him the sense of an unlimited power to | tween a superstition of this kind, -vulfall back upon, whereas the sane convic-gar in origin, whatever it be in manner,tion would have given him no such assur- and that grander and deeper kind of suance, but would have told him that there perstition which comes of religious awe were very well marked limits to the and wonder. The Emperor seems to have strength it lent him, that it was a mere had exceedingly little of this. He reopportunity for his use, not an indepen-garded himself not as the servant of dent force on which he could lean. Of Heaven, but as the protégé of the first course it is never safe for men to believe Buonaparte. What he was to do in the they have a force behind them which they world was not God's will, but the will of have not got; but it does seem that some the "Exile of St. Helena." He worslow natures like the late Emperor's need shipped at second-hand; was the instruthis sort of false stimulus to give them ment of an instrument; and felt not that staying-power, if they are to be anything he was serving Man as a Divine tool, but great at all as men of action. Louis Na- that he was working out the uncompleted poleon in our view was not naturally at thought of the coarse genius with whom all constituted for a man of action. He he claimed relationship. Never was there was a slow, hesitating dreamer, of consid- less of that humility, awe, and wonder erable power and lucidity, who had no which are at the basis both of true worgifts for action; but just as nature some-ship, and often also of that extra-belief or times seems to go out of her way to pro- Aberglaube, which, according to Mr. Arvide a compensation even by a sort of nold, constitutes superstition, than in the monstrosity for a great deficiency, just as late Emperor's heated illusions about the she sometimes gives a dwarf arms of pre- protection of his demi-god uncle. It was ternatural strength and length, so Louis the worship of the Roman world for the Napoleon was in great measure made into divus Augustus over again in a cruder a man of action from a mere dreamer by and somewhat baser form. The late Emthe growth of the morbid superstition peror's mind could not reach, and did not which led him to find in his uncle's de- care to reach, the throne of the supreme parted soul a sort of fetish that impelled Omnipotence at all. He stopped at the him into the thick of the contest. Com-best idol he could form for himself of the moner men have a milder degree of the Divine Ruler, namely, the caricature same kind of superstition. When the contained in that coarse, vigorous, fertileMr. Whitbread who gave rise to Can-minded, supremely self-willed incarnation ning's celebrated couplet, recalled sol- of selfish ambition who had founded the emnly to the House of Commons the fact that the day was sacred to him because it was at once the day of the foundation of the Brewery and of his father's death, -whereupon Canning wrote down,— This day I still hail with a smile and a sigh, For his beer with an e, and his bier with an i, Democratic Empire of France and his own house. It was a poor, pinchbeck kind of worship, and led, as such kinds of worship do, into superstitions that are at least as ruinous in the end, as they are sometimes, by accident and for a time, mines of political force. - Mr. Whitbread had evidently been unconsciously engaged in making a mild sort of fetish of the founder of his own fortunes, precisely similar in kind to that which Louis Napoleon, with a more gran- THE PROGRESS OF THE SPANISH REVOdiose imagination, made of his mighty uncle. The Emperor's egotistic exaggeration of the importance of a relationship which had transmitted hardly any hereditary quality for empire to him, was nevertheless a superstition the constant brooding on which made him into an emperor, as a queen-bee is made by being fed on a particular kind of food into a queen. But the superstition was essentially vulgar in origin, though taken up into a grandiose nature capable of a certain loftiness of manner and phrase. In fact, there is no real connection be LUTION. From The Spectator. SPAIN is evidently in for much more than a series of changes of goverment. She is undergoing, nearly a century later, something very like the same process that France underwent in her great throes of 1789 and the following years, but undergoing it in a milder form, milder partly on account of the familiarity of the mind of Europe with the character of the social movements which created so much wonder, enthusiasm, and terror then, partly on account of the more phlegmatic nature of the Spaniard, which does not seem to take the malady of sus- | curse of France does not seem to take picion nearly so violently as the nature root easily in Spain. The danger rather of the Frenchman. There was-as De is an apathy too great to admit of the Tocqueville very well brought out in those people taking any side definitely, so as latest chapters of his book on the French to render organization possible. As the Revolution which Mr. Henry Reeve has French have always had a genius for just added to the second edition of his centralization,- which it is a pity, by the excellent translation a universal expec-way, they did not manage to impart more tation of completely new social forces and effectually to the Spaniards during their new possibilities of government, pervad- occupation of Spain, the Spaniards aping Europe for years before the French pear to have always had and still to have, Revolution, an expectation which added a taste for decentralization, and the fear enormously to the exciting character of is that this will so favour disorganization that great event. Throughout Europe as to render the process of new political men believed that they were on the eve crystallization difficult, tardy, and inadeof changes in which society would be quate. The example of Madrid has none quite transfigured, and this belief, which, of the fascination for the other great curiously enough, pervaded most com- cities of Spain, for Barcelona, and Seville, pletely not those classes which were most and Malaga, that the example of Paris miserable, but those which were far above has for Lyons, and Marseilles, and Bourwant and living in luxury, stimulated deaux. This indeed, is the argument for every wave of emotion and passion which that "Federal" Republic which is now spread over France, and intoxicated the apparently in the ascendant. But this actors in those great scenes. Spain has fact makes the political future of Spain at least the advantage that the changes even more uncertain than the political which her political and social life seem future of France ever was. Spain is like destined to undergo are no longer waited a ship built in cellular compartments, less for with awe, as if they were the results easy to wreck as a whole, more easy to of the inspiration of a sort of divine Muse. break up into distinct parts. Now that The excitement of the drama has been in the Army is in active decomposition, and great degree discounted by the history of that the voice of the only actual authority the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848. left, is favourable to Federalism rather Spain knows that no golden era of society than unification, it becomes a very diffiis to be expected from any changes, how- cult matter indeed to anticipate the course ever fundamental; that the alternative of political change. between anarchy, and strict taxation under It seems, however, from the accounts, some form of government, is the only al- that the actual Government is not only ternative to be hoped for; that the most not in fault for suppressing the Permaenthusiastic republics have once and nent Committee appointed by the Naagain been much severer sufferers than tional Assembly before its separation, but even despotic States; that if a Federal that it was almost compelled to take that Republic is to succeed, the Federal Re- course. A rebellion had been apparently public must not hope to restore a social organized by the friends of the PermaParadise, but must drill its troops, im-nent Committee against the Government. pose discipline, resist riot, adjust taxation, and enforce justice. There is now, thanks to France, no vast illusion, no rainbow of imaginary hope, to dazzle the eyes even of ignorant Spain. There may be great changes for the better, or great changes for the worse,- and for a time, at least, we fear the latter are the more likely, but there will be no such wild intoxication as alone rendered the great French agony of hope and fear possible. And fortunately, too, Spain takes differences of political opinion easier than France. Carlists, Alfonsists, Radicals, and Republicans, get on very fairly together, except during the crisis of a physical struggle. That "fear" which M. Gambetta justly tells us is the great The Government was called upon by the Permanent Committee to revise the course decided on by the National Assembly, to recall that body and put off the election of a Constituent Cortes. An armed demonstration, it is said by "Monarchical" Volunteers, was made in favour of this policy, so that it became a question of life and death between the Permanent Committee and the Government. If the Permanent Committee had won, there would have been a coup d'état and a reaction. But the victory of the Government only means the dissolution of the Permanent Committee. The unitary party, some of them Reactionists including apparently Marshal Serranosome of them Radicals, clearly demanded a retrograde step, and the indefinite post- | federation, and Federalists governing ponement of the election of the Constit- only by the favour of the masses, and uent Cortes. They have been beaten in without any power to enforce their will fair fight, and Señor Castelar and his concerning any matter on which the friends remain at the head of affairs, and masses do not regard it with complacency, intend to convoke the Constituent Cortes it seems to us more than likely that Spain for the 1st of June, when there seems at is on the way to a complete dissolution present little doubt that the idea of a of her political unity into its elements. Federal Republic will be broached, and But though we see, or think we see, probably command the votes of a major-signs of a much longer interval than we ity of the members. had hoped before civil order can be reBut to our minds, it matters far less established in Spain, we are disposed to what kind of government is to rule at think that the very process of disinteMadrid, than what sort of authority that gration itself is as likely as not to overgovernment is to exercise. The reason come that strong municipal feeling, that we look upon the crisis at Madrid as a new preference for the authority of local junstage in a slowly-developing revolution, is tas and the federal idea, which is now for that hitherto at every change in the political the moment clearly in the ascendant. kaleidoscope since the death of General History seems to show that a despotic Prim, there has been clear loss of admin- monarchy, while it admits of something istrative force to the Government. Ama- very like practical federation under it, deo found little, and that little ebbed without endangering the outward form of gradually away, during his short reign. national unity, has very little tendency to The Republic which succeeded Amadeo produce such ardent popular love of nainherited a very small remnant of authority, but even that it has wasted through the fear of incurring unpopularity. It cannot maintain any of its Captains in Catalonia, but removes one after the other for their unpopular measures for restoring discipline to the demoralized Army. The last report, not yet confirmed before the news came of the struggle in Madrid, was that General Velarde was about to resign because his measures of discipline against the mutinous soldiers were not supported by his civil superiors. Of course it is the special danger of a Federal Government to yield too much to local opinion on all political matters. But a Federal Government without a central army to depend upon is not really a Government at all, it is only a Board for hearing complaints from all sides on which it has no power to take action. With the Northern provinces overrun by the Carlists, with secret Alfonsists clothed in whatever military prestige may be left to the officers of the Army, with Radicals dreading the break-up of Spain into a tional unity as we have seen prevalent in Europe of late years. But it seems also to show that the inevitable tendency of popular revolutions like that which is now progressing in Spain is to bring about,through much grief, through tribulation and anguish, and perhaps much blood, that sense of mutual need and mutual dependence out of which true national unity grows. Revolution on the large scale,-on such a scale as Spain seems but too likely to undergo,- is a terrible fire; but it does frequently seem to fuse the component elements of national life as nothing else fuses them, and this in spite of the bitter party animosities it is apt to excite. We fear the Federal Republic in Spain is little more than a name for a period of revolution; but we should expect to find that the Federal idea itself would hardly survive the chaos into which it will probably plunge Spain, and that Spanish unity will mean a much more solid thing after the chaos than it did before. ONE reason why Christianity has so little success in the world is because professing Christians subordinate it to so many other considerations. Local residence, occupation, friendship, marriage, are settled, and the question of religion goes for little or nothing. It is compromised, and a compromise is close to Were it the ruling principle with a surrender. Christians, it would be on the sure way to the world's throne, though it might be through suffering. "Art thou a King then? He answered, Thou sayest. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that should bear witness unto the truth." Thoughts by the Way. MISUSE OF WORDS.-It is amusing, if not | poets and some other writers, the word was something pitiable, to see how a simple Eng-employed to signify 'both,' it did not in this lish word, the word either, is systematically case before the court." Though such was the misunderstood and misapplied. The real decision, we do not expect that the misuse of meaning of the word is, "one or the other;" just as, in a negative sense, neither signifies, not one nor the other." Shakespeare, in Antony and Cleopatra, uses both words correctly: Lepidus flatters both, 66 Of both is flattered; but he neither loves, From a strange freak, the term either has been Coat: Fine pockets, large and wide, or, The error either will be dropped. In comparison with each, the word is thought pretty, and it will doubtless continue to be misapplied, both in speaking and writing; though, perhaps, testa tors have received a salutary lesson on the subject. 66 none is," We might present other instances of the inveterate misuse of words, but content ourselves with drawing attention to one of daily Occurrence. We refer to the word none, which one," and is accordingly to be used in applica is simply a contraction of "no one," or "not tion to only one thing. Instead, however, of speaking of it in the singular, as or "not one is," or "not one was," it is almost constantly pluralized; writers saying, are," or "none were.' They might just as well say "no one were," which they would hardly think of doing. As the English language is a precious inheritance, it would surely be worth while to avoid such a petty misuse of a very simple class of terms. 66 none Chambers' Journal This misuse of either is not new. occurs several times in the authorized version of the New Testament. Two instances may be given. "They crucified two other with AMONG other evils which the world seems him, on either side one," St. John xix. 18. "On either side of the river was there the tree destined to endure until it comes to an end is of life," Rev. xxii. 2. It says little for the Greek brigandage. It was confidently asserted scholarship of the translators that they should a short time ago that arrangements had been have perpetuated this abuse of our vernacular, entered into between the Greek and Turkish and sanctioned an error so inveterate as to be Governments by which brigandage on the now almost past correction. Perhaps sound Greco-Turkish frontiers was to be extirpated, has had something to do with the improper but it appears that the proposed convention use of either. Consisting of two syllables, it remains in abeyance. In consequence of the may be considered to be more fluent and ele-recent change of the Ottoman Foreign Minisgant than the little word each; in which way ter, the Porte, says the Levant Herald, has not sound is probably preferred to sense. Fashion, yet communicated to the Hellenic Legation however, cannot be permitted to alter the the proposal it desires to substitute for that plain meaning of the English language, and suggested by the Greek Government for the we are glad that, according to the newspaper able extent on the border, within which the report, the correct definition of either was lately vindicated in a suit in Chancery. We Greek and Turkish troops, either alone or in give the matter briefly, as it is related. "A concert, should be free to pursue or otherwise certain testator left property, the disposition operate against the brigands without restric of which was affected by 'the death of either' tion. The Seraskierate, it is understood, obof two persons. One learned counsel con- jects that this intermediary frontier belt of tended that the word 'either' meant both; in support of this view he quoted Richardson, Webster, Chaucer, Dryden, Southey, the history of the crucifixion, and a passage from Revelation. The learned judge suggested that there was an old song in the Beggars' Opera, known to all, which took the opposite view: establishment of a neutral zone of a consider some twenty-two miles in extent would embrace the Turkish town and fortress of Arta, and a number of Turkish villages and castles in the mountain ranges of Otrys and Agraphi, and it presumably does not altogether favour a plan which would give Greek troops a free range in those places. It seems nevertheless rather hard on those who are robbed and murdered by the brigands that the two Governments, whose duty it is to preserve order and prevent crime on their frontiers, should have any difficulty in coming to an understanding on this question. In the meantime how the brigands must chuckle! Pall Mall. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. 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