we regard no changes of government as po- | clerical influence that Miramon and Juarez litical phenomena having interest for our- are most advantageously contrasted. The selves except such as occur among races writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes menwhich were reared in the religion and civil- tions several incidents in Miramon's career ization of Western Europe. A revolution or which are curiously characteristic of the civil war in Spanish America is at most European as distinguished from the Indian. curious. The only feeling stronger than He was originally called to the presidency curiosity which it should excite is pity for while engaged in a campaign at a distance the minority of Europeans or semi-Europeans from the capital. A pronunciamiento had which remains in most of these countries, been successfully accomplished in the city of and is oppressed or massacred at pleasure Mexico, and the revolutionists thought to by masters who, though they speak Spanish strengthen themselves by placing at their and call themselves Christians, are, in real- head a young and victorious general. Mirity, savages let loose. amon, immediately on his return to Mexico, The difference between a European and disavowed the entire revolution, and refused an Indian leader is well illustrated by the to accept the distinction proffered to him. history of the rival presidents of the Mexican This unheard-of disinterestedness naturally republic. Juarez, the so-called Constitution- caused him to be looked upon as a very difalist president who was lately besieged in ferent sort of Conservative from any hitherto Vera Cruz, is, as has been stated, an Indian known in that cou, and is the foundation of unmixed blood. Miramon, who has been of all his political influence. Other actions styled the president of the Church party, is, of his mentioned in the Revue are his immeon the contrary, a Frenchman by the father's diate restoration of large sums of money side and a Spaniard by the mother's-in seized by his lieutenants, and his repeated other words, a European descended from refusals to shed more blood than could be two of the finest races in Europe. Of the helped. The virtues thus indicated would merits of the contest in which these two not be extraordinarily remarkable in Europe, leaders are engaged we shall only say that and it is evident that in Mexico they might it has been grossly misapprehended in the have proceeded quite as much from calculaUnited States and in England. It turns on tion as from character; but the thing to be the confiscation of Church property; and this noted is, that these actions of Miramon's are circumstance has caused some degree of mild just those which no man of Indian breed is favor to be extended here and in America capable of practising. No politician of the to Juarez, who is the champion of the anti-native race ever yet sacrificed the opportunclerical faction. But it is the most foolish ity of elevating himself to station, or gave of mistakes to institute a comparison be- back money which he could spend, or spared tween the pillage of the Roman Catholic an enemy whom it was safe to kill. Juarez Church in Mexico and the curtailment of its sold his country to the Americans without a excessive endowments in such a country as pang; but civilized men have done this beSardinia. The Mexican clergy are certainly fore him, and the fatal symptom about him indolent and ignorant, according to European is not his treason, but his absolute inability standards; but, with all their defects, they to forego an immediate for an ultimate adalone prevent the Mexican people from re- vantage, or to disappoint for one day his lapsing into the belief and practices of sav- savage instincts of cupidity and revenge. age life. The Haytian negro, when the de- In all Central and South America there struction of the whites relieved him from are only two countries - Brazil and Chilithe control of his priests, went straight back which are not governed by absolute dictato his Obi, which he scarcely deigns to over- tors under the forms of a Republic. With lay with a thin varnish of Christianity; and hardly one exception, these dictators are pure the Mexican, whether Indian or mongrel, can Indians, or mulattoes in whom the Indian scarcely even now be kept by all the vigi- and negro are mixed, or men with some lance of his spiritual pastor from throwing Spanish blood in their veins, who, like the himself into sorcery and fetish-worship. The early Norman settlers in Ireland, have concause of the Roman Catholic Church in Mex-tracted a taste for savage life, and have abico is therefore for once the cause of civilization; and, if the truth were known, it would probably be found that Juarez, who is panegyrized by the American papers as the liberal and cnlightened antagonist of spiritual despotism, is simply the foe of the priests because he prefers some private enchantment of his own to the celebration of the mass. It is not, however, in their views of

jured the habits of civilization. Of this last class there are some curious samples in South America-such as Urquiza in the Argentine Confederation, Castilla in Peru, and the Monagas family, who, though now displaced, all but succeeded in founding a dynasty in Venezuela. All these dictators have one peculiarity in common. Though they have all commenced their reign by ex

pelling the legislature of their country at to understand, that there should be a "double the point of the bayonet, they invariably marriage" between the royal families of belong to the Constitutionalist or Liberal Great Britain and of Hohenzollern: such party. This party has its newspapers and double marriage as was seriously contemits pamphlets, on looking into which the plated a century ago by the then monarchs reader sees the maxims of extreme French of England and Prussia, but unfortunately socialistic democracy enforced in stately broken off at the eleventh hour, to the great Castilian. Is there, then, a leaven of social- grief of a certain crown-prince, Frederick, no ism in Spanish America? Not a bit of it. less than of his latest British biographer. It is all a sham and a pretence, like the Indeed, history tells us that German princes Christianity, the civilization, and the Euro- have always been very fond of arranging pean tongue. The true contest is between these cross-alliances as we might call them; Unitarianism and Federalism, a dispute and that it is owing to the principle which which, in form, involves the question whether they involve, that the whole of European the State shall be governed from its capital or shall be split into nearly independent provinces, but which, in reality, resolves itself into a struggle between the European and the Indian-the man of culture and the savage. All the enlightenment and education of Spanish America is confined to the older cities, the seats of Spanish dominion under the monarchy. If the Unitarians prevail, it is the comparatively civilized capital which governs the wild men of the provinces. If the Federalists have their way, the savage of the open country rules the civilized man of the city. As a fact, the controversy has universally ended in the triumph of the Federalists; and as the Indians and mongrels, who are the strength of this faction, have no idea of freedom and no capacity for rule, their success has always resulted in the boldest or bloodiest among them seizing the reins of government and proclaiming himself dictator. We have said that if these events excite any emotion in us, it should be compassion for the unhappy inhabitants of such places as Lima, Quito, Caraccas, Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, or the city of Mexico. Their civilization is but a poor one at best, but they have had their age of heroism, and a short era of freedom, and they have sensibility enough to feel the humiliation, as well as the other consequences, of being governed by men who always conduct themselves like savages, and sometimes like

monsters.

From The Spectator, 26 May. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

THERE is a rumor abroad about the forthcoming matrimonial alliance of the heirapparent to the British throne with a princess of Prussia. German newspapers, solemn always and full of erudition, inform us that all the particulars of this union have long been determined,-arranged, in fact, at the time of the nuptials of our princess-royal with young Prince Frederick William of Prussia. It was then settled, we are given

royalty is at the present moment one vast family of brothers, sisters, and cousins. The Emperor Napoleon is, we believe, the only monarch of the western world not directly related to this august family; though even he, by means of more or less distant cousinship, is somewhat drawn towards the mystic circle. With this single exception, if it is such, the whole of the royal houses of Europe form but one family, all the members of which are blood relations. The stock or root of this family is in Germany-the "fatherland" pre-eminently and it is there, apparently, that a continual desire is felt more and more to unite the branches of this tree, more and more to engraft like on like. The title of courtesy of "mon frère," by which European sovereigns address each other, is to become ultimately a complete reality.

This progressive tendency towards a close family union of all the irresponsible rulers of the civilized world is a rather important fact in modern history, and one deserving the attention of others than heralds and pursuivants at arms. Like every thing else in this sublunary world of ours, there are at least two sides from which this question may be envisaged, a favorable and an unfavorable. On the one side, there is an undoubted advantage in these family alliances of kings for the general peace of Europe. Though, as we all know, brothers do sometimes quarrel and have disagreeable misunderstandings, yet on the whole, the contrary is the case, nature having made the wise provision that of all ties which keep men together, none shall be so strong and so powerful as the tie of blood. A mere glance over the political events of the last four or five centuries shows that international wars have almost invariably been guided, if not actually planned by sovereigns not connected by family alliances; and, that these wars have diminished in Europe in a direct ratio to the increase of relationship between the different princes. It would be easy to adduce examples of this proposition, even during so recent a period as that from the Congress of Vienna, and the establishment of the Holy Alliance up to

the present time. This is the bright side of nearly the same food, and, as citizens of the the question of royal family alliances; but state, have precisely the same duties and while properly valuing the advantages so responsibilities, and obey the same laws. A conferred, we have not the less to consider mésalliance of a coroneted marquis with a the reverse of the medal. The latter aspect poor and pretty milliner does not startle the may be resumed under two principal heads: world very much nowadays; and the rise the danger threatening to the freedom of na- of a lawyer's clerk to the chancellorship of tions by a too intimate alliance of their the exchequer is, even by the Conservatives rulers, and the peril menacing the royal race of this generation, looked upon as rather itself in such unnatural restraint of blood. natural than otherwise. But, strangely Perhaps to the first of these possibilities not enough, while thus the barriers which the too much importance need be attached, since pride of rank and birth of former times it is pretty well agreed that if a nation is created are drawn away one by one, there is really ripe for freedom and worthy of enjoying a huge boundary of a new kind forming at liberty, no sovereign, or association of sov- the very pinnacle of society, and creating a ereigns, will ever be powerful enough to pre- deeper chasm than ever. Royalty is sepavent such enjoyment. Remains, therefore, rating itself from the people, and forming, the second and more immediate peril of what never it was before, a distinct class, princely alliances, the degeneracy of the the different members of which are strictly royal race. Without subscribing in full to on a level, but unconnected with any other Mr. Darwin's theories about the progress of class below. According to this new law of the species by means of "natural selection," Ebenbürtigkeit, as exposed in the Almanach it is yet a fact not to be denied that a certain de Gotha, a prince of Lichtenstein, sovereign amount of intermixture between different of a territory of one and a half square miles, races is absolutely necessary for the physical may ask the hand of a princess royal of as well as moral well-being of the human Great Britain, in strict propriety, but, in refamily. The conformation to this rule has turn, would have a right to think it prean apt illustration in our own little island, sumptuous if even the youngest of his eleven where Saxon, Dane, Celt, Norman, Scot, daughters were demanded in marriage by and Pict, intermarrying for a thousand gen- the possessor of half an English county, the erations, have produced one of the finest lord of a thousand acres. The former union, races on earth, one sending its offshoots though unequal in the highest degree, would through all the corners of the habitable be enregistered as perfectly en règle; the globe, and girding the earth with the sound latter, a match of far more parallel interest, of its speech. Again, the non-observance would be set down as a decided mésalliance. of this rule is as visibly elucidated in the his- While all the other ranks of society flow into tory of many Oriental tribes; and even in each other, joining more and more, royalty certain instances in the condition of small acknowledges no connecting root with any sections of the population of Europe. There other class, but will stand alone and by itself, are villages in some of the upper cantons of like the gods of Greece on the Olympian Switzerland, regions surrounded by mighty Hills, only differing greatly in their portrait mountain walls, and shut off by almost im- galleries. This desire, we say, of forming paassble barriers from the rest of the world, the royal families of Europe into a distinct where the inhabitants have been in the habit class, unapproachable from below, has its of intermarrying for centuries, and where origin in Germany, the country of princethe result has been that either the race has dom, par excellence. In all the rest of Eudied out completely, or, worse still, has been ropean countries, England included, the transformed into that horrible form of human principle was unknown until within a comdegeneracy, known as cretin. With such paratively recent period of modern times. examples before us, we may well fear for the Every tyro in English history is aware that future of the great European family of sov- our kings of old married the daughters of ereigns, should the tendency to intermar- the land, considering them perfectly ebenriages continue among them. bürtig, and fit, in every respect, to be their consorts on the throne. It was only a century ago, in the reign of the third George, that the legislature of the realm was asked to interfere with this illimited liberty of royalty to choose consorts wherever and whenever they liked. Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, son of Frederick Prince of Wales, having married, on the 2d of October, 1771, Mrs. Horton, widow of Mr. Christopher Horton, of Catton Hall, Derby

It is a rather curious fact in the history of modern European nations, that whereas in the great bulk of the population there has been for a long period past a continually increasing spread of equality among the different ranks and classes, just the contrary has been the case in the one select rank above the subject, the class of sovereign families. Peer and peasant now jostle each other in the street, wear the same garments, eat very

And loafed, and chewed, and cursed, and spit, But now the loud defiance