be excluded from the affairs of Europe. And as a close intimacy subsists between Napoleon and Marshal O'Donnell and the Spanish Court, it is not improbable that Spain also might be got to join in that confederacy. The promise of Gibraltar is a bait for Spain; and it is hard to see why that power should have at present made an extraordinary levy of 100,000 men, and been busily providing herself with gunboats, if she had not been led to believe that, in certain contingencies, she might employ those forces advantageously for her own interests. The newly announced principle of Napoleon's policy, by which he takes upon himself the "defence of great national interests," and of "the cause of justice and civilisation every where," is one admittedly of the very widest application, and would certainly embrace, if he see fit, the restitution of Gibraltar to Spain, and the giving of the Ionian Islands to Greece. He gives the frankest pledges to our Government that he means nothing of the kind in the present war, and we believe him. His true game is to carry out his ideas bit by bit-making the execution of one project form a platform from which to advance to the execution of the next. The breaking-down of one scheme the rupture of one link in his chain of policy, may mar and cut short the whole. No one can tell what the actual result will be. But it is well for this country to note beforehand the possible, we would say highly probable, contingencies. The grand danger to Britain would be the formation of a maritime confederacy against her. Unless some extraordinary development be given to our maritime power, we cannot make head against the united fleets of Russia and France. For too long we have been content to compare ourselves with our neighbour France alone-although France is rather a military than a naval power; and we have been overmuch disposed to be content if our fleet be equal to hers, while our army is confessedly so much smaller than hers. This would hardly be prudent even though France and England were the only two powers in the world; but it becomes a most perilous absurdity

when we consider that France has only to ally herself with another State in order to bring against us a fleet nearly double that of England. Napoleon knew what he was about when he proposed and carried, at the Congress of Paris, the abolition of privateering during war. By that stroke the ascendancy of the seas was reduced to a simple question as to which side could muster the larger State fleet,-a mode of deciding the contest more favourable to despotic than to free Governments--to France and Russia rather than to us. The financial strength of this country, as Mr Disraeli well said, is inexhaustible, compared to the resources of the Continental powers; but then our strength depends upon our commerce; and if that were interrupted by hostile fleets, our financial superiority would soon vanish.

A great deal has been said about the British Government having been deceived, during the recent negotiations, as to the real objects of France and Russia. It has been imagined, and charged against the Ministry as a grave fault, that they accepted as true the professions of those Governments, which the subsequent events have shown to be insincere. It is a shallow brain that has bred such a conceit. Suppose our Government had known four months ago all that is known now, could their conduct have been other than it has been ? Suppose that they knew that France was bent on war, and that there was an understanding between her and Russia, what would their critics have had them do? Ought they to have gone to war?-or, with the French and Russian fleets against us, could they have done so Or would it have been allowable or consonant with discretion that they should have proclaimed their disbelief in the honesty of the Powers with which they were negotiating, without having that tangible proof which alone could justify so extraordinary a course? The British Government did none of these things; but they did what was far better. They negotiated with the other Powers as if their professions in favour of peace were genuine. They said, "Well, as you are desirous of peace, if you can get it upon rea

sonable terms: here are terms which meet your requirements; let us try to get these terms conceded, so that the question may be settled without a recourse to war." In this way they brought the French Emperor to be explicit as to what he wanted; and then, as a mediator, they got the Austrian Government to concede what was required: so that-but for the intervention of Russia's proposal for a Congress-Napoleon III. would have been bound by his own words to have concluded the quarrel peacefully. The British Government could not prevent the proposal for a Congress being made, nor yet its acceptance by France; but they saw the thoroughly unsatisfactory character of the proposal, and the many real and factitious difficulties that would obstruct such a mode of settling the question. The British Government, as Mr Disraeli informs us, frankly stated their views on the subject to the French Government; and when the proposal for a Congress had (as they had feared would be the case) proved a failure, they made one more resolute attempt to avert hostilities,-and that that attempt failed appears to have been the fault neither of our Government nor of Austria. In so negotiating, they took the right way of meeting the danger. So far from being deceived as to the true character of the crisis, they appear from the outset to have discerned the grave and suspicious aspect of the quarrel,-as any one may see who remembers, or reverts to, the speeches of the Premier and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the opening of Parliament (February 3). Of Mr Disraeli's speech Lord John Russell observed-"The right honourable gentleman wished to give the House as much satisfaction as possible, and has felt that he cannot give that satisfaction in any complete form. He has told us, that with regard to the breaking out of war between two great powers of Europe, he should hesitate to say that war was probable, or that peace was absolutely hopeless. Those are expres

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sions which I have no doubt convey a right impression of the present state of affairs, and they are not a little alarming." It was with a view to meet the dangers which the Ministry apprehended that the Royal Speech contained that exhortation to Parliament, which so startled the general public, as to the reconstruction of the British fleet;" and it was with the same object in view that Sir John Pakington submitted to Parliament that masterly statement of the present condition and requirements of our navy, which first roused the country to a perception of our deficiencies in that all-important department of the national defences. Ever since then, the Government has assiduously laboured in the same work. Their policy is "an armed neutrality." It is the only right policy for the country. And we shall be curious to see how, by any ingenuity, the Opposition chiefs will venture to cavil at it. A Royal Manifesto has announced this policy to the world. At peace with all Sovereigns and States, her Britannic Majesty "is firmly determined to abstain from taking part, directly or indirectly, in the war between Austria, Sardinia, and France." How long it will be possible for Great Britain to keep aloof, depends upon contingencies which no one can foresee.

"We must remember (said Sir John Pakington, at Droitwich,) how the commercial, imperial, and colonial interests of England are mixed up with every part of Europe. We must remember the importance of the British possessions in the Mediterranean, and the importance of maintaining our communications with India. These interests, and the interests of our trade in the Mediterranean and the Baltic, being borne in mind, the people of this country must consider that, while the policy of the Government is neutrality, the day may come when it will be difficult to persevere in the maintenance of that neutrality."* We may keep free from the vortex for the present, but no one

Conservatives, or on the other into Radicals. It remains to be seen how they will act in the present Parliament. If the Whigs were true to their old principles, now that Radical innovation has become formidable, they would side with the Conservative party. But by far the greater part of them-as is clear from their electoral speeches and addresses-are ready to bid high for Radical support. A reduction of the franchise such as they scorned when their side was in office, they now profess to think wise and beneficial. But not a few, we hope, warned and instructed by the aspect of the times, will adopt the wise and patriotic course taken by Earl Grey and Lord Elcho. The question of Reform has been degraded into a mere engine of Party

a convenient machinery by means of which Lord John Russell and other ejected place-hunters hope to reinstate themselves in office. Some of the more patriotic and independent members of the Whig party see this, and, with all their natural love of office, are unwilling to sacrifice the permanent interests of the country for a fleeting gain of party. The masterly argument and brilliant eloquence of Sir E. B. Lytton, which told so much upon the House, was not lost upon reflecting men of all parties throughout the country. Let us hope that a spirit of wise moderation will prevail in the New Parliament. There need be no fear of reactionary measures. The current of the popular mind runs too strongly in favour of innovation; the only danger-and it is a momentous one -is, that this love of innovation may carry us too far. "Finality," as Mr Disraeli observed, in contradistinction to the shallow imagination of Lord John Russell, " is not a word known in politics." Onwards we must go. Every new reduction of the franchise lends fresh power to the downward impetus. Unless some unexpected reaction take place, he is a bold man who would say that we shall not ere long reach the very bottom of the descent, and find ourselves under a thoroughly democratic

constitution, based upon universal suffrage and the tyranny of the masses. The longer before this last scene in the drama of national liberty is reached the better. Even were it granted that one day this country is to be ruled by mere numbers, surely it must at the same time be conceded that the more gradually this is done, and the longer the training and education which the new rulers of the country receive, the safer and happier will be the result for all. We fear Universal Suffrage at any time-for it is the death of true liberty: it is the death of Law, and the exaltation of popular caprice: it is the parent of a lawlessness approaching to anarchy: and from Anarchy, as all history shows, a nation can only retrace its steps to Order under the iron guidance of a military despot.

In spite of all the resolved factiousness of the Opposition chiefs, we repeat our hope and expectation that a wise moderation will rule in the counsels of the new Parliament. Moderation, of course, not to the extent which we desire, or which we think best for the interests of the country, but sufficient to maintain the Executive in its full efficiency, and to strengthen the hands of the Ministry in the important work which they have to do, and which hitherto they have discharged so ably, courageously, and well. This is not a time for convulsing and distracting the country by playing a game of ninepins with our established institutions. It is not a time for weakening the body-politic of the country by internal dissensions, when a war is raging on the Continent of which no man can see the end, and when no one knows how soon the storm of war may break against our own shores. In the ensuing session, Parliamentary Reform may be uppermost in the thoughts of those who desire to make of it an engine of party,-but assuredly it is the maintenance of the independence, honour, and rights of the empire in this crisis of peril that will be uppermost in the hearts of the nation.

WE waste a great deal of virtuous pity on the uncomfortable position of our ancestors at almost any period of history in which their habits are known. As to our remote connections in the Druid time, there is certainly not much ground for envy, if they were not altogether so much to be commiserated as we complacently suppose. It must have been unpleasant to have had the chance of being burned in a wicker basket-a contrivance evidently, from its shape and destination, the forerunner of the crinolines of the present day; nor does it suggest any agreeable ideas to have been a resident of Salisbury Plain, with only such nominal protection from winter snow as the imitation tartan produced by tatooing could supply: but to make up for these drawbacks, there must have been great excitement at the assemblages within the mystic circle; the processions up those swelling downs must have been gorgeous and delightful; and as to the dance under the mistletoe, with all its rites and incantations, it must have rejoiced the hearts of the ancient Britons to an extent unknown to the liveliest of their descendants at a ball at Almacks.

The Saxons had not much to boast of in the way of domestic comfort. It would have been impossible for Sir Charles Grandison to have retained any of his refinement if he had lived in a pigsty, and fed out of a trough. But the Saxons did not care about refinement, and would have thought Sir Charles Grandison the most ridiculous of men. They were great, strong, healthy, happy-hearted fellows-gluttons of the most amazing powers, and drunkards beyond the reach of headache. They thought their houses palaces as long as their casks overflowed with beer; they devoured a bullock at their simple family meal, and fought tremendous battles with the thigh-bones. They were always in the open air-ploughing, fishing, hunting, fighting very merry existence, where every

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day seemed a fresh Donnybrook fair; and for a broad-shouldered, strongstomached youth-say from eighteen to twenty-seven-by no means to be classed with the miseries of human life.

Normans were very happy too; they had their feuds and tourna ments, their forays and festivals. Our great progenitor Ralpho de Frangetete you will observe we are all descended from the flower of the nobility, the lower orders probably not being allowed to marry-Ralpho de Frangetete, we repeat, seems the perfect image of a favourite of the gods. He is as strong as a horse, and his horse is fit for a brewer's dray; he is a man of action, and never gets into low spirits; he orders his table to be spread, and the district is ransacked for flesh and fish and fowl; he has no bills at Christmas, and thrashes every human being in the house, from madam his wife to the poor Saxon priest who resides in the kennel, to be near at hand if absolution is required. He has hunting-meetings with the other lords, and, in absence of the deer, encases a shepherd in a perfumed skin and runs him to earth, to the great delectation of horse and hound. And this we hold to have been a life of intense animal enjoyment to our distinguished ancestor, Earl Ralpho, whatever it may have been to the humbler members of his establishment. It is evident that pity for the denizens of those vanished times can only apply to the feeble in frame and timorous in disposition. But at what period of the earth's career is there any happiness for the feeble and timid? Are fushionless beings with deficient back-bone happy from November to May at the foot of Schehallion? are cowards altogether jolly in the Crimea or Hindostan? Talk of a period, or a place, or a family by the people who represent it, not by the wretches who could not comprehend it. The feudal time is represented by our lineal ancestor, as we have already said, Earl Ralpho