hausted in the struggle for freedom. And to cultivate an exclusive and sycophantic connexion with it, and to stake the French alliance upon its support, is to risk every thing on the stability of a house built not upon the sand, but on a volcano.

the Revolutionary Tribunals, which at least | blooded application of the Terrorist system. arrested only men accused of crimes, and ren- He formally announced its inauguration with dered homage to justice by going through the his own lips, though he did not venture to form of an open trial. In another place the communicate to Europe its details. He has Prefect was tender-hearted. He looked in now removed his accomplice from office, not agony of mind through the list of the "sus- because he was criminal, but because he was pect" for the required victim. One was too unsuccessful. He has marked the want of old, another too poor, another too ill. At success by withdrawing the Ministership of last he selected one, perfectly innocent and in- the Interior, but honored the crime with the offensive, but “the best able to bear the mis- Senatorship of the Empire. And these men fortune." This man he arrested, and sent off, ride high, and are the master spirits of their as he imagined, to a few months' imprison-age; while Robespierre, and Hebert, and Colment, but, as he afterwards learnt, to his lot D'Herbois, sleep in dishonored graves. despair, to exile in Algeria. He said, if the The Government which has been guilty of man died, he should resign-hoping by resig- these proceedings is not an enemy to liberty, nation to wash his hands of innocent blood. to progress, to freedom of thought, to civilizaOne man was arrested on his deathbed, and tion-it is an enemy to humanity. It will last expired in the custody of the gendarme. Pub- just so long as military force can hold down a lic opinion in the locality compelled the Pro-brave and fiery nation, wearied but not excureur-Impérial to suspend the gendarme who had been guilty of this outrage, and the Prefect of the department hastened to Paris to represent the bad effect which had been produced. The result of his representations was that the gendarme was rewarded with an order, and that the Procureur-Impérial was dismissed the service: At Tours they arrested the physician to the administration of the railway, who is described as a very charitable man, and greatly beloved by the working classes-another fact for Imperialist sansculottes. At least from three to four hundred of these arrests were made in Paris alone. They were made at the dead of night, by police-officers in plain clothes, with arms under their coats. In some cases no warrant was shown. Not only the houses of the persons arrested were searched, but their wives and children, "rudely or considerately, according to the character and temperament of the functionaries who conducted the proceedings." "No explanations were given or permitted; wives were forbidden to talk to their husbands, children were forced back from the embrace of their fathers." The majority of the persons arrested were sent to Africa, and during part of the voyage they were kept in irons. We have then some account of the wives left without their husbands, and mothers without their only sons-women sick and unable to work, and with children dependent on them-women left pregnant, and with no one to support them, praying for the means of going out to join their husbands in exile. But what are the tears and heartbreakings of these poor women -the obscure wives of physicians, tradesmen, and mechanics? Is not society saved so long as the balls and banquets of the Tuileries are gay, and their charming ladies delight the world with fabulous luxury and hair powdered with gold?

From The Saturday Review, 10 July. THE FIRST DUTY OF ENGLAND. THE institution of a thoroughly efficient Channel fleet is not only an object of primary importance-it is the first duty of the Government and the nation. The expense will probably be heavy. The expense of raising a sufficient number of volunteer seamen, seamen's wages being what they are, will certainly be heavy. This is the result of the false economy of laying down, for the sake of a momentary relief from taxation, that which it afterwards costs us double to restore. Our burdens have lately been increased, and we have still India on our hands. Yet the effort must be made. It ought to be made irrespective of any danger of attack. But it would be absurd to say that a danger of attack does not exist. It is enough to create such a danger, that a few leagues from our coast vast and increasing powers of aggression are wielded by a despotic and irresponsi ble Government which may find it its interest in extremity to cast the die of war, and which may, if it continues in its present course, be any day brought to extremity by the disaffection of its own people. But besides this, we are, in the eyes of that despotic Government, the rankest and most offensive upholders of political and moral freedom in the world. Without a strong Channel fleet, our coasts are open to sudden invasion, in the opinion of the most competent military judge; and the only words of terror which the Duke of Wellington ever uttered are still ringing as a It will be remembered that the Emperor warning in our ears. Our arsenals themhimself was distinctly a party to this cold-selves are unguarded and open to a blow by

which we might be fatally crippled at the | pleted the arming of Cherbourg, and made, outset of a contest in which our national ex- without any obvious cause, a vast addition istence would be at stake. It is vain to spec- both to its naval and military power. ulate how that blow might be dealt there are a thousand ways of striking those who are unarmed and unprotected. On the national defences every eye ought to be turned, and the Government which can put the national defences in the best state is the best Government at the present time. Parliament ought not to separate without an assurance that England will speedily be able to ride the narrow seas with force sufficient to protect her own shores, and the interests of liberty and civilization which have found a refuge there.

The intentions of the Sovereign whose immense preparations are disturbing the peace of Europe are of course inscrutable. He has as yet shown no hostility to this country. He has always professed, and still professes good will towards England, and a desire to maintain the English alliance. He has allowed to pass what might have seemed a good opportunity of executing any designs against us. While the Indian mutiny was at its height, he offered us facilities for the con veyance of our troops, and he seems to have checked French officers who would have gone The Belgian Government has determined out to offer the aid of their military science on raising a loan for the purpose of fortifying to the mutineers. His invitation to our Antwerp as a citadel of refuge where, in case Queen to be present at the opening of Cherof a piratical invasion, the Belgian army and bourg is a strong guarantee of amicable inmilitia might hold their ground till assistance tentions, because, if followed by unprovoked could arrive. The fortifications will probably hostilities, it would be an act of gratuitous take the form of an entrenched camp, capable treachery which would draw down upon its of containing within its circle of forts the perpetrator the indignation of the civilized collected force of the country. It is not im- world. But still, he is the author of the probable that the King of the Belgians may coup d'état; and his recent acts have shown have taken the opportunity of his recent visit that he is ready to retain the prize of his to England to concert the necessary measures lawless ambition, if necessary, by the same of protection, and inculcate on us the neces- means by which it was won. If he is capable sity of raising the Channel fleet. The King of committing the naked atrocity of assessing sees enormous aggressive preparations being his own departments for innocent victims to made, and must know that these preparations a reign of terror, he cannot be supposed inmust be either a mania or a menace, and that capable of plunging into the atrocity, veiled a mania for expenditure is not likely to prevail by glory, of a foreign war. He has conin the present condition of French finance. stantly at his ear men who are notoriously He is evidently conscious that the storm which the deadly enemies of England, whose infamy has gathered before is again gathering over fears no addition, and whose minds steeped Belgium. It has not been arrested by the in treachery, tyranny, and apostacy, have lost large concessions which the Belgian Govern- the sense of crime. He has also constantly ment has made to the exigencies of the Im- at his ear men who, as fanatical Ultramontanperial régime. To the French people, Bel-ists, are burning to use French bayonets, gium is a monument of their former liberties, a reproach of their present servitude, and a pledge of their capability of future emancipation. To the French Government, Belgium is the friend of their enemy-the freedom and self-respect of the French people. It is scarcely possible that Louis Napoleon and his advisers should tolerate with patience such a scandal and such a firebrand at their door. Moreover, all the Napoleonic traditions point to the annexation of Belgium as a natural part of the empire. There is, of course, no pretence for an attack. The Belgian Government has gone to the very verge of honor and independence in repressing all that can give umbrage to Imperial jealousy and fear. But it would not be difficult for the wolf to find some pretence for seizing on the lamb. There seems to be even an inclination to treat the fortification of Antwerp as an insult to the racific and undesigning Government which, though threatened by nobody, has just com

even though wielded by infidels, in a crusade against the religious liberties of Christendom; and who see in the Empire a blessed and un hoped-for incarnation of violence which offers the last chance of quenching the light of reason and truth in the blood of their adherents. His interested intrigues in the East for the purpose of linking the French Ultramontan ists with the possession of the Holy Places, involved us in the war with Russia. Scarcely was the blood of our soldiers, mingled with the blood of the soldiers of France, dry on the fields of the Crimea, when he began to intrigue with Russia against his late allies. He continues to occupy Rome with his troops, against all international law; and he has given repeated indications of further designs in the direction of Italy. His dark and plot ting ambition has now for the second time assisted in making a representative of sabre sway dominant in Spain. In O'Donnell he has an apt accomplice for any designs against

the liberties of Europe, and the success of armament within the limits necessary for dethat adventurer is accompanied by a violent fence. He may mean nothing by all these demonstration of Spanish animosity against preparations. He may mean only to keep us England. In the matter of the Principalities in check while he attacks or coerces some he is acting against us, and in the interest of other nation. But he, or those who succeed Russian ambition; and the appearance of a to his power in case of his death, may be led Russian frigate in the Mediterranean, acting by their passions or their necessities to do with a French squadron and under the orders more than they mean; and it is scarcely posof a French admiral, is evidence of an under-sible for them to engage in hostilities in any standing which is something more than inti-quarter which would not draw us immediately mate. The pamphlet entitled Napoleon III. or ultimately into the vortex. The feelings and the Principalities, roundly tells us of amity entertained by this nation towards what indeed is sufficiently evident that France are not doubtful. Not one single Cherbourg has been armed, in accordance syllable has ever escaped any English speaker with the views of Napoleon I., as a means of or writer bearing the slightest analogy to the striking a blow at England; and it further threats which are constantly levelled at us by states that if France is "humiliated"-that the press which is under the control of the is, if she does not have every thing her own French Emperor. All that any Englishman way-in the matter of the Principalities, the desires is that Louis Napoleon and his adblow will assuredly be struck. This pamphlet visers should have before them cordial haris not divested of all significance by the as-mony with England if they choose peace, and surance of the Pays, that, in spite of similar- certain defeat if they choose war. To place ity in form and title, it has no analogy to a strong barrier to the reckless and selfish the Government pamphlet Napoleon III. ambition of the French Government is not and England. But the decisive fact is that only a duty we owe to ourselves, but the Louis Napoleon refuses to give the one suffi- greatest service we can possibly do the French cient guarantee of peace, by confining his people.

MR. HAYWARD is not satisfied with the contradiction to his "good story" given by-Mr. Bentley, the victim of it-for every good story has its victim. Mr. Bentley declares pointblank that he never had any conversation with either of the Smiths about the title of his Miscellany; but Mr. Hayward, unwilling to give up a good thing, replies with an air of doubt that he had the statement from the lips of James Smith himself to which Mr. Bentley, now put upon his mettle, replies with some sharpness: "Any other man than Mr. Hayward, when informed that I never had any conversation with the late Mr. James Smith, or his brother, on the subject of the title of my Miscellany, would have expressed regret at having published an anecdote wholly devoid of foundation in fact. Instead of this he has raised an issue on its truth, and adduced, on his own authority, the name of a deceased gentleman to contradict me. is easily done, but is not satisfactory. Our respective reputation for veracity is before the public. I will not appeal to the dead, but to the living; and refer him, for his satisfaction, to the members of his own profession, the benchers of the Temple, whose estimate of him is well known. Mr. Hayward is pleased to call this groundless anecdote, which is calculated to throw ridicule upon me, 'a harmless pleasantry." If I were to publish Theodore Hook's story of his affecting appeal to him to spare dear Caroline for his sake,' he might understand how an absurd story ceases to be harmless when it becomes personal."

This

What a pity it seems that good stories should be such edged tools, and that wits must have their jokes, like their dinners, at the expense of their friends.

POTTERY IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.

In a late number of the Athenæum it was, I
think, stated that a traveller in Egypt, having
lately found a piece of pottery at some thirty
feet below the present surface of the soil on the
banks of the Nile, came to the conclusion that,

because the annual deposit of earth by the
stream would have required so many centuries
the bit of pottery found must have been manu-
to lay down so many feet of earth, therefore,
factured some 13,000 years before the beginning
Does the following state-
of the Christian era.
ment of facts bear at all on such a theory?
Having lived for many years of my life on the
banks of the river Ganges, I have seen the
bank where it stood, and deposit as a natural re-
stream encroach on a village, undermining the
sult bricks, pottery, &c., in the bottom of the

stream.

On one occasion, I am certain that the depth of the stream where the bank was breaking was above forty feet; yet in three years the current of the river shifted so much, that a fresh deposit of soil took place over the debris of the village, and the earth was raised to a level with tained a bit of pottery from where it had lain the old bank. Now, had our traveller then obthe inference that it had been made 13,000 years for only three years, could he reasonably draw before?

AN OLD INDIGO PLANTER.

From the Boston Courier.

THE LATE MR. ABBOTT LAWRENCE.

Abbot Lawrence, the American millionaire, among whose papers the following document "Der Weg zum Gluck," oder die Kunst Mil- was found, after his recent death, had received lionair zu werden, aus den hinterlassenen "The Way to Fortune, or the Art of becomPapieren des Kürzlich verstorbenen Ameri- ing a Millionaire," from the dying hands of a kanischen millionairs Abbot Lawrence; in rich uncle, who, singularly enough, left him Deutscher Original Bearbeitung von Ru- nothing else, but in the absence of nearer dolph Anders. Preis 5 s. gr. Diese inter-relatives, bequeathed his immense fortune to essante Schrift wird jedermann aufs An- charitable institutions; saying to his nephew, gelegentlichste empfohlen." as he gave him the manuscript-" Wealth, my dear nephew, I do not leave you, for every man possesses within himself the power to earn it, and, with it, to win honor, fame and happiness. Independent energy is a noble thing; and I do not wish to cripple or destroy it in you, by making you heir to my enormous wealth, which, though you have hitherto been upright and honest, you might use so as to make you a bad man. Earn, then, as I have done, your own fortune, by your own energy, and you will know how to measure rightly the worth of riches, which should be used only to our own necessities, and to assist our fellowcooperate with God's Providence; to supply creatures.

A friend of ours, passing along the streets of Berlin some time since, noticed before a bookseller's shop the above placard-now on our table-which may be translated thus:"The Way to Fortune, or the art of becoming a millionaire, from the papers of the lately deceased American millionaire, Abbot Lawrence, now originally prepared in German by Rudolph Anders. Price 5 silver groschen. This interesting work is earnestly recommended to all."

The sum asked for it-only about 8 cents -was small, and our friend went in and bought what he was sure would be something curious, "But in order to afford you the means easier and what turned out to be a tract of twenty-to earn a considerable fortune, and thus more eight pages in 12mo., printed at Berlin, 1856, quickly to obtain honor and happiness; and and sold on commission by G. A. Hoevel. It in order to save you from the necessity of is needless to say that the whole is a mere fic-growing wise by your own sufferings, I give tion attached to the name of our distinguished you here a rich treasury of the experiences townsman; and we give this notice of it, partly which I have gathered from my own life, and to show in what a reckless manner foreigners which have made me what thousands and milinvent about us whatever happens to suit their lions vainly strive to be, because either they purposes, and partly to show how widely do not know how to choose their means spread was the name and fame of Mr. Law-rightly, or, having chosen right, do not know rence, when it could be relied on to give cur- how to apply them. rency among the masses of a population like that in Berlin, to the wholesome moral truths this little tract is intended to inculcate. When Lord Byron saw a copy of one of his works printed at Albany-a place of which, probably, he knew nothing else, he said, "this is fame." The fiction attached to Mr. Lawrence's name in the Berlin pamphlet implies fame of another sort, and, we think, a better.

The preface, which is intended to give value and effect to the manuscript it announces, was evidently written by a person who, like most of his readers, knew nothing about Mr. Lawrence, except that he had made his own great fortune by the most honorable means; that was an American statesman of recognized eminence; and that he had represented the United States at the Court of St. James in 1849-52. The rest is pure fiction, but it is a fiction so curious and whimsical, that we translate it entire we mean the Preface. It runs

he

thus :

Before we give the following remarkable manuscript to the press, and so publish it to the world, we wish to impart to its readers some information concerning its origin.

66

ences," the uncle continued to the nephew; Use, then, this treasury of my experiuse it faithfully, and you will soon, by your own resources, attain to what will be to you for prosperity and blessing, and insure to you happiness on this side the grave and on the other." When the uncle had uttered these last words, his spirit passed forever into the great hereafter.

The nephew stood some moments lost in thought, by the bed of death, and well might he regret the vast fortune which his uncle had possessed, and which should naturally have fallen to him as the next of kin; but he soon recovered himself, took up the manuscript, and began, at once, the preparations for consigning the mortal remains of his uncle to the earth from which they had been taken. And now on the evening of the day in which he had performed these last sad rites, as he sat sorrowful in his chamber, he remembered the cousels he had received, and full of curiosity, opened the manuscript, whose seals he had not till then broken.

He read and read; and though its contents did not at once become clear and plain to