was not so regarded when it was last discussed by the assembled diplomatists of Europe; it is not so regarded, we are convinced, by any first-class statesman living now. The French Emperor and Lord Palmerston do not, we imagine, dissent from the judgment of Talleyrand, "that the one supreme question for Europe is the Polish; that the partition of that country is and must remain the presage and cause of endless disturbances; that only in its restoration is any security for the Continent to be found." They know the significance of Metternich's emphatic warning to Hardenberg,-" that posterity would never forgive this generation, if the opportunity were lost of limiting Russia by the re-establishment of Poland; and that Austria had better perish than permit the annexation of Warsaw."* They see clearly enough the truth of Lord Castlereagh's assertion, that "if Russia is hereafter to wield a Polish national army as a new and most formidable instrument of war,"- "the adjacent powers cannot live in security and peace, in the presence of such a military power, when stript of their frontiers; nor will Europe feel satisfied with that equilibrium for its daily protection which requires its whole military power to be displaced and put in motion upon every aberration of a particular state from the line of duty." They know that time has detracted nothing from the justice of these sentiments. But financial necessity in the one country, parliamentary government in the other, has established a habit of political dependence on middle-class and moneyed opinion, an opinion sensitive to sacrifice, inapprehensive of historical relations, and sceptical of international dangers. Hence our statesmen fear to rely upon their own convictions; and act less on the policy they would ultimately approve than on computation of the support immediately at hand. present crisis this moral cowardice is, we believe, a complete mistake. Let them frankly ask support from the two nations for a bold and statesman-like enterprise in Poland, and party feeling and selfish discontent will be unable to show their heads. Let them ask no leave and no advice at Vienna and Berlin; and, if they only contrive to succeed, they will get plenty of support even thence. The pressure of Russia once lifted off, German sentiments will begin to return; the opinions of a better age of German statesmen will recover their weight; and the shuffling neutrality of courts be exchanged for the hearty good-will of peoples. At the The policy which we have indicated could not fail to alter the attitude of the Northern as well as the German powers. In the absence of any counterbalancing state upon the Baltic ex *Gervinus's Geschichte des 19ten Jahrhunderts, i. 209. † Castlereagh Correspondence with the Emperor Alexander, p. 23. cept the Prussian and the Scandinavian as at present defined, it is vain to expect active co-operation in the war from Denmark or Sweden. As on the Continent, so within the Sound, we encounter nothing but Russia at first-hand or Russia at secondhand; but still every where Russia. Has she not a reversionary interest in the Danish crown? Does she not stand virtually at the gates of Stockholm? Is it forgotten by either, how she took Norway from the one to give it to the other, and awarded Finland to herself? Has she not, within two years, set her thievish eyes on Finmark, and despatched "summer travellers" to survey by stealth the lines of road, and take soundings in Fiords where the water is never frozen and the largest navy might always lie? In the face of a neighbour whose power and inclinations are alike unchastened, what help can these second-rate states dare to give us? King Oscar may well fear that Finland, if restored to him at the expense of a Russia otherwise entire, would be but a fatal gift, which no outside Atlantic alliances could enable him to hold; and which would never be repaid without a huge territorial usury, if not the forfeiture of a crown. But with a restored Poland at Riga it would be otherwise. The territories bordering on the Neva would be enclosed between two states with no probable causes of mutual collision, and with a common paramount interest in preventing the aggrandisement of the Czars. An advance on Finland could be taken in the rear from Courland. The whole group of countries now paralysed by a terror that is ubiquitous would breathe again, and be free both to develop their interior life and to ally themselves by their natural affinities. North Germany, now misrepresented by its courts and benumbed by its officialism, would assert its true genius again, and escape from federal intrigues and military drill into national existence. The lands of the Northmen and the Danes, so akin to our own in habits, language, and feeling, would join us in defending the freedom of the seas, in favouring the development of secondary nations, and checking any tendency to huge uniformity of empire. The countries of Luther, of Gustavus Adolphus, and of the Princes of Orange would own with us the deep pledges which their history and ours has given to the Reformation; and refuse to surrender the principles of Protestant civilisation to any returning sacerdotalism. And wherever, as in Sardinia, in Poland, (may we not add, in Italy and in Hungary?) the aspiration after political liberty has sprung direct out of the bosom of the old church without passing through the medium of a religious revolution, the alliance of France, Catholic but not papal, with England, conservative though Protestant and free, against the living embodiment of hierarchical and military aggression, may well set at rest ecclesiastic scruples, and show that around the standard now raised the progressive tendencies of civilised Europe, be the baptism that consecrates them what it may, are assembling themselves for mutual protection. England is prepared to be faithful to such an alliance. She is falsely accused, as an entire people, of selfish indifference to the political courses of the outlying world. Show her a nation, or group of nations, free of the soldier, free of the priest, reverent to law, resolute for justice, trusting in reality and truth; and we believe she will own, at any sacrifice, her natural affinity. Till international relations are determined less by dynastic diplomacy and more by these inartificial attractions, European societies must remain in the most precarious condition. From the Tuscan Sea to the North Cape, the Continent has scarcely a government that is not either paralysed or retrograde,—that either dares to win or has not utterly forfeited the active loyalty of its best subjects. Yet in every country the elements of regeneration abound, either motionless in despondency or wildly tossing about for want of sympathy and guidance. In the east of Europe is a power that systematically uses for her own ends the weaknesses, the jealousies, the fears, the bigotries of courts and hierarchies. the west let there be, in expression of its own genius and for the well-being of the world, an alliance around which the strength, the aspirations, the hopes and highest faith of nations may rally and find support. We ask for no propagandism, but only for self-protection to the ripest fruits of political experience and developed Christianity. We would raise a breakwater against any return of the tide of barbarism, which has now had its ebb of centuries, and which nothing but the fierce east-wind can hurl upon us again. And the contribution to these ends for which we pray in 1856 is—a campaIGN IN POLAND. In a LIST OF RECENT WORKS SUITABLE FOR BOOK-SOCIETIES. History of England. By T. B. Macaulay. Vols. 3 and 4. Longman. Philip the Second of Spain. By W. H. Prescott. Bentley. The Life of Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. 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Maurice, Kingsley, &c. Macmillan. Minnesota; or, the Far West. By Lawrence Oliphant. Blackwood. [A very amusing volume.] My Exile in Siberia. By Alexander Herzen. 2 vols. Hurst and The Last of the Arctic Voyages. By Sir Edward Belcher. 2 vols. Lovel Reeve. [A book full of interesting details conveyed in the most struggling, Five Years in Damascus. By Rev. J. L. Porter. 2 vols. Murray. By W. H. G. 240 Recent Works suitable for Book-Societies. Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon. The Fur-Hunters of the Far West. By S. W. Baker. Longman. By Alexander Ross. 2 vols. [A strange life ruggedly told. The Indian glossaries are interesting Madame Pfeiffer's Second Voyage round the World. Longman. The Past Campaign. By N. A. Woods. Longman. The Story of the Campaign of Sebastopol. By Major E. Bruce Hamley. Two Summer Cruises with the Baltic Fleet in 1854-5. By Rev. R. E. Lilliesleaf. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland." Hurst and Zaidee. A Romance. By Margaret Oliphant. Blackwood. The Heroes; or, Greek Tales for my Children. By Charles Kingsley. |