Her arm is raised over a caliph of the Mussulman, it is shaken from afar at a Lama of the Bhuddhists; her one foot is placed upon the neck of the Pope of the West, and the other is lifted, ready to fall on the patriarchal remnant of the faith of the East,-crushing the very cradle of Christianity. She has made herself a god upon earth, placing herself in the seat of Providence, intending to take from the human race the soil upon which they tread, the habitations in which they dwell, the bodies in which they live, and the very souls which God has given them. But let us content ourselves with saying " She has rendered herself the most powerful State in Europe, and is actually engaged in purposes of active aggression, while the rest of the world is quiescent;" to what does she owe this station if not to some faculty of mind which has not been correspondingly cultivated by the other States? What that faculty is, it is not difficult to apprehend, although that apprehension will not give us the possession. It consists in knowledge of man, not of man in the abstract, but of man dwelling in society. When you consider him thus, and with a practical purpose-that of considering what you can do with him, how you can play off this faction against that, how you can convulse this state or that, how you can misdirect the action of this state upon that, how you can excite the animosity, or persecution, of this faith or sect against that, and how you can bring into collision this Government with that-then, indeed, is there nothing visionary and nothing impossible in the scheme, seeing that we live in an age where opinion is rife and virtue is rare; and, when once you get the practice established that one Government shall interfere in the affairs of another, and the maxim introduced that the decision to act shall be taken in secret—then may the Russian representative in every capital in Europe stand as an irresponsible adviser, an occult and inviolable influence behind the throne, and every nation be governed from the Russian Embassy.

It will not be denied that the present Cabinet of England is a fair representation of the knowledge and capacity that belong to the race. If we fail upon the present-the greatest occasion ever offered in our time-it will not be in consequence of our affairs having been for a moment entrusted to inferior hands. It cannot be said that a popular triumph, or backstairs intrigue, has cast, or tricked into office, a knot of

demagogues or sycophants; neither can it be said that we are in the hands of a worn-out official, or compact family clique, effete by established routine, or insolent by nepotism: it cannot be said that we have new men, inexperienced in the arts of government, or unpractised in those of diplomacy. Our Cabinet contains all in mind, or character, qualified to ennoble power and command fortune. It has struck deep its roots in every intellectual soil; it has spread forth its branches to every lucid and varied breeze of celebrity; and, whilst its venerable summit is frosted with the dignified experience of half a century, green vigour shines through its humbler leaves. Need I refer to the Nestor or the Ajax of diplomacy; to the rational earnestness of the expounder of a national conscience; to the unshackled energy of the asserter of colonial liberties; to the young and bold promise of Celtic originality? We have, in fact, a Government representing all opinions, combining all capacities, honoured by the confidence of the Crown, and not dependent on the will of the Parliament ;-bound by no pledges, but possessed of all knowledge; propped by no faction, but guided by liberality; led by no sordid ambition of power, but starting from power to win an easy way to fame. It is at such a moment that England is unfit to deal with an insult and an injury; to unmask a knave, and repress a bully!

I write these words under the painful anticipation of tomorrow's debate. I took up my pen, intending to proceed with practical details, but I have yielded to the overpowering thought of your character. What signify facts, when you have got no men? what signifies what Russia is doing on the Tigris or the Danube, on the Nile or the Pruth ?—that only is of moment which she is doing in the drawing-rooms of London: there is to be lost and won the dominion of the world-won by a phrase or two, lost by a single weakness. England, you have no voice in that conclave. Your Ministers can never listen to the exposition of your sufferings, of your rights, or of your fate. You have put them in that position; and therefore, when the evil day comes upon you, wolf-like, you will die with the growl of a wild beast, never having charged your wrongs as a man.

"The evacuation of the Principalities is," said Lord Clarendon, a sine qua non preliminary to any settlement." But that evacuation to be a settlement must be unconditional,

as far as Russia is concerned, and provision must also be made against present injury and future aggression. First, then, the evacuation will be without any engagement entered into by Turkey. Secondly, an indemnity to Turkey for pecuniary loss, and to the trade of all nations on account of the accidents at the mouth of the Danube, resulting from her neglect. Thirdly, the abrogation of all existing Treaties between Russia and Turkey, and consequently of any pretence of interference with the subjects of the latter country. Fourthly, the abrogation of the Treaties of 1840 and 1841, equally violated by her act, and the consequent admission of menof-war of all nations to the Black Sea. Fifthly, the modification of the English Treaty of Commerce of 1838, so as to obtain the free exportation of Turkish grain. Sixthly, the renunciation of all claims upon Persia, whether pecuniary or territorial. Seventhly, ithe abrogation of the Treaty of the 8th of May, 1852, and the consequent restoration of the succession and constitution in Denmark.

one.

There is no more difficulty in obtaining all than in obtaining If you do not, you will be, in the words of Lord Clanricarde, "parties to the present act of piracy, as you have been to all the previous steps that have led to it." Of the seven points, the essential are the admission of our vessels to the Black Sea, and the exportation of Turkish grain; no one will pretend that there is the slightest difficulty in obtaining either. They have even nothing to do with Russia, but only with Turkey.

NINEVEH AND PARLIAMENT.

August 12th.

The civic crowd nightly rushes to behold the conflagration of Nineveh, with restored decorations, presenting to us the very image of a splendour buried in its own catastrophe, and exhumed after 3000 years. Little do those who flock to the drama imagine that they have represented on the stage before them the ancestors of the two great empires, whose actual conflict presents a spectacle to Europe. The parts are, however, reversed, and it is the descendant of Sardanapalus who

stretches forth his hand upon the diadem of the successor of Arbaces. Here the scenic thunder rolls to reprove the impious descendant of Nimrod, assuming the place of God, but on the theatre of real events no lightning strikes the descendant of Peter, and it is the thunders of a Christian world that applaud and approve the sacrilege.

This affiliation might be accepted, on the spiritual claim of descent, for two races could not have been found to admit a pretension so repugnant to human nature, to universal evidence and belief. It rests, however, upon more practical evidence. The learned Michievicz, in his lectures at the University of Paris, has endeavoured to establish the identity of the Russians and the Assyrians on philological grounds. One of the most curious of his illustrations bears upon this very point of the adoration of a "human God." It appears that the name of Nebuchadnezzar is nothing more than the Russian phrase for "There is no GOD but the CZAR." As to the connection of the Medes and the Turks little doubt can remain, after the discoveries of Messrs. Layard and Botta, and the interpretations of Rawlinson, Hincks, and others, where the learned have discovered, to their infinite surprise, the Turkish or monumental language in pre-historic times.

If this be so, it is certainly not one of the least remarkable events of this wonder-making age, that at the moment when Turk and Russian are about to mingle in deadly conflict, and that for a position which is to command the world, facts should be brought to light which carry back through thirty centuries the origin of this strife, and that the tombs of these nations should give up to us the body, feature, colour of their daily existence, their modes of being and acting, their gestures and adornments, the arts which they practised, the monuments they reared, the language they spoke, and the very objects they gazed upon.

There is something appalling to find oneself in presence of the long-forgotten dead; but what is this to finding ourselves in presence of long lines and races who have played their part on the great stage of the Universe thousands of years before our name was heard, with characters permanent as the objects of nature, and impulses fluctuating, but regular as her laws? Such a contemplation furnishes some relief from the nausea and the common-place of the "Eastern

Question," and we can forget for a moment Diplomatists, Cabinets, and Parliaments-the rats and weasels of the day

for the lordly bulls and winged lions of Ezekiel, and the Prophets of Esarhaddon and Cyaxares. Let us then for a moment consider the mental features of the descendants of the Medes, who, in early times, of all the nations of the earth combined warlike energy (they were the institutors of discipline) with patriarchal freedom; wealth, arts, and splendour with mild and beneficent rule; and of whom it has been said that they exacted tribute as the sign of dominion, not as the reward of conquest.

The Turks of the present day afford to Europe several great lessons in the art and practice of government; the first of which is the placing of local usage on the footing of, and invested with, the attributes of written law, and so dispensing with the process of legislative compilation, as to enable the government to be carried on by means of a few simple maxims, capable of adjustment and application to every variety of local circumstance.

They present a monument of religious toleration. It is not indifferentism; they are not merely neutral, or passive; they adopt into their administration the hierarchy of the respective creeds, giving currency and effect to its legitimate decisions, and overruling and setting aside the law of the Koran, whenever that law for its Christian subjects is in conflict with the rights, or rules, of the Church. That toleration extends also to finances. No taxes are imposed as a religious disability, and no payment is made under any form whatever for the advantage of the predominant Church.

In matters of finance, currency, protection, and all that regards the pecuniary interests of the Government, and consequently the material condition of the people, a class of facts are afforded for our study, not less important than the foregoing. We must not here allow recent infractions, imposed by exterior considerations, to deprive us of the value we may derive from the examination of the system itself. That system is one of pure simplicity; it has no Tariff, and does not complicate with the question of taxation the interest of classes. The consequence is, first, that there is needed no Parliament to protect the liberties of the nation, because the amount of taxation is invariable; secondly, that there are no opposing interests of classes, because taxes fall on