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NOTES OF THE MONTH.

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The Spanish marriage is over, the Duke of Montpensier, for the present at least, is a happy bridegroom. The realization of this daring scheme of alliance has struck the public mind with astonishment, as from the amount of obstacles in its way, it was boldly pronounced an impossibility. The treaty of Utrecht had to be surmounted, the reclamation of England had to be silenced, and the jealousy of French aggrandizement on the part of foreign powers appeased. But more than all these, there were the hatred and hostility of Spain to be encountered. The

patriotic members who repaired to the Cortes had not only resolved to speak and vote, but also to die upon the floor of their senate-house, if need were, before the obnoxious measure should pass; while among the people, many a carabine was scoured, and knife sharpened, with the resolution that the prince should never reach the matrimonial altar alive. But the vote has passed harmoniously, and "mine honest neighbours shouted." Spain has succumbed, and bears the insult meekly; while France glories in a proceeding, the unmanliness, the meanness, and the treachery of which history will emblazon to her lasting shame.

While the singular talent and unexpected success of Louis Philippe are recognized in this astute movement, it is worth while to ascertain, if possible, the full amount of benefit he expected to reap by a measure so obnoxious, and attended with such danger. It was for no trifle that he thus perilled the life of his son, and what is of far higher importance, the peace of Europe. Might it not be, that in the event of the restoration of the elder Bourbons, he wished to secure a permanent footing for one member more of his family among European princes? He knows from personal experience, that in the event of the dethronement of his family, it would be no pleasant thing for the young Duc de Montpensier to become a teacher of mathematics; and the love of a fond old father, combined with

a courage which no difficulties have hitherto impeded, may have nerved him to encounter the worst. But there were the feelings of a politician also to be gratified. He might accomplish that union between France and Spain in which the armies of Napoleon so miserably failed, and exclaim, when the deed was done, “Alone I did it !” And then, too, this union has been for centuries the fondest wish of Francethe young bridegroom is the tie by which that union is to be accomplished. Let changes then come as they may, what Frenchman would consent to the dethronement of the Orleans dynasty?

But the present is a strange age in politics, and master-powers are silently at work upon which modern politicans are unable to calculate. They can sum up the physical force contained in the thews and sinews of France; but can they tell or guess in what direction these will move a few years hence? A spirit is at work, and opinions are floating upon the winds, under which France will yet change her character and history, and when the mighty ties of to-day, which seem to be of such "pendurable toughness," will be snapped asunder, like threads of flax when the flame has touched them. The time is approaching, when not the Pyrennees or the Alps, but opinions higher and more'impassible still, will constitute the barriers of separation, and the subjects of conflict; and to this period we can consign, with other subjects of even greater political import, the Montpensier marriage and all its premised advantages.

Another earnest desire of France is, the possession of fleets and colonies, and to acquire these she has laboured earnestly since the period of the general peace.

But, unfortunately, she has selected those soils that seem productive of nothing but harvests of armed men. Acting upon the principle that Might is Right, she clutched the island of Tahiti ; but still, as from the first, she is daily experiencing that the might is not wholly upon one side. In fact, the

resistance of the brave half-civilized Tahitians, has made the French pay more than tenfold for the barren stripe of sand of which they can hardly retain possession, while it appears problematical whether they will be able to retain their hold even of that. As for the successes of the French army in Algeria, they figure pompously upon paper; but when narrowly scrutinised, they strangely vanish, without leaving a single impress. The land has been overrun, and yet the invaders are cooped up in Algiers; the tribes have been annihilated. but they still muster as numerously as ever; and as for Abdel-Kader, that prophet, priest, warrior —that Hannibal of the nineteenth century, who seems to possess a trick or two of which even Hannibal was ignorant although he has repeatedly had his zama of rout and ruin, yet he returns to the onset more formidable than before, and threatens soon to fall upon the Nazarenes with an empire at his back. Nay, he has been repeatedly killed outright by shot, by the sabre, by the fall of his horse, and yet obstinately lives on; and on one occasion, when the French enveloped his tent, and pounced upon its inmate, they found that they had caught, not the prophet, but his pet poodle. We fear that this capture will be but too emblematical of the results of French doings and winnings in Algeria. Dearly, indeed, has France paid, and still continues to pay for the possession of a sea-hoard on the Mediterranean, and a petty island or two in Polynesia.

Imagine even the best however— that Algeria is conquered, and its unreasonable hero not only dead in good earnest, but held fast under a tombstone; and that the French have secured a tranquil lodgement in the Pacific to their hearts' contentmentwhat would still be the gain to France of such acquisitions? Of all mankind the Frenchman is the worst of colonists. He has neither the patience, the perseverance, nor the industry, which are so necessary to conquer the barren wilderness, and enrich it with harvests. Sooner a thousand times would he set his life upon a cast, and grapple with a living foeman, than hew down

and grub up the tree of his clearing ground; and, if he leaves France and its gaieties, it is only in the prospect of finding still greater gaieties in the new country of his adoption. Like the grasshopper in the fable, he will pipe and sing all summer, and let the winter shift for itself, while his plodding rivals, the English colonists, like the ants in the same fable, are contentedly toiling during the season of sunshine to provide for future wants. But more than even his giddiness, is his profligacy in the character of a colonist. It would be well if he confined his fooleries to the theatre, which is the first of his colonial erections, or to the dance, in which he fritters away his energies, while he should be wielding axe and spade. But his notorious profligacy is a still greater obstacle to his success in colonial enterprise; and the injuries which he inflicts upon the universal feeling of chastity, wherever he attempts to settle, has armed, and will continue to arm, the hand of every savage and semi-barbarian against him. And thus, the mother country-what profit or power can she derive from these her absent children? From their industry she receives no sustenance, while her armaments must be continually afloat, and her wealth expended, to maintain them in their iniquitous quarrels, or protect them from a just revenge.

A parallel history of the disasters of the French in Algeria, is to be found in the hardships and defeats of the Russian legions in the Caucasus. The brave mountaineers of that interesting region, who, under the names of Janizaries and Mamelukes, were the conquerors and masters of so large a portion of the world, have not degenerated from their ancient military reputation, and the resistance they have offered for years has formed an impregnable barrier to Russian ambition and aggrandizement.

Wherever the invaders have advanced upon the plains, or among the mountain passes of the Circassians. it was only to be driven back; wherever a fort was erected to bridle a revolting district, it was only built to be captured and destroyed. Thus stands the state of the war at

present, and thus it may continue for years. As if to draw, too, the parallel more closely still between Circassia and Algeria, the former as well as the latter country has a prophet for its patriot hero, and the dashing exploits of Schamyl produce the same great results as the Fabius-like caution and cunning of Abd-el-Kader. In the meantime, the Czar perseveres in throwing army after army into the hopeless struggle; and as the "sinews of war" are largely needed for such costly experiments, some of his late modes of raising money are likely to involve him in a contest with the clergy-a species of warfare which even Russian despots cannot wage with impunity. The following piece of Petersburg court gossip, which was tremblingly whispered in corners when no third person was nigh, will show how rashly Nicholas has offended his clergy even in the "nicest point." Requiring cash for his late trip through Italy, he borrowed a large sum from the priesthood. As time wore on without any symptom of restitution, the reverend lenders were naturally anxious to convey a gentle hint upon the subject to the imperial ear, and for this purpose a deputation of their number was sent, who propounded the delicate question in the following gentle fashion: -"At what rate of interest is it the pleasure of your Majesty to hold our money?" "Interest!" exclaimed the monarch in wrath and astonishment"what man pays interest to himself? I am the head of the church, and therefore its money is my own." The ghostly deputies were so confounded and stultified with this regal syllogism, that they backed out of the august presence like men moving in a dream.

Considering the history of the past, we might well wonder that, amidst all these changes and aggressions, Britain remains so tranquil. The least of these, in former days, would have provoked her to throw down the gauntlet and rush into the field, be the consequences what they might. But now France and Spain are wedded in defiance of her remonstrances, and she is silent-our hereditary enemy is planting her hostile garrisons in the midst of our Australasian em

pire, and she quietly looks on-and although Russia, already become too great, is seeking to become greater still, and thus to destroy that balance of Europe, which has been established by such fearful sacrifices, our muskets still slumber and rust in the armchests of our arsenals. And what is the cause of this unprecedented phenomenon? Is it that we have become too moral for the attrocities, too wise for the hazards, or too timid for the dangers of a war with France or Russia? Alas! a mightier cause than each or all compels us to be still. The heavy hand of heaven is upon us, and under it we cower and tremble. A root, which constitutes an important article of food, has been struck with a mysterious blight, and a thing so vulgar as a

potato disease" is becoming the deadliest of political calamities. And while, with other countries, the evil will simply constitute a diminution of subsistence, exhibited in an occasional short allowance, the case is very different with us at home, where the potato is not the partial, but the entire food of a large part of our population. In losing this, Ireland and the Highlands have lost their all. And how is the calamity to be encountered? How are the Irish and the Highlanders to be kept in existence during a long season of utter famine— maintained, too, be it observed, by their fellow subjects, whose own resources have been diminished by the same disaster? This is the great political difficulty of the day, in which every other question is absorbed, and the solving of which has made our statesmen nervous and pale. The discontent that must be soothed, the tendency to riot that must be suppressed, the millions of solid cash that must be wrung from the half-starving portion of the community to support the wholly-starving, and the expedients to be adopted for the prevention of such calamities from the same specific cause in any future season-all this involves an amount of perplexity sufficient to distract the highest reach of statesmanship.

Assuredly it was in an evil hour that Sir Walter Raleigh brought the

potato to our shores-a root which bids fair to retard the progress of civilization, or even to lead the civilized back into the savage state of existence. What aims, what aspirations beyond the day, can those men have, who contentedly subsist on roots? What to them are arts and industry, manufacture and commerce? All will appear supererogatory to the man who thrusts a potato into the earth, and then, his hands into his pockets, in reliance upon the future crop.

All has been moving around our Irish and Highland countrymen, but they have remained unmoved. The Englishman and the lowland Scot have started upon a career of improvement which has multiplied an hundred-fold the means of enjoyment and the sources of subsistence, while his potato-fed fellow-citizen is not a whit better off than he was when Sir Walter Raleigh lived. Nay, he is worse-because he is tantalized with the sight of an elevation of society which he does not share; and when his precarious root fails, he must become the bearer of his more industrious brother's burdens, or the dependant upon his charity. We have heard much of late of Gentonic pre-eminence and Celtic inferiority, and many profound reasons have been adduced to support this too popular theory. But postponing this critical part of the subject to a future and more ample investigation, we may merely observe for the present that the article of diet alone, without any more latent cause, is almost sufficient to account for the manifest inferiority, both physical and intellectual, of the Irish and Highland peasantry. He who fares

daily and yearly from infancy upon an innutritious diet of potatoes, must grow up stunted in stature, and feeble of bone and muscle; he who is contented with such fare will laugh to scorn all improvement and invention.

The calamity, indeed, for the present, is a grievous one, and the famine of winter will be fearful and critical; it will be a scramble for existence, in which he who has bread must share to his last loaf with him who has none. And yet the end may be well. We think we can discern, though faintly,

through this murky horizon, the irradiations of a benevolent Providence. May it not be that that support which has been struck from under us might have become the drag, and finally, the paralysis of European industry and enterprise? Let us think of this, and struggle onward. If our Irish and our Highland population would but read in their privations the uncertainty and insufficiency of such a source of subsistence-if they would turn to others, involving the exercise of greater thought and more active industry, and thus, with a diet of flesh and grain, acquire at the same time those wants and habits which distinguish the citizen from the savage-if such were to become the happy effects of a disaster at present so trying, we would not then murmur at a parliamentary grant however large, or any personal services however self-denying.

Amidst the sufferings of our Celtic brethren, it is grievous to think how little aid can be expected from those whose duty it should have been to stand in the breach between their people and the plague. What can be hoped from the political quack who blocks up the highway with the begging hat in one hand, and the nostrum of brick-dust in the other, promising a very millenium of Irish liberty, if the starving people will but pay for it? What from the mad absentee, who rushes blindfold through the world, knocking his head against Pompey's pillar, or the walls of the Vatican? Or what from the Highland chieftian, whose money is squandered at the club or the gaming-table, and whose tail has swept a whole district clear of its inhabitants? The commotion is at hand in which such bubbles evaporate. To the measures of the Government alone, corroborated by the sympathy of the people at large, we look for the remedy. We trust, also, that the remedy will not be confined to a mere temporary expedient. What is to be done with the helpless Celt, when the first pressure of the emergency has passed away? Is he to be allowed to relapse into his former sloth and starvation ?

If so, we shall have more potato blights, and many such strangling

emergenies as the present. As well might we turn Ireland into one huge workhouse, the inmates of which are to be maintained from the public purse. The only remedy that occurs to us, which has the character of permanency attached to it, is the complete and immediate annihilation of Entails. The present crisis demands it, and the law of entail, already crumbling with the parchments for the behoof of which it was created, is even now trying to escape after the herd of superannuated feudalities with which it should have walked off abreast. It is going, and

it must go-and better therefore that its exit should be in peace. This is not the day and the hour for men to hold land which they cannot occupy, and a peasantry whom they cannot employ. For an impoverished nobility groaning under a load of acres which for all the purposes of enjoyment, as well might be their graves, and for lands luxuriant in nettles and thistle-tops, we desiderate moneyed and enterprising land-holders, a fair footing upon the soil for the employment of capital and industry.

NEW PUBLICATIONS OF THE MONTH.

Switzerland and the Swiss Churches; being Notes of a Short Tour, and Notices of the Principal Religious Bodies in that Country. By WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., F.S.A.S. 8vo, P.p 336. Glasgow. 1846.

This is the record of a six weeks' tour in the autumn of 1845. The author's route was by Strasburg, Basle, Neufchatel, Lausanne, Geneva, Chamonix, the Glaciers, Berne, and the Oberland; and the return home by Freyberg, Heidelberg, and Belgium. The narrative of the journey occupies the first six and the last chapter of the book. The scenery is sketched with a lively and effective pen-the way. side anecdotes are pleasantly told-and the personal sketches are fresh and racy. The remainder of the work is occupied with the Swiss Churches. Chapter vii. is devoted to a review of the religious condition of Switzerland generally. Romanism-Comparative View of the Protestant and Catholic Cantons-Influence and efforts of the Jesuits-the Catholic League -Infidelity-Communism-ScepticismNeologianism-are the principal topics. Chapter viii. is occupied with the Protestant Cantonal Churches; and chapter ix. with the Dissenting Churches in Geneva; while chapters x. and xi. are devoted to the Swiss Independent Churches. There is likewise an appendix giving some account of Jean Baptiste Morelli, whom the author claims as one of the earliest advocates of Congregationalism. There is

much that is valuable and interesting in these chapters; but they are throughout a good deal tinctured with the peculiar ecclesiastical views of the author.

Four Letters to the Rev. E. B. Elliott, on some Passages in his Hora Apocalypticæ. By the Rev. Dr CANDLISH, Edinburgh. 8vo, Pp. 128. London, 1846.

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The passages in the Hora Apocalyptica which have produced these Letters are strikingly illustrative of the extreme prejudice with which even the best and ablest of the Evangelical Ministers of the Church of England are apt to regard the Free Church, and the cause of Dissent in general. Mr Elliot, amongst other things, charges the Free Church with urging a claim to inspiration, and therefore to infal libility in the interpretation of Scripture," and with entertaining the sentiment "that Christ's Headship consists in the ecclesiastical ruler's supremacy over the civil power in all things in any way ecclesiastical." He likewise conceives "the reed like unto a rod" given to John to " measure the temple of God and the altar, and them that worship therein," to have symbolized the "rod of authority" given to Henry the Eighth and the Elector of Saxony, to constitute the Reformed Churches at the era of the Reformation, and thence rebukes the Protestant Dissenting body for their "feeling of bitterness against our Anglican Church," the "establishment of which seems expressly noted in the apocalyptic figura tions, as the Lord's own doing ;" and puts it to the authors of that "unhappy secession by which the sister Protestant Church of Scotland has been reft of many of its most eminent and excellent members," whether there is not "ground for pause, reflection, and self-suspecting,"

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