which rise from the great laboratory below. of the earth. Those whose recollection of This sublimation, being chiefly sulphur, appeared past political contests is especially sharp, in every shade of bright yellow, orange, and probably thought the introduction of such a crimson, as it glittered in the morning sunbeam. topic a violation of the proprieties of the ocClouds of dense white vapor rose from time to casion, though the cordial applause with time from the innermost depths, with a hissing, which his remarks were received indicated a roaring sound, like a mighty cataract. The occasional intermission of the rising clouds which steamed forth from the great gulf, afforded a partial glance at the lurid fire raging in the internal abyss. All around, as far as the eye could reach, within the crater, huge masses of rock lay tumbled over each other in chaotic confusion. Such an appearance, when the volcano is in a quiescent state, cannot fail to impress a spectator with a fearful idea of the inconceivable powers set in operation when the pent-up fires burst their bonds; and through this chasm, which is said to be near three miles in extent, the mountain hurls back the rocks buried within it by the fury of some earlier commotion. The forest, which is the midmost of the three different regions or districts passed in the ascent, furnishes a striking picture.

tree.

very general concurrence in the sentiments expressed. Indeed, we believe the public generally regard the question of protection as having been settled, and as having taken its place among the obsolete ideas which belong exclusively to the past. It is not likely again to constitute one of the dividing lines of political parties. Whether the whig party is dead or not (a point on which political doctors disagree), it is not likely again to advocate the adoption of such a tariff as shall protect American labor from the fullest and the freest competition with the labor of the world. That issue has been made and decided over and over again; and the popular verdict has been against the principle of protection. It is very easy, it is true, to explain the adverse result in each case, by attributing it to the fact that other issues intervened — that the public mind was misled

and that the contest, therefore, was neither fact; for if the popular conviction had been fair nor final. But this cannot alter the distinctly in favor of protection, other issues would not have been allowed to interfere with its expression. Right or wrong, the people of this country have decided almost as directly, and, we suspect, quite as finally, in favor of unrestricted commerce, as have those of England. And that party will not be wise, in either country, which shall challenge the verdict and insist upon another trial of the issue.

The Forest Region has also an interest peculiar to itself; for the trees, chiefly oak in the part through which we passed, have as unnatural, unearthly an appearance, as the place in which they are found. The want of a sufficient depth of soil preventing the roots from penetrating downwards, they have spread themselves in curious network over the surface; or, being forced upwards by the hard substratum, have formed the most extraordinary natural arches against the parent trunk, which is frequently of immense diameter, but rarely above fifteen or twenty feet high, and stag-headed like a pollardThe straggling branches afforded but a meagre shade under such a grilling sun; and for the benefit of future travellers we could but exclaim, like the Persians, as we passed, "May your shadows never be less!"' It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the black petrified torrents which we sometimes crossed, sometimes followed for a while. There was a strange illusion in some of these streams of lava, where the liquid fire had ploughed a deeper channel than usual. Seen from a little distance, the oaktrees growing on the high banks deceptively led one to think that the sparkling water was actually bounding over the rocks, filling the air with its joyous music and refreshing spray; and sible interchange of commodities, among the contrast was the more hideous as one became them. The great London Exhibition, which conscious of the dead mass in the river-bed, and was the first ever had in which all nations the deathlike stillness of the air. Where the joined, was due directly to the adoption of Peel. It seemed to grow naturally from itthe free trade policy secured by Sir Robert to be its direct and inevitable result. And the very general desire which has been showu to imitate that great demonstration, and to hold similar exhibitions in different countries, indicates a growing tendency, on the part of the people of those countries, towards greater freedom of commercial intercourse. Nations no longer repel the products of each other's labor. They rather invite the interchange.

Forest Region terminates, on the descent, the streams of lava have spread out like a great river losing itself in low marshy land.

From the N. Y. Times, 18 July. FREE TRADE AS A BOND OF PEACE.

MR. SECRETARY DAVIS, at the banquet on Friday night, took occasion to declare himself very warmly in favor of free trade, as a means of preserving peace among the nations

Looking at the matter, therefore, from a political point of view, Gen. Davis committed no very heinous offence against propriety when he introduced the subject of free trade into his speech at the dinner of Friday night. And in every other respect the reference was clearly pertinent. The very first topic which an exhibition of the products of the industry of all nations naturally suggests, is that of the freest possible intercourse - the largest pos

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And whatever may be thought of free trade shall have become consolidated by the unias a question of political economy, and in its versal adoption of free trade, international relations to the welfare of particular coun-wars must become matters of memory and tries, no one can doubt that it is the most of history only. When war shall fall upon potent of all possible agencies for preserving the great mass of the people of each nation peace among the nations which adopt it. who stay at home with a heavier hand than Gen. Davis and the French minister were upon those who fill the ranks of the contendclearly right in declaring that the best possi- ing hosts-when famine shall waste those ble means of preventing war is to multiply whom the sword shall spare -no government the commercial relations of the different will be rash enough, or strong enough, to countries of the earth. The direct tendency plunge its country into war. No ministry at of free trade is to break down the barriers this day, which should menace the people of which separate nations to create for them England with the calamities of a war with one common interest, and thus to render the United States, upon any of the grounds hostilities among them a mutual suicide. which have occasioned wars hitherto, could Just in proportion as nations become mutually maintain itself a month. Neither the fisherdependent upon one another for the products ies, nor Cuba, nor Canada, will ever occasion of their industry, will it become impossible war between England and America. The for them to go to war. So long as England interests of England forbid it. Free trade has could produce upon her own soil food for her so increased the commercial intercourse and own people, manufacture her own goods and the mutual interdependence of the two counprovide within herself the raw material, it tries, as to render it impossible. would be comparatively easy for her to wage hostilities against other nations. But now that she has opened her ports to the products of other lands now that her millions of workmen look to the United States for the cotton they use, and in part for the grain they consume, as well as a market for the goods they make -war with this country becomes entirely another thing. The relative strength of our armies and our ships of war is a matter of little consequence. England might win a battle every week, and sink our fleets and annihilate our armies as fast as we could bring them into the field against her, and yet suffer immeasurably from the interruption of commerce which the fact of hostilities would occasion. A declaration of war would at once cut off her supplies of cotton, and thus throw millions of her laboring population out of work; while at the same time it would diminish her supplies of grain, and thus raise the price of food to her people at the very moment it had lessened their means of paying for it. Famine and pestilence would thus tread closely upon the footsteps of war, and that, too, whether victory or defeat should wait upon her banner. The chances of war, therefore, are greatly diminished by the adoption of free trade between any two of the great nations of the earth. And if the day shall ever come when commercial intercourse among all the nations shall be unfettered-when each shall interchange its own commodities with every other, and thus make itself dependent upon every other for some essential part of what its people need-it will become almost impossible for war to break out among them. Oppression may still, as it ought, create rebellions at home; the crushed and down-trodden may rise against the arbitrary power that afflicts them; but when the interests of all nations

No one will doubt that this is a result of the highest possible importance to the wellbeing of the human race one to which much of what generally passes for national prosperity may well be sacrificed-one compared with which all our notions of national independence seem of little weight. All the tendencies of the age are clearly towards the adoption of free trade principles. There is at this moment no considerable nation in the world, which is not relaxing, rather than tightening, the bonds of its commercial intercourse with other nations. And in this fact we may easily find ground for trust, that the world draws sensibly near to that great consummation of prophecy and of hope, when the brotherhood of man shall be universally acknowledged when the nations of the earth shall not learn war any more, but strive by all possible means to advance the common happiness and well-being of the human race.

The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of the Church of England.

Sketches of an Evangelical or Low Church family, and their favorite minister; of two young Tractarian curates, and the manner of conducting the service at their church; and of the true media via of safety, as exhibited by an excellent country parson, his amiable family, a pattern landlord, and a worthy village. Belleville and its various inhabitants may possibly be discovered in real provincial life, but we fear as a sort of rara avis. The picture of Rubric, the gentlemanly and scholarly Tractarian curate, is sketch of the "serious family" and the Honoraa favorable likeness, not exaggerated. ble and Reverend Mr. Mild might have had more force and richness of coloring without ever passing the boundaries of the real. The book is supposed to be written by a returned colonist wishing to find the church of his youth. — Spect.

The

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 483.-20 AUGUST, 1853.

14. A Midland Town in the reign of George III., Gentleman's Magazine,

POETRY: The Last Retrospection, 449; Lines-The Wondrous Well—Epitaph, 450.
SHORT ARTICLES: English in Ireland Sartines, 467; Thackeray's New American Theme,

-The Potato, 479; Eliza Robbins - Beethoven, 480; Sweet Oil vs. Bed-bugs, 487; Ardent Spirit in the United States, 492; The Pen, 503; Character in a Blue-bag, 507; Mr. Hannay on Satiric Literature, 512.

NEW BOOKS: Meliora; or, Better Times to Come, 467; The Sea-weed Collector's Guide, 487.

yet concealed, or known but to very few PROT-are brought to light. They tend to show that, to the reign in which France attained the apogee of her splendor and prosperity, is to be traced the origin of much of the discord and misery under which she since has groaned.

In no French work do we remember a passage so nearly approaching to a denunciation, temperately and forcibly expressed, of Louis XIV.'s criminal errors, as the following page of Mr. Weiss' new history.

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"The kingdom," says the learned professor," which Louis XIV. received covered with glory, powerful by its arms, preponderant abroad, tranquil and contented at home, he transmitted to his successor humbled, feebled, dissatisfied, ready to undergo the reaction of the regency, and of the whole of the eighteenth century, and thus placed upon the fatal slope conducting to the Revolution of 1789. To the formidable encroachments of a prince ruled, during the latter part of his reign, by a narrow and exclusive spirit in religious matters, and, in his policy, by views that were rather dynastic than national, insurmountable Protestantism opposed an barrier in England and Holland united under one chief, who led the whole of Europe against isolated France. The signal of coalitions

since so often re-forined

THE reputations of remarkable men, and especially of renowned monarchs, are very variously affected by the lapse of time. A retrospective glance through centuries shows them to us alternately magnified or diminished. For some, although a brilliant halo still surround their names, the world's esteem daily lessens; whilst the fame of others, based upon the rock, is but ripened and confirmed by its antiquity. Contemporaries are often dazzled and fascinated by unprofitable glory and showy achievements; posterity judges by results, which history is soinetimes tardy to reveal. The splendor of the earlier period of Louis the Fourteenth's long reign still blinds millions to the errors, crimes, and disasters of its latter half. In France, the Grand Monarque is, to this day, the object of an irrational hero-worship. To assail his memory is there impiety; and the few Frenchmen, who, from research and reflection, have formed a just estimate of his real merits, shrink from running counter to the flood of public infatuation. Foreigners may be perinitted more impartially to appreciate that king's character and actions. They are bound by no traditional faith in his perfections; nor was given for the has the "veneration" which an English king first time in 1689, and, also for the first time, thought it not unbecoming to express, by the France was vanquished for the Treaty of mouth of his ambassador, for the French Ryswick was in fact a defeat. Not only the monarch, by any means descended to the sub- king acknowledged William III., but his injects of William the Third's successors. tendants officially recorded the diminution of Complacently dwelling upon his triumphs, the population, and the impoverishment of upon the progress in France, during the first the kingdom inevitable consequences of the part of his career, of arts and arms, of litera- emigration, and of the ensuing decline in ture, learning, and civilization, the fond ad- agriculture, manufactures, and trade. mirers of the fourteenth Louis artfully avert the beginning of the eighteenth century, the their gaze from his subsequent reverses, and safety of France was compromised, in a milifrom the intolerable bigotry and egotism that tary sense. Early in the struggle which folsullied his declining years. So long as he lowed the acceptance of the will of Charles pursued the wise policy of the Béarnais, of II., Marshal Villars had to be sent for from Richelieu, and of Mazarin, glory and prosper- Germany to combat the insurgents of the ity attended him; he quitted that path, be- Cevennes; and no sooner had that skilful came a bigot and a persecutor, and disgust and commander quitted the army than the allies weariness were his portion. The blackest won the victory of Hochstedt, the first of our stain upon his reign, the most grievous mis- great disasters in the War of Succession. take ever made by monarch, the most fatal of During the reign of Louis XV., whenever the errors, in its effects upon the future of France, allied powers threatened our frontiers, the was his heartless persecution of his Protest-government was obliged to purchase the fidelant subjects. Alike barbarous and impolitic, ity of the Protestants in the border provinces, it alone suffices to wither his laurels and by promises constantly renewed and never cancel his fame. The revenge of history, often slow, is ever sure. And now, nearly a -as century and a half after his death, fucts

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At

fulfilled. But was even the religious result, pursued at the cost of so many sacrifices, ultimately attained? At the period of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes the population of France was about twenty millions, and included one million of Protestants. At the nos jours. Par M. Ch. Weiss, Professeur d'His- present day, from fifteen to eighteen huntoire au Lycée Bonaparte. 2 vols. Paris, Char-dred thousand Protestants live disseminated pentier; Londres, Jeffs. 1853. amongst thirty-five million of Catholics. The

* Histoire des Réfugiés Protestants de France, depuis la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantos jusqu'à