fully restrains the habit of prosing. It sharpens the wit, enlivens the spirit, and does a man good in a thousand inexplicable ways. There is a radiant satisfaction that accompanies a man home after inflicting unmistakeable chastisement on a pickpocket, or ruffian of any description, that never ensues on the delivery of a sermon, or the enunciation of a maxim, however orthodox the one, or unquestionable the other. Besides, it keeps alive at once virtue and spirit, and connects the better emotions of the soul with the healthful exercise of the body.

In the great world without, the hedge has been broken down, and the hen-roost robbed, and England has interposed, but not to assess the damage: it is the fairplay Englishman who will ignore the fact of trespass-who is ready to knock down, not the trespasser, but the master of the house. Seeing, then, what England has done, we know perfectly what our Russian ally will do. England having said nothing of compensation to Turkey, Russia would be stupid, indeed, if she did not require compensation from Turkey. So soon as the matter of "note" is "settled," that of "compensation" will be started.

In the columns of a contemporary, it has recently been strongly impressed upon our minds how enormous have been the sacrifices incurred by the Emperor of Russia, and how perfectly inadequate to such sacrifices are the "pitiful results" which the " Note" would give him. We must, therefore, be prepared for a large figure; and on this arise three eventualities-either that the Porte should demur to the claimialtogether, or that it should claim the right of taxing the account, or that the Bait ul mahl should be without "effects." Out of the three contingencies spring two alternatives—either Russia remains and consumes the Provinces, or she leaves them mortgaged for a debt incurred by occupying them. The reader stands aghast. There is here neither fancy nor invention. She has already got a mortgage, and is in possession of a similar bill.

It is now five years since the General in command of 50,000 Russians, stationed in Bessarabia, took it into his head one fine summer's morning to order his men down on flying bridges, established during the night, and so to pass over the turbid waters of the fitful Pruth into the territories of England's old ally, the Grand Turk, but whom at that time

;

we always cut when ourselves in decent society. The grand folks at St. Petersburg knew nothing of this little excursion; but, of course, after the thing was done, they would not offend the military for a small matter, and so the military, cavalry and all, took their pleasure along the Danube, and lived there a rollicking life for the best of two years and a half. The poor people were sadly put to it for grapes in autumn, turnips in winter, and mutton and wine at all times they toiled and sweated almost as hard as the Russians pleasured and devoured, but at last human hearts gave way -hands gave in. So they came to the Russian General in the way that English Ministers do to his master-they came on their knees,* and they said "Good lord, our crops are consumed, our stores are empty,-you have eaten us up. Our waggons are broken down under the loads of our own grain; our draught oxen have perished dragging away our substance. Have mercy, and give us relief." "Oh," says the General of the Russians, "I'll do that and better-I'll give you credit; you shall have a loan; you shall have money. You shall buy with it Indian coru, and other good things for my soldiers, and at some future time we will settle our accounts."

But the country had a master who was not the Emperor of the Russians, and his soldiers were there too, and they had also to be fed, and these soldiers were not quiet, Christianlike men, as Russians are, but fierce and turbaned, or unturbaned Turks. They, however, fed themselves; they got money from their master, and with it they bought their Indian corn; they did not beat the men, break the waggons, kill the oxen, or abuse the women. The Turks and the Russians went away-the one down to the south, the other up to the north. The people that went south were soon forgotten, but the people that went north were not forgotten; and it turned out, after a time, that there was good reason not to forget them, for they had carried away with them a little bit of paper, on which a few figures were written, with a signature below them. It was only a four and seven noughts-meaning, of course, a coin. What kind of coin we do not pretend to know. However, in farthings, 40,000,000 would be a more

When it was said that Sir James Harris was long on his way to a certain foreign court, Burke observed, "Of course he was, for he went on his knees."

pleasant sum to receive than to pay, even when one has the money. But it so happened that these poor people, after feeding for two years and a half from 50,000 to 70,000 Russians, and at times some score of thousand Austrians, and transporting backwards and forwards, over 500 miles of ground, some half dozen Russian armies, had not got the money, and so they found themselves in fact "mortgaged."

When that little affair happened, the Emperor of the Russians and the Grand Turk were the best friends in the world, and it was all out of love and kindness that the General had come over the river. He only brought a few of the Russians with him; he only left a little bill behind him. But now the Emperor of the Russians is very angry with the Grand Turk. The General has brought a great many Russians over the river; there will be of course a much larger bill, and now he has got four attorneys to put in the distress, and sell up the bankrupt. Such is the "Eastern question" of 1853, reduced to the level of vulgar capacity. In a word, our Russian ally will claim tooth-money. It is the practice of all Tartars. The tooth-money for breakfast is still owing, and how supper is to be provided God only knows.

There was a celebrated Guerilla, chief in the Greek war, by name Vlacho. That name designated his origin; he was no other than a Wallachian shepherd. A body of Albanians engaged against the Greeks came one day to his mandra, or sheepfold. They came early and ordered breakfast-an arcadian breakfast of curds and cream. The situation was agreeable, the farce satisfactory-they staid dinner. A dozen of the fattest sheep were selected from the flocks; they were spitted on poles, and laid down by fours around crackling fires. They dined, they drank, they feasted and were merry ; but before slumber overtook them, having an eye to business, they told their Wallachian host to get the tooth-money ready by the time that they awoke; and, wrapping themselves in their capotes, their backs to the field, and their feet to the fire, they sank to rest-a rest from which they never awoke in time. Their blood was mingled with that of the sheep on which they had feasted, and the Wallachian shepherd and his band henceforward took to the mountains, and were ever foremost in that struggle which we need not pursue, and which history has related. Thus, we see a Wallachian is not a dog, and

the tooth-money has a reactionary effect-an effect which may beat even the craft of the four attorney knaves.

Speaking of millions, we should like to know how much, calculated in English money, is the 6,000,000 of coin which figures in the bill of tooth-money, which Austria has sent in to the King of Denmark for her pretty little excursion into the duchies of the Baltic. How wonderfully catching these Tartar habits have become ! Austria was not thus enlightened when she sent her troops to Naples, nor France when she sent hers to Madrid. Progress has made a mighty stride since those days; civilisation a wonderful march. But we must say that it is rather sharp practice for the young Emperor, and if he has been behindhand with his accounts, he is not under the weather as to the sum.

6,000,000 of florins, or dollars, or something of the sort for a flying and friendly visit of 20,000 guests! We have here, at least, some means of estimating the bill about to be sent in to the Sultan. The poor King of Denmark has been very much astonished, and, it appears, so much alarmed, as to think of retiring into private life. His uncle shares in his sentiments, and declines the liabilities of his succession. And well he may; for he may have an execution put into Copenhagen, as well as an arrest executed in the seraglio. Notes of the "Great Powers!" It is "Notes of hand" that rule the world; the boldest achievements of policy are but a pedlar's device. The balance of power has become a moneychanger's scale, and the sword of empire is fashioned into the auctioneer's hammer. Kingdoms are now to be secured by a mischeat, and princes dethroned for the balance of an account. Shall history have to record of the practical affairs of Europe such words as sarcasm might have uttered against antiquated Indian delinquency-shall it be said that the diplomacy of the 19th century "has united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre with the petty traffic of a broker's counting-house, with one hand wielding a truncheon, and picking a pocket with the other?"

DIPLOMACY MADE EASY.

September 7th.

We have made it, we believe, over and above measure, evident, that in the so-called system of Diplomacy, there is no system at all; but it belongs to every organisation to engender for itself a prurient life, when the natural one becomes extinct, and so order resumes its sway over chaos. The phases of malady are as regular as those of growth; the deep fountain of the resources implanted in us may be traced in the beauty of the texture of a sore, as much as in that of the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect.

Diplomacy, as regards its end, is systematic as regards results; its effects are quite as demonstrative as those of gambling or debauchery. Ruin pursuing inevitably the fortunes exposed to this hazard, those not so exposed have so many more chances in their favour, that their prosperity comes systematic. So good-will towards England may be almost as securely predicated from non-intercourse, as illwill from diplomatic relations.

In the war with Napoleon, England had but a single ally, and by the aid of that ally she was enabled, not only to triumph, but to maintain a contest. This was Spain. That people unexpectedly took up arms, and made war with the Emperor of the French. The Spain we speak of was not the Court of Madrid, but the people of the Peninsuła, of whom nothing was known in Madrid any more than in London, or at Paris. It only came into being after the governing system had been swept away. Spain determined the issue of the conflict between England and France, by giving its whole power to England; France, at the moment, having entire diplomatic control over Spain. Because of France's "double-dealing," Spain rose against her, and allied herself to England, with whom there had been no "double-dealing."

In this unexpected revulsion, which brought an English army upon the Continent to the westward of France, giving to it the Peninsula itself as a basis of operations, and the sources of supply of a new war, Napoleon was driven to devise a corresponding war against England, which, adapting itself to the nature of her power, was made upon trade. This was the Continental system of exclusion, and had the