min Constant and Madame de Stael, that the | of the English reading public with AlexanEnglish principles of constitutional govern-dre Dumas's romances, and with many other ment and of civil and religious liberty have forms of French light literature? Day by found their way round the world. Voltaire day, as the knowledge of French spreads discovered Shakspeare and Newton, Milton through our middle to our working classes, and Locke; Tocqueville the United States, not for France alone, but for the whole Latin race at least. Without J. B. Say, political economy (as we now understand the term) might have remained wellnigh unknown out of the British Isles; without Dumont, the powerful impulse given by Bentham to lawreform might equally have stopped on the hither shore of the Channel. But it is as difficult for an Englishman to admit that the influence of his own country remains insular until accepted by France, as for a Frenchman to admit how much of apparently French influence is really English in its origin.

England, on the other hand, is far slower in receiving influence from France than the Continental nations; nay, her first impulse is, perhaps, to draw herself up and resist it. Still, from the days of Edward the Confessor, there have been epochs in her history in which that influence has been unmistakable; those of the Plantagenets, for instance; of Charles II., and, so far as literature is concerned, of nearly the whole period which extends from Milton to Burke. Within our own generation, the passing of the Reform Bill is to be looked upon as in great measure the sequel to the French Revolution of 1830; whilst the influence of France over the literature and manners of our own day is still enormous. France, be it remembered, is the great caterer for the theatre throughout the world; England, almost the only country which takes the trouble so much as to recast a French piece; elsewhere, from Naples to Lima, it would be merely translated. The range of the French novel is scarcely less extensive. Any one who has read Miss Bremer's works, for instance, will be struck with the evidence which they afford of the familiarity of the far North with contemporary French novelists. The same witness is afforded by Countess Hahn-Hahn for Germany, by Fernan Caballero for Spain. The influence of these made itself felt in the literature of the United States even before it was traceable in that of England; but who by this time can doubt the widespread familiarity of the very lowest grades

not only do translations of French works multiply, but the original works themselves are read. What facilities now exist for obtaining French books to read in London, compared with the days in which but little in the shape of French was taken in by any circulating library, beyond the last Paul de Kock, for the behoof of a certain number of epicures in the nasty!

We must, therefore, accept this influence of France at the present day as a fact, not only for all the world besides, but for ourselves. And it does, therefore, very seriously concern us if the sources of that influence be healthy or diseased, quickening or stagnant, ennobling or corrupting. But who can say that the moral influence of the Second Empire has worked for good on any single nation in the world, except through the resistance which has been offered to it, the repulsion which it has inspired? What has most braced up Italian nationality, the conquest of Lombardy by the aid of Napoleon III., or the sturdy and successful resistance to the peace of Villafranca which he had dictated, the persistent protest against his occupation of Rome? Whose example has done most to keep the traditional Italian poinard in its sheath, that of Ricasoli refusing to bend before the modern Nebuchadnezzar, and Garibaldi flinging defiance in his face, or that of the cringing Rattazzi? For England, too, the Second Empire has done two great things; it has called forth our volunteer movement; it has driven us to renew our navy. Whatever effects have been produced upon England, so to speak, in the grain of that influence, have been purely evil; from the prating of our Positivists about the blessings of Imperialism, in the teeth of every memory worth preserving in the history of England or of mankind, down to that invention of a French Empress ashamed of motherhood, which, besides offending every sense of classic artistic beauty, has certainly been the cause of more deaths, and those more dreadful ones, than all other articles of human dress put together throughout the world during the same period of time. From the "demi-monde" of the Second Em

The

pire have come to us,-though with an orig-lous as to means, firm alliance with every inality of their own, -the "pretty horse- available cant, persistent compression of breakers and other Hetære who for the every quickening faith. Whilst it is there, first time in our history have begun to form it is as a stone in the very heart of the Eupublicly a distinct class in English society; ropean Continent, chilling all around, and nor is it possible to estimate how overwhelm- even ourselves across the waters. Let us be ing would have been the tide of public immor- frank; in what country are men not conality from the shores of Imperial France, had scious that the Second French Empire is the it not been for the checks which have been standing nuisance of the world? Sharp as opposed to it by the sovereignty of a virtuous has been and still is the crisis of American queen and the example of her court. But disruption, the permanent uncertainty as to apart even from these coarser and more glar- the motions of that mighty and inscrutable ing forms of evil influence, who among us is self-will at the Tuileries has done far more not conscious, around him on all sides, with- during the last ten years to paralyze and in his own self, of feelings and tendencies, disorganize trade and the familiar relations often, indeed, antagonistic among them- of nation with nation, man with man. selves, yet closely akin to those which are fear of that it is which has made all counlowering France - of that moral lassitude, tries arm to the teeth. Why is Italy rushthat despair of good from above or from being headlong into an enormous debt, strainlow in the social cosmos, that worship of brute strength, that sympathy with clever success often amounting to a tacit accompliceship in its rascalities, that lazy acquiescence in evil realities, that tolerance of cant for want of faith, or intolerance of faith because we dare not acknowledge the existence of aught but cant, that practical godlessness, in a word, assuming as it does the most various forms, compatible at once with the most feverish physical and intellectual activity, and with absolute torpor of the whole man-which alone could have stilled demands for Reform, maintained Mr. Disraeli in the leadership of the Conservative party, enabled the Record or the Saturday Review to live and decent folk to read them, allowed the Times to dictate to public opinion, made Mr. Carlyle a prophet for a large portion of our youth, and created a sympathy between free England and the great slave power of Northern America ? All these, be it observed, are points on which there is fellow-feeling between us and the French Imperial system. That stands out before the world as the great exemplar of triumphant brute force, clever self-will utterly unscrupu

ing every nerve to increase her armies ? Is
it only to be able to cope with Austria ?
Would she toss, as she does now, in such an
ecstacy of anguish upon the live coals of her
hopes, instead of letting them blaze forth as
beacon-fires upon her onward path, had she
only a generous France behind her, and not
an Imperial bird of prey? Would England
be expending sums on her iron-clad navy
which would give food and labor to tens of
thousands of her suffering ones, but for a
well-grounded distrust of her
"august
ally":

No, there is no real peace for Englandfor the world-so long as the Imperial des potism weighs upon France, galling and cor rupting at once the great people which is subject to it. So long as this lasts, all European progress, if not suspended, must creep on at a snail's pace; only so far secure, as it manages to keep clear of entanglement with the Napoleonic policy. In short, the old Cromwellian saying must, while Napoleon III. holds the crown, be the motto for all the world besides : "Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry,"

POETRY.-Albert Pike described by Himself, 434. "Old Stars," 434. Morning, 478. Pere La Chaise, 479. The Last Day of October, 1862, 479. A Drifting Leaf, 479. Hope, 479. Harben's Love Song, 480.

News

SHORT ARTICLES.-Frogs in Coal, 449. Devotion to Science, 449. General Liprandi, 462. Cockney Criticism, 480. How to see the Exhibition in Ten Minutes, 480. from the Styx," 480. A smooth Way of getting out of it, 480. Forgiveness of Injuries, 480.

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