The New Government for the Principalities.

391 the flesh, after the flesh he will speak to save a brother. There will be time enough, he thinks, if God sees fit to lead the man to the heights of absolute self-loss; and God will take his own way to do it. All Tauler has to do is to declare to him the truth concerning a Saviour, not to prescribe out of his own experience a law beyond that which is written. In this way, instead of striking him into despair, or bidding him bury care in work, he comforts and strengthens him. He does not despise him for keeping the law simply out of love to Him who gave it. He does not think it unmanly, but true manhood rather, when he sees him living, a suppliant, dependent on a life higher than his own-on a Person, whose present character and power were attested of old by history and miracle, as well as now by the witness of the Spirit.'

We think the candid reader of these sermons, and of Sartor Resartus, will admit that a difference in substance such as we have pointed out, does exist between them. If so, those who follow the philosophy of Teufelsdröckh cannot claim Tauler— have no right to admire him, and ought to condemn in him that which they condemn in the Christianity of the present day.

ART. IV.-(1.) A Revised Firman of the Turkish Government, convoking a Divan in each of the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. 1857.

(2.) The Second Congress, and the Russian Claim to the Isle of Serpents and Bolgrad. By J. W. WILKINS, LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn; late Fellow Commoner of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Second Edition. Ridgway. 1857.

THE adjustment of the difficulties and the fulfilment of the obligations immediately arising under the Treaty of Paris, during the last three months, have now left but a single controversy, relating to the reconstruction of the Turkish Empire, for the decision of the European Powers. The clouds which, towards the close of the last year, seemed again to be gathering round the East of Europe, have in the interval been rapidly dispelled. The settlement of the Russian claims to the Isle of Serpents and Bolgrad has been followed by a faithful redemption of the pledges which had been understood to be contingent upon that settlement. The Russo-Turkish boundary line in Bessarabia has been drawn without the provocation of any further controversy; and

the Russian troops have already evacuated both the Bolgrads. The Austrian forces are rapidly quitting the Principalities which, since the conclusion of peace, they only professed to hold as a counterpoise to the hostile demonstrations of Russia at the mouth of the Danube. This necessary prelude to any free expression of opinion on the part of the Moldo-Wallachian people is now on the verge of being fully attained; and we are at length about to enter practically on the question of the reconstruction of their Government.

For this important question, therefore-that of the forthcoming constitution for the two trans-Danubian Principalitieswe now claim a brief attention. The subject is one of some inherent perplexity; and this original difficulty has been largely increased, first, by the special and conflicting interests which the principal Powers of Europe possess in its settlement; and, secondly, by the open avowal, on the part of the French Government, of a line of policy directly opposed to the views of several of the parties to the Treaty of Paris. The social constitution of these two provinces, and the complicated internal relations arising out of it, involved in themselves the deepest forethought and consideration. We had to deal on the one hand with an intriguing aristocracy, a grasping prelacy, and a still more rapacious monastic community. On the other, we had to raise the condition of a people ground down by the binal corruption of State and Church, into a condition approximating to an enjoyment of social freedom. We had to arrange these relations in such a manner that they should combine popular freedom and the existing rights of property, without producing the disaffection of either class from the Turkish Government. In addition to these objects, we were compelled to hold in view a development of the intellectual professions in such a manner that it should fail fatally to offend the prepossessions of the superior class; and to provide for the means of calling into action the elements of commerce which exist in the two Principalities, by means both of mercantile settlements and territorial colonization.

These necessities, in themselves, may fairly tax the intellect of men versed in every phasis of modern statesmanship. But independently of the purely internal relations of the MoldoWallachian people, we shall have to bear in mind the necessity of conforming opinions on the form of Government most expedient in the abstract, to what the interests of each of the Seven Powers may render practicable. A conflict of interest-though not, we hope, a serious conflict of policy-is likely to prevail upon grounds quite independent of the Turkish Empire itself,

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from considerations of trade, and of the influences of popular government on the contiguous territories of Powers recognising a despotic code, even where it fails to spring from the worst intrigues (such as those with which we have been already threatened), by persons individually interested in the future Government. This complexity, it is to be feared, has been increased by the circumstance of the French Government having prejudged the question of the Union of the two Principalities, on which it was understood that the votes of the Powers who were parties to the Treaty of Paris would be reserved until after the expression of an opinion had been obtained from the two Divans already convoked by the Sultan.

We have entered upon these observations in order to show that any expectation of carrying out the general opinion of this country upon all the questions that must arise, will be purely chimerical. We shall be content if we succeed in instituting a system which shall interpose an effectual barrier between Russia and the South-Danubian provinces of Turkey, and shall also offer some security for the development of a country so fertile as that of Moldo-Wallachia.

Before we proceed to deal with the merits of the principal questions which will have to be determined, it may be well to show what will be the probable course of deliberation, and in what degree the actual procedure will conform to the theory of the treaty itself, under which the people of the two provinces are allowed a voice in the arrangement.

We by no means share the regret which has been occasionally expressed in this country, that the Moldo-Wallachians now appear likely to exert so slight an influence over the formation of their future government. The very difficulty to which we have adverted as arising from the complexity of their social constitution, would peculiarly obstruct the general concurrence of the nation in any wise and comprehensive scheme. Nothing, at the same time, could be more politic or more just, than that representatives from each of the different classes should be required to express their respective opinions; both because the Commissioners of the Seven Powers, charged with the actual drawing-up of the Constitution, will thus obtain the best index of the actual wishes of the community, and because the deliberation of these Divans will tend generally to the eliciting of facts necessary to the formation of their judgment. But it is clear that the prejudice and intolerance of the higher class, both noble and religious, and the ignorance of the peasantry, would render it impossible for us to expect of them any comprehensive designs founded upon grounds of general interest. The terms of the former Firman

provoked criticism from the more liberal section of our own press, in consequence of their restriction of discussion, on the part of the Divans, to definite questions; and of their forbidding them, on pain of immediate dissolution, to deal with the important question of the Union. These provisions, however, were in our view both expedient and sincere; for if the Allied Governments had either predetermined their policy upon certain questions, or had held those questions to be too momentous, and to rest upon grounds too clear, for a decision by the provincial assemblies, their being submitted to the judgment of those bodies would have been but a mockery and a form.

We now propose to glance seriatim at the principal questions which are involved in the labours of the International Commission which is to sit at Bucharest. The first of these is that of the union or continued separation of the Government of the two Principalities.

In the first place, we must accurately determine what these two Principalities really are, and what relation their political conformation bears to their nationality. We know very well that these are Christian provinces, which have long been tributary to the Ottoman Porte, although they have in practice recognised far more subjection to Russia than to Turkey, and that they form the outward defences, the propugnacula imperii, of Constantinople. But it must be remembered also that this people, according to the best opinion that ethnology has arrived at-and according to a correspondence of popular sympathies more powerful than any mere community of origin-form a part of a nationality of 10,000,000, of which they in themselves constitute somewhat less than one-half. The population of Moldavia and Wallachia has been variously estimated at from four to five millions; and when we bear in mind the difficulty which the Austrian Government, with all its domestic organization, has experienced in arriving with certainty at a census of the Hungarian races, we shall hardly expect to approach to closer accuracy. Be this, however, as it may, at least three millions of a race, in all apparent characteristics the same, is extended over Bukowina, Transylvania, and the eastern extremity of Hungary. Some three millions more lie in Bessarabia and other adjacent districts within the Russian empire. Hence it follows that both Austria and Russia have a direct interest in the form of government established in the two Principalities, wholly apart from their interests in the Ottoman Empire, and arising from the influence which the polity which may be there established may exert over the loyalty of their own subjects. The relation of this circumstance to the existing

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complication of European interest on the questions immediately at issue we shall now see.

The only four Powers, independently of Turkey herself, which have a direct interest in the Principalities, are, of course, Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. Of these, it is understood that Great Britain and Austria are in favour of separate government, while France and Russia hold to the policy of a union. It may be observed, also, that the opinions of the Courts of London, Vienna, and Petersburg, rest upon permanent grounds; while the policy of France presents an eccentric deviation from the principles for which we went to war. The conflicting policy of Great Britain and Russia strikingly supports this view; for while it is our interest to provide measures which shall secure the permanent adherence of the Principalities to the Turkish Empire, it is the obvious interest of Russia (supposing her policy to be still ambitious) to do exactly the reverse; and her sense of the tendency of a united government to alienate the Principalities from Turkey is sufficiently strong to countervail her inevitable apprehensions as to the revolutionary sentiments which a strong and comparatively popular government would inspire among that section of the Moldo-Wallachian nation, which, as we have said, lies within her frontier. The interests of Austria, on the other hand, coincide: it is her view to maintain the dependency of the Principalities, virtually as well as nominally, upon Turkey, and not upon Russia; and, therefore, she also clings to the policy of a separate government. It is not less her aim to suppress, as far as possible, liberal demonstrations among a race lying upon her frontier, and cognate in origin and sympathies with three millions of her own people; nor has she any desire to see a united and free commonwealth of four or five millions intervening between her territories and the Black Sea. From these considerations, then, we gain that Austria has motives, stronger than appear upon the face of her international relations, to maintain the existing division of government; and it is hard to suppose that she will ever be a party to a union.

In regard to the policy of the two other Powers,—which, as parties to the Treaty of Paris, will give their votes upon this question in the French capital at the proper time, it is probable that Prussia will incline to the side of Russia, and Sardinia to our cause. Such an arrangement would ensure a majority of voices against the union, even if France should fail to withdraw the declaration to which, at present, she unfortunately stands committed. This statement, however, details the existence of sufficient complication to render it not impossible that we shall be compelled rather to have recourse to an advantageous com