From The Examiner, 27 Sept.
THE ALLIANCES OF FRANCE.

ator of Italian destinies. He had no forecast that Victor Emmanuel would rise at once so completely in the ascendant as to occupy the Italian zenith totally to his eclipse. The moment Napoleon discovered the actual tendency of things that way, he stood still in his own path.

The probability then was a complete quarrel between the future King of Italy, and the French Emperor. But the latter could not afford to lose the profit of all that he had done. He has therefore continued to befriend Victor Emmanuel in order not to lose his hold of Italy. And he has fed both that sovereign and his people with promises which he is no longer prepared to fulfil. There is little doubt that when Napoleon made these promises he looked to the provisional state of his relations with Italy being completely broken in upon by foreign war. It is evident from his dealings with, and promises to, the Hungarian exiles, that he, too, as well as Garibaldi, looked to a renewal of the

THE sagacious emperor and consummate politician who has now for ten years ruled the destinies of France, finds himself singularly isolated after the lapse of so many years of a certainly not unsuccessful or inglorious policy. During much of that period, if not during all of it, his most palpable aim has been to acquire friends and secure allies. For this purpose the means first employed were personal interviews designed to cement personal friendships with his brother sovereigns. There is no one of them whom he has not met, as host or as guest, and under circumstances calculated to do away with the prejudices naturally entertained against the nephew of the first Napoleon. Some time, however, has already elapsed since the French Emperor was made fully aware that all his efforts in this direction, and by these means, have been fruitless. However cordial and satisfactory for awhile were the relations between the Tuileries and other war with Austria as a necessity. But a courts, they gradually became colder. We hear no more of personal interviews or royal visits. Even Alexander and Napoleon are not the Pylades and Orestes they once promised to be. Alexander, indeed, is quite ready to do any small thing to oblige his brother; he can recognize, for example, the Italian King de facto, under reserves and restrictions. He would do even more than this in return for the consideration of France in continuing to shut her eyes against the Poles. But that the active alliance between France and Russia has declined we need no other proof than the abandonment of Montenegro to the Turks.

It was, probably, the conviction that no solid or profitable alliance would be formed with the old and great sovereigns of Europe by means of personal or other intercourse, which prompted Napoleon to turn his attention to the work of making friends of nationalities. This it was that opened his ear to the insinuating proffers of Cavour. No two leading spirits, indeed, ever entered upon a common task with more complete dissentiment between them than Cavour and Napoleon. If Cavour looked to unite at least North Italy under the house of Savoy, the emperor looked to becoming himself the Pole Star of Italian hopes, and the regener

change has come over the spirit of the imperial dream. Reasons have been found showing the bad policy of depressing Austria altogether, and so probably leaning to the formation of a stronger and more united Germany, a consummation to which the French have ever had the deepest objection. Whatever the motive, it appears certain that the project once entertained by France of renewing her attack upon Austria has been abandoned.

The emperor, as the Moniteur has this week been reminding the world, made efforts to settle the Roman difficulty. He offered the Pope Cavour's programme of a free Church in free Italy, with the revenues of Umbria and the patrimony secured. There are many who hold that the day in which this compact should be concluded would be a fatal one for the house of Savoy. It would establish permanently not only in the midst of Italy but throughout it, a Church more powerful than it is at present, less obedient to civil authority, more determined and more able than ever to dispute the prerogatives of an Italian Parliament in education, in religious influence, in a thousand ways; more able also than it is, even with a prætorian guard of French bayonets, to make itself the spring and centre of that reaction which may

thrust Italy back to the condition of five | Spain rebels against the high-handed dealyears ago. ings of the French in Mexico. Italy shows However, the Church will not consent to her teeth also in a very natural fit of resentAnd Napoleon cannot quarrel out-ment and almost despair.

this.

BRITISH OPINIONS.

From The Quarterly Review, Oct., 1862.

right with the Church. Universal suffrage is the law of his land, and elections for its representative Assembly are approaching. The Liberals are awake, and the Orleanists have leagued with them. The Church is angry, and the Legitimists have received THE last numbers of the two great leaders, orders to act as auxiliaries to this anger. A Tory and Whig, have long articles on the hostile majority, or even a formidable minor-War to overthrow the American Republic. ity in the Chamber, would be most inconven- The concluding paragraphs are copied. ient, when it is considered that a Chamber without an Opposition at all has still succeeded in restricting the Budget, flinging out a Dotation bill, and filling the Tuileries with six months of annoyance and anxiety. The Italian Ministry have, therefore, been told they must wait. They answer, can wait if permitted to announce a definitive settlement in any time. But that would be a threat to Rome, and would exasperate the Church as much as immediate violence. Signor Rattazzi has, therefore, announced the determination of his sovereign to declare

We

that the Government considers Rome to be

a necessary portion of Italy, and its inhabitants the subjects of that kingdom. France forthwith deprecated any such sweeping announcement, which would anger the Pope's court, and even give it a fair excuse for declining all future negotiations. The Italian Ministry has put off the Chamber and the declaration till November, but proclaims that it can do no more. If a settlement cannot then be announced, a dissolution of the Chamber must take place, and what resolve a Chamber elected under such a pressure of circumstances might take, is what neither Victor Emmanuel nor Rattazzi can answer for. In this way stand the relations between the governments and the courts. La Guérronnière's articles have added to the exasperation, and the clauses of the Treaty of Commerce have been left unconcluded by the negotiators.

In the efforts made by Napoleon the Third to secure alliances, there were none on which he laid more stress than those with his southern neighbors, Spain and Italy. If secure of these he might easily, it was thought, meet the hostility of the north. But he has been unable to secure the friendship even of the second-rate sovereigns of the south.

But, whatever the probable fate of slavery in the Confederacy may be, it cannot affect the national duties of England. We are very good friends with the Kingdom of Spain and the Empire of Brazil, in both of which slavery flourishes, and where there is neither an immediate nor a proximate probability of emancipation.* Nor ought we to forget that ten years have not elapsed since we plunged into a bloody war, and spent some eighty millions of money, to uphold the integrity of an empire in which the white slave-trade is still carried on. A country which is united to Turkey by diplomatic ties so affectionate and confidential is not called upon to be squeamish about the domestic institutions of its allies. But, in the interest of the antislavery party themselves, we ought to be careful that no hostility to us should be excited in the minds of the Confederates by any undue favor shown to their opponents. The new State will be bound by no treaties to suppress the slave-trade, and the precedent we ourselves set in the case of the traders of the United States will preclude us from demanding a right of search, except where it has been voluntarily conceded.

But, in truth, the whole slavery dispute seems petty and trivial, when we read the weekly narrative of American carnage or the daily tale of Lancashire starvation. With every respect to the negro, we cannot stop to inquire into wrongs under which he ap(parently thrives and is happy, when the blood of our own race is being poured out like water, and our own fellow-citizens are perishing by inches. We cannot contemplate

the battle-fields strown with corpses, or vast regions once busy and prosperous now laid

ified by law from voting for Senators, Deputies to * In Brazil even emancipated slaves are disqualthe Imperial Parliament, and Members of the Provincial Assemblies, and from being elected Senators, Deputies, or Members of Provincial Assemblies. These are the only civil rights which they do not enjoy.

waste by war, and console ourselves with On no other principle can a State maintain the reflection that, if it be only continued its place in the civilized world, and on no long enough, it may possibly end in promot- other principle do we assign honors and reing the negroes suddenly to a freedom which wards to our statesmen and our soldiers. they will not appreciate, and will certainly On no other principle, certainly, can the promisuse. We cannot reconcile ourselves to longed war of the North against the South the sight of a famine-stricken population at be for a moment defended. home by the hope that, if their sufferings are sufficiently prolonged, the integrity of an aggressive and unscrupulous empire may possibly be restored. Every consideration of humanity to those abroad and those at home demands that we should do everything in our power, and, if need be, risk something, to bring this fearful desolation to a close. As soon as the time comes-we trust that it may be close at hand-when, by a fair interpretation of international law, we can join with other European powers in recognizing an independence which is already an accomplished fact, there is a fair hope that the Federals may see in our declaration an honorable plea for retreating from a contest from which they will assuredly never be extricated by success.

If this be so, why are we in this case to "discard all selfish considerations"? Why specially on the question of Secession and our sympathy with the South or North, are we to neglect the element of advantage to England? It can hardly be said that the Government of the United States in their dealings with us have set us the example of unselfishness, although their feeling has been sometimes adverse to us, when there was no apparent interest to guide it in that direction; as for instance at the time of the Crimean War.

As a people, it is not our business to say what interpretation of the American Constitution is the right one. Whether we approve or disapprove of the municipal laws and institutions of the South, their independence of the Government at Washington is not the less a fact. If it be manifestly for the advantage of England to acknowledge that fact by recognizing the national character of the Southern Confederacy, we cannot see why their morality, for which we are not responsible, should stand in the way of such recognition. Neither the peace of the world nor the triumph of good over evil will be promoted by shutting our eyes to facts and events on such grounds as these.

From The Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1862. We do not deny the obligations of national morality. We fully admit that every people is responsible for its acts, and for the way in which it exercises its influence over others. A violation of national faith, or a wanton provocation of the greatest of all evils-war-is never committed with impunity. As it is, however, with private, so it is with public, morality; the providence of God has ordained, that the real prosperity But, on the other hand, we do not say of nations, as of individuals, and the good that it is for the interests of England wisely government of the civilized world, should be considered, at the present moment to recog worked out by the action of each seeking, nize the Southern Confederacy. We are inwithin certain limits, that which is for his clined to believe that Lord Palmerston's polown interest. When a nation oversteps icy has been hitherto right-that at this those limits there is a Nemesis waiting pa- moment the acknowledgment of the South tiently to avenge the crime-a Nemesis not as a nation would of itself effect very little, the less sure because the retribution is not always undergone by the generation which committed the offence, nor understood by those on whom it falls. What is the meaning of the instinct of patriotism and the love of one's own country, except that men, in dealing with other nations, should keep steadily in view the welfare of their own?

and might cause to England evils greater than those which it would remove.

If this be so we have nothing to do but to lament the civil war which is raging in the United States, and we must bear as well as we can the suffering of Lancashire, whilst we wait patiently and calmly for the course of events.

It is the misfortune of excellence to be paro- | Can legal lore or animated speech died. No one dreams of burlesquing shallow mediocrity. Gray's Elegy " has often been parodied. The best specimen of this is to be found in the Legal Examiner, published in London in 1844, the authorship of which is unknown. Here it is: from its title and allusions evidently the production of a lawyer-Transcript.

Avert that sentence which awaits us all?

Can nisi prius craft and snares o'erreach
That Judge whose look the boldest must
appall?

ELEGY IN THE TEMPLE GARDENS.
THE gardener rings the bell at close of day,

The motley crowd wind slowly home to tea; Soft on the Thames the daylight fades away,

And leaves the walks to darkness and to me.

Now shine the glimmering gas-lamps on the sight,

The wardens now the outer portals lock, And deepest stillness marks the approach of night,

Savo when the watchman calls "Past ten o'clock."

Save, also, when from yonder antique tower,*
With solemn sound the bell strikes on the ear,
And wandering damsels, as they hear the hour,
Trip through the gloomy courts with haste
and fear.

In those high rooms where clients ne'er intrude,
And here and there a light doth dimly peep,
Each in his lonely set of chambers mewed,

The briefless crowd their nightly vigils keep:

The grave attorney, knocking frequently,
The tittering clerk, who hastens to the door,
The bulky brief and corresponding fee,

Are things unknown to all that lofty floor.
Small comfort theirs when each dull day is o'er,
No gentle wife their joys and griefs to share:
No quiet homeward walk at half-past four

To some snug tenement near Russell Square.

Oft have they read each prosing term report,
Dull treatises and statutes not a few;
How many a vacant day they've passed in court!
How many a barren circuit travelled through!

Yet let not judges mock their useless toil,

And joke at sapient faces no one knows;
Nor ask, with careless and contemptuous smile,
If no one moves in all the long black rows?
Vain is the coif, the ermined robe, the strife

Of courts, and vain is all success e'er gave; Say, can the judge, whose word gives death or life,

Reprieve himself, when summoned to the
grave?

Nor you, ye leaders, view them with ill-will,
If no one sees their speeches in the Times,
Where long-drawn columns oft proclaim your
skill,

To blacken innocence and palliate crimes. The Middle Temple Hall Tower-a modern antique.

Perhaps in those neglected rooms abound
Men deeply versed in all the quirks of laws,
Who could, with cases, right and wrong con-
found,

And common sense upset, by splitting straws.
But, ah! to them no clerk his golden page,

Rich with retaining fees, did e'er unroll;
Chill negligence repressed their legal rage,
And froze the quibbling current of the soul.
Full many a barrister, who well could plead,
Those dark and unfrequented chambers bear;
Full many a pleader born to draw unfee'd,

And waste its counts upon the desert air!

Some Follett, whom no client e'er would trust,
Some Wilde, who gained no verdict in his
life;

In den obscure, some Denman there may rust,
Some Campbell, with no peeress for his wife.
The wits of wondering juries to beguile,

The wrongs of injured clients to redress,
To gain or lose their verdict with a smile,
And read their speeches in the daily press.
Their lot forbade :-nor was it theirs-d'ye
see?-

The wretched in the toils of law to lure;
To prostitute their conscience for a fee,

And shat the gates of justice on the poor.

To try mean tricks to win a paltry cause,
With threadbare jests, to catch the laugh of
Or puff in court, before all human laws,
fools,

The lofty wisdom of the last New Rules.

Not one rule nisi even to compute,"

Their gentle voices e'er were heard to pray,
Calm and sequestered, motionless and mute,
In the remote back seats they passed each
day.

Yet c'en their names are sometimes seen in
print;

Disclose in letters large, and dingy tint,
For frail memorials, on the outer doors,

The unknown tenants of the upper floors.

Door-posts supply the place of Term Reports,
To show that he who never moved the courts,
And splendid plates around the painter sticks,

Has moved from number two to number six.

For who, to cold neglect a luckless prey,

His unfrequented attic e'er resigned,
E'er moved, with better hopes, across the way,
And did not leave a spruce tin plate behind?

Strong is the love of fame in noble minds,

And he, whose bold aspirings fate doth crush,
Receives some consolation when he finds
His name recorded by the painter's brush.