Question as since developed, together with M. Tisza's "crushing of the head of the Slavonic serpent," were the first overt indications of the Drang nach Osten (pressing eastward) policy of the Austro-German combination. It was the comprehension of this policy in its full scope and meaning which furnished the theme and motive of the speeches of Skobeleff at Paris and elsewhere, and brought into renewed activity the leaders and partisans of the Panslav cause in Russia and among the Slavonic races. The dissolution of Parliament in 1880, and the result of the appeal of Lord Beaconsfield to the people of England on that occasion, determined the fate of the combination which had been formed to inaugurate a new departure in Eastern affairs, entirely and radically at variance with the spirit and letter of the Berlin settlement. Who is there that cannot call to mind the almost frantic efforts made from Berlin and Vienna, during the exciting period immediately preceding that general election, to influence, by alternate cajolery and menace, the public sentiment of England in favour of Lord Beaconsfield's Administration? And who does not remember the wail of anger that went up when the accession to power of the Liberal party was announced Under the determined lead of that party, England, acting on the Powers whose recalcitrancy to the Berlin Treaty menaced a complete disruption of the European concert, has obtained settlements of the Montenegrin and Greek questions, unsatisfactory indeed, and not without great difficulty, and in spite of a want of loyalty where the opposite might have been expected. But such harmony as it was possible to create among the discordant elements of which the European concert is composed, could not be obtained for the settlement of the con

ditions of the twenty-third Article of the Berlin Treaty. It is true delegates were despatched in 1880 to Constantinople to elaborate a series of statutes for the government of the

provinces remaining under the misrule of the Pashas. But the whole performance was a hollow mockery of the crying wants of the oppressed people of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus. Propositions tending to promote uniformity of method in the government of each province were strenuously opposed by the Austrian delegates, on the plea that the cha racter and local peculiarities of each district must be first considered, but with the real design of preventing any solid bond of union among the diverse peoples. The statutes, however, have remained a dead letter, for their execution is supported neither by Germany, Austria, Italy, France, nor Russia. Alone England

could do, and the immovable Turk would do, nothing. The observation of Herr von Kallay, then Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs at Vienna, when his opinion of the organic statutes was asked by one of the foreign delegates on the revived East Roumelia Commission, was on a parallel with the Austrian action all through the recent phases of the Eastern difficulty. "We have a more serious solution than that," said Herr von Kallay-a clear implication that reformed government, by the aid of Austria and her supporter Germany, was not to be established in the unemancipated provinces of European Turkey, nor even contemplated. The efforts of Austria to obtain the consent and recognition of Europe to her formal annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina showed, the embarrassing nature of the position in which her Government found itself. At the same time they indicated to both the Turkish and Russian Governments that the time was not far off when a decisive move must be made on the part of Austria. abandon the provinces again to Turkish misrule was impossible; to grant them anything in the shape of an autonomous government equally so, seeing the encouragement this would give the Czech autonomous party, and

To

the opposition which the idea met from the Hungarians. The alternative was the complete subjugation of the country; subjugation in a military sense, for there was no probability of the Mussulman inhabitants willingly accepting the rule of Austria, after so many thousands had lost their lives in opposing the transfer of an allegiance which had brought them nothing but the rigid exaction of augmented taxes, and would impose military service to an alien sovereign. To the Christians, the taxation to which they were subjected by Austrian officials was as onerous as to the Mussulmans; while the agrarian grievances, which were the ostensible cause of their rising against the Turkish rule, remained without redress.

The difficulty the Austrian Government had to face was extreme. The expenses of the occupation and administration of the provinces were in excess of the revenues, and the compact by which the Austrian and Hungarian Governments were not to be called on to contribute could not be broken without sufficient and weighty reason. Indecision was not less perilous than action; it was necessary to hasten a crisis; and accordingly the law of military service was ordered to be put in force, not only in the occupied provinces, but, to give it the air of impartiality, as well in those parts of Dalmatia which had hitherto successfully resisted the conscription, and with the inhabitants of which, as in the case of the Crivoscians, a special compact of exemption existed. The insurrection of the Crivoscians and Herzegovinians was the answer. Whether the conscription was the direct cause of the insurrection, or whether the Austrian authorities profited by their knowledge of what was in preparation to bring on the crisis, cannot be confidently determined. The localities in which the bands made their appearance in most force seem to indicate

action.

a pre-arranged line of Those whose knowledge of

the country and people entitled their opinions to consideration had for some time held the view that a rising against Austrian rule was imminent, and that Christians and Mussulmans would be found fighting side by side in the struggle. The end in Eastern politics has generally been held to justify the means, and there is no reason to believe that a higher political moral tone is prevalent in the East to-day than at any other time.

The co-operation of Austria and Germany with Italy in the settlement of the Greek frontier question forms an interesting chapter in the history of the Eastern difficulty, which has yet to be written. But it is so linked with all Austrian policy in the East, that it is but an additional indication of what is contemplated by Austria and Germany, with the tacit adherence of Italy. Skilfully as Prince Bismarck masked German views of predominance in the East behind his Pomeranian grenadier, it is clear that, whatever interests in the settlement of the oriental difficulty it may once have pleased him to express, his pretensions are now of a solid and substantial gravity which must be the cause of uneasiness to more than one of the Western Powers and to Russia. It requires but a glance at the map of Europe to perceive what the accomplishment of the AustroGerman programme in the east of Europe signifies. Skilfully and perseveringly has the telegraph and printing press been worked until the idea of the Russian at Constantinople has been made a nightmare which has cost England millions of money and thousands of precious lives. It has been used to pervert the moral sense of her people and her rulers till she has come now to be almost invariably found on the side of the oppressor against the oppressed. And the same agencies are still busily at work to persuade this country that there is no other alternative to the blessings of AustroGerman rule for the nationalities of the East than subjugation to

The

a barbarous Russian despotism. great question, and one worth considering before it may be too late, is, Is this true? In the first place has it been shown that any of the liberated nationalities of the East have expressed, diplomatically or otherwise, a desire to be placed under the rule of either Austria or Russia, or of one of them rather than of the other? Have the Greeks, the Bulgarians, or the Servians, at any time before or since their emancipation exhibited a desire to be annexed or protected by either Russia or Austria? Has it not rather been the contrary? Have not these peoples, so far as their feeble voices have been able to make themselves heard above the gong-beating of diplomacy, invariably and consistently pleaded for national independence, and for scope and time to work out their own career in peace and security? But, say some, they are not yet fit for self-government, and, if left to themselves, they will only fly at each other's throats. Let it be granted that these two reasons (if true) are serious enough to militate against giving unlimited liberty to the Greek, the Bulgarian, and the Servian. Would it not be the duty of the Powers, supposing always their policy to be disinterested, to prevent conflicts, and so, in a word, to train up these smaller nationalities until they could recognise that their true interests and chances of prosperity lay in pursuing a course of mutual conciliation and goodwill? There hardly seems ground for dispute here. What, then, is the inevitable conclusion? Surely this, that some of the governments are preparing, owing to their unwillingness or inability to effectually oppose others, to seize or bring into subjection portions of Turkey to which they are under a solemn pledge to give good government and security for life, honour, and property, not only without, but against the consent, of their inhabitants. The prospect is not reassuring, nor is the spectacle edifying. Yet all that has been here said or indicated is a near and

possible contingency. Whatever those who endeavour to quiet or mislead the public mind may assert, the Eastern Question is fast quitting the lines for its settlement which were traced out at Berlin in 1878, as well as those contemplated by the British AustroGerman understanding before the general election of 1880. The sup pression of the insurrection in Herzegovina and Bosnia has entirely altered the status of Austria, both towards those provinces and towards Europe. In the nature of things, the absurd position in which Austria was placed with her Own consent cannot be re-established. Backed by Germany, Austria will very reasonably, as it seems, demand to be allowed to incorporate those provinces into the empire-kingdom; but whatever their relationship is to be, they cannot but prove the apple of discord between the two sections of the dual empire. The predominance, however, which Germany holds in the combination with Austria, constitutes the danger of this method of solving the difficulty, rouses the sensibility of the Slavonic world, and menaces the peace of Europe. Russia and the Slavonic races at large might contemplate with equanimity the formation of a Slavonic empire in the south-east of Europe, which, from the affinity of race and religion of its populations, could be no menace to herself; but the prospect of Slavonic races subjected to the influence and rule of the Teuton, and invaded by the Papal propagandists, and serving to aggrandise and enrich a great rival, can only but precipitate the struggle between Teuton and Slav which both believe to be impending.

Looking at the question dispassionately, the solution most favourable to the interest of England is that which seems to have been the least considered-the independence of the nationalities of the Balkan peninsula. The subjection of the races inhabiting the valley of the Danube and the Balkan country to either Russia or

Austro-Germany cannot be regarded with indifference by the Western Powers, least of all by England. Austria on the Egean, with Germany behind her, means the creation of a great naval power in the Eastern Mediterranean, disposing of the maritime resources of the Greeks. The Power, or combination of Powers, which aims at the subjugation of what was once Turkey in Europe, cannot be relied on to respect the independence of Greece after that it shall have brought the other races under its sway. The harbours of the Ægean, the countless islands which cover its expanse, will afford shelter to fleets which at any moment may de scend on the flank of our road to India through the Mediterranean, and forbid us the right of way through the Suez Canal. Behind such fleets are the magnificent port of Volo and the Dardanelles, affording refuges against attack and for refit. It may be that it is now too late to repair the errors in policy of which successive administrations in this country have been guilty, and that events are themselves shaping a course to which England, either of design or from indifference, will have largely contributed. A vigorous policy, which would have given to the oppressed nationalities of the East their independence of all foreign control, would have saved us from our present disquietude. On the Danube we see Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria threatened by Austria. In Macedonia, Albania, and Epirus, the negative policy of

Germany and Austria has left these countries a prey to anarchy and misrule, while Montenegro has, in fact, become an Austrian vassal. The settlement of the Greek frontier dispute, though adding to Greece a valuable and not inconsiderable tract of territory, has left the principle for which she and her friends contended practically as far from settlement as ever. Even across the new Greek frontier the baleful apprehensions of Austrian influence are felt. The nomination of Herr von Kallay to the position of chief administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina was more suggestive of danger to the independence of the Balkan nationalities than the mere jack boot government which had hitherto mismanaged those provinces. It was the first step in the "more serious solution" to which reference has already been made, the first to a radical departure from the lines of the Treaty of Berlin.

THEY say you may get a shrewd notion of a man's character by a glance at his book-shelves; but for my part I would sooner ask what books a man read in certain conditions of time and place, in certain accidents, certain changes and chances of his affairs; when sick, or sorry, or glad; harassed, or at leisure; fresh in the morning light, or tired in the gray hours of the evening; in the first surprise of new scenes, or renewing the memory of old

ones.

Consider, for example, a man, who had worn the gown there in his youth, revisiting Oxford after a long lapse of years; not in the time of term, when all the place would be gay with a life he had no share in, and like some forlorn ghost he would wander silent and puzzled, and perchance something sad-.

"Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

But let his visit be in the time of vacation-in the long vacation, say, when it is some three weeks or so old, and when "the high midsummer pomps are on," as he probably has never seen them there. Then Oxford is his own; the Oxford he knew in the days before the flood, when gowns were only worn by men, when no blatant tramway desecrated the High Street, and no chattering nursemaids broke the sacred stillness of Magdalen groves. Then the old gray quadrangles are alive once more with the forms he knew, with voices long silent to his ears, but unforgotten still. Every step awakes some echo of the past; every echo stirs some fresh remembrance. Even the old scouts who come grinning up to him--mines of inconvenient memories, old, battered, buttery-worn bodies-have a grace about

them more than nature mostly gives their kind.

"Comrades of his past were they,

Of that unreturning day."

Above all, as Lamb says, he can fetch up past opportunities. Ah, those past opportunities! Oxford is a soil which grows that sort of grain in rich profusion, and our friend would be a Tom of ten thousand indeed if he had not a liberal crop of them.

Surely the books a man in such a place and time would turn to would illustrate the bent of his mind more vividly than the everyday aspect of his shelves. If he had a friend with him, a comrade of those old years, he would read no books. Then they would talk ye gods, how they would talk! But if he were alone-and, unless he had provided himself with company, he would probably be very much alone -he would almost inevitably seek some moments of companionship in books, and in books redolent of this or that of the many perfumes of the place. And from his choice a curious assayer of the great human riddle might amuse himself much in framing a scheme of that man's life, its past and its present, its dreams and its realities. "In the shadow of the mighty Bodley he might be found solacing himself with the old folios of Anthony Wood, or still more venerable relics. he one who in his day had walked delicately and along well-ordered paths, he might now "fetch up past opportu nities" by a study of the adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, or Mr. Drysdale, or of that still more audacious volume (as I have heard) which retails the experiences of one Peter Priggins, a scout. Had he, on the other hand, been one wont to lean his ear too closely to the chimes of midnight, or

Were