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show a very simple, if any, kind of vanity; but the evidence of a nature apt to brood, and to brood over trivial themes till it almost lost the power to act, is very great.

but cannot react upon it, with an exquisite ity. We can well believe it. His poems intensity. Everything was strange to him not because it was new, but because there can be no familiarity, no warmth of feeling, without reciprocal influence, and he felt that he could not return to the world around him Few souls seem to us to need more disany part of the influence it exerted over him. tinetly something of a new creation than delSo he attempted it less and less, and that dis-icately receptive natures like Coleridge's, tortion of imagination and of intellectual and, in a much lower sphere, Clare's, which conception which follows a real abdication have half merged their voluntary in their reof all natural influence over the world, not ceptive life. It is a relief to think of him as less surely though more indirectly than an he loved to think of himself, asleep "with original twist in the faculties which report God,” and breathing in, during that slumber to us what goes on outside us, followed. He of an eternal childhood, some fresh supply was even more unfitted to bear solicitude of a spiritual fire of which in this world he than neglect; and his physician thought that had enough for either poetry or life, but not the solicitude had more to do with his insan- enough for both.

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From The Spectator, 2 July.
ENGLAND AND DENMARK.

it intended to crouch before the menace of superior might. "We believed," he said, "COUNCILS of War never fight," and the and as he said it he seemed for half a moment Council of Friday, though it called itself a not humiliated, we believed that, from the Cabinet meeting, proved no exception to the commencement to the end of these last events, maxim. The bolder members of the govern- Denmark had been ill-used [cheers]; that ment were overruled, and by Saturday it was might had overridden right [renewed cheerknown that the administration had reconsidering]; and we knew, also, that the sympaed its half-formed resolve, that the preparations commenced were useless, and that the Cabinet which had retreated from its own ground when Holstein was" executed," when Schleswig was " occupied," when Jutland was taken in pledge, and when all up to the Schlei had been surrendered, was about to retreat once more. Few, however, expected that the retreat would be justified by such reasons as those produced; that a premier, whose hold upon the country is his reputation for pluck, would confess that he thought it dangerous to risk war without an ally; that a foreign secretary who had hardihood enough "to command the Channel fleet," would hesitate to defend European order, because there might be an "interruption in our relations with the United States." The scene which awaited the ministers as they entered the Houses might have roused the blood and fired the heart of the most apathetic orator. The Commons were thronging on the benches like bees; dozens of men were standing unable to find seats; the galleries were bursting with tenants, who overflowed into the lobbies, the passages, the staircases, everywhere, where they might hope to catch a rumor of the drift of the "explanation." Throughout the assemblage of men, each one of whom possessed himself some appreciable fraction of power, there was that hush of suspense, that compressed thrill of excitement, which is seen only when great audiences have caught the meaning of a great situation, or know that a great event is at hand. Before such a House so roused, had Lord Palmerston to acknowledge and to accept a humiliating failure, to confess that he had menaced without meaning action, to explain with masterly lucidity how deeply Denmark had been wronged, how defiantly Germany had broken every pledge, and how absolutely "might had," in his own words, “overcome right,” and then to show, less lucidly indeed, but with painful clearness, how easily the government had pardoned the wrong-doing, how carelessly it had condoned the perjury, how submissively

thies of almost the whole of the British nation were on her side [continued cheering]." And therefore," we do not think it consistent with our duty to recommend Parliament and the country to make those great exertions, and to undergo those great sacrifices, which would have been the necessary consequence of entering into a conflict with the whole of Germany." Denmark was originally in the wrong; France declined interference; Russia would not move; the weight of a war would fall upon this country alone, and it was his duty to advise the country and his sovereign to shrink from that great risk. As if this were not sufficient for humiliation, the old premier, burning with inward rage at his position, broke into what we believe to have been either a fierce taunt at his own colleagues, or a hidden promise to the Prince of Wales, but what sounded like a fiftieth menace of future action. If, he said, with a bravado which, after such a speech, and while revealing such a policy, was almost ludicrous,-if" we had reason to expect to see at Copenhagen the horrors of a town taken by assault . . . the capture of the sovereign as prisoner of war, the position of this country might be a subject for reconsideration." He would not war for a country or for honor; but if a city were threatened—! he would not fight for the independence of a free nationality; but if a German prince were prisoner-! then, indeed, the Cabinet might rise to the height of its position in Europe, and gravely and solemnly "reconsider ’ whether, when all was lost, it might not be expedient to do grand battle for nothing at all! The house, quiescent as it was, and disposed to accept its humiliation with patience, could endure no more, and a storm of ironical cries almost daunted the premier, and relieved the pent-up feeling of rage, annoyance, or regret.

There has been no such exhibition of a great man made in our time, and in the Lords, matters were little better. Earl Russell, indeed, amidst an audience almost as

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numerous and excited, was more clear and | which they afterward refused to justify, and consistent in his statement; but it was be- could not restrain themselves even when accause he was not afraid to produce reasons cepting the policy of peace at any price from for abstinence, such as are rarely heard from uttering menaces as disturbing and as feeble the lips of statesmen who have wielded the as those which had already proved delusive. power of Great Britian abroad. He sup- To those who, like ourselves, believed it the ported peace because he was afraid of war. duty of England to resist further aggression Besides all the arguments offered by Lord upon a free but powerless State, who held Palmerston, he adverted to the extreme dif- that in counselling cessions she had pledged ficulty of the undertaking, the impossibility, herself to assist if those cessions were made, as he assumed, of protecting Denmark by who considered that in proposing the line of the fleet alone; feared we should suffer, the Schlei Earl Russell had reached the utperhaps, considerably if our commercial ma- most limit of honorable conciliation, the exrine was exposed to depredations such as planation was one of unmixed pain. Not might take place in the event of our being at one of the reasons alleged appear to us to war with Germany; " dreaded lest our rela- absolve this country from the duty of maintions with the United States, with its "great taining her position as protectress of the army "and" formidable" navy, might suffer weak, not one alleviates the loss of influence interruption; hesitated to risk "the great which must be consequent on the backwardcommerce which has grown up in China; ness of her rulers. Earl Russell's argument considered our "immense possessions in In- is, when stripped of conventional verbiage, dia; " mentioned the surplus; and, in short, that the task is too great for us; that withexpressed his belief that we were so great, so out allies, and with America changed into a successful, and so rich, that we were compar-sixth great power, our duty was one too hazatively powerless in the world. We could ardous to perform. We do not believe one not operate in the North without an ally, word of it. Austria could and would have and Russia would not move, while France been detached from an alliance which, while would demand compensations which, said exposing her to the danger of final dissoluEarl Russell, with an odd reminiscence of tion, brings her no certainty save that victhe time when England had influence on the tory will make her hereditary rival irresistiContinent, "might disturb the balance of ble, and, for North Germany, England is, power," that European law which he re- single-handed, a fair match. If not, if we fuses to prevent Germany from violating. are not able to protect the existence of an As to the South, he held that it was the allied nation because threatened by thirty duty of this country to behave better than millions of Germans, or Russians, or FrenchAustria and Prussia, not to light up a flame men, our history as a great power has ended, which might extend over the whole of Eu- and this country is enduring taxation high rope, but to endeavor to confine the war as that of a first-class nation in order to be within the narrowest limits. He, like Lord as powerless as the little States she in vain Palmerston, ended with a menace; but he strives to protect. And if that be the case,— kept its conditions in reserve, did not state if it is really true that French coldness and that if Copenhagen were bombarded, the gov-American growth paralyze our energies,—how ernment might consider the possibility of further remonstrance, and with the Prince of Wales opposite him, avoided the insult to Denmark of imagining her 'king a prisoner in the hands of his enemies.

defend the explicit statement that should Denmark, now weak, be made totally helpless, this government might then, too late, advance to her aid? Lord Palmerston's argument in addition to all that, the insignificance of the terThe ministerial explanation must have ritory to be fought for, seems to us simply a been a melancholy one, even to those who quibble. The point was not whether thirty held that it was no part of the duty of Eng- miles of territory between the Schlei and land to maintain the right of the smaller Flensburg should be surrendered,—that might nationalities to exist. Even they must have not be worth a European war, though we perceived that the government had threatened should think very differently if the thirty without intention and agitated without pur-miles were in Canada, or India,-but pose, had given to Denmark encouragement whether when Denmark had surrendered

every territory fairly in dispute, had given would have been null. The truth is that all up Holstein and sold Lauenburg, and sacri- these arguments are but excuses used to conficed the purely German section of Schleswig, ceal the fact that the Cabinet, well aware she should by violence be compelled to cede that "Denmark from beginning to end had further territory partly inhabited by our own | been wronged," that "might had overridden people, and by yielding her frontier, consti- right," feared the risk and the responsibility tute herself forever an appanage of her in- of arresting the wrong-doer, counted its enevader. The point was not this marsh or mies instead of defending its convictions, and that port, this petty town or that great vil-postponed the honor to the comfort of Englage, but the substitution of force for Euro- land. That policy may, it is possible, receive pean law. It was, moreover, a question the resentful adhesion of the governing class, whether England, having, in defiance of her anxious always for influence, yet delighted to own treaty, induced Denmark to yield all avert the income-tax; but their secret instinct this, was not bound to see that the child who will tell them more loudly than we can hope gave so much to her persuasion was not de- to do that future danger has been purchased prived of more without her own consent, and at the price of present dishonor. Often this was never met. To say that Denmark within our history has the fame of England was originally in the wrong is beside the declined till her allies despised her promises question, for we had guaranteed her repent- and Europe laughed at her threats, and in ance; to say that she rejected the last com- every instance she has righted herself by an promise is an insult, for Germany rejected it exertion greater than that from which she at the same moment, and her acceptance had shrunk.

ANECDOTES OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.With the future Emperor of France, when an exile in England, I had been well acquainted. He had been a constant subscriber to Her Majesty's Theatre, was a frequent guest at my house, and had "assisted" at the afternoon fetes given by me at my residence, "The Chancellor's," at Fulham, where he had entered heart and soul into the amusements of the hour. Frequenters of these "champetres" entertainments may remember one occasion when Prince Louis Napoleon figured in the same quadrille with Taglioni, Cerito, and Carlotta Grisi, having the director of Her Majesty's Theatre as his vis a vis. The prince and I frequently dined in company at Gore House, the residence of the late Countess of Blessington, where all that was distinguished in literature and art was constantly assembled; it may be worth recording, in connection with the prince's known firm reliance on his destiny, that at one of the dinners, when Count D'Orsay was expatiating on the evidences that had come before him of the popularity of the prince in France (although, at that time, the law forbidding any of the Bonaparte family to enter the country was still in force), the future emperor sat silent

with a significant smile upon his face, the meaning of which none could fail to interpret. On another occasion, when I was alluding to the part played by General Cavaignac in June, 1848, in firing upon the people after the emeute had been quelled, the prince dryly, but in an earnest manner, remarked, "That man is clearing the way for me."-Mr. Lumley's Reminiscences of the Opera.

MM. Vitray and Desmartis have arrived at the conclusion that the vegetable parasites of plants may attack man, and hence they suppose that the oidium which has committed such havoc upon the vine has been the cause of many of the forms of zymotic diseases which have appeared since it first presented itself. It may be objected that the two plants O. idium Tuckeri [that of the vine] and O. albicans are two distinct species; but it must be remembered that they are of the same family and genus, and that they both develop a contagious disease which is frequently epidemic.

From The Spectator, 2 July. England. When Holstein was threatened, THE ENGLISH TREATMENT OF DENMARK. which of the great powers went so far as to Now that we have apparently made up our say to Germany, as Lord Russell said in Nominds to the desertion of Denmark, and that vember last, that "should Federal troops the Liberals appear to be intending to com- enter Holstein on purely Federal grounds, pete with the Tories in the emphasis of their Her Majesty's Government would not intercongratulations on that resolve, it becomes a fere; but should it appear that Federal troops duty, though very far from an agreeable one, entered the duchy on international grounds, briefly to review our relation to that unhappy Her Majesty's Government may be obliged to little State from the beginning of the quar-interfere"? Was the ambassador of either rel. The ministers tell us, with some reitera- France or Russia authorized to declare to tion, and with no doubt verbal truth, that Denmark, as Sir A. Paget was authorized to they have never given Denmark any substan- declare in December last, that " if an attack tial ground to expect material help,-and upon Schleswig was made, the other powers that, therefore, while Denmark is not the could then interfere on ground which was inworse off for England's policy, she has been contestably beyond the limits of the confedso much the better off for England's counsel, eration"? or did any other power hold out so far at least as that counsel has been whole- so distinct an inducement to Denmark to some; and further, they point out that Eng- abandon Holstein as the significant hint of land has incurred no obligation to interfere the same diplomatist, that " Denmark would on her behalf which France and Russia did at all events have a better chance of securing not also incur, and that her resolute neu- the assistance of the powers alluded to, by retrality ought not therefore to have led to more tiring beyond the limits of the confederation, disappointment or more miscalculation than than if she provoked a war by resisting what that of the other great powers. Let us ex- might be considered the legitimate authority of amine, then, impartially the truth of these the Diet on Federal territory"? When Engallegations. Let us see whether England has land, acting thus officiously, and as the leader given Denmark no more reason to hope for of all the neutral powers, had effected her her help than the other great neutral powers; purpose of getting Denmark to repeal the and whether it is true or otherwise that, had obnoxious patent of March, 1863, and also to England pursued the same cold and apathetic withdraw her troops peacefully from Holstein, policy which has characterized the diplomacy and when the German powers, so far from of France and Russia on the subject, Den- being satisfied, offered the cynical and eccenmark would have been in no better position tric justification of further violence" that than at present, or whether she may not have they could not well enter Holstein except to been even the worse for Lord Russell's weighty invade Schleswig," was there any other great but not very successful advice. power which held out such pressing inducements to Denmark to take steps for the repeal of the Schleswig Constitution as England? France, no doubt, and Russia, following in England's wake, repeated tamely the representations which England dictated; but when

And first, we imagine, there is no doubt about the fact that Denmark has looked all along with far more hope to the chance of English intervention than to that of either Russia or France. Nor do we expect any reasonable person to say that the selection of England as her protector was fanciful or capricious. First, England was the prime mover in the treaty of 1852, and had been the prime mover ever since in the attempt to mediate between Denmark and Germany. Was Prince Gortschakoff or M. Drouyn de Lhuys ever heard to say publicly, as Lord Palmerston said last July, that if Denmark were invaded by Germany, she would assuredly "not stand alone"? When the crisis came, which of the great powers moved first in the effort to rally the others to her aid? Undoubtedly

the Danish minister asked what use there would be in further concessions to powers so aggressive, no minister but the English minister replied in exhortations couched in so peculiar a tone of significance as the following of our envoy's at Copenhagen: "I asked him to reflect what would be the position of Denmark if the advice of the [neutral] powers were refused, and what it would be if accepted; and to draw his own conclusions." Was there any other great power which said explicitly as late as the 14th of January anything equivalent to what Lord Russell said to the Prussian

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