly impracticable. The reign of Gustavus is chiefly remarkable for the spirit with which he broke down a tyranny of certain noble families, which had long usurped nearly the whole of the royal prerogative, and had thrown the monarch into the background; for the zeal with which he carried out many reforms of the greatest benefit to the more indigent classes of his people; for the remarkable rashness with which, unsupported by a single other European power, he rushed madly into a war with the Russian Empress; and for the extraordinary victory in which, at the close of his second campaign, in July, 1791, he destroyed the entire Russian fleet, in the Bay of Swöborg, and captured no less than 1412 Russian cannon.

The assassin, Ankerström, was discovered and executed: in his character and in his last moments, a striking similarity may be traced to Bellingham, who assassinated Mr. Perceval in 1812: both expressed the same fanatical satisfaction at the perpetration of the crime, and the same presumptuous confidence of pardon from the Almighty.

Gustavus, in his parting moments, strictly forbad, for fifty years, the opening of the chests at Upsal, in which his papers were deposited; and the injunction was strictly obeyed. On March 30, 1842, the chests were opened, in the presence of many spectators; but in neither was found, as was expected, any clue to the conspiracy of which Ankerström was the agent; but the king’s autograph instructions do not refer to any papers later than 1788, when the bequest was made. The Swedish instructions, in Gustavus’s handwriting, prove that the king enjoyed the reputation of being a great author without even knowing how to spell.—See Curiosities of History, p. 107.

Fall of Louis-Philippe.

Sir John Herschel, in a paper on Humboldt’s Kosmos, in the Edinburgh Review, January, 1848, has the following sentence, which reads strangely now, for it was given to the public just before the catastrophe which overthrew the throne of Louis-Philippe, and led in a few months to the Italian and Hungarian wars. Herschel’s words are: “A great and wondrous attempt is making in civilized Europe at the present time—neither more nor less than to stave off, ad infinitum, the tremendous visitation of war.” The retrospect has been thus sketched:

Seventeen years Louis-Philippe sat on his elective throne: great increase of wealth and physical progress were the results of his reign at home, peace preserved abroad, and foreign policy alike successful; yet the King was not popular at home. He was hated alike by the Legitimist party, in whose eyes he was but a usurper, and by the revolutionists, who sighed for entire emancipation from kingly rule. Besides, there are deep and dark stains upon the reign of the “Napoleon of Peace,” as Louis-Philippe liked to be called. His reign was a period of corruption in high places, of jealousy and illiberal restriction towards his own subjects, of a fraudulent and heartless policy towards the allies of his country, whose good will he more especially forfeited by his over-reaching conduct in regard to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier to a Spanish princess. His downfal was long predicted by the leading journalists of England, where public opinion is unfettered by arbitrary laws. In France, too, it was understood that Louis-Philippe was, in great measure, restrained in his views by his sister, Madame Adelaide, who died Dec. 30, 1847. “Then it came to pass that the heart of the nation became alienated from their king; and when a trifling disturbance in February, 1848, was aggravated into a popular riot through the audacity of a few ultra-republicans, Louis-Philippe felt that he stood alone and unsupported as a constitutional king, both at home and abroad, and that the soldiery were his only means of defence. He shrank from employing their bayonets against his people: he fell in consequence, and his house fell with him. The King fled in disguise from Paris to the coast of Normandy, and taking ship again found a safe refuge on the shores of England, to which his family had already made their escape. He landed at Newhaven, March 3rd, 1848. The Queen of England—who, in 1843, had enjoyed the hospitality of Louis-Philippe at the Château d’Eu, his royal residence near Dieppe, and who had entertained him in the following year at Windsor, and conferred on him the order of the Garter—immediately assigned Claremont, near Esher, as a residence for himself and his exiled family. From the time of his arrival in England, his health began visibly to decline: he died on the 26th of August, 1850, in the presence of Queen Amelie and his family, having dictated to them the conclusion of his memoirs, and having received the last rites and sacraments of the church at the hands of his chaplain. He was buried on the following 2nd of September at the Roman Catholic chapel at Weybridge, Surrey, and an inscription was placed upon his coffin, stating that his ashes remain there, Donec Deo adjuvante in patriam avitos inter cineres transferantur” (Saturday Review). They have not been removed!

The Chartists in 1848.

The Tenth of April, 1848, is a noted day in our political calendar, from its presenting a remarkable instance of nipping in the bud apparent danger to the peace of the country by means at once constitutional and reassuring public safety. It was on this day that the Chartists, as they were called, from developing their proposed alterations in the representative system, through “the People’s Charter,” made in the metropolis a great demonstration of their numbers: thus hinting at the physical force which they possessed, but probably without any serious design against the public peace. On this day the Chartists met, about 25,000 in number, on Kennington Common, whence it had been intended to march in procession to the House of Commons with the Charter petition; but the authorities having intimated that the procession would be prevented by force if attempted, it was abandoned. Nevertheless, the assembling of the quasi politicians from the north, by marching through the streets to the place of meeting, had an imposing effect. Great preparations were made to guard against any mischief; the shops were shut in the principal thoroughfares; bodies of horse and foot police, assisted by masses of special constables, were posted at the approaches to the Thames bridges; a large force of the regular troops was stationed out of sight in convenient spots; two regiments of the line were kept ready at Millbank Penitentiary; 1200 infantry at Deptford, and 30 pieces of heavy field ordnance were ready at the Tower, to be transported by hired steamers to any required point. The Meeting was held, but was brought to “a ridiculous issue, by the unity and resolution of the Metropolis, backed by the judicious measures of the Government, and the masterly military precautions of the Duke of Wellington.”

“On our famous 10th of April, his peculiar genius was exerted to the unspeakable advantage of peace and order. So effective were his preparations that the most serious insurrection could have been successfully encountered, and yet every source of provocation and alarm was removed by the dispositions adopted. No military display was anywhere to be seen. The troops and the cannon were all at their posts, but neither shako nor bayonet was visible; and for all that met the eye, it might have been concluded that the peace of the metropolis was still entrusted to the keeping of its own citizens. As an instance, however, of his forecast against the worst, on this memorable occasion, it may be observed that orders were given to the commissioned officers of artillery to take the discharge of their pieces on themselves. The Duke knew that a cannon-shot too much or too little might change the aspect of the day; and he provided by these remarkable instructions, both for imperturbable forbearance as long as forbearance was best, and for unshrinking action when the moment for action came.”—Memoir; Times, Sept. 15-16, 1852.

The Chartists’ Petition was presented to the Commons, on the above day, signed, it was stated, by 5,706,000 persons. The principal points of the Charter were universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, the abolition of property qualification in members, and paying them for their services. Chartism and the People’s Charter grew out of the shortcomings of the Reform Act. The Chartists then divided into the Physical Force and the Moral Force Chartists; and then arose the Complete Suffragists; the latter principally from the Middle Classes, the former from the working-classes; though their objects were very similar.

Revival of the French Emperorship.

Soon after the breaking-out of the French Revolution, in 1848, the Count d’Orsay called at the office of the Lady’s Newspaper, in the Strand, and besought the proprietor, Mr. Landells, to engrave in that journal a portrait which he (the Count) had sketched of Louis Napoleon. The proprietor hesitated, when the Count told him it was the Prince’s intention to go over to France; and he added, emphatically, “the English people do not understand him; but, take my word for it, if he once goes over to France, the French people will never get rid of him.” This prediction has been strictly verified: the assertion was equally correct, that the English people did not understand the Emperor.

Mr. B. Ferrey, in a communication to Notes and Queries, 3rd S., remarks:—“For a considerable time, Napoleon was held up to ridicule by the Press of England; yet there were some who then foretold his coming greatness, while the multitude charged him with folly and rashness. Mr. William Brockedon, author of Passes of the Alps, who was well acquainted with the Prince’s habits, used to say, at the period when the Prince, amidst much derision, was aspiring to become the President of the French Republic,—‘Mark my words, that man is not the fool people take him for: he only waits an opportunity to show himself one of the most able men in Europe;’ justifying this prediction by relating a discussion he had heard at a public meeting, between the Prince and some civil engineers, respecting a projected railway across the Isthmus of Panama, in which the former displayed great ability, showing an amount of scientific knowledge which amazed everybody present; not only stating his case with clearness, but combating all objections in a most masterly way.”

The newspapers of London, with one “base exception,” condemned the French choice; and after Louis Napoleon had taken the first step towards the establishment of his rule, the journalists foretold his speedy failure: the “base exception,” the Morning Post, predicted the reverse, and maintained Louis Napoleon to be the only man capable of rescuing France from the throes of revolution. We happen to know that for another journal of very extensive circulation, chiefly among the influential classes, a leading article of similar tone and confidence to that of the Morning Post, was written by the Editor, but omitted by desire of the Proprietor, and an article of opposite tone substituted: the advocacy would have been too bold a step for the time.

The career of Louis Napoleon has been well described as a great revival in the fortunes of France, the accomplishment of which has been the result of a far-seeing estimate of the French character; thus sketched by a master hand:

“Louis Bonaparte seems to have had the key of the mystery. It may be that, as in the human subject, one part of the system acts upon another, so that a disorder of the brain may affect other seemingly unconnected organs, so political discontent, even though without any just cause, may deaden the enterprise of a people. How else could it be that France, with a citizen King, a philosophical Minister, and the alliance of a nation of shopkeepers, could not be made to feel that her greatness must henceforth be dependent on her mercantile enterprise? While she saw not only England and America, but the German States, making long strides to the attainment of wealth, she lagged behind, and encouraged among the rising generation the delusion that business was unworthy of a warlike and gifted people. That this generation has thoroughly unlearnt the doctrines which were fashionable in its youth, is certainly among the achievements of Napoleon III. If we look back to the days of Louis Philippe, when, though even Germany had its railways and its electric telegraph, we jolted out of Paris in the diligence and saw the old semaphores at work, we shall be able to appreciate the change which ten years of Imperialism have made.”—Times, Jan. 29, 1862.

French Coup d’Etat Predictions.

The late Baron Alderson, in a letter to Mrs. Opie, written just after the intelligence of the Coup d’Etat had arrived, hazards rather a curious speculation with regard to the probable issue of this unexpected crisis. He was just on the point of starting for Paris when the news reached him, and put an end to the expedition:

“I was going there [he writes to Mrs. Opie], but of course do not dream of it now. They seem in a bad way. A nation so unfit for freedom—if that be freedom which requires those who love it to be first wise and good—does not exist. The Celts seem to me to be ‘a bad lot.’ I suppose it will end in Louis Napoleon’s becoming dictator, and then (not unlikely), being shot by an assassin, and the game will begin over again then. The fear is, that the Prætorian guards will make him go to war for their own profit. It is a fearful crisis, I think: and the best that can happen will be for him to be made King or Emperor, and hold his ground in spite of conscience, oaths, and faith which he pledged to the Republic.”

Statesmanship of Lord Melbourne.

Sir Bulwer Lytton, in an eloquent lecture upon the historical and intellectual associations of Hertfordshire, pays this willing tribute to the character of Viscount Melbourne; referring to “the fair park of Brocket, which our posterity will find historical as the favourite residence of one who, if not among the greatest Ministers who have swayed this country, was one of the most accomplished and honourable men who ever attained to the summit of constitutional ambition. And it is a striking anecdote of Lord Melbourne, that he once said in my own hearing—‘He rejoiced to have been Prime Minister, for he had thus learnt that men were much better, much more swayed by conscience and honour, than he had before supposed;’ a saying honourable to the Minister, and honourable still more to the public virtue of Englishmen.”

Lord Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in his preferences he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and here is the Premier’s very judicious reply:—

“My dear John;—I return you Moore’s letter. I shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: ‘You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you starve or not.’—Believe me, &c.

“Melbourne.”

Ungraceful Observance.

Mr. Torrens M‘Cullagh, in his Life of Sir James Graham, relates the following instance of want of graciousness in this unpopular statesman. In 1837, on the death of King William, Lord John Russell came to the bar of the House of Commons charged with a Message from the Queen. Hats were immediately ordered off, and even the Speaker announced from the chair that members must be uncovered. Every one present complied with the injunction except Sir James Graham, who continued to wear his hat until the first words of the Message were pronounced. His doing so was the subject of some unpleasant remarks in the newspapers; and at the meeting of the House next day he rose to explain that in not taking off his hat until the word Regina was uttered he but followed the old and established custom—a custom which he deemed better than that observed by everybody else in the House. The Speaker then said that Sir James Graham was quite right, that he was strictly within rule in not uncovering until the initiatory word of the Message was delivered. If Sir James Graham had the letter of the law on his side, still there was a stiffness in his conduct which, considering that the message came from a young Queen, and was her first message to her faithful Commons, was not over attractive.

The Partition of Poland.

Some twenty years before the dismemberment of Poland, this disgraceful act was foretold by Lord Chesterfield, in Letter CCCIV., dated Dec. 25, 1753, commencing with “The first squabble in Europe that I foresee, will be about the crown of Poland.” The leading data of the fall of Poland will show how far this prediction was realized. Poland was dismembered by the Emperor of Germany, the Empress of Russia, and the King of Prussia, who seized the most valuable territories in 1772.

At the bottom of the Convention signed on the 17th Feb., 1772, we read this declaration of the Empress Queen Maria-Theresa of Austria, dated the 4th March, 1772: “Placet, since so many learned personages will that it should be so; but long after my death it will be seen what will be the result of having thus trampled under foot all that has been hitherto held to be just and sacred.”

The royal and imperial spoliators, on various pretexts, poured their armies into the country in 1792. The brave Poles, under Poniatowski and Kosciusko, several times contended against superior armies, but in the end were defeated. Then followed the battle of Warsaw, Oct. 13, 1794; and Suwarrow’s butchery of 30,000 Poles, of all ages and conditions, in cold blood. We can scarcely believe such wholesale atrocities to have been perpetrated upon European soil within seventy years of the time we are writing. Poland was finally partitioned and its political existence annihilated in 1795. The transaction, in its earlier stage, is detailed in the Annual Register for 1771, 1772, and 1773, supposed to have been written by Edmund Burke. Professor Smythe says, diffidently:—“After all, the situation of Poland was such as almost to afford an exception (perhaps a single exception) in the history of mankind to those general rules of justice that are so essential to the great community of nations. I speak with great hesitation, and you must consider the point yourselves; I do not profess to have thoroughly considered it myself.”—(Lectures on Modern History.) Sir James Mackintosh contributed to the Edinburgh Review a valuable paper on Poland.

The Invasion of England.[2]

In contemplating the possibility of an Invasion, we have some right to count upon the changes which modern civilization has introduced into the methods of warfare. It is not improbable that, if it entered into the French Emperor’s plans to invade England, he would make the attempt upon several points at once. The campaign which he sketched out for the use of the allied generals in the Crimea, and which they rejected as impracticable, was based upon this principle. His forces were to be distributed at various points on the circumference of a circle, of which the enemy was to occupy the centre. The enemy was to have all the advantage of concentration; he and his allies were to have all the weakness of division. It is a mode of fighting which is rather at variance with the old Napoleonic ideas, and which would require an overwhelming force to give it effect. As in military numeration the rule of addition is somewhat at fault,—two and two do not always make four, and 200,000 men cannot be computed as ten times stronger than 20,000—we may rest assured that for the successful invasion of England, whether the attack be made by a single armament or by several, a tremendous force must be necessary; and preparations, which will prevent us from being taken altogether by surprise, must be some time in progress.

We shall have a little time to prepare. There is no necessity for our arming to the teeth, and standing to our guns, as if the Philistines were upon us; for there is no need to play the fire-engines before the fire breaks out; but, on the other hand, if we delay our defences on the plea of saving our money till the danger actually comes, when we shall be able to spend it without stint, “it is as if, for a security against fire, you laid by your money at interest, to be expended in making engines and organizing a proper fire brigade as soon as the conflagration commences.” Sir John Burgoyne adds, by way of practical illustration, that 10,000 additional British infantry would have taken Sebastopol before the month of December, 1854, and saved all the sufferings of the winter campaign; “but not all the boasted wealth of England could supply the British infantry required.”—(Military Opinions.)

Suppose the descent to have taken place where it was least expected. Sir John Burgoyne attributes to the invading force the power of landing with marvellous rapidity. People imagine that because, after long training on a particular beach, Napoleon could embark 100,000 soldiers in a space of time measured by minutes, the process of debarkation on an unknown shore must be proportionately rapid. Perhaps no nation can do these things more quickly than our French friends, but they sometimes exaggerate. On landing in the Crimea, where there was no resistance, they indeed succeeded in throwing 6000 men on shore in about twenty-two minutes; and at the end of nearly seven hours (namely a little before two o’clock) Marshal St. Arnaud sent word to Lord Raglan that the disembarkation was complete. But observe that here were seven hours required to land 23,600 men without opposition, and the fact was that the whole of these French troops had really not landed in the time specified. The Special Correspondent of the Times stated that the French were not more advanced than ourselves in the disembarkation, which was carried on long after sunset. More than this, Sir John Burgoyne asks us to consider what would have been the effect of following St. Arnaud’s proposal to land at the mouth of the Katcha. He raises before us a vision of boats closely packed, and rowing on shore in the proper order at the rate of about two miles an hour. From the first they are exposed to the fire of artillery, and for the last 600 yards to a fire of musketry which they are unable to return. Even a small force could, in such circumstances, have punished the allies severely, although ultimately they might have been unable to prevent a landing. If so, it really seems to us that the invasion of our island, though perfectly possible, is not likely to be the simple stepping on shore which some of our military men seem to regard as within the bounds of possibility.—Times review of Sir John Burgoyne’s “Military Opinions.”

What a Militia can do.

Lord Macaulay, in his epitome of the arguments that were used in the year 1697, against the maintenance of a standing army in England, says, illustratively:—

“Some people, indeed, talked as if a militia could achieve nothing great. But that base doctrine was refuted by all ancient and modern history. What was the Lacedæmonian phalanx in the best days of Lacedæmon? What was the Roman Legion in the best days of Rome? What were the armies that conquered at Cressy, at Poictiers, at Agincourt, at Halidon, or at Flodden? What was that mighty array which Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury?[3] In the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries Englishmen who did not live by the trade of war had made war with success and glory. Were the English of the 17th century so degenerate that they could not be trusted to play the men for their own homesteads and parish churches?”

Gibbon, the historian, who at one part of his life was a captain in the Hampshire regiment of militia, remained ever after sensible of a benefit from it, which he testifies as follows:

“It made me an Englishman, and a soldier. In this powerful service I imbibed the rudiments of the language and science of tactics, which opened a new field of study and observation. The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion; and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers, (the reader may smile,) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire.”—Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 136.

White-Boys.

These ferocious rioters in the south of Ireland, early in the reign of George III., were known by the above name, because, as a mark among themselves in their attacks, they frequently wore a shirt over their clothes. Lord Chesterfield writes in 1765, to the Bishop of Waterford:—“I see that you are in fear again from your White-Boys, and have destroyed a good many of them; but I believe that if the military force had killed half as many landlords it would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. The poor people in Ireland are used worse than negroes by their lords and masters, and their deputies of deputies of deputies.”

Naval Heroes.

The register of the church of Burnham Thorpe contains the entry of Lord Nelson’s birth; with a note by his father recording the investiture of Nelson with the order of the Bath, his rear-admiralship, and creation as Lord Nelson of the Nile, and of Burnham Thorpe. It is somewhat remarkable that three great contemporaneous admirals were all born in one small village of Norfolk—the village of Cockthorpe, which hardly contains more than six houses. The admirals are Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Sir Christopher Minors, and Sir James Narborough; it is also remarkable that this small village and the village of Burnham Thorpe should have produced four such great men.—Proc. Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society.

How Russia is bound to Germany.

In his last Will, Peter the Great said that Russia must endeavour to increase her influence in Germany “by means of marriages, dowries, and annuities;” and that the value of the advice has been properly appreciated by his successors, the Morgen Post, in 1863, thus shows:—

“Prussia was bound to Russia by means of the marriage of Nicholas I. with Alexandra, the daughter of Frederic William III., and it may with truth be said that for a quarter of a century the King of Prussia obeyed the behests of his imperious son-in-law. Würtemberg is bound to Russia by three ties. The first wife of William I. was Catherine of Russia; the Crown Princess of Würtemberg is Olga Nicolajevna; and one of the King’s nieces is the Grand Duchess Helen, widow of the Grand Duke Michael. The Grand Duke of Oldenburg is a member of the Russian dynasty. The Grand Duchess Helen Paulovna (one of the sisters of the Emperor Nicholas) was married to the hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Prince George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz married the Grand Duchess Catherine Michaelovna in 1851. The mother of the present Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar was Maria Paulovna, another sister of the Emperor Nicholas. The Grand Duke Constantine, at present Stattholder in Poland, is married to a Princess of the House of Saxe-Altenburg. The late Grand Duke Constantine, the uncle of the last-mentioned Prince, was married to Anna Theodorovna, a Princess of Saxe-Coburg. The wife of the Emperor Alexander II. is a scion of the Grand Ducal House of Hesse-Darmstadt. Prince Frederick, the heir-presumptive to the throne of Hesse-Cassel, was married to Alexandra, the daughter of the late Emperor Nicholas. The wife of the Grand Duke Michael, who is now Stattholder in the Caucasus, is Olga Theodorovna of Baden-Baden. The first wife of Duke Adolphus of Nassau was the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Michaelovna. The Dowager-Queen of the Netherlands, the mother of King William III., is a Princess of the House of Russia. The Russian dynasty is connected with Bavaria by means of the Leuchtenbergs, and with Hanover by means of Queen Maria Alexandrine, who is the sister of the above-mentioned Grand Duchess Constantine.”

Count Cavour’s Estimate of Napoleon III.

Of the character and policy of Louis Napoleon, Cavour was accustomed to speak with much freedom. No one had better opportunities than Cavour of sounding their depths. He was the only living man who had ventured to grapple with him face to face, and who had used him for his purpose. The estimate he had formed of his capacity was not a high one; but he fully admitted his fertility of resource, his physical and moral courage, and his knowledge of the people he governs. “He has no definite policy,” he remarked to an English friend. “He has a number of political ideas floating in his mind, none of them matured. They would seem to be convictions founded upon instinct. He will not steadily pursue any single idea if a serious object presents itself, but will give way and take up another. This is the mot d’énigme to his policy. It is by steadily keeping this in view that I have succeeded in thwarting his designs, or in inducing him to adopt a measure. The only principle—if principle it can be called—which connects together these various ideas is the establishment of his dynasty, and the conviction that the best way to secure it is by feeding the national vanity of the French people. He found France, after the fall of the Orleanist and Republican Governments, holding but a second place among the great Powers; he has raised her to the very first. Look at his wars, look at his foreign policy; he has never gone one step beyond what was absolutely necessary to obtain this one object. The principle ostentatiously put forward in the first instance has been forgotten or discarded as soon as his immediate end has been accomplished. It was so in the war with Russia; it has been so in the war with Austria. In the Crimea he was satisfied with the success of his army in the capture of Sebastopol, which took from the English troops the glory they had earned by their devotion and courage, and to which they would have added had the war continued. In the struggle with Austria, he was astounded by the greatness of the victories of Magenta and Solferino. The military glory of France had been satiated, and he thought no more of the liberty of Italy, of that free and united nation which he was to have called into existence from the Alps to the Adriatic.

“It is this uncertain policy guided by dynastic and selfish considerations, which makes him so dangerous to you, and which renders it necessary that you should ever be on your guard. Not that he is hostile to England, or that he has any definite design against her. On the contrary, he has much affection for your country. He is a man of generous impulses, and has strong feelings of gratitude towards those who have served and befriended him. At the bottom of his heart he is greatly attached to Italy. His earliest recollections are bound up with her. He is to this day a carbonaro in his desire for Italian freedom and hatred of Austria. He has not forgotten the kindness and hospitality shown to him when an exile in England. He admires your institutions and the character of the English people. But all this is as nothing when compared with the maintenance of his dynasty, the establishment of which he looks upon almost in the light of a religious obligation. If the moment came when he thought a sacrifice necessary to sustain it, however great that sacrifice might be, however painful or repugnant to his feelings, he would make it. No one has had better opportunities of knowing him than I have. He has talked to me with the greatest openness of his future plans. But he has invariably assured me at the same time that his first object was to maintain peace and good understanding with England. I believe,” he solemnly added, “that, from policy, as well as from affection, such are his views; and that only in a moment of the utmost emergency, when he was convinced that his influence in France depended upon it, would he depart from them. But that moment may come, and you would be madmen if you were not prepared for it.”—Quarterly Review, No. 222.

The Mutiny at the Nore.

In 1797, when Capt. William Linder had the Thetis, and was returning to England, having on board the “Prussian subsidy,” amounting to nearly half a million sterling, he was taken prisoner by the mutineer William Parker, and detained, with his vessel and valuable cargo, for a week at the Nore. The rebel, little suspecting the prize he had within his grasp, credited the assertion of Capt. Linder that the aid would shortly arrive, and that he was to be the medium of its transmission to this country. By this ruse, and a promise of assistance by which Parker decided that he would take the grand fleet into Brest, he obtained a pass (it is believed the only one given) from William Parker, and arrived safely with his immense treasure at the Tower, where he immediately landed his golden cargo, and forthwith proceeded to the Admiralty,—also giving information to the minister, Mr. Pitt, of his fortunate escape, which, had it been otherwise, would certainly have turned the tide of success of Old England at that time. Mr. Pitt generously offered him a commission; but Capt. Linder having a fine vessel of his own, and a noble and independent spirit, which he retained to the last, respectfully declined; nor could he be induced in after years to solicit for any recompense or popularity. He died in 1862, May 21, at the age of eighty-seven.—Athenæum.

Catholic Emancipation and Sir Robert Peel.

It having been stated, in a leading article of a journal, April 14, 1862, that the Liberal party forced upon the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel that concession to the cause of Catholic emancipation “which Sir Robert Peel declares he entirely disapproved to the latest day of his life,” drew from the present Sir Robert Peel the following corrective reply:

“I do not know upon what authority that statement is made, but, so far from disapproving the measure, Sir Robert Peel has distinctly stated that in passing Catholic Emancipation he acted on a deep conviction that the measure was not only conducive to the general welfare, but imperatively necessary to avert from the Church, and from the interest of institutions connected with the Church, an imminent and increasing danger.”

The House of Coburg.

Some fifty years ago, a young prince of a then obscure German House was serving under the Emperor Alexander in the great war against Napoleon. He was brave, handsome, clever, and, as events have proved, possessed of prudence beyond the ordinary lot of princes or private men. In 1814 he accompanied the Allied Sovereigns to England, and there his accomplishments attracted the attention and engaged the affection of the heiress to the English throne, the Princess Charlotte of Wales. They were married, and though an untimely death was destined soon to sever the union, yet from that time the star of the successful young officer and of the House of Coburg has been in the ascendant. From the vantage-ground of a near connexion with the British Royal Family they have been able to advance to a position in Europe almost beyond the dreams of German ambition. The Coburgs have spread far and wide, and filled the lands with their race.

They have created a new Royal House in England. The Queen is a daughter of Leopold’s sister; her children are the children of Leopold’s nephew. The Coburgs reign in Portugal; they are connected with the royal though fallen House of Orleans, and more or less closely related to the principal families of their own country. Prince Leopold himself has for thirty years governed one of the most important of the minor States of Europe, and his eldest son is wedded to an Archduchess of the Imperial House of Austria. Jealousy and detraction have followed these remarkable successes, but the Coburgs can afford to smile when their rivals sneer, for they have the solid rewards of skill, prudence, and that adaptability to all countries and positions which has distinguished the more able members of their family. It may be added, as the last memorable events in their annals, that two of them have successively had the refusal of the Crown of Greece.

The talents of the Coburgs have been conspicuous. King Leopold, the late Prince Consort, and the present Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, have been men much above the ordinary standard. They have had great opportunities, and they have known how to use them. Neither the Prince Consort nor the King of Portugal could, without offence, have taken a share in the politics of England and Portugal unless they had been gifted with much prudence and circumspection. No one who studies their history will believe that they and their kinsmen have merely had greatness thrust upon them. But, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted that they owe all to the excellent start which Prince Leopold’s good fortune gave their House. Had it not been for the elevation of the young soldier to the highest station in England, the Coburgs, instead of planting dynasties everywhere, might have been no more than any other of the five-and-thirty German reigning families, or the multitude of Princely and Serene, but mediatized personages who are scattered through the land. But when Leopold became an English prince, and his sister was the mother of the heiress presumptive to the British throne, the path to greatness was open to the enterprise of the family. How much one success leads to another in princely life has been shown in their history, and we have adverted to it because, if report speak true, another family, which, a few years since, was of hardly more account in Europe, is at this moment entering on a similar career.—Times.

A Few Years of the World’s Changes.

Little more than a dozen years have elapsed since there were witnessed in Europe events so stirring that they constitute one of the most remarkable epochs in the history of the world. Since then France has undergone three revolutions—the fall of the constitutional monarchy, the stormy interlude of a democratic republic, and the restoration of a military empire. The old rulers of Lombardy, of Tuscany, and of Naples have disappeared, and the map of the world has been altered in order to admit of the introduction of the kingdom of Italy. Austria, long the haughtiest representative of the principle of absolute monarchy, has commenced the experiment of constitutional government, and Russia has laid the foundation of a new political and social existence in recognising the value of free labour, and abolishing the institution of serfdom. China has opened her ports to our merchants and her capital to our ambassadors. We ourselves have twice gone through the calamities of war in the siege of Sebastopol and the suppression of the Indian revolt, and we have been twice reminded this evening that the great republic which boasted a superb exemption from the perils and the evils which beset ancient states and monarchical forms of government, has been violently rent in twain, and whatever may be the issue of that struggle in which we see at present only a lavish expenditure of blood and treasure, still there is no dispassionate bystander who can believe that the union can ever be restored, and no far-sighted politician who can suppose that the curse of slavery can long survive that separation of which it is the most ostensible, though not the only, nor perhaps the most powerful cause. Such important events, all leading to effects so vast and so permanent in their relation to the advancement of the human race, have probably never before occurred within so short a space of time.—Speech of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

We may supplement the above by the following strange passage in the career of Louis Napoleon, three-and-twenty years since:

A correspondent of The Reader writes:—“It was at Vimereux, the site of the old camp of Boulogne, that Charles Louis Bonaparte, now Emperor of the French, landed on his famous adventure of the 5th of August, 1840. I was in Boulogne when he reached that town, at about 5.30 a.m., with about sixty followers. In proceeding to the beach to bathe, I was startled by the appearance of a rabble, some of whom were clothed as English footmen and grooms, and some as French soldiers. In the midst of this somewhat boozy battalion the then pretender, now the Emperor of the French, marched, closely encircled by adherents. I followed him and them to the barracks; and never did I see a more careworn or crestfallen set of conspirators. In all fifty-six persons, eight horses, and two carriages had embarked at Margate aboard the steamer, which was now cruising in the offing of Boulogne after landing its human freight. When the enterprise at the barracks failed, the present Emperor of the French, with eleven of his adherents, got into a boat with a view to escape; but they allowed the oars to be taken from them by one Guillaume Tutelet, a bather. The boat subsequently capsized, and the present Emperor of the French swam for the steamer, the City of Edinburgh, which was at some distance. In this attempt he failed, and was forced to cling to a buoy till he was picked up and placed in safety by the English captain. But he did not long remain thus, for the Lieutenant du Port collected his force, and boarded the steamer, bringing her, with his prisoner, close to the Quai la Douane.”