sident elected by the same authority. The President chosen was Prince Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the emperor, and son of his brother Louis, king of Holland, hitherto an exile in England, in consequence of the peremptory exclusion of all his family from France by a law of Louis Philippe.1

The effects of this revolution in Europe were far more extensive and terrible than those which followed that of 1830. Germany, Prussia, Austria, Italy, presented one continuous flame of war and insurrection. In 1849 the universal conflagration of nations seemed destined to consume every government of Europe. The tumult was stilled, but its fires are still fiercely, though secretly burning. England, unscathed, has regarded the convulsion with the pity, but with the tranquillity of a great people, strong in the guardianship of institutions that surround freedom and law with an insuperable bulwark against force; in the moral power of a public opinion, little liable to be awed into silence by democratic tyranny; and, above all, in the diffusion and free action of a pure religion, the best police of governments, and the pledge of the protection of the King of kings.2

I Captured in an absurd attempt at an insurrection on the French coast in 1840, the prince was for several years Louis Philippe's prisoner in the fortress of Ham, from which he had the good fortune to escape.

2 In the rapidity of a meagre sketch we have been forced to omit many events in the period after 1816. The South American states and Mexico were formed by revolts from Spain between 1810 and 1826. The war which established the Greek independence raged between 1821 and 1828; it was ended by the interference of the great powers, and the Greek crown, rejected by Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, was accepted by Otho, a son of the king of Bavaria. Turkey was spoiled of her provinces in the north by Russia, in the south by Mehemet Ali the revolted Pasha of Egypt, who not only secured the hereditary possession of the Pachalic in his family, but threatened to overturn the throne of his master, till his career was stayed by European interference, 1842. The Burmese wars in India. (1824-1826), extended the British possessions along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. The Miguelite (1828-1834) and Carlist wars (1833-1840), agitated the Peninsula till Donna Maria was universally acknowledged in Portugal, and Isabella in Spain. Russia had been widening her dominion along the whole line of her frontier, she has absorbed part of the Caspian provinces of Persia,-is still employed in the reduction of the Caucasian region --and her intrigues, endeavouring to penetrate India by influencing Persia and the chiefs on her eastern borders, originated the Afghan war.

The nineteenth century has been characterized by great activity in geographical discovery in the regions of both poles; and by the settlement and growth of the English colonies of New Holland and other islands of the southern ocean. Emigration flows annually in great tides to these and other settlements. The United States also annually absorb hundreds of thousands of our population. The growth of that Republic in eighty years, to a nation of upwards of 20,000,000, with a territory, inclusive of her recent annexations and conquests from Mexico, equal nearly to Europe; and to the position of a first-rate naval and commercial power, is the greatest wonder of the age. The European nations also since the peace of 1815 have been singularly increased in wealth, population, and resources. Facility of intercourse by steam on land and sea, have brought the most distant regions closer the proposal of engineering enterprise to bring India, in fourteen years, within seven days reach of England is listened to with respect; and electricity may soon enable London and Calcutta to exchange salutations in the compass of five minutes. The diffusion of education-earnestness in religion manifested in missionary enterprise, and national movements in churches and peoples, form another striking feature in the nineteenth century. The whole world is alive with ideas; the rapidity of progress renders yesterday antiquated; and illuminati fondly dream of the approaching optimism of mankind.

STUDY OF LANGUAGE VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE HISTORY OF NATIONS.

Languages, when extensively diffused, act individually as means of communication between widely separated nations, and collectively when several are compared together, and their internal structure and degrees of affinity are investigated, as means of promoting a more profound study of the history of mankind. The Greek language, which is so intimately connected with the national life of the Hellenic races, has exercised a magical power over all the foreign nations with which these races came in contact. The Greek language appears in the interior of Asia, through the influence of the Bactrian empire, as a conveyer of knowledge, which a thousand years afterwards was brought back by the Arabs to the extreme west of Europe, blended with hypotheses of Indian origin. The ancient Indian and Malayan tongues furthered the advance of commerce and the intercourse of nations in the island-world of the south-east of Asia, in Madagascar, and on the eastern shores of Africa; and it is also probable that tidings of the Indian commercial stations of the Banians may have given rise to the adventurous expedition of Vasco de Gama. The predominance of certain languages, although it unfortunately prepared a rapid destruction for the idioms displaced, has operated favourably, like Christianity and Buddhism, in bringing together and uniting mankind.

Languages compared together and considered as objects of the natural history of the mind, and when separated into families according to the analogies existing in their internal structure, have become a rich source of historical knowledge; and this is probably one of the brilliant results of modern study in the last sixty or seventy years. From the very fact of their being products of the intellectual force of mankind, they lead us by means of the elements of their organism into an obscure distance unreached by traditionary records. The comparative study of languages shews us that races, now separated by vast tracts of land, are allied together, and have migrated from one common primitive seat; it indicates the course and direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the leading epochs of development, recognises by means of the more or less changed structure of the

language, in the permanence of certain forms, or in the more or less advanced destruction of the formative system, which race has retained most nearly the language common to all who had migrated from the general seat of origin. The largest field for such investigations into the ancient condition of language, and consequently when the whole family of mankind was, in the strict sense of the word, to be regarded as one living whole, presents itself in the long chain of IndoGermanic languages, extending from the Ganges to the Iberian extremity of Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape. The same comparative study of languages leads us also to the native country of certain products, which, from the earliest ages, have constituted important subjects of trade and barter. The Sanscrit names of genuine Indian products, as rice, cotton, spikenard, and sugar, have, as we find, passed into the language of the Greeks, and even into those of Semitic origin.1-HUMBOLDT.

THE BOND OF HUMANITY.

If we would indicate an idea which throughout the whole course of history has ever more and more widely extended its empire, or which more than any other testifies to the much contested, and still more decidedly misunderstood, perfectibility of the whole human race-it is that of establishing our common humanity-of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected amongst men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to religion, nation, or colour, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the psychical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man towards the indefinite extension of his existence. He regards the earth in all its limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can

1 "Positive ethnographical studies, based on a thorough knowledge of history, teach us that much caution should be applied in entering into these comparisons of nations, and of the languages employed by them at certain epochs. Subjection, long association, the influence of a foreign religion, the blending of races, even when only including a small number of the more influential and cultivated of the immigrating tribes, have produced in both continents similarly recurring phenomena; as, for instance, in introducing totally different families of languages amongst one and the same race, and idioms, having one common root, amongst nations of the most different origin. Great Asiatic conquerors have exercised the most powerful influence on phenomena of this kind."

span their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies. Even the child longs to pass the hills or the seas which enclose his narrow home; yet when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful attribute of man-this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond remembrance of that which is lost-that he is spared from an exclusive attachment to the present. Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind.-WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT.

FROM THE ORATION OF DEMOSTHENES FOR THE CROWN.1

In many instances hath Eschines the entire advantage in Two there are of more especial moment.

this cause. First, as to our interests in the contest, we are on terms utterly unequal; for they are by no means points of equal import, for me to be deprived of your affections, and for him to be defeated in his prosecution. As to me-but, when I am entering on my defence, let me suppress everything invidious, sensible as I must be of this the advantage of my adversary. In the next place, such is the natural disposi tion of mankind, that invective and accusation are heard with pleasure; while they who speak their own praises are received with impatience. His, then, is the part which commands a favourable acceptance; that which must prove offensive to every single hearer is reserved for me. If to guard against this disadvantage, I should decline all mention of my own actions, I know not by what means I could refute the charge, or establish my pretensions to this honour. If, on the other hand, I enter into a detail of my whole conduct, private and political, I must be obliged to speak perpetually of myself. Here then I shall endeavour to preserve all possible moderation: and what the circumstances of the

1 Demosthenes (382-322 B.C.), the greatest of the Athenian orators, in the age of Philip and Alexander, having been decreed a crown, on the proposal of his friend Ctesiphon, as a public testimony of his services to the state, the decree was opposed by his rival Eschines, an orator subservient to the interest of Macedon. Demosthenes was obliged to defend his friend and himself, in the Oration "for the Crown," from which our extract is taken.

case necessarily extort from me must, in justice, be imputed to him who first moved a prosecution so extraordinary.

But since he hath insisted so much upon the event, I shall hazard a bold assertion. But I beseech you, Athenians! let it not be deemed extravagant: let it be weighed with candour. I say then, that had we all known what fortune was to attend our efforts; had we all foreseen the final issue; had you foretold it, Æschines; had you bellowed out your terrible denunciations, (you whose voice was never heard ;) yet even in such a case, must this city have pursued the very same conduct, if she had retained a thought of glory, of her ancestors, or of future times. For thus she could only have been deemed unfortunate in her attempts: and misfortunes are the lot of all men whenever it may please Heaven to inflict them. But if that state which once claimed the first rank in Greece, had resigned this rank in time of danger, she had incurred the censure of betraying the whole nation to the enemy. What part of Greece, what part of the barbarian world has not heard, that the Thebans in their periods of success, that the Lacedæmonians, whose power was older and more extensive,-that the king of Persia would have cheerfully and joyfully consented that this state should enjoy her own dominions, together with an accession of territory ample as her wishes, upon this condition, that she should receive law, and suffer another state to preside in Greece? But to Athenians this was a condition unbecoming their descent, intolerable to their spirit, repugnant to their nature. Athens never was once known to live in a slavish, though a secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. No; our whole history is one series of noble contests for pre-eminence; the whole period of our existence hath been spent in braving dangers for the sake of glory and renown. And so highly do you esteem such conduct, so consonant to the Athenian character, that those of your ancestors who were most distinguished in the pursuit of it, are ever the most favourite objects of your praise-and with reason for who can reflect without astonishment upon the magnanimity of those men who resigned their lands, gave up their city, and embarked in their ships, to avoid the odious state of subjection? who chose Themistocles, the adviser of this conduct, to command their forces; and, when Lycidas proposed that they should yield to the terms prescribed, stoned him to death? Nay, the public indignation was not yet allayed.